Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Anyone who’d met Midoriya Izuku would have said the same thing.

“He’s a quiet boy, shy, doesn’t like attention,” his daycare teacher said.

“The nerd hates when we play even a little rough, he’s a wuss and a baby,” Bakugo Katsuki said.

“He’s a sweet little boy, kind and always willing to help out in the neighbourhood.”

“He doesn’t speak a lot, nor does he show any signs of other communications - many of the children believe he’s dumb. I believe he’s only ignoring them to get them to stay away from him.”

“He seems to love animals, he’s always got at least one mangy cat or flea-ridden mutt hanging around him,” the elderly on his street said. All in all, Midoriya Izuku was a normal four-year-old, a shy four-year-old, but a normal boy nonetheless.

There was no acting out of sorts when he didn’t get his way, no tantrums or demands, but acceptance and compromise and many around him agreed he was smart – very smart – for his age.

His Mother, Inko, agreed and his father, Hisashi, never backed down from her assessment of their child. In fact, the only thing that struck the parents, friends, neighbours and daycare teachers as odd, was the fact that Midoriya Izuku, four years of age, was slowly, but surely, going blind.

It was never fun for a parent to realise that their child would never see anything again past the age of six and the news of the hidden growth of a quirk factor appearing in their son didn’t help the Midoriya family’s distraught tears.

Izuku himself was as calm as the eye of a storm, no sign of the Midoriya tears anywhere. Inko was bawling her eyes out in the doctor’s office in the uncomfortable plastic chairs with white walls wrapping around her and her husband. He sat next to her, trying to console the woman while the doctor sat back in his chair behind his desk, visibly uncomfortable.

“Ma’am please, dry your tears,” the man tried, only for Inko to turn a glare on him.

“My son’s going blind and you think gaining a quirk is enough to let that go? My baby’s never going to see us again!” she wailed, Hisashi glaring at the doctor in her stead as she hid her face in her hands.

“No! No, you didn’t let me finish. Your son’s quirk, Ma’am, is a powerful emitter quirk and with the factors we’ve been seeing, it’s some sort of sensory quirk. However, this one is…difficult to figure out, to say the least. Not only is it a sensory quirk, it’s an emitter type that seems to also pursue a mutant variant in his brain, altering some of the neurons that allow him sight. While we believe this may be the cause of his blindness, it could also be said that this might be some form of preparation your son’s body is instinctually undergoing to gain more and better control over his quirk. The interesting thing - the most fascinating part of this entire situation is that your son’s quirk also appears to have all the set parameters of an elemental quirk!” the doctor babbled, his excitement growing with every word.

Inko and Hisashi tried hard to keep up with the man, but hearing what he had to say seemed to root fear firmly inside of Inko.

Elemental quirks were powerful and were often emitter quirks, but with an added mutation aspect that was draining Izuku of his sight for a sensory quirk? That did no favours for the poor woman.

Hisashi himself wasn’t his son’s biggest fan, with his quiet stoicness, his inability to smile unless around animals, how often Izuku was out and about with no form of footwear or protection and the amount of time the boy spent reading books and ignoring social interaction with kids his age, it wasn’t right, not in his eyes. But Izuku was still his son and to hear the boy would never see again, that wasn’t fair.

He’d never know the unnameable true blue of the sky, he’d never get to see the clearness of waters or all the bright flowers that seemed to grow everywhere, and the doctor thought the boy finally getting a quirk was a good thing? No, Hisashi shook his head.

“We don’t care if he has a quirk or not!” he finally yelled, the startled doctor jumping in his chair and shutting off his rambling. “Our son is losing his sight so it can be replaced with some sensory quirk and you want us to celebrate?” he could barely hide his disgust. The doctor floundered for a response, gaping like a fish and his arms moved about frantically in the air until he deflated at last.

“I can’t help it, quirks are my passion and your son is about to gain one of the most powerful elemental quirks I’ve seen since Endeavour and for once it’s not a fire or water type elemental!” the doctor whined. Both parents stilled at that.

“You mean to say my boy might have an earth or wind quirk?” Inko asked quietly.

“Y - yes, Ma’am, that’s what the results show. The quirk won’t come in until he’s fully blind, though,” he warned, his voice subdued.

Inko let out another strangled sob and Hisashi was quick to embrace her in a hug, his eyes wide. Out of all elemental quirks – the four Cardinal elements and other sub-elements – water, fire and lightning were common and Ice was just an extent of water.

They were never presented in the same way, but they were, by far, the most seen by quirk doctors.

Wind wasn’t as common, but other quirks such as telekinesis actually stemmed from a small, base wind quirk. Healing often counted as an ‘element’ in most fantasy manga and light novels and though it was rare to find one, straight earth manipulation quirks were rarer.

Sure, plant manipulation and growth quirks were all over the place, but to find a quirk who could manipulate the earth straight from the ground and manipulate it outright, was almost unheard of.

“A - and you’re sure he has to go blind for this to happen?” Hisashi asked hoarsely.

“Yes Sir. As I told you, his body, as it is, is not yet ready for a quirk as powerful as his will be. It has to take something away to be able to fit perfectly into his body, to be compatible with it. The sensory part of the quirk most likely stems from that. It needed more space and the eyes were the things it chose to replace, forcing the quirk to develop a way to not burden its owner with the loss. This is what first led us to suspecting a wind or earth quirk, because of the sensory aspect. Air currents, wind, molecules, all of these could be used to see around him. We also believe it could be an earth element quirk, but it is unlikely. A - anyway, his new-born quirk is forcing young Midoriya-san to go blind, but his body is fighting back, which is why, when he goes blind at six or seven, he probably won’t get his quirk until he’s seven or eight. During the period of loss of eyesight, gainment of a quirk and adjustment, the safest way to school him would be through the online system. Once quirk control is adequate we then recommend re-enrolling Midoriya-san back into school.” the doctor replied.

He went on to discuss the process of blindness and how to support and help Izuku once he was fully blind.

Braille books were thrust onto the parents as well as pamphlets for schools for the ‘disabled’ and anything else that might be of benefit to Izuku after his sight was gone. Little Izuku himself stood to the side, unnoticed and practically forgotten.

He watched his parents discuss all the ways that Izuku might need help because he’d be weak and helpless with the loss of his sight. Even at four years of age, Izuku liked to believe he had a good handle on his emotions.

He never cried or threw fits when he didn’t get his way, he wasn’t overly excited or terrified over things that would excite or scare other kids his age. He kept a neutral, blank face on at all times, but the scene before him made him want to scowl.

“Why are you talking like I’m dying? I’m only losing my sight and even then, it won’t all be lost,” he spoke softly, but even that was enough to halt the flurry of actions going on in the small doctor’s office. The adults glanced at him, his Mother and Father in slight guilt for forgetting he was there and the doctor himself in shock.

“Hush, Izuku, baby. The adults are speaking. Now, you must be careful at all times, okay Baby? Now that we know what’s going on, you can’t play rough with your friends, okay? We’ll make sure you stay safe, honey,” Inko told him, crouching down to match his level.

“I’ll be fine, Mom, it’s only my sight. I’ll get it back with my quirk. Maybe not with colour, but I’ll get it back,” he persisted.

Inko sighed, wrapping Izuku in a tight hug.

“Oh Baby, you’ll be okay, it’s alright to cry. This is a painful time for us, but don’t you worry, Mom and Dad will take care of you,” she sniffled. Izuku withheld a sigh and turned to the doctor instead.

“With my quirk, could I still be a hero?” the temperature in the room fell flat. The doctor, who’d positively lit up and the question, began to nod enthusiastically at him, while both his parents regarded him with horror in their eyes.

“Izuku, I know being a hero is your dream, but being blind is a big handicap you can’t get over with a sensory quirk. You’re at a disadvantage already, even without a quirk, but if what the doctor said was true, you’re going to be a late bloomer, another disadvantage. Izuku, you’ll be playing catchup with the other kids who’ve already gotten their quirks. It’s best you give up, Bud,” his father explained gently.

Now instead of annoyance, Izuku wanted to be angry.

He could hear his mother sobbing and his father trying to explain why he couldn’t be a hero, but the doctor was upset, he saw.

He glanced subtly at the man, who locked eyes with Izuku. The doctor nodded, once, and mouthed:
“You’ll be a great hero.” and that was all Izuku needed.

He would be blind, he’d be a late bloomer, but he was going to be a hero, even if he had to fight the world to do so.

When the family returned home, Inko and Hisashi began to implement the procedures the doctor had instructed them on.

He wasn’t due to start elementary until he turned seven, so he was allowed to stay in daycare, but he was to be pulled away from the other children, isolated because of his ‘disability’.

Instead of playing with his friends, he was to learn braille and how to take care of himself. He wouldn’t be allowed outside for fear of sunburn or injury and he was given stricter rules to follow.

He wasn’t allowed to stay out and he certainly wasn’t allowed on excursions and detours from home.

Although he nodded along and agreed to everything with his usual blank face, inside he baulked at the restrictions he was placed under by his parents. Why did they think he was weak and fragile, why did they think he had to be protected?

Nevertheless, he sat through the fussing, bearing the numerous insinuations of ‘you’re blind, therefore you’re weak’, until his parents were satisfied and allowed him to leave. He shut himself in his room, wondering if freedom would ever be his.

He glanced at his analysis notebook, the one he’d started a couple weeks ago, realising he’d have to fight to keep his hobby going.

He lay back on his bed, sighing quietly to himself. He could already tell his eyesight was leaving him, it was getting harder and harder to see every day and in only a couple of years, it would be gone entirely.

He didn’t really mind much.

Sight was just another tool in a toolbox, all the senses were. If he was deprived of one, he’d make up for it with the others. Learning how to read braille was one of the only sensible outcomes that came from his parents.

He knew they were trying to keep him safe, but stifling him and coddling him in blankets wasn’t helping him. If anything, their overprotection of him would only lead to bullying - not that Kacchan ever needed a reason to.

“He thinks he’s so amazing just because he got his quirk early,” Izuku mumbled into his pillow.

His old friend had always been confident, but arrogance was starting to settle in now that he got his quirk.

Once everyone started praising the boy, he was becoming insufferable and none of the adults were bothering to correct his increasingly violent tendencies. Izuku could feel a new emotion bubbling up inside of him.

His own quirk, his very own superpower and it was a rare elemental quirk.

Fire and water quirks were everywhere, they were as common as quirk came, even if they all varied in some form or fashion. Wind and earth quirks too, but straight wind and straight earth quirks were a little harder to find than a quirk that used the elements, like a plant-growth quirk or a quirk that manipulated the air.

A little bubble of hope began to inflate inside of Izuku. Sure, his sight was leaving him, but when his quirk was going to be awesome, did he really care? Not really. He couldn’t rely on just his quirk if he wanted to be a hero, though.

So he was going to have a strong quirk, yay for him, what else could he do? His analysis notebook was a good start, but what else could give him an edge that his mother and father would actually let him do?

Parkour was out, gymnastics was a maybe, for flexibility. They might let him take up an instrument, but he couldn’t decide on a single one. Dance was something that interested him, and art.

Anything technological was pretty much out, though he wanted to give hacking and coding a try.

Izuku frowned, jumping up from his bed and marching to the desk in his room, writing down a list of things he wanted to try that would be deemed ‘safe’ for his ‘disability’. Once he’d finished, he left his room and approached his parents in the living room, sifting through the pamphlets they’d received from the doctor.

“Mom, dad? Could I ask you something?” he called quietly.

Both of them looked up, questions on their faces. “I - I know that with my…eyes I can’t do a lot of the things other kids can and I know you worry a lot about my activities now that I won’t have my sight, but I thought these might be safe enough for even someone like me to do. I’m interested in all of them and I was hoping you’d let me,” he explained quietly, handing over the list to his mother.

His father craned over to examine the list as Izuku kept going. “I made sure to look at all of them and most of the basic classes don’t have anything any more difficult or straining than simple stretches and endurance and I won’t be learning anything intense until I can do all the simple things perfectly. It would mean a lot if I could at least give them a go,” he finished.

“Izuku, a lot of these things require sight, are you sure you want to start?” Hisashi naked him seriously.

“There’s nothing here that we wouldn’t approve of,” Inko began with a frown, “if you really want to put in the work, then Hisashi and I will sign you up for classes. You have to promise us, baby, that you won’t start anything too advanced. You need to be careful. If you get even a little injured, if we hear of any complaints, we will pull you from the classes. We’ll start you off with dance, coding and music, if you’re satisfied with those and you can keep them up after you become blind, Hisashi and I will think about gymnastics lessons, got it Izuku?” the boy nodded to his parents carefully, giving them a small, simple smile with gratitude.

“Yes Mom, thank you. I promise I’ll take care of myself,” he nodded, taking back the list and returning to his room. Hisashi turned to Inko after he’d left, a frown marring his otherwise handsome face.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Inko?” he asked in hushed tones.

“What else can we do, Hisashi? We’re coddling him as it is.” Hisashi snorted with amusement.

“He doesn’t like that at all, does he? Us trying to wrap him in wool.” Inko shook her head.

“Of course he wouldn’t. We’re treating him as if he couldn’t do a single thing after his eyes stop functioning, he knows we don’t approve of his dream even more than we used to, now that he’s going blind. This is his way of telling us that he’ll be fine, that he can do everything other kids can do. He wants us to treat him like a normal kid.”

“But he’s not normal, Inko. Our boy’s going blind because of his quirk, he won’t be able to do half the things the other kids can. You know the neighbours talk, how strange they think our Izuku is already, what about when they find out about Izuku’s…condition, the kids won’t let him rest.”

“Hisashi, our Izuku’s a smart, talented boy. We’re absolutely terrified for him, the discrimination he’ll face once people find out about his eyes, but the doctor was certain his quirk had a sensory aspect. He was certain it would be a strong one, too, so we can only thank our lucky stars and pray that he’ll find a new dream, one that doesn’t involve heroics.”

“So we protect him from people, but allow him to put himself in danger in the form of activities like these?” Hisashi growled, gesturing towards Izuku’s list.

“I’m against this, Inko. We’re just lucky I’ll be around after my work agreed to let me be with you and Izuku after they heard about his predicament. They’re giving me five years with you until I leave for America. I’m not wasting that time watching him stumble around these classes blind. If you think he can do it, okay, I’m with you, but the second he falters or falls behind because he can’t see, we’re pulling him from classes until his quirk -” Hisashi scoffed at this “- gives him his sight back, happy?” he asked his wife grumpily.

Inko nodded with a loving smile and Hisashi sighed as she pulled him in for a kiss.

“Thank you, Hisashi. Let’s keep our little boy safe,” Inko whispered.

“I love you, Koko, you know that. I’m just worried about our boy.”

“He’ll be at a disadvantage his whole life and he still wants to follow an impossible dream, all we can really do is try to make him see reality,” Inko replied.

“So we enrol him in classes and when he can’t keep up, we pull him for his own good, alright, if that’s the plan.”

“The doctor said his quirk would be strong, and that it would come in about a year after he’s fully blind. We can use that to make him give up, Hisashi. Izuku will realise his dream is unattainable once he can’t do anything. Now come on, these schooling pamphlets won’t sort themselves,” Inko chucked.

As the two parents turned back to the pile on the table, Izuku, his ear pressed to the door of his room, glared at the floor.

They weren’t letting him do what he wanted because they believed in him, they thought they could get him to give up on his dream after he failed! They had no trust in him at all!

Why couldn’t they just believe in him, why couldn’t they just let him follow his dream, why couldn’t they just trust he could do it? Izuku clenched his fists, moving away from the door.

“If they won’t believe in me, fine, I’ll just have to believe in myself. If you refuse to think I’m taking these classes because they can help, just keep your opinions to yourself and I’ll prove you and everyone else who thinks my dream is stupid wrong. If I can’t even trust my own parents to support me, I might as well not trust a soul,” he muttered to himself.

And it was that thought that got Izuku thinking.

His parents put on a face, an act around him and never let their true thoughts show. His best friend turned into a hot-headed, arrogant bully with the manifestation of his quirk.

The other kids flocked around whoever was strongest, the teachers and adults brushed all other complaints aside because of ‘strong, heroic’ quirks. There was no-one he could actually, totally trust, no-one who would ever believe him and give him the benefit of the doubt, no-one who’d treat him normally and not some blind freakshow with a good quirk.

As long as he kept putting trust and faith into people who wouldn’t reciprocate or show him that he could, he was simply setting himself up to be let down.

“There’s absolutely no-one I can trust, is there? Not really. So I just won’t. I don’t really play with any of the kids anyway. If they want a blind freakshow, that’s what they’ll get,” Izuku grinned as an idea flooded his mind.

He rushed to his draws, rifling through them and making a mess until he found a strip of solid black cloth he could only just see through.

He put it up to his eyes and wrapped it around his eyes. It was a perfect fit. His grin widened.

“This should work, now I just need to get used to it. If I’m going to go blind eventually, might as well start practising now,” he snickered, tying the cloth around his eyes.

Once he finished and started to take a good look around him, he realised that it would be harder than he thought.

Everything was black, it enclosed his eyes, trapped them in darkness, leaving him only a haze of object outlines, if even that.

He tried to make his way back to his bed, stumbling around toys and crayons that had fallen on the floor that he decided to ‘pick up later’.

“Now I know the benefit of having a tidy room, at least,” he grumbled to himself.

It wasn’t a long walk, several steps honestly, yet Izuku still found himself face-planting into his carpet when he mis-stepped and slid on a missed pencil.

He wondered if spending a year blind and without his quirk would be as bad as his attempt now, but if he could manage himself with nothing at all, mastering his quirk, the sensory aspect of it at least, would be a cinch.

He kept going, trying to weave himself around his room blindfolded, but by his fifth fall he started to get frustrated.

Nevermind a four-year-old shouldn’t be trying exercises without his sight, he hated the fact he couldn’t get around his own room with his sight - his sight!

Izuku scrambled to his feet excitedly.

That’s what he was doing wrong! Even though it wasn’t much, he could still see and was relying on the few outlines he could see instead of focusing on his other senses! Izuku took a breath, closing his eyes even with the blindfold on, allowing his hearing, smell and touch to guide him, slowly walking around his room.

It took a few tries, but finally, Izuku started to understand.

There wasn’t a lot of noise to rely on, not a lot of things to touch, either, but with every step he took it was like something around him keyed him into all the little things around him, the crayons, toys, papers and clothes around him, until he could navigate his room with barely a thought, the blindfold wrapped tightly around his eyes forgotten.

“Izuku, sweetie, It’s time for dinner,” his mother called. Izuku’s neck swivelled around to the door, his body turning with him. He opened the door to face his mother.

“I’m coming,” he said calmly, even as she gasped and jolted in surprise.

“Izuku! What are you doing with that thing around your eyes!” she cried, his father perking up from where he stood finished up dinner in the kitchen. He snorted when he saw his son, sniggering with delight.

“That’s one way to prepare for blindness,” Hisashi grinned, before sobering up. “That’s enough, Izuku, take it off before you give us a heart attack,” he said with a frown.

“It’s helping, look, I don’t even need my eyes,” Izuku tried and he began to manoeuvre himself around the living room and into the dining room without so much as stumbling, leaving his parents gobsmacked. He sat himself at the table. He heard his parents sigh and barely contained a smirk.

“Izuku, baby, we know you want to prove you can do things without us coddling you,” Inko said.

“But this is not the way to show it. We worry and you won’t be able to stop us from doing so.” Hisashi continued, before Inko took over again.

“How will you manage daycare if you can’t see a thing, this is silly. Take it off and stop this nonsense, baby.”

“I’m going to spend my life blind, Mom.” Izuku began. “I’m not waiting to trip over feet and be ridiculed because I can’t do anything because I can’t see. I don’t need my eyes and I’m going to show everyone that me going blind won’t matter in the long run. Besides, if I’m going blind anyway, isn’t it a good time to start practising now? I don’t need my eyes even now, let me do this, I’m not letting anyone tell me what I can or can’t do just because I’m going blind.”

“Izuku, going blind and making yourself blind to prove a point isn’t the same thing. It won’t give you the results you’re looking for. Now take it off, please, and stop going against what we’re trying to do for you,” Hisashi snapped.

Izuku hid a scowl, keeping his face neutral as he took off the blindfold.

So that didn’t go the way he wanted, but they couldn’t stop him from making sure he wasn’t helpless when he did go blind. He snorted to himself.

He knew everyone around him would only see him for his blindness, but it was like he was the one fixating on the loss of his sight.

It was hard, to be different.

Izuku knew he wasn’t like the other children.

Where they were rowdy he was quiet.

Where they played games at a mile a minute, he took things a step at a time.

Where they were physical, he was studious and where they were social, he kept to himself and seldom let others in.

He sat quietly at the dinner table with his parents, brooding as he ate dinner.

He ignored his parents’ chatter, trying to make things normal between them, but how normal could a family be if the only thing on anyone’s mind was the eventual blindness of one of their own?

Izuku stewed in his thoughts as the meal went on, silent throughout the evening, throughout bath time and story time with his parents and when bedtime came along, Izuku had nothing.

Even worse, he didn’t even have the weekend to come up with an idea to show that he wasn’t some weakling.

Tomorrow was a Monday, he had daycare and with that would come the announcement of his eventual blindness and Kacchan would be insufferable then.

He sighed into his pillow, eyeing the blindfold enviously.

That had been a perfect plan, too bad it would only ‘give us a heart attack’, he mimicked his parents sullenly.

Not that he didn’t want to stick it to his parents, but how well did he think he’d do if he was stuck under a microscope because he didn’t listen.

He snorted quietly.

“I think I’m just a little too jaded for only four years old, maybe I’m just smart,” he shook his head, grinning to himself humourlessly.

There was a reason he didn’t like hanging around the other kids, the very same reason that would get him bullied.

Kids flocked to whoever was strongest, Kacchan, in this case, and turned their backs on anyone who was different, him.

For now, it was just indifference and the odd comment against him. Tomorrow, with the announcement of his future blindness and his future quirk’s strength, Kacchan would hate him and the kids would start to pick on him harder.

His friend hated anyone who was stronger than him - or believed themselves to be stronger than him, that is. To him, he was the strongest, the greatest, ‘The future number 1. Hero and there’s no-one better than me!’ if you were to ask him personally.

Izuku scoffed. He had the biggest ego and the worst superiority complex he’d ever seen and it wasn’t doing the boy any favours. His attitude was awful towards the other kids and especially towards Izuku.

Why?

Because somehow he acted like he was better than the others.

How?

By being smarter, of course. By not flocking towards his friend and praising him for being a jerk, apparently. No, Izuku wasn’t allowed to have dreams, or a good quirk, he wasn’t allowed to try or do better than him because Kacchan was the best and no-one was allowed to have better grades or scores or be praised like he was.

Izuku rolled his eyes before closing them. It was already late and he had to deal with Kacchan tomorrow, might as well get some peace and quiet now before the bullying allowed him no rest.

He sighed as he silently slipped into dreamland. He had a long day to come in the morning and he wanted to be prepared for whatever was to come.

Chapter Text

“See you after daycare, sweetie, don’t cause trouble for you senseis, Izuku! I found a dance studio and music instructor for your classes. The owner of the studio will be expecting us after school, thankfully they teach all sorts of styles there, but you’ll have ballet and contemporary Mondays and Tuesdays, two hours each. I’ve also asked about music classes and seeing the number of instruments you want to learn, you’ll be doing two a day for four hours each, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Fridays and Saturdays will be ballet and contemporary, same hour as Mondays and Tuesdays. Did you get all that, Izuku?” his mother asked.

Izuku nodded to her, watching his mother drive off after their usual ‘I love you’s’, his neutral expression not once leaving his face even as the snickers and snide comments started up around him.

He took a few steps before he stumbled, Kacchan strutting forward with a -

“Move it, nerd,” and a smirk snaking across his face.

“A shoulder-check, really Kacchan? This isn’t the eighties,” he muttered quietly to himself, under his breath, of course, so no-one heard him.

The snickers only increased around him after that.

It seemed that no matter which world he was in, Kacchan was always on the top and he on the bottom, at least no-one noticed his closed eyes.

His parents said no to the blindfold - they never said a thing about open eyes.

Izuku’s face broke neutrality to smirk for a single second before it morphed back into a neutral blankness and he held his head high as he marched into the daycare house. He couldn’t see a thing with his eyes closed, but he could sense all the kids around him and the teachers moving to greet him.

“Hi Midoriya-kun, it’s great to see you again. Your parents told us about your…situation. Now, it might feel a little lonely being apart from the other children, but -”

“Oi, what’s wrong with the nerd, is he not good enough to be around us?” Kacchan exploded.

Under his eyelids, Izuku rolled his eyes. The teachers glanced at each other.

“Okay, gather around, guys. Our friend Midoriya-kun is going through a hard time -”

“Who cares, what’s his quirk!” Kacchan yelled.

“Bakugo-kun, please don’t interrupt us, we’ll get to that soon,” one of them scolded him lightly.

Kacchan pouted, but sat down on the floor, scowling, but quiet.

“Midoriya-kun went to the doctor to determine his quirk yesterday and got some bad news. His quirk, while we don’t know what it is, is powerful. But for it to fit in his body, he has to lose something. For his quirk to manifest, Midoriya-kun’s sight is leaving. He won’t be able to see anything at all in a few years. That’s when his quirk comes in. It’s an elemental emitter with a mutation and sensory aspect to it. We need to treat Midoriya-kun gently, okay? You can’t be rough with him because it’ll be bad for his body,” the other teacher told his class softly.

Izuku was hard pressed to contain a scoff. He wasn’t fragile and he wasn’t a charity case. He smirked to himself as a thought popped into his head - let the bullying commence, he told himself. Kacchan scowled at the floor.

“Okay, so the damn nerd’s going blind, why are his eyes closed now, then Why isn’t he looking now?” he snapped. The teachers opened their mouths to speak, when Izuku interrupted them with a little smile on his face.

“Because unlike you, I don’t need my sight to see,” and with that purposefully cryptic response, Izuku weaved around them, eyes closed, to a table, grabbing a paper with the outline of a teddy bear holding a book and some crayons and started colouring happily while the kids and teachers watched on.

Some watched with awe, others amazement and some with fright in their eyes.

‘I don’t need my sight to see’, he had said. Izuku grinned to himself.

That was a good line, perfect timing and brilliantly cryptic. They knew he was losing his sight, they knew his quirk would be strong and that his sight would come back, only not in a way they thought. Now, they knew that even if he didn’t have his sight, he could do anything they could do.

Izuku coloured in his picture, content to ignore the other kids as they whispered around him, even as they tackled their own activities.

“Is he really going blind?”

“Midoriya-kun’s lying, he’s always lying.”

“No way his quirk’s anything cooler than ours.”

“It’s a trick, no-one’s going to listen to him.”

“The nerd was already a weirdo, now he’s a freak on top of that,” Kachan smirked.

Izuku sighed quietly as the kids sniggered at Kacchan's words. Sure, he’d take freak, not like he cared what they called him, as long as they knew he wasn’t to be messed with.

Izuku paused in his colouring, frowning to himself.

If he wanted to be a hero, he needed to be able to defend himself properly. The only question was how to learn self-defence and martial arts when his parents thought gymnastics was dangerous.

Not to put a pin in his plans, but if his quirk was going to come in three or four years after everyone else’s, how was he supposed to keep up without being allowed to do anything? Izuku hid a scowl.

Being a kid sucked.

Now, he could go behind his parents’ backs and try to teach himself through books and online tutorials, or he could go out and find a tutor through the coaches of his dance and gymnastics classes - though that plan was a long shot at best.

No straight-laced instructor would show him a self defence or martial arts coach without asking his parents for permission first.

That wasn’t done. But did he have to tell them his parents didn’t know?

If he could somehow get a teacher to agree to coach him and convince them he had his parents’ permission without the coach meeting his parents or his parents knowing about the extra class for long enough, he could at least get the basics down and work on anything else he needed to know himself.

If that didn’t work, he could find an upperclassman in one of his dance or gymnastics classes that could at least show him the basics so he didn’t have to learn by himself, with no experience whatsoever.

He could tell that his eyesight would be completely gone once he turned six, it was already hard to see long distances as it was, so the more time he had to watch and learn, the better.

His mother and father had promised him dance, coding and music lessons and they’d delivered.

His reasons for starting the classes were iffy, how would music help him in hero work, or dancing, for that matter.

His parents were thoroughly confused when he’d asked for ballet and contemporary dance lessons, even more so when he asked for flute, piano, violin and guitar music lessons. With all of that, they’d decided to put him into classes immediately.

He started dance lessons after school, ballet for two hours, contemporary on a Tuesday for the same amount of time. Wednesday and Thursdays would be for his music classes and if four hours per class shocked his parents, Fridays and Saturdays, for more ballet and contemporary dance lessons scared them.

Izuku knew he was putting a lot on his plate, but if the classes demanded strong physical prowess, his mom and dad would have to let him do more exercise than just yoga.

As Izuku planned out a routine in his mind, he missed the glaring crimson eyes locking onto the unintentional smile he’d formed on his face, too lost in his planning to notice the growing friction between him and his once best friend.

The Monday wore on, morning coming and going like a freight train, zooming by with no thought to the fun going on in the daycare whatsoever.

Snack time roared by, Izuku being shoved and jostled out of the line every time he joined it, getting fed up with his smirking classmates by the time the fourth person shoved him out of the way so they could get seconds before he’d even had his first portions.

He raised his hand, calmly waiting to get his teacher’s attention.

“What is it, Midoriya-kun?” one of them asked.

“I want some snacks, but my friends aren’t letting me in line and everyone’s already going for seconds,” he told them quietly.

The kids who heard him scowled at him.

‘Snitches get stitches’, the saying went, but those who never told always let themselves be run into the ground. He wasn’t afraid to get the teachers involved if it meant getting his share. Even if he had to fight dirty, he’d get his lot and the other kids would learn not to mess with him.

Snitches got stitches, but snitches also weren’t afraid to tell on the ones who gave them stitches and get them into trouble. The teacher frowned, put a hand on his shoulder and raised their voice, addressing the kids in line in front of Izuku.

“Can someone tell me why Midoriya-kun hasn’t been able to get himself some snacks?” they asked sternly.

The kids froze by the snack table, the kid at the front, picking up fruit and one of the last cookies setting their plate on the table with a scowl.

“Sensei, Midoriya-kun’s lying, I saw him lining up when snacks were called up,” a little girl with stark brown plaits called out.

The teacher gave both Izuku and the girl a critical eye.

"Mirano-chan, if that were true, Midoriya-kun would be holding a plate like you and our other friends are. Where’s his? I know for a fact we always put out enough plates for all of you to grab one. There’s one in everyone’s hands except Midoriya-kun’s - there’s also still one remaining clean plate on the snack table,” the teacher replied with a disappointed shake of her head.

She turned to Izuku, kneeling down so she was at eye-level with him.

“Midoriya-kun, did you line up for some snacks when snack time was called?” she asked. Izuku nodded.

“I lined up, but all the others kept pushing me out of line. When it was almost my turn to get snacks after everyone got some, they started pushing me out of line. One of them said that since I was going to be a blind freakshow, I should leave the snacks for the normal kids,” he explained dutifully. The teacher nodded.

“Thank you, Midoriya-kun. Since there isn’t much left, go finish off the fruit and the last two cookies. Everyone else, snack time’s over. Since you don’t want to play with Midoriya-kun, we’ll be skipping playtime and have a lesson instead. What you’ve just done was mean and not tolerated. If you keep bothering Midoriya-kun, we will be talking to your parents,” she scolded the kids sternly.

Groans arose from their little mouths and scowls were sent his way as Izuku scooped up the last of the bananas, kiwi fruit and oranges, setting the last two cookies on his plate. He made his way to his table while the rest of the kids were herded to the mat for a double lesson.

Usually, after snack time, they would all have playtime then a lesson. Now, instead of playtime then lesson, they would have two lessons - all of them except Izuku, who still had his playtime.

He let a smirk crawl onto his face as the other kids glared at him.

“Snitches get stitches, Deku,” Kacchan hissed angrily into his ear.

“And bullies get consequences, Bakugo-kun,” Izuku hissed back, before passing by his bully and setting his plate down and stuffing fruit into his mouth.

When he glanced back at Bakugo curiously, he noticed the boy staring at him, shocked into silence, just standing in the middle of the daycare house.

Now that he thought about it, he’d been calling Bakugo ‘Kacchan’ since he could first utter words and ‘Deku’ came along after a mis-spelling of Izuku’s name, which then turned into a taunt and a slur.

‘Kacchan’ hadn’t been ‘Bakugo’ ever since - well, ever. ‘Izuku’ had only been ‘Deku’ and been mean for a few months, though, since Kacchan got his quirk before Izuku.

“Bakugo-kun, mat, now,” their teacher called sternly.

“Go on, Bakugo-kun, you’re wanted,” Izuku told him quietly, his closed eyes meeting Bakugo’s wide, crimson ones.

“T - this isn’t over, Deku. You’ll pay for being a damn snitch, you nerd,” the explosive blonde warned. He stalked off, joining the other kids on the mat with his usual scowl and angrily-crossed arms.

“As if ‘Nerd’ is an insult,” Izuku snarked back.

Bakugo didn’t hear him, it wasn’t meant for anyone’s ears but his own. It was true, though.

Izuku was a nerd. Why else was he smart enough to force the teachers to actually deal with the other kids’ picking on him? Why else would he prefer to read instead of rough-housing with other kids his age? Why else would he be doing crazy amounts of extra classes and why else would he be dealing with his eventual blindness in such a methodical way? He was smart, that was why.

He liked learning, liked picking the nature of objects and things apart to see how the gears fit together, how they worked, how they acted around other things and how someone could use them to get ahead.

It was why he liked analysing, it used all the scientific and – most of the time – creative non-scientific ideas he had had in his brain to understand how a quirk worked.

His notes right now may not have been very good - they were written in crayon, for time’s sake, but one day, he knew that his analysis would help him be a hero. Izuku dived back into his food, attacking the fruits hungrily and saving the cookies for later.

Even if it was only mid-morning, he was still hungry and being pushed out of line again and again and unable to get to the snack table did no favours to his hunger and appetite.

He liked the daycare his parents had chosen, honestly, he did. There were so many books and the lessons were fun, reading and counting -- though he was good at both already -- with the teachers was one of the best times of the day.

He didn’t really like the kids, at all, but he could tolerate them if they left him to his own devices.

Sharing with Bakugo, though, was the worst.

The boy was arrogant and mean, always talking about how good he was, claiming he’d be the number 1. Hero, the next All Might - better than All Might, but to Izuku, he was nothing more than the next Endeavour.

All Might was the personification of Peace, he advocated it with every fight and every villain he put away.

With the man’s brilliant, dazzling smile and declaration of ‘I am here!’ solidified his strength in the hearts of the public.

His presence alone made villain attacks decrease in percentage wherever he was. Endeavour, however, wasn’t like that.

The man was brusque towards fans and outright violent in fights. There was always so much collateral damage and civilian injury in the man’s fights - you’d think with his almost perfect control over his flames, he’d be more controlled with where they went and be able to end his fights quickly, but no, he had to be a show-off and spew his flames everywhere.

There were always people hurt in his fights, buildings and whole areas damaged by his fire - how could Izuku look up to elemental heroes when one of the strongest didn’t bother to be a good person.

Yet, somehow, the man was the No. 2 hero. All Might and Endeavour were the No. 1 and 2 heroes, but in Izuku’s eyes, one advocated his strength and popularity and the other was a violent egomaniac.

They both stopped numerous villain attacks and their capture records were nothing to scoff at, but Izuku wasn’t so sure of the men off-screen.

He didn’t like what they stood for, didn’t like how they acted as if the only thing that mattered were your strength and popularity. Because of the hero polls and the top two heroes, almost everyone wanted to be a hero for the fame and fortune, not to help or save people.

It was turning into a fashion and idol industry. When Izuku watched the daylight, the spotlight heroes, a lot of their fights were flashy to gain the public’s attention - they flaunted their quirks, showed them off so much he was surprised they hadn’t been analysed by villains and murdered yet.

So yeah, heroics wasn’t the industry Izuku was hoping it would be, but he was only four years old.

Izuku had time to grow, time to mature and learn how a hero should act, he had time.

With that thought, Izuku pushed the top heroes and their quirks out of his mind, promising himself he would someday figure out All Might’s quirk, and opening his braille book. If he was going to go blind, it would be after he learned how to function without his sight, not before.

Izuku settled down at his table, immersing himself in the world of cleverly placed bumps that was braille, the hum of the teachers’ voices and the other kids fading out into the background as he spent yet another hour at daycare alone, in his own little world.

The next few hours whirled by quicker than ever for Izuku. Lunchtime came and went and with it, outside time.

From his little table inside, Izuku watched the other kids play.

It was a glorious day, he thought, with the sun a brilliant golden ball in a perfectly true blue sky. He glanced at his lunch, the braille book and outside to a tall tree, a smile forming on his face.

“Can I eat outside today?” he asked his teachers quietly. They smiled back at him, agreeing to his request with ease and gusto and Izuku made his way outside, settling into the shade with his back pressed up against the tree trunk.

It really was the perfect lunch spot, with the tree’s leafy terrace providing shade against the hot sun and the trunk as a backrest.

Izuku drew up his knees, balancing his lunch between his knees and chest and his book on his knees, he ran through the letterings in the book, the alphabet with the letters underneath the braille readings, cramming his lunch down with every pause he took.

He knew he wouldn’t master braille in a day or even a week, it was a tough language, one that couldn’t be spelled out because it wasn’t letters or words or sounds, they were bumps on a page.

Each combination of bumps was a different letter and each combination of letters made a word - it was a literal language for blind people.

Izuku knew he’d need it sooner or later, so he chose to start sooner as opposed to later.

Because of his fascination with the book in his hands, he missed the three approaching kids marching up to him and it was only until they ripped the book out of his hands and spilled his lunch into the dirt did he realise they were there.

For once, Bakugo wasn’t part of the gang of ‘pick on Izuku’ kids, but he knew them.

Mirano Yurika, Asano Itsumi and Kiriko Kamijo, three of his worst, barring Bakugo, haters.

“Mirano-chan, Asano-kun, Kiriko-kun, what do you want,” Izuku asked blandly, keeping his face blank and devoid of expression.

“You tell us, snitcher freak.” Asano sneered.

“Because of you, we weren’t allowed playtime, freaks like you should stay in their own lane,” Mirano declared with a glare.

“Yeah, freak, snitches get stitches, just ‘cause you’re going blind doesn’t mean we’re letting you off the hook,” Kiriko spat at him, aiming a kick at Izuku. It missed as Izuku scrambled out of the way, but Asano still held Izuku’s braille book, so running away was out of the question.

“Give me back my book, Asano-kun. You weren’t allowed playtime because you decided to be mean and not let me have any snacks. I’m not going to let you guys bully me. Give me back my book and I won’t tell sensei you were mean to me again,” he warned them in a low tone.

“Hah!” Mirano snorted, “you think sensei would believe you over us?”

“Sure,” Izuku smirked back, “I’m the fragile, going-blind kid, remember?” he watched as their faces paled.

“F - fine, take back your stupid book, it won’t help you keep your sight, stupid freak,” Kiriko shouted at him.

Asano threw his book at him and the three stormed away, leaving Izuku to wonder if that’s what other kids would always be like. He didn’t really have any friends here, what with his entire personality and now the fact he was going to be blind at six.

It still annoyed him slightly that his quirk would only come in after his sight left, he was resigned to it, sure, but he didn’t want it to go.

“I told you before,” he mumbled to himself, “I don’t need my sight to see.” and it was true. Maybe it was because he wasn’t going to be able to rely on his eyes.

He wouldn’t be able to see like everyone else did - he probably wouldn’t even have colour when his quirk came in and he could see again, so he had to rely on something else, something that wasn’t his eyes that would still let him get a grip on his surroundings.

His other senses, he could use.

Taste wasn’t the best example, but smell, touch, hearing? All three helped Izuku tell where someone was, what they were doing, how they were doing something and he didn’t even need his eyes to tell.

No-one ever cared about what they had until they didn’t have it any more and the same was said for the senses.

None of the kids cared about Izuku’s eyes deteriorating until they were told Izuku wouldn’t be able to see anymore and suddenly, Izuku was a freak. He was a blind freakshow and he wasn’t even blind, yet.

Izuku shook his head with a sigh, settling up against the tree as he’d done before Mirano-chan, Asano-kun and Kiriko-kun had come along. Even if he’d only just started learning it, Izuku could safely say he both loved and hated braille.

He loved it because it was fascinating to learn and it would be of more than just help to him when he eventually went blind, but he hated it because it was difficult to learn, to say the least.

There was so much of it to learn and memorise and he only had a couple years to do so, less time than you’d think with all the hours of extra classes he’d barely been allowed to take.

All the different letters, all the words, he had to go slow because so many letters felt like other letters and so many words felt like a strange combination all thrown together. Learning braille was like learning a totally new language before you’d mastered your own native language and it was frustrating when he couldn’t get it right.

Especially since braille was based on the english alphabet. It would be annoying, Izuku thought, when he couldn’t even write in anything more complex than Hiragana and he had to learn a new language to be able to read and write.

And he knew, he knew he could learn katakana early, before moving on to kanji and whatnot, if he hadn’t thrown himself into two different extra classes for much longer than necessary. With braille on top of everything else he had and wanted to learn, he would be hard pressed to keep himself at the top of his classes.

“Midoriya-kun, back inside for a lesson please! You can keep learning and running through your braille exercises after, okay?” the teacher called. Izuku gathered up his spilt lunch, lunchbox and braille book before shooting up and jogging up to the classroom door.

“Okay,” he replied once he knew she’d be able to hear him. That was another thing the other kids in his daycare probably didn’t like about him.

Izuku was quiet, didn’t really like talking to or playing with the other kids.

He was most comfortable and worked better alone than being forced into a situation where he had to cater to the whims of other kids just to earn a passing grade and, okay, maybe a minor reading assignment in groups, where each person had to act out one scene from the same picture book wasn’t too bad, but it was argument after argument as to who got Bakugo, or what book each group would use, or which group had to take the nerdy weirdo because no-one else wanted him - which, come on, was a meaningless waste of time.

Nothing good came out of socialising, that just didn’t happen. Izuku made his way to the mat, weaving around the tables and over feet stuck out to trip him and took a seat, away from the other kids.

“Is everyone here?” the teacher asked kindly. There was a chorus of ‘yes, Sensei’ and the teacher grinned at them. “Today, we’re going to do some counting!” several children cheered and several more groaned.

Izuku, who could already count to twenty and back down to zero, stayed silent.

“Since we can all count to ten, I thought we could try counting down, who knows what that means?” A loud burst of “I do, pick me!” and “I know, I know!” flew around the mat.

Izuku sighed and rolled his eyes, putting his hand up calmly while the teacher did her best to quell the wellspring of noise around her. “Since Midoriya-kun was the only one to listen and follow the rules, we’ll let him answer and maybe he can give us a demonstration?” she directed the last part to Izuku as a question.

There was a lot of grumbling, whining and complaining at their teacher’s decision, but Izuku ignored the other kids’ whinging in favour of standing up and answering the question.

“To count down means to go from our goal number, ten in this case, and go back down from Zero. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That’s counting up, this is counting down: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Each sequence of numbers is really just a repeat of the first nine numbers and zero so, theoretically, once you learn zero to nine, you should be able to count without difficulty,” Izuku said and he proceeded to count up to fifty and back down to zero, to the shock and delight of the teacher and the shock and envy of the other kids.

“T - thank you, Izuku, that was a perfect example, although, let’s stick with zero to ten, shall we?” their teacher asked with a shaky smile. Izuku nodded consent with a quiet “Yes, Sensei,” and sat back down again.

Once more, he ignored the glares and hate-filled mutterings of the kids around him, thinking of only when he could finally finish the day and be dropped off at his very first ballet class.

His parents had found him some classes about an hour after he’d asked for them. He wasn’t going straight to the class, though, Inko wanted him to have the correct equipment for the class, so he’d be getting ballet flats, socks and tights with a tight-fitting white shirt to match.

If that wasn’t required, he’d have a singlet to wear and biker shorts instead.

He heard his teacher counting with the other kids, zoning out instead of paying attention. He really didn’t need the lesson, daycare was pretty much a waste of time, now that he’d got all the basics down.

Vaguely, he wondered if his parents would let him pull out of the daycare once they heard the way the kids talked about and acted towards him. Chances were, they’d just enrol him into a new one and being the new kid halfway into the year didn’t do Izuku any favours at all.

If he actually managed to convince his parents to pull him out, he’d have a lot more time for the things he wanted to do.

Maybe he could take up knitting, or crocheting, he could do that, right? It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Maybe his parents would let him take up art classes, he had always been interested in drawing and painting and, hey, even flower arranging would be better than sitting in a class full of kids who hated you, learning things you already knew.

Briefly, Izuku thought about whether he should pay attention to what his teacher was saying, but he zoned back into the discussion only to hear the words: “Count to twenty” and zoned right back out.

He heard the teacher’s piano start up and it was all he could do to suppress a sigh.

They were singing now, great. How hard was it to count to twenty that they had to sing it?

Again, he snorted quietly, came the thought of how jaded he was at four years of age.

No kid his age acted aloof and bored of society, he thought, no-one did. (Across the city, a tired teen with eyebags under golden eyes with long, pitch-black hair sneezed. In another part of Musutafu, a boy Izuku’s age with lavender eyes and matching, gravity-defying fluffy hair did the same. Both of them end up with the same thoughts running through their minds as they wiped their noses: “Someone’s thinking about me”.)

Izuku kept his face blank, even as he chuckled inwardly, dreaming of his quirk and finally being about to analyse it.

He wasn’t the only one in his class to not get their quirk, yet, but at least he had a vague notion of what it was. All it had to do was manifest - well, after he lost his sight completely, that is.

A thought popped into his mind and he had to physically stop himself from laughing out loud. He was the one who hated being treated like a weakling, like he was a fragile flower and what did he want to do?

Run crying to his parents about how mean and nasty the other kids were, how roughly they treated him and how the teachers never did a thing.

That was his plan to get out of daycare? Boy, was he a piece of work. Izuku hoped he’d have the confidence to keep his snarky, jaded attitude in his voice when he found a person to talk to who wouldn’t judge him for what was happening to his body.

Izuku’s zone-out lasted the rest of the day and when parents began showing up to collect their kids and they were all let outside for one last play in the yard, Izuku knew that meant he’d get to pick his equipment for his extra classes and start them.

It was an exciting thought and it was with that thought that Izuku found himself packing his backpack.

Now, if only his mother would arrive, he had a busy afternoon ahead of him and Izuku did not want to wait a second longer for the start of what he’d come to view as one of his favourite classes outside of academics.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long for Inko’s navy-blue car to come trundling down the road and into the daycare’s carpark. Izuku was up and running towards it before the machine had been turned off.

It was unexpected of him, Izuku knew, to show how much he cared or his emotions outwards, but this was special. He knew ballet was a rather strange form of dance for him to pick, contemporary too.

He knew most boys preferred hip-hop, jazz, free-style or street and mocked and ridiculed ballet and contemporary dancing as a ‘girl’s thing’, but Izuku was an odd boy and an odd choice of dance was just up his alley.

Besides, it’s not like he chose ballet and contemporary just because.

No matter how much they were mocked, the two dance styles took an incredible amount of strength, stamina and flexibility to master. In the long run, they would also help improve his agility and, strangely enough, his performance in front of crowds and public persona - not that he wanted one.

Something about growing up to be a hero in the spotlight irked Izuku, he wasn’t the type to want to stand out.

That’s why he liked the hero Cementoss.

The man sounded like a type of lolly and he wasn’t very well known, but he was a good, strong hero. The man was simple and of few words, but he didn’t have to talk much or to the media to be a hero.

Izuku cocked his head to one side at that.

He didn’t have to be known to the media to be a hero, did he? He mentally shook himself out of his thoughts as his mother grabbed his hand.

He already had his backpack, so all they would have to do before they left was say goodbye to his teachers. That task didn’t take much time in the slightest. It wasn’t long before he and Inko had walked back to the car, hopped in and buckled up, Inko buckling Izuku up in his car seat, since he wasn’t quite able to do it himself, and off to the dance supply store Inko and Hisashi had found.

It was, ironically, right next to the dance studio Izuku would be looking into learning at.

He’d heard his mother calling - she’d told him she’d called when she dropped him off at daycare in the morning, so he knew they were expected, but seeing as he was completely unprepared and unready for the class, Izuku was to meet his instructor at the equipment store first.

She’d show them what he needed and how to take care of his dance materials. Izuku’s instructor had assured his mother over the phone that beginners never did anything more difficult than basics and stretching, plus a brief introduction to barre – bar – work and stances.

That did nothing to quell Izuku’s excitement, however. She had also explained that contemporary dancing wasn't anything hard, either. Most of the beginner’s and basic classes were stretches and simple body movements that would, eventually, allow the dancer a greater sense of freedom and creativity, putting the simple moves into routines that suited the dancer’s personal style.

All in all, Izuku couldn’t wait to get started.

“Izuku, sweetie? We’re here, do you want some help unbuckling yourself from the car seat?” his mother’s gentle voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

It seemed he was thinking a lot lately, maybe it was because his sight was going bye-bye on him.

He snorted, out loud, which led to his mother giving him a puzzled look. Izuku turned to her and shyly asked for some assistance - help that his mother provided happily while Izuku tried to cover a blush.

He could count to fifty and back and had an entire plan to become a hero, yet he couldn’t unbuckle a simple car seat, what was his life coming to?

“Izu, honey, you’re only four, not being able to undo a car seat buckle isn’t strange for a little boy your age,” his mother giggled.

“I was muttering again, wasn’t I?” Izuku asked. There was a bit of a pout in his voice and he knew his mother noticed, if her next giggle was anything to go by.

Inko swiftly undid the buckle and helped Izuku climb down to ground level from the car. It was parked in front of a pristine shop front, big white lettering on a soft pink background reading: Madame’s Dance Supplies.

The shop wasn’t enormous, but it also wasn’t small by any means, with glass doors built into rusty, rose brick walls. From the minimum the pair could see, the shop indeed had everything Izuku could want as a dancer - or a new one, at least.

“Hi there, are you the Midoriyas? I’m Akatsuko Kaori and I’ll be Izuku-kun’s ballet and contemporary dance teacher. Would you like a tour of the equipment store?” the woman asked politely.

Inko stared at her in shock and Izuku regarded her with a cool wonder.

The lady before them was an average height for a woman of mid to late twenty years. She was slim and wore a leotard and ballet stockings, socked feet shoved into bright, well-worn sneakers.

Her body was fit, Izuku could tell that from a glance, and muscled, though that was hard to spot unless you were watching for it. It was a lean type of muscle, similar to how Izuku would imagine a runner would be built like.

Her light olive skin was sun-kissed and slightly tanned. Her face was an ovular shape with a small, straight nose and a mouth that seemed to always be smiling, much like Izuku’s unperfected neutral face.

Her eyes were a piercing gem green, a shade darker than Izuku’s own emerald eyes, but where he had fluffy dark green hair with streaks of black running through it, hers was a vibrant ginger, one side completely shaved and the other cut short, just past her ears, brushing the part of her body where her neck met her shoulders.

She had small, silver studs in her ears, but no other jewellery on her, which Izuku found rather interesting. If she wore the earrings, she must have other jewellery, but she only wore the earrings now, was there a reason for that?”

“Yeah kid, I don’t like wearing anything other than my earrings when I’m dancing and/or teaching. I find they get in the way of my movements,” she replied. Damn, he must have been mumbling again. That was the second time in a matter of minutes, he had to get it under control.

“I agree with you on that, kid, but it doesn’t seem like an easy habit to break,” Akatsuko-sensei grinned brightly at him.

“...I did it again, didn’t I?” Izuku asked out loud, this time.

“Yup. Now let’s get on with the tour, don’t want to waste your first lesson, do you?” she laughed and patted Izuku on the back, sending him stumbling as he shook his head no.

He’d been waiting for this lesson all day, no way he wanted to take time from it - especially when he only had a couple years to see anything his new sensei wanted to show them.

Izuku clamped his mouth shut tight, following his mother and Akatsuko-sensei into the glass doors of the dance store, doing his best to keep his face neutral. He gazed around the store with barely concealed awe and wonder in his eyes.

The shop had almost everything he’d ever dreamed he’d need for any of his classes (and if he wasn’t wondering how a dance equipment store also sold instruments, he was lying), which meant he had almost too much to look at and not enough eyes in his head.

Eventually, after a quick tour of the store and its sections, Akatsuko-sensei led the Midoriyas to the ballet section, showing them items specifically meant for beginners like Izuku.

Most of the shelf was targeted towards girls and women, seeing as boy ballet dancers were rare and in demand.

Izuku wasn’t quite sure how to feel about being called ‘rare’ and ‘in demand’, but that thought left him as quickly as his eyesight was…he needed to stop, he thought, internally face-palming as his awful joke.

“So! This shelf right here usually holds everything our male beginner dancers would need. You have your usual ballet flats, without ribbons, of course, and usually only our female ballerinas, advanced in dancing grade, wear pointe shoes, but you will need several pairs of black flats, since they wear out so easily. You also want to include several pairs of ballet tights and a dance belt to wear underneath. You’ll want form-fitting T-shirts, plain white or at the very least, colourless or a leotard, if you prefer, though that option isn’t usually chosen. To finish off the list, white ankle or crew socks. We do have everything here that you’d need for Izuku-kun, though the T-shirts might be a size too big,” Akatsuko-sensei winced a little at that.

Izuku gazed at all the different items and clothes that adorned the several shelves that made up the beginner’s section of the ballet area of the store and the two full shelves of men’s dance wear.

There wasn’t a lot in his size and, yeah, he knew he was on the short side for his age, heck, Bakugo wasn’t that much above average for boys their age and he towered over Izuku, but no shirts his size? That was silly.

He said as much to Akatsuko-sensei and she burst out laughing even as his mother scolded him for being rude.

“Nah,” his ballet instructor waved Inko off with a grin, ruffling Izuku’s fluffy mess of hair, “the squirt’s free to say what he wants, that’s part of our teaching styles. If the kids have a problem with the instructors or exercises, they speak up, but whining because something feels like it’s ‘too hard’ will not be and has never been tolerated, either now or in the past - not in the future too, I hope,” she muttered that last part to herself.

Izuku stared up at his new, friendly dance instructor curiously and without warning, the question tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“What’s your quirk, Akatsuko-sensei?” this was one time Izuku allowed his face to heat up wildly, when he realised what he’d asked and how personal a question it was.

He began bowing to Akatsuko-sensei deeply and apologising for his rudeness.

Once again, the cheerful instructor brushed it off, winking at Izuku as she did so.

“Cut that out, green bean, It’s all good. That’s usually the first question I get asked from the parents, instead of ‘how much will my child learn and will they like it here’?” she rolled her eyes, becoming serious as the sly, mischievous light in her eyes dimmed.

“There’s a reason I don’t put that on my website, nor do I tell people over the phone. I usually say it’s not anyone else’s business and don’t answer the question, but I guess it would be for the best if I told you, huh?” she knelt down taking Izuku’s hand in his and staring his square in the eyes, locking their gazes together.

“I’m quirkless, Izuku-kun, I don’t have a quirk.” for a second, all Izuku could do was stare at her, shock crossing his otherwise neutral face and as she stands, pain and fear flashing in her usually lit up face, Izuku moves.

“I’m going blind because of my quirk!” he blurts out, hoping to get rid of the look of absolute pain and sadness on his new sensei’s face.

He liked her, she was going to teach him more than any of his other senseis, he knew it, so he didn’t want her to be in pain. He didn’t want her to be sad, or fear their reactions to her quirklessness because she didn’t have what most of the population did.

His crude strategy worked as shock and mild warmth and surprise flickered across her face.

“My quirk, it - it can’t fit into my body as it is and remain whole, so - s - so it has to change my body. It’s over-riding and manipulating the neurons inside my brain that lead to my eyes - I won’t be able to see anything at all in a couple years, but even worse, my quirk will have to adapt to my body before I can use it, which will take about a year. The doctor said I’d be able to harness a sensory aspect of my quirk, so I won’t be sightless forever, just a year, but for an entire year, I will have no sight whatsoever and the doctor, even after he told us all of this, was the only on to tell me I could be a hero, the only one,” Izuku’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper and he was doing his best to prevent whatever tears were threatening to pour from running down his cheeks and he sniffled, quietly, but his mother was still on him in a flash.

The other woman chuckled, his sensei smiling lightly at his and his mother’s antics.

“Izuku, baby, please don’t say that so suddenly! You’ll give your sensei and I a scare,” she babbled. Akatsuko-sensei smiled, crouching down again to face him. His senseis were doing that a lot today.

“I think you’re going to be a great hero, Izuku-kun,” were the words that came out of her mouth. Inko stiffened, frowning, but Izuku regarded her with shock, then gratitude and happiness filled his face.

“Thanks, Akatsuko-sensei.” the woman nodded and made to stand, when a thought targeted Izuku and he gave her a tug on her leotard. She turned back to him, a question in her eyes.

“I think you would have made a great hero, too, but I bet you make a better dance teacher,” he said with a smile. Akatsuko-sensei quickly wiped her eyes, straightening up and turning back to the ballet shelves.

“I think we should get back to business, but Izuku-kun? Kaori-sensei to you, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Good boy. Now, here’s what I recommend for someone of Izuku’s age and size…” and just like that, the brief, emotional support moment started and ended in a flash, but Izuku knew their support of each other would always lift each other up on their worst of days and that, Izuku thought, was worth more than any lesson his parents could pay for.

It wasn’t long after that Izuku’s arms were filled with bags full of ballet equipment and even more in his arms for his first ballet lesson.

His mother had also taken the time to stock up on contemporary dance supplies and a few instruments for Izuku’s music classes, though he doubted he’d need them for the first few lessons, but he guessed it was smart to prepare, or something like that.

Izuku followed his mother and dance instructor, and he must have made an impression on her, since she told him to call her by her first name.

It was…odd, to say the least, but whatever made the woman happy, Izuku thought. He wondered what his class would be like, if there were going to be any other boys or if it would be just girls.

He kind of hoped not, girls were scarier than boys in all the right ways. He found it hard to believe there were so many people who thought women were lesser or weaker - they didn’t need much strength to terrify the crap out of him, just several well-placed thoughts and sentences.

His mother scared him with every snap and shout and scream, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her - if only she could stop thinking he was weak and helpless because he was losing his sight.

As Izuku wandered the store after his mother and sensei, he felt his thoughts starting to run away from him.

They were doing that a lot recently. Was it because of his eyes, or was there something else going on with his mind? He knew he loved analysing, and that usually meant he was away with the fairies on a regular basis, but he was also thinking during those times, so he doubted it was similar to that, but there had to be something.

Izuku knew he wasn’t an average kid, his lessons proved that plenty - what kind of four year old signs up for two different dance classes and chooses to learn four different instruments - three of which he knew were classical.

He knew that, somehow, in a way, one day, the skills he was learning now would help him. He wasn’t sure how, exactly, or when or why he believed this, he just did. He wanted to believe in a miracle, that even with his handicap, he’d still be able to reach for the stars, shoot for the moon and land in the sky anyway with all the haters muted in the background.

All wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the teeny, tiny frown that marred his fair, freckled face until Kaori-sensei pointed it out with a cheeky laugh.

“Green bean, what’s with the cute little frowny-face?” Kaori-sensei pouted, grinning after a moment to show she was joking.

“I’m not frowning,” Izuku pouted - pouted! She’s infected him! Inko chuckled, smiling and setting a gentle hand on Izuku’s shoulder.

“That’s his thinking face - he does it all the time. It’s a cute little habit he’s picked up from Hisashi. My husband makes the same face whenever he’s locked himself in a puzzle he’s struggling to understand,” she laughed. Kaori-sensei nodded.

“I get that, a lot of my girls make frowny-faces like that when they’re fixated on getting a move right. I tell them that if they stop trying to focus on the move and let their bodies move to the music, they’ll get to the level they want to be at." His dance teacher replied with a good-natured chuckle.

“So I stop thinking?” Izuku scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion.

This must have been the most emotion he’d shown since he was old enough to know what emotions were.

“That sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?” Kaori-sensei asked with a tinkling laugh. Izuku’s confusion grew.

“Counter-what?” he questioned.

“Counter-intuitive, actions that are the opposite or different from the end goal you’ve given yourself, like using instinct or not thinking on a puzzle that requires thinking or intense brain-power.”

“Using your gut instincts may not really be the best way to solve a thinking or logic puzzle though - that’s not very logical,” Izuku let himself smile at his joke.

Kaori-sensei grinned and ruffled his wild, curly mane of hair.

“Very funny, green bean, but enough time-wasting. We’ve got everything you need. The first visit is half-off, since specialised materials and instruments are expensive, but I’ll give you a tour of the studio next.

Midoriya-san, did you want to join us?” Inko shook her head, giving her son a quick, fierce hug.

“No, I see my son’s in good hands with you. Izuku, I’ll see you in a few hours, be good for Akatsuko-sensei,” she gave Izuku a kiss on the forehead as Kaori-sensei led them to the till, where Inko paid for Izuku’s dance and music supplies.

She bundled everything Izuku wouldn’t need in his first lesson up into her arms and into her car, driving off soon after, leaving Izuku with Kaori-sensei outside a dance studio and supplies store. She turned to him and grinned wolfishly.

“You’re all mine, green bean,” she cackled. Kaori-sensei took him by the hand and marched him to the building beside the supplies store.

The building was black-painted with pale pink trimmings and a sign out front reading the name of the studio and the styles of dance taught. It was a larger building than the store, wider and flatter rather than taller.

The door was a pale pink, just like the trimmings and his new sensei led him inside, leading him first to a set of changing rooms – males to the left, females to the right – where she left him to struggle into his new dance outfit, then led him into a wide room.

The floor was a lovely polished brown that made it shine. The entire wall opposite to the door was a ceiling to floor mirror and wooden bars set at head-height spanned the two walls adjacent to the mirror-wall and door.

In one corner of the room were a small cluster of little girls, all taller than him, Izuku noticed with a little frown, dressed like Kaori-sensei in dance footed dance tights and pale pink dance flats instead of black, he noticed, with matching leotards and hair in high ponytails.

Izuku looked around curiously. He had wondered if there were any other boys, but it looked like this answered his question.

“I thought there would be more boys,” he remarked quietly. Kaori-sensei gave a quick huff of laughter.

“Nah Kid, you’re the only boy in our beginner class. There are one or two males in our advanced and senior classes, but you’re it here.” Izuku nodded thoughtfully, trundling behind Kaori-sensei as she stepped into the room, quietly waiting to either be introduced or noticed by one of the girls.

It turned out to be the latter, Izuku saw, when one of the girls who had their backs to them turned around, in the middle of tying her ponytail with a white ribbon. Her face lit up when she saw Kaori-sensei and even further, if possible, when she saw Izuku.

“Akatsuko-sensei, is that a boy?” she squealed in delight. Kaori-sensei laughed out loud at the girl’s exclamation, particularly as the other five girls had sun around to face them, all eyes centred on Izuku.

“Calm down, girls. This is Midoriya Izuku, he’ll be starting with us Mondays and Fridays. He’ll also be in your Contemporary classes, Fuuko-chan, Haruki-chan, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so don’t traumatise him so soon, girls,” Kaori-sensei grinned.

“Yes, Sensei,” came the dutiful chant of the six girls.

“Now, Izuku-kun, we’ll be starting with the basic positions, since this is your first class, but your mother bought a book of basic ballet moves and stances, so I want you to read through that and learn some of those, alright? I know you’re already set in quite a busy schedule, but I expect you to at least try to practise outside of classes. Even if it’s just a run-through of the basics, you’ll find you’ll improve faster if you do.”

“Got it, sensei,” Izuku told her quietly.

“Good. Is everyone ready?”

“Yes, sensei!”

“Floor positions, front and centre.” Izuku scrambled to find a place on the floor with the girls, stunned by the sudden change in his sensei.

She’d turned from friendly and light-hearted to a strict and stern ballet teacher.

He got in line, glancing at the girl’s positioning for future reference.

They stood straight-backed, impressive for four to five year olds, he thought. Their feet were together at the ankles, but spread out at the toes to make a V shape. Their hands made an ovular shape, their hands in front of their waists, but not touching, their hands close at the fingers, but not touching.

Their fingers were spread the tiniest amount, their thumbs tucked into their palms. He took a double-take, then raised a hand.

“Do I have to do that too? Every time? Seriously?” he saw Kaori-sensei’s lips twitch in amusement.

“Yes, Izuku-kun. Your stances and movements won’t always be the same as the girls’, but the basic feet and arm positions are. Now then, girls, run through the five basic feet and arm positions, please. Izuku-kun, take notes of how the girls stand and move. Your own movements will be a little heavier and slightly less graceful than theirs, but it won’t be by much, understand? For now, just try and copy the girls, okay?”

“Yes, Sensei!” Izuku watched as the girls in his class ran through five stances and arm positions, looking on in awe at their grace and flow.

Every exercise, from one to five, bled into the next and there was barely a pause in motion. After the third run-through of the basics, Izuku nodded and joined in.

He followed along as best he could, a beat behind the girls and with far less grace and elegance, but he managed to complete a couple of rounds. It took a lot more concentration than he’d thought it would, often having to be reminded to point his toes out, widen his stance or keep his thumbs tucked into his palms.

He marvelled at the ease with which the girls in his line managed to go over the basics.

It took a while, but when Izuku could perform the five positions with similar ease and motions, they moved on from the floor work and to the bar, for barre work.

If Izuku thought that would be easier, he was absolutely wrong. It was like re-learning a language you knew, but hadn’t practised in a while, except that language was upside-down.

It was much the same basics, but altered for easier access at the bar and it was all done with their right hands resting firmly, but not exactly gripping, the bar.

It was a workout and a half, he soon learnt since, by the time the two-hour lesson came to a close, Izuku was groaning and aching all over.

“Are you alright, Midoriya-kun?” one of the girls asked with a knowing smile.

“I have bruises on my bruises, Retsu-chan,” he complained, straight-faced.

The girls around him laughed at his poor attempt at a joke, giving him condolences, but no sympathy whatsoever.

He hoped he wouldn’t be so sore for his next dance lesson tomorrow, but he knew that was probably a lost hope.

“Are you alright, Izuku-kun?” Kaori-sensei asked him with a twinkling smile.

Izuku regarded her with a deadpan expression and articulated, very, very clearly:

“No.” she laughed at him and shook her head, gesturing for him to follow her.

“Copy me, these are some stretches you should find simple and easy to do. They’ll help your muscles develop and also cool yourself down so you won’t feel so sore in the morning. Do these before and after each practise, it doesn’t have to be a formal lesson, but if you stick to them, you’ll get the results you’re looking for. I’ll also talk to your mother about cardio exercises you’ll probably want to look into if you’re wanting to do ballet and contemporary long term. They won’t be too hard so your parents don’t kick up a fuss about you being fragile since you’re going blind,” Kaori-sensei scoffed good-naturedly.

“It’s annoying they think I can’t take care of myself,” Izuku muttered. Kaori-sensei nodded understandingly.

“Mine were the same way - “Don’t do that, Kaori-chan, you’ll hurt yourself”, “You can’t go with the other kids because they play a little too rough and you’ll end up injured”, “You can’t be so smart because you’re quirkless and obviously less evolved than your peers”, she rolled her eyes.

“Adults think they’re doing what they think is best for you, but never ask what you think is best for you. They try, but it’s never going to be enough, is it?”

“Is their support too much to ask for?”

“In some cases, probably. It’s already hard enough to get people to believe in people who are different, but you and I, a quirkless freak and a blind dreamer? That’s all we’ll be to the public. That’s why we have support systems. I support you, you support me and when you’re older, I’ll take you to the support groups I’ve found over the years, does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” Izuku smiled up at her as they stretched, “That sounds good.”

It took another few minutes for them to finish up their stretches, trying to give every part of their bodies another short workout before Izuku’s mother arrived. Izuku broke out a wide smile at his instructor, something he refused to show other people around him.

He knew his parents and the senseis at his daycare were getting concerned - he didn’t act like any kid they knew, so of course they would.

He smiled at Kaori-sensei, though. She understood him, she’d been through the same thing and even if he was only four, even if he didn’t really understand the world yet, he knew that Kaori-sensei would have his back.

He wondered if the support groups and communities would accept him.

Did she know he was going to have a strong quirk? Would anyone want him after he told him? He left the dance studio with his mother’s hand in his, once again lodged into his mind, thinking.

When he got just a little older and lost his sight, but gained his quirk, people would look at him one of two ways: He’s weak and helpless because he couldn’t see or he had a really strong quirk that he could do great things with.

Was it so hard to just find someone who believed in him because he was himself? Did he really have to work so hard just to find one person who actually thought he could achieve his dream? Kaori-sensei thought he could do it. She was the only one, though. His parents didn’t believe him.

“Did you have a fun lesson, Izuku?” his mother asked him.

“I learnt a lot today. Kaori-sensei showed me some stretches and really simple workouts to help with muscle development and flexibility,” he told her.

Inko frowned thoughtfully, glancing at her son through the rearview mirror of her car as she drove the both of them home.

“I’m not sure, baby, are you sure this will be safe with your…condition?” she asked worriedly.

“I know I can do it, I want to be prepared for my lesson tomorrow, I want to be prepared. Same for my music classes - even if those won’t take much physical ability,” Izuku replied softly, hiding a pained, cracking heart underneath a layer of walls.

“No, I suppose they wouldn’t. I’ll talk with Hisashi, we’ll see what he says, okay? In other news, I spoke with the Jiro's. Your classes will be joint with their daughter. They want to teach her as many instruments as she wants to learn, starting with classicals, would that be okay?”

“That’s fine, maybe I’ll like her,” Izuku replied. Inko nodded and tried to keep the conversation alive, but Izuku fell silent, not responding to anything his mother might have said.

His parents wanted a frail, blind child and the kids at daycare wanted a blind freak. Why not, he thought, why not give them both what they wanted?

Chapter Text

“Welcome, Midoriya-kun. I’m Jiro Mika, this is my husband, Jiro Kyotako. This may seem a little strange, but he’ll be your piano, flute and violin teacher - I’ll be your guitar instructor.” the smiling woman in the doorway of the plain, two-storey house introduced herself.

She, her husband and a little girl with Mika’s dark purple hair and slivers of her father’s black in her bangs stood in front of the husband and wife pair. She took after her mother with a slim, lythe build, but after her father with their matching partial scowls on their pale faces.

Her hair was cut in a diagonal bob, however, starting from just under her left ear to just above her right shoulder. She wore all black with a splash of dark purple - a common theme among the family, Izuku noticed as he quietly observed them.

Jiro-san’s kind smile never wavered with his silence, but Kyotako and the girl shifted ever-so-slightly.

“Are you going to say something?” the girl snapped abruptly. By her side, her mother placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly in warning. By his side, his mother stumbled for words.

“A - alright, sweetie, I’ll leave you with the Jiro’s for your lessons. I have some shopping to get done, I’ll be back for you after your lessons, okay?”

“Alright Mom, I’ll see you later,” he replied quietly, even as she fussed over him before rushing to her car and heading off, much like she had the previous Monday and Tuesday, except this time it was for music classes instead of dance lessons.

“So he does speak,” the girl smirked, “how well does he play?”

“Poorly, I bet, this is my first lesson, goth girl.”

“Ooh, a cryptic thinks he’s so smart,” she rolled her eyes.

“You have more sass than a four year old should, what’s got you so jaded?” Izuku retorted.

“As if you aren’t the same way,” she snarked back.

“At least I’m not rude.”

“At least I’m not short.” that made a tick mark appear in his face.

“Well, at least I’m not -”

“Alright, children, that’s enough. Midoriya-kun, this is our daughter, Jiro -”

“Jiro Kyoka, but Jiro to you, newbie,” she interrupted her mother.

“Whatever you say, goth girl.” Jiro narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I won’t - as long as you don’t call me newbie.” Izuku glared at her as she glared back at him, when they both smirked.

“I like him,” she said off-handedly to her parents, who were barely containing puzzled expressions as it were. Izuku had to confess he was messing with them as he inclined his head with a solemn expression.

“Likewise, Jiro-san -”

“Kyoka, to you, Midoriya-kun.

“Very well then, Kyoka-chan, Izuku to you as well.” they smiled at each other, before shaking hands with a nod.

“Okay, kids, break it - whatever ‘it’ is, up, please,” Kyotako intervened in their little ritual, leading the both of them inside the Jiro’s house. It was a homely setting, Izuku thought as he looked around - discreetly, he might add.

There were instrument stands with said instruments in them spotted around the living room around furniture, as well as the usual house decorations - vase of flowers on top of side-tables and cabinets, books set up on the coffee table in the middle of the lounge, a T.V set up at the back of it, soft carpeting, a bench and table in the kitchen cleaned of afternoon tea dishes and now laden with a few snacks and refreshments for in between his instruments, he guessed.

“This way, Midoriya-kun. We’ll be starting with the flute. I don’t suppose you have one of your own?” Kyotako-sensei asked him and silently, Izuku produced the flute his mother had bought him on Monday out of its case, brandishing his violin case as he did so. Kyotaku-sensei whistled, impressed.

“Not many first-timers choose their instrument perfectly,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“‘Cause those idiots always rush into an instrument shop and buy the first one they see without knowing anything about it. Instruments have sizes and depending on yours, you buy a specific size of instrument. Too big and you won’t be able to play it properly. Too small and you’ll find it hard to play it at all,” Kyoka interrupted with a scoff.

“That’s a little silly, isn’t it?” he asked with a snort of amusement.

“Totally, that’s why I called them idiots,” Kyoka retorted with a smirk.

“Kyo, go grab your one and meet us in the studio, please, and try to hold yourself back from any more smart-ass comments to Midoriya-kun,” his tone took on a pleading nature.

“Sure Dad, but no promises,” Kyoka called back to him as she strolled off to grab her instruments.

“Right this way, kiddo, we’ll be using the studio for your lessons. It’s the perfect place for them. Mika will probably want to start guitar lessons out here in the lounge until you get more experience with it. Piano’s also up here, too, so your teacher for that will be a fifty-fifty split most of the time,” Kyotako-sensei explained to him on their walk through the house, down a set of stairs and into a pristine room full to the brim of instruments.

“I’ve got it, Dad! But if we’re only learning the basics because of Izuku-kun, why am I here?” Kyoka asked with her head tilted to the side curiously. Kyotako-sensei laughed brightly.

“Well now, I could always use a teaching assistant so these go faster,” he told her.

She grinned delightedly and Izuku just sighed.

“You’re just as weird as I am, you know that?” he sighed with a head-shake.

“Well, you know what they say,” Kyotako’s grin grew just a little sharper - Kyoka’s grew to match her father’s.

“We may be crazy,” she cackled and Izuku groaned as he fell right into their trap.

“But it just might be a lunatic you’re looking for!” they sang together.

“You’re meant to be teaching me the flute, not running through Billy Joel songs to torment me,” he grumbled out.

Kyotako and Kyoka sniggered, before conceding and proceeding to begin Izuku’s first half of his first music lesson.

He knew he wouldn’t be touching his flute for the most part, but did the theory work have to be so boring?

It was repetitive and fairly easy work, the scales and notes simple to memorise back to front.

To Izuku, it was like reading braille, easy to read at first, but somewhat troublesome to put it all together. By the end of the first hour, though, Izuku could read the sheet music Kyotako-sensei gave him with a stutter or pause and by the Jiro’s faces, that wasn’t exactly normal.

Of course, by now it should have been common knowledge.

“Well,” Kyotako-sensei smiled at him, “we’ve done all the basic theory work you’d need at this point for all three of your classical instruments in the one hour, do you want to try playing?”

“You’re letting him start now?” Kyoka asked incredulously. Kyotako-sensei chuckled good- naturedly, ruffling his daughter’s hair fondly.

“He’s as fast a learner as you are, Kyo, he doesn’t need anything more than the basic scales, notes and chords for the basic classical pieces he’ll be learning his first year, why not start him now?”

“I’m confused, how long does this stuff usually take?” Izuku asked, not at all bothered with intruding on his sensei’s personal moment with his daughter.

“Usually the first few lessons - I’d expected to cover your theory work in today’s four-hour lesson and start with the instruments tomorrow, not finish all the theory you’d need for your first pieces in an hour,” the man grinned at Izuku. “Let’s take a quick break, then we can start you with either your flute or violin. We’ll split the hours one and a half for each instrument, your piano lesson tomorrow will be two hours, your guitar lesson will be half theory work, half practical. Now let’s get up and see the light of day, before we bury ourselves down here for the rest of the day,” he laughed.

He led the way up the stairs from the basement studio and into the dining room, where Mika-sensei had laid out fresh juice and cookies for them. She looked surprised to see them out so soon, if her raised eyebrows and crinkled mouth was anything to go by.

“Up so fast?” she asked with a smile.

“He’s finished the theory work as fast as Kyoka did, we’re starting him on instruments, Kyo’s going to be helping so he learns just a little faster than he already is,” he grinned.

Mika-sensei’s eyebrows rose even further. She turned to Izuku with a cheeky smile.

“Well, if you’re learning at the pace you are, want to learn more?” Izuku couldn’t stop the wide grin spreading across his face.

He was sure the theory work had only taken so long because each scale and notes for each instrument were mostly the same, but had a slight difference in meaning and learning three different theories for three different instruments would have taken time for anyone to learn.

“I’m glad you do want to, I’d be trying to learn all I can as fast as I can, especially if I was losing my sight,” Kyotako-sensei shrugged, then froze as Izuku’s piercing eyes fell on him. They were sharp and narrowed, his mouth twisted into a frown.

“Kyotako!” Mika-sensei hissed, elbowing him roughly in the side. The man winced, glancing apologetically at Izuku.

Kyoka’s eyes darted confusedly from her parents to Izuku, who avoided her gaze, his expression turning as blank and guarded as a sheet of paper - the same one he used for the kids and senseis at daycare and his parents.

“Mom, Dad? What do you mean? Why’d he say you’re losing your sight, are you going blind? Is that why you’re learning so many instruments so quickly?” the questions rushed from Kyoka’s mouth, because no matter how smart or snarky the girl seemed, she was still, at heart, a curious little four-year-old.

“Kyoka, honey, let’s sit down. Izuku-kun, do you want to explain or do you want us to?”

“I’m going blind because my quirk has a mutant variation with the emitter aspect. It’s replacing and overriding the neurons in my eyes to match them to a sensory aspect of my quirk. I’ll be fully blind in a couple years. My quirk’s going to come in a year after I do.” he said bluntly.

He was so used to having other people explain it so delicately, expecting him to be some sort of fragile flower, but he wasn’t. He was just as capable as anyone else, his fading sight be damned.

“So? What’s that have to do with anything?” she snorted.

“Exactly!” Izuku threw his hands in the air. “I’m going blind, not dying! I’m going to be a hero either way and a lack of sight isn’t going to do anything to stop me,” he scowled. Kyoka smirked boldly, eyeing her parents.

“I told you I liked him,” she said sassily.

“Someone my age should not have so much attitude,” Izuku snorted, smiling at her lightly.

“Oh dear, you kids are going to be the origin of many, many headaches,” Kyotako-sensei shook his head with a fond grin.

“I think you three have spent enough time up here, go on, back to lessons with you three,” Mika- sensei chuckled, nudging her husband and shoving him, Izuku and Kyoka back to the studio stairs.

“So what are we learning first?” Izuku asked, once they’d entered the basement studio.

Kyotako -sensei grinned at him, then shrugged.

“I don’t know, you tell me.” Izuku’s bafflement must have shown on his face, because the two Jiro’s giggled at him cheekily.

“Forget headaches, Kyotako-sensei, you two are going to give me migraines,” he complained.

“Admit it, you love us,” the Jiros smiled at him in unison. Izuku took one look at the pair and ran out of the studio, up the stairs and burst into the living room, startling Mika-sensei. Her shock morphed into a light-hearted grin.

“That took longer than expected,” she told him.

“Please tell me you know how to play these and can teach me instead of those headaches!” he practically begged her.

Mika-sensei laughed at him, nodding her head.

“Come on, we’ll work here while my husband and daughter are busy laughing at your pain,” she chuckled.

Izuku took out his flute and Mika-sensei brought out one from their family’s collection.

The Jiro’s, Izuku had learnt over the past few days from research, were well-known musicians and dabbled in everything from rock to classical and they were the ones his parents had found to teach him.

They started slowly, Mika-sensei playing a note and Izuku copying her, playing the scale up and down again and again, until Izuku could do it matching Mika-sensei’s pace.

It was a little harder than he thought, figuring out which notes all the little holes on the top of the instrument, when covering one or two, would play what note, but he figured it out. It was reading the sheet music and playing from sight alone that would prove to be the real challenge.

For the moment, all Izuku had to do was follow the movements and copy the playing of his sensei, which wasn’t as hard as it sounded. A half hour later, Mika-sensei retrieved a flute play-book, a stand and sheet music for nursery rhymes Izuku may or may not have memorised because his daycare senseis thought they’d ‘suit his music classes’.

Mika-sensei played one song then showed Izuku the notes corresponding to the words, having him play the song one note at a time until he’d run through the song. She then had him run through the song in its entirety.

Slowly, very slowly, Izuku fumbled his way through ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’, ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’, ‘Hush, Little baby’ and ‘Incy Wincy Spider’. By the end of the first hour and a half, he could play the basic nursery rhymes without pause or stutter.

It wasn’t perfect, but the songs flowed nicely and he could at least tell what songs they were. Mika -sensei allowed him a short break and then they repeated the process with the violin.

Process with the stringed instrument was slower than the wind, but he managed to make his way through the scales and notes slowly. He tried his hand at Twinkle Twinkle, and though it wasn’t very good, he could at least play the song.

He was running through it again, when he and Mika- sensei were interrupted by a knock at the door. Izuku startled out of his playing and glanced at the time, startled at how quickly the time had passed. Mika-sensei smiled at his shock. She, too, used to be surprised at how fast time passed when she was playing or singing.

“That should be your mother now, Kyotako, go let her in, please, and remember your manners, Kyoka!” Mika-sensei called out with a twinkle in her eyes.

Izuku barely contained an eyeroll. Of course they’d been watching him practise, he’d have to work on his situational awareness, especially if he was going to be a blind hero.

“Yes Mom!”

“Sure, Dear!” came the twin responses.

Izuku fought off a smile, the Jiros really were a strange set of people. He liked them, really. Like Kaori-sensei, they didn’t care about his future blindness or mocked his dream. He wondered if his parents would eventually do the same, believe in him for once in their lives.

He gave his mother a quick hug, bid the Jiros goodbye and bundled up his instruments, music book and took the sheet stand Mika-sensei offered him.

If he was going to be practising at home, he would need a stand of his own to practise with and apparently the Jiros had plenty to share. Mika-sensei, though, did tell him that he’d need to start buying his own when he needed them.

All in all, it was an eventful day full of humour and exasperation and he wondered if the Jiros always acted like happy, carefree crazies. He couldn’t help it, he thought with an internal wry smile. He couldn’t wait for his next lesson.

The weeks flowed together after his first lessons.

The passage of time seemed but a speck of time as the days passed. They blended together and even though Izuku immersed himself in his classes and lessons.

He’d been getting good at ballet, Kaori-sensei had told him, and in just six months, half a year, he’d moved from a beginner’s class into normal dance lessons. His music classes had also progressed. He was now ready to take lessons with Kyoka.

Their friendship had grown steadily throughout their frequent interactions at the Jiro’s home and it was more of a friendly rivalry - to see who could learn different songs or music progressions faster or better than the other.

It was interesting, he thought, just how much he had integrated into his music senseis’ lives. They were inviting him over for playdates with Kyoka, over for dinner, the night, and with all his activity, he’d all but forgotten about the steady declination of his sight.

Over a half year, it wasn’t noticeable at all, just slowly losing distance of sight, how far he could see, not that it mattered much.

His dance and music lessons never required much long-distance viewing and he was in the middle of learning how to follow a dance routine without his eyes, or how to tell a musical composer from the chorus of a song without looking at the sheet music.

He was having fun, learning to do things without one of his five important senses and it wasn’t easy.

Daycare was less and less fun with every day he spent there. His senseis had learned of his lessons – music and dance – and he was often ‘volunteered’ to play along on the piano or his flute or violin if he had them to nursery rhymes and other simple songs his senseis decided to play that day.

It only alienated Izuku from his peers even further and it was only the fear of how expensive musical instruments were that stopped the other kids from vandalising his cases or the instruments themselves.

It was why he didn’t bring them often, only when requested and only ever when his mother told him to. It was getting harder to keep an eye on them, when he had to bring them along to daycare.

He hated that he had to go, but there were laws, apparently, that said he couldn’t be home alone without anyone else in the house. He could look after himself perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Inko and Hisashi told him it was so he could socialise and make friends with kids his age that didn’t have such a bleak outlook on life. Kyoka didn’t count, they’d said, because she was practically his twin social outcast.

So he went along with them, he could tell they were growing increasingly worried and frustrated towards him. It wasn’t hard to figure out, he didn’t feel like he could trust or confide in them, didn’t feel like he could let them in.

His black face, his expressionless and soft-spokenness towards them matched his attitude towards the kids at daycare and society whenever he went on an outing with his parents, but not his Kaori-sensei, Kyotoko-sensei, Mika-sensei and Kyoka and his dance class companions.

Since he’d started his classes, he had grown a little, he was taller, more flexible and agile. The workouts and stretches did wonders and patches of lean muscle had started coating his body.

Izuku had to almost beg his parents to start taking him on morning and evening runs. He was proud to say he was the only one in his daycare class to be able to do the splits, front and side, the back-bend, backflip, front flip, forward rolls and specialised routines meant for dancers and gymnasts.

Along with the lessons, Kaori-sensei had pulled through for him. Self-defence.

Izuku knew Inko and Hisashi would never approve, no, self-defence wasn’t something a helpless almost-blind kid could do, they weren’t allowed to, so Kaori-sensei taught him when she could, in between classes, before and after lessons, even during if she thought she could get away with it without letting the girls in.

Six months flew by before Izuku knew what was happening and soon after that, six months more. Izuku, with all of his activity, didn’t really have time for anything else and if his parents and senseis weren’t always worried about how far and how much he could see, he’d forget about his eye problems entirely.

He’d managed to convince his parents to enrol him in a gymnastics course, so now he had that on top of everything else he had going on, but they decided to wait until he’d gotten a little bit older to start him on coding and programming.

That was alright. A year came and went and with it his birthday. No matter how smart or world-weary he might have appeared, his birthday was still a special time for him and this year, he had Kaori-sensei and the Jiros to keep him company if his parents couldn’t join him.

He enjoyed his new class, especially since his ballet and contemporary dance styles helped him along with the basics and into a more advanced class.

His classes kept him occupied and he was glad, they kept him from dwelling on his eyes, but it didn’t help for long, when every day, his eyes grew worse and worse.

He ignored it for as long as he could, which wasn’t long, really, until it all changed, everything changed, on his fifth birthday.

The day in question started off as any other day did.

His father had to rush in to work and his mother had gotten an emergency call in to the hospital to work. It was unfortunate, but another birthday spent at daycare, what fun! Not. Izuku sighed, sitting in the back of the car with his mother at the wheel.

He glanced out the window, at the - wait, what was that? Izuku squinted, the scenery outside melting into a bunch of colours and shapes, it was like everything bled into the one giant blob. Though, a very faint blob.

Vibrant colours were dull and light and trees and objects were an outline and not a solid object. What the heck was going on? Was this how sight was supposed to go?

“Mom? My - my eyes have gotten worse,” he called. His voice was soft, but urgent.

“W - what?” Inko’s head twisted around to meet his eyes, her own filled with shock and pain. She never realised she was still driving, Nor that the intersection traffic light ahead of her had just turned red for her.

She never saw the truck headed straight for her car as she crossed the intersection line and the last thing Izuku saw was his mother’s panicked face as the truck’s horn blared out, before their car and the truck collided and the world around him crumbled into darkness.

Hisashi hated running.

He hated any physical activity that made him move his body faster than a slow jog, but the news from the call he had gotten that day had him sprinting out of his office, down the stairs and out of the building to his car, absolute terror in his crimson eyes.

As fast as he could manage to, Hisashi was buckled up in his car and speeding down the main road to Musutafu general hospital, where his wife and son were admitted after a truck collided with Inko’s car.

The impact snapped her neck; she died on the spot.

Izuku was still alive, thank goodness, but with his eyes already in such a fragile state, it was unlikely he’d ever see again. Along with the loss of his sight, his left arm was fractured in three places in his lower arm and his right foot had been crushed under one of the car seats.

His calf on his left side had been pierced by shards of glass from the windscreen and his right shoulder was dislocated.

With all the injuries, full health and recovery would take a half a year, possibly seven months with all the therapy – physical and otherwise – his son would be attending.

His son was in surgery at the moment and it was taking Hisashi all he had not to scream out of frustration.

Traffic was building up around him, he was stuck in place on the road, unable to reach his son and it was mentally draining.

It was Izuku’s fifth birthday.

His birthday and Hisashi wasn’t even there in the morning to wish him a happy birthday.

Now? Izuku was in the hospital, his mother was dead and he wouldn’t be walking, taking lessons or even seeing ever again. Hisashi snorted humourlessly, doing his best to keep his tears at bay. The day wasn’t supposed to go like this - it wasn’t.

He doubted he’d ever be able to look Izuku in the eyes after this.

He stared out his windscreen, the line of cars and their red deceleration lights looking back at him, angrily lit up.

He grit his teeth, narrowing his eyes, then throwing the wheel sideways, turning it violently and parking where he could.

Hisashi leapt out of the car, running through the streets as fast as he could to get to the hospital where his son lay on an operating table, when the sound of sniffling reached his ears. The sound came from an alleyway near him, and it was quiet, like a kid’s, but if that were so, the child wouldn’t have been any more than a couple years older than Izuku at most.

Hisashi frowned and followed that sound down into the alley, only to find a child with blue-grey hair wild and messy, with bright red eyes hunkered down in the trash and grime at the back of the alley. The boy, because it was a boy, eyed his warily, suspicion buried deep in his eyes.

“Are you alright, child?” Hisashi asked him kindly. The boy glared at him and Hisashi sighed, reaching a hand out for him to take. “The heroes abandoned you, haven’t they? They didn’t save you and everyone else has left you to rot in this alley. How do you feel about that?” Hisashi ploughed forwards.

The kid’s gaze grew more sad, the anger dying inside his eyes, but Hisashi could see it simmering below the surface and, well, he needed a successor, no matter how far away he distanced himself from his…less than legal work.

“What’s it to you, will you help me - save me?” the boy spat, but the words were weak, there was no fire to them.

“Boy, the very meaning of ‘save’ is to rescue you. I can’t do that,” Hisashi began.

“Then leave me here and go find someone who can, but if even the heroes won’t help me, who would?” the boy interrupted bitterly, spitting the words out like poison. Hisashi shook his head.

“You didn’t let me finish. I cannot save you, but I can help you forge a new path for yourself, one that you are the master of. This world - this society is corrupt, heroes take on the title for only the fame and fortune, but I, but you, could change that. So no-one is let down by villains calling themselves ‘heroes’, by liars who parade around in costume, yet do nothing when it counts, by abusive families and schools, by bullies who attack the weak. This is what I can give you - I can create for you a new life, would you take it? Seize the opportunity? The decision is yours, child, I will not interfere with your answer.” the boy bit his lip and Hisashi knew he had won.

Izuku would probably hate him, despise him for what he was doing, abandoning him and Inko, leaving Izuku alone, but society as it was could never let his boy rest. His adorable, blank-faced boy would never know peace for being the way he was.

It had to be reshaped. It had to be reformed and moulded into a proper place to raise a child in and the world would change, starting with the end of the profession of ‘hero’. He would do it, with the help of the boy before him, all for his son - for Izuku. It was all for Izuku and Inko.

“Are you sure you want me? My quirk - my power, i - it’s a - a vi - villain’s quirk, d - do you s - still wan - want me?” the boy asked Hisashi, on the verge of a meltdown.

Hisashi crouched down in front of him, gently and slowly reaching out a hand to touch him.

The boy’s quirk must be something of great strength for a five-point activation quirk, going by the way the boy held his hands close to his body, clenching and unclenching them subconsciously.

“There is no such thing. There are only those who use their quirk to harm and those who use their quirks to save. I will not lie to you, if you come with me, we will be labelled as villains for what we will do, but make no mistake, civilians are not to be harmed. This a war between the heroes and those who are not content with society as it is. My battle is against them and I refuse to waste lives, boy, do you understand? If you come with me, we may be called villains, but even villains have a code of honour.” the boy glanced up at Hisashi, his eyes matching his and he nodded.

“You’ll h - help me c - c - control my q - quirk?” he stuttered. Hisashi nodded resolutely.

“I can, but let me be clear. By coming with me, you’re agreeing to a life under the radar until we strike and inevitably, the heroes, HPSC, strangers on the street, no-one will be on your side except our allies, other villains.”

“I don’t care! You saved me and you’re a villain - not a hero, not some NPC on the street, you. So yeah, I’ll go with you. If this society needs to change - teach me how to change it.” the boy scowled.

Hisashi nodded again and took the boy’s hand, careful not to touch all five fingers and led him towards his car.

“You said you had a son, why are you taking me if you have him?” Hisashi smiled at him, just before the car crashed into traffic.

“Because he doesn’t deserve to grow up in a world like this.” the car blew up in flames, but when the police arrived, the bodies were gone.

Chapter Text

Beep … Beep … Beep … the high-pitched noise delved into Izuku’s sub-conscious and he stirred, his eyelids twitching.

It was the pain that hit him first. His body burned as if it were set on fire and he gasped, his eyes flying open. The machine by his side lit up, beeping faster and faster until the door burst open and nurses and a doctor flooded in, trying to calm him down.

It worked, for the most part. He lay in the white-sheeted bed in the white-walled room, his mind working over-drive. What happened, where was his mother? His father? What day was it and why - why were there a land of clouds over his eyes? Why couldn’t he see?

“Ah, you’re up, I see,” a loud, boisterous voice had Izuku jumping. He flinched as the pain hit him again.

“I can’t see.” he said bluntly, quietly.

“You’re, ah, the back of your head took a nasty hit - no concussion, thank goodness, but your eyes, which were already under stress, were damaged badly. You no longer have sight in them - you won’t regain sight in them, either,” the doctor’s voice became more subdued.

“Oh. My Mommy?” the doctor shifted uncomfortably.

“Her neck was snapped on impact.”

“My Daddy?”

“He was in another car crash on his way to the hospital three days ago, the car went up in flames and no bodies were discovered. He…burned alive.”

“It was my birthday,” Izuku said, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. “I’m five, now. Do you think my quirk will come in faster?”

“On that note, we don’t have an exact date, but we had your quirk doctor come in and he said that due to the sudden acceleration of your sight loss, your quirk will be coming in sometime this year.”

“Where am I going?” he asked softly.

“We’re keeping you in the hospital for a few months, to make sure everything heals up right, but you’ve been assigned a social worker and they’re hunting around for a placement for you."

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Kid, I’m going to be honest, do you even understand what I’m saying?” the doctor frowned at him, but Izuku couldn’t tell. He turned his head towards where he thought the doctor’s voice came from, relying on his nose and ears instead of his eyes.

“Mom and Dad always said I was advanced for my age,” he replied. The doctor sighed.

“You don’t need to be so calm right now,” the man said, softer than anything before, “You just turned five, right? You lost your parents on the same day. You’re allowed to be upset.” Izuku listened to the doctor, a war waging inside of him.

His parents were gone.

They weren’t coming back.

It was his birthday.

He’d never seen them again.

He’d never get to hear his mother’s laugh or his father’s bad jokes, he’d never see the way they dressed and their myriad of expressions, he’d never be able to smell their cooking, or get gifts from them, they were gone.

On the other hand, he’d never have to listen to their over-protective worries or their concern over what he could and could not do, never see their faces when he did something cool to him that was unacceptable to them, never have to hide his emotions from them or put on an act.

It was a terrible, freeing act, their deaths, and while Izuku wanted to bawl his eyes out, show every expression of sorrow he could muster and sob into his blankets, he also just wanted to rest.

He already had enough to deal with.

It would be easy enough to move around - he’d practised for this very moment, but he was also now an orphan.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to.” he told the doctor quietly. “I’m an orphan now, after I get out of the hospital, if my quirk hasn’t come in, I doubt I’ll be treated very well in the system - barely anyone is, only the ones who get lucky. Besides that, my classes. Music, dance, gym and coding, I’ve got to give it all up because those aren’t free and it’s not like my fosters and group home and orphanage directors would pay for me to keep going. Being blind won’t help my case either - my intelligence isn’t going to do me any favours. I don’t have time to be a child, Sir, there’s too much against me now, so why bother?”

“Geez, ‘Zu, do you have to be so depressing all the time? It’s like you’re asking for someone to punch some positivity into you,” the very familiar, very sarcastic drawl of Jiro Kyoka sounded from the doorway and Izuku offered her a little smile.

“That depends, do you have to be so sarcastic? It does nothing for your image,” he retorted.

“Who cares about my image? I’ll worry about that when I’m a goth girl in high school,” she rolled her eyes, “now do you want to hear the news or not?” he glanced at her curiously.

“What sort of news could you have for me that’s good? I mean, if you haven’t noticed…” Izuku gestured as best he could at his body without inflicting the worst pain he’d ever known on himself.

“The kind that says Kyotako and I have fostering licences,” Mika-sensei’s voice joined Kyoka’s.

“Mom! I wanted to tell him!” Izuku heard Kyoka complain, but he wasn’t listening anymore.

His head was busy reeling from the sudden revelation and what his music teacher – one of them, anyway – was offering. It wasn’t adoption, but it was a place he felt safe.

“‘Zu? You good over there?” his friend’s voice snapped him out of it and he nodded slowly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Oh, by the way, I have news too. I’m fully blind! Can't see a thing - well, actually it’s like my eyes are immersed in a thick, white fog, so I guess I do see something, but otherwise? Nada,” Izuku formed jazz hands carefully and smirked at his friend and he could hear Kyoka groan, but he could also feel her smile.

“Does that mean we have to stop lessons?” Kyotako-sensei’s voice piped in.

Kyoka, Izuku and Mika-sensei all scoffed at the question.

“No way, if he did, who’d be there to be my rival, or mess up a song I could play in my sleep?” Kyoka folded her arms.

“If I stopped, no-one would be there to take Kyo-chan down a peg or two when she messes up a song she bets she could play without practising?” Izuku shot back.

“And who would be there to check on Kyo when she’s playing and forgets to eat?” Mika-sensei asked with a smile.

“He does that too,” Kyoka grumbled, hiding the red flush of her ears behind her earphone jacks.

Kyoka’s quirk was interesting, Izuku had decided. It was a mutation quirk like her mother's, where she had detachable phone jacks on her ears. They gave her incredible hearing abilities and allowed her to project sound out as well, but she hadn’t learnt how to do that, yet.

Izuku hadn’t learnt what Kyotako-sensei’s quirk was.

“So I’ll be staying with you after the hospital?” Izuku asked, a sliver of hope in his voice.

“If your social worker agrees to it,” Mika-sensei nodded, before the conversation was interrupted by the ringtone of Mika-sensei’s phone. She disappeared from the room with Kyotako-sensei in her wake, leaving Izuku and Kyoka by themselves.

The doctor had slunk out of his room the first chance he’d gotten.

“You’re getting a brother,” Izuku began. Kyoka grinned at him.

“And you’re getting a sister, what’s up?” she asked. Izuku fidgeted in his bed, his sightless eyes dropping to his bedsheets.

“You’re going to be my sister and I won’t be able to see you again,” he replied, his voice barely audible.

“‘Zu, you know what I look like, you don’t need to see me to See me,” she smiled – a rare event for Jiro Kyoka – at him, skipping to sit carefully by his side, taking his hand and placing her other gently on top of his.

Izuku raised his head, turning his face towards her. Izuku couldn’t see a thing - his imagination at work, however, could picture every single little detail about his friend.

Slowly, as slowly as he could to not aggravate his injuries, Izuku raised his free hand to Kyoka’s face, letting his hand run down it, his palm barely grazing her skin.

“People say - people say that when you can’t see, your other senses try to compensate it and you find yourself hearing better, smelling better, touch and taste increase to where you could know what someone looks like by skin contact or where a certain type of food or drink was made, but I never believed it.”

“Do you believe in that story now?” Kyoka asked, her voice gentler and softer, more compassionate than anything Izuku had heard before.

The dam within him broke and Izuku found a stream of tears trailing down his cheeks as he looked, as he saw Kyoka.

It was nothing more than the shape of her head, her face, her smile and her hair, how tall she was and her figure, although he didn’t pay attention to her figure, he didn’t care, and there wasn’t any colour to her, but he could See her.

A black outline and a few bare, basic details was all he had to go on, but she was there.

“I know you want to be a musician like Mika-sensei and Kyotako-sensei, but I think you would make a really good hero,” Izuku said before he realised what he was saying. He let go of Kyoka, drawing his hands away from hers and her face, drying his eyes.

“‘Zu, we’re only five, we have time to figure out who we are and what we want to be, you know,” she chuckled wetly, swiftly removing any signs of her own tears.

“Yeah, but I’m going to be a hero - the first blind hero, although I’m not sure about all the attention I’d get as a spotlight hero, it just sounds like a waste of time,” Izuku grumbled.

“What about Underground Heroics?” Mika-sensei’s voice rang out in questions. Izuku jumped, startled, before hissing in pain. “Whoops, sorry Izu-kun,” she apologised.

Izuku shook his head.

“It’s fine, what’s underground heroics?”

“They’re a type of hero - a group of heroes who don’t want to be seen or noticed by the media so they can do their jobs in as much peace as they can get. No-one knows who they are, even though they’re some of the best heroes out there,” she explained.

As she did so, Izuku found himself drawn into the idea of an unseen, unsung hero.

They did their jobs well, but got no recognition for it. They weren’t hounded by fans or stalked by reporters, but focused on the dirty part of heroics - the drug dealers, smugglers, Yakuza, raids and investigations and in turn, got paid a turn above Spotlight heroes. It was perfect for him, but could he do it?

“Stop overthinking, ‘Zu, I can hear you from a mile away,” Kyoka nudged him with her elbow.

“I wasn’t, Kyo-chan!”

“Sure, then what were you doing?” she asked and got no answer in reply. “Thought so,” she sniggered triumphantly.

“You do the same thing when it comes to practise,” Izuku snapped.

Kyoka’s grin faded into a scowl as she realised he was right and, finding no retort, she stuck her tongue out at him in, waiting for a retaliation. Silence fell over them before Izuku, guessing what she did, spoke up.

“Kyo-chan? I can’t see, remember?” Kyoka flinched, then snorted.

“This is going to be hard to get used to, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Izuku nodded.

“Mika, did you give them the good news?” Kyotako-sensei nudged her gently by the shoulder and his wife startled, shaking her head no. She turned a blinding smile on Kyoka and Izuku.

“The call was from your social worker, Izu-kun, it’s official.” Izuku and Kyoka perked up at that, Kyoka’s eyes sparkling and Izuku smiling widely.

“The placement was approved?” he asked, almost giddily.

“Yes. She said there would be a few home visits - every two weeks for the first few months, then just once a month for the remainder of the year. After that, It should be a visit every couple of months until you become more independent. We need to warn you though, Izuku, Kyotako and I can’t press for adoption. With our work, we’re gone for lengths at a time - it’s been overlooked since we look after Kyoka without problems and we know you quite well, but this won’t turn into an adoption. I thought we should let you know. This is a fostering, it means if people want to adopt you and your social worker approves, you’ll be taken in by that family unless they rescind the adoption or are found to be unfit to be adopting. We can object, but you won’t always be with us, is that okay?” Mika-sensei explained to him.

Izuku took in everything she had to say. It hurt, to know he wouldn’t have a proper family, but the Jiros were close enough to what he imagined his own family to be like.

It would be okay, he thought as he nodded to Mika-sensei, he would be okay.

The next few weeks were slow while Izuku recovered in the hospital.

There were doctors in and out of his room, though Izuku often referred to it as a cell.

The Jiros visited daily, but they could never stay long for reasons they wouldn’t explain.

His thoughts ran wild with nothing to do and he began to analyse.

Whatever he could hear around him was profiled and analysed: people, carts, objects, things in his room and the hallway whenever the door was left open. He had nothing else to do, so he settled for learning.

Without his eyes to see, his other senses were starting to work overtime to compensate for it. His hearing was sharp, heightened, as was his touch and smell, but he wasn’t allowed to walk, which meant he had no way of honing and controlling what he heard, smelt and how far he could ‘See’ when he touched floors or walls.

After the first week with no way of controlling his newfound ability, Izuku found that even just touching the bed allowed him access to the floor he was on.

It was as if he could see the outlines of everything and everyone - the sounds hurt his ears, the antiseptic and disinfectant in the air stung his nose and skin It got to the point, eventually, where he couldn’t sleep at night due to all the goings on around him.

It was strongest during the day, Izuku noted, but it was at night when he just wanted everything to stop.

He shoved his hands over his ears and curled up into a ball, the noises, outlines, smells, it was too much for him, but only he could hear what he could. He whimpered in pain, a migraine bursting through his head as he shivered and jerked, his eyes wide and staring sightlessly throughout the experience.

After that growth, the doctors and people around him began to notice a change to him - eyebags from sleepless nights fighting the unseen pain, jumpiness from surprise noises or people around him, he grew quieter in an effort to balance out the noise around him and his expressions became static, straight-faced and the Jiros noticed immediately something was wrong.

It took effort to get him to tell them what was going on and even then his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.

“Is this a recent development?”

“‘Zu, you’re serious about this?”

“Okay Izuku, what do you think this is?” they asked him altogether, but Izuku only clasped his hands over his ears, whimpered and drew himself into a ball.

“Too loud?” Mika-sensei asked in a hushed voice. Izuku nodded, but made no move to remove the hands over his ears.

“I hear…everything, Mika-sensei. I can feel this entire floor, I can smell the floor we’re on, but it feels wrong, like everything’s muddled and outlines, they’re clear, but the shapes are so fuzzy. It’s all the same, but something’s missing, out of place, like there’s a piece of me not…in me and I hate it, it’s wrong,” Izuku breathed, his voice barely audible. “It started when Kyo-chan and you guys visited, that was when the outlines formed, but it got really bad recently, a couple of days ago I started hearing and feeling and smelling everything. Yesterday was when the feeling of something missing attached itself to whatever my senses are doing,” he said.

Kyoka, her ear right next to Izuku’s mouth, diligently repeated everything Izuku said to her parents and Izuku’s doctor, which had the normally cheerful man grimacing.

“I think this might be a sign of his quirk manifesting, but I didn’t think it would be so quickly. It must be because of the rapid escalation of his sight loss. That must have sped up the process of his quirk manifesting, because the quirk didn’t have to do any more work to prepare Izuku- kun’s body for it. All we need to do is figure out what his quirk is. You said he felt as if something was missing, did he tell you what?” the doctor asked Kyoka.

She shook her head, taking on a thoughtful expression.

“He did say the outlines of what he ‘sees’ is blurry. The outline’s solid, but the shape isn’t, it’s fuzzy. That didn’t really make much sense to me, but could it be important?” the doctor smiled at Kyoka.

“It could be, thank -”

“Doctor! Something’s going on with the patient in room 202!” a nurse called frantically, rushing to where Izuku lay, writhing and spasming violently in his curled-up ball, hands over his ears and whines and whimpers escaping him.

Worry filled the Jiros’ faces and they ran through the hall back to Izuku’s room, passing a tall blonde with greenish-yellow eyes and long hair down, a woman with a cheery smile and light pastel green hair with a bandanna holding her bangs in place and a third man on crutches.

He wore all black, unlike his colourful companions, with long, messy black hair, a scarf wrapped around his neck and tired golden eyes on a pale face.

The three watched the commotion and the blonde raised an eyebrow in question.

“Wonder what’s going on there, don’t you, Sho? Emi?”

“Yeah…” the green-haired woman looked on at the worried nurses, the family of three and the doctor curiously, then grinned a knowing, sly grin. “Let’s go see!”

“Fukukado, you know we can’t,” the tired, black-haired man -- the one on crutches glared at her, but she paid no mind to him and dragged him and the blonde with her. She followed the nurses at a distance with the two men in tow, coming to a room in the hallway.

Inside were the family they’d seen, a doctor looking frantic and nurses all around.

“What’s going on?” the blonde spoke louder than he thought and attention in the room swung to them.

“Who are you - you can’t be here,” the doctor demanded with a glare.

The tired man directed an utterly exhausted look at the doctor, pulling out his wallet and hero licence.

“I’m pro hero Eraserhead. My companions are known as Present Mic and Ms. Joke,” he said in a drawl.

To his surprise, instead of looking suspicious of them, the doctor’s expression changed to relief.

“Eraserhead!” The man breathed. “Please - we need your help,” and he, the family – although they looked scared and confused – and the nurses moved away from the bed.

The patient was a young boy, perhaps four or five from the looks of it, curled into himself in a tight ball, his body jerking and writhing in pain.

His hands were clasped tightly over his ears and the quiet whimpers and sobs of pain leaving the boy’s throat cracked Eraserhead’s tough heart.

The boy was incredibly young - too young to be in so much pain.

His head was filled with fluffy green curls cut short to examine head damage most likely. There were casts and bandages on all his limbs and bruises over the parts that weren’t either covered in bandages and casts or the hospital gown, which didn’t cover as much as it looked it would.

His skin was a fair, light white and his eyes, from what Eraserhead could see, were a dim emerald green, as if someone had sucked the sight from vibrant green eyes.

“What’s wrong with him?” Eraserhead kept his voice light and quiet, but even that brought a flinch from the boy.

He raised his head to ‘look’ at Eraserhead, his eyebrows crinkled in pain and his mouth pursed tightly shut.

“Who - who are you?” he asked croakily, his throat hoarse.

“My name is Aizawa Shota, I’m a pro hero by the name of Eraserhead, who are you?”

“Midoriya - Midoriya Izuku,” the boy took a shuddering breath. “Don’t…don’t know you. “Who are you?”

“My name is Aizawa Shota, Midoriya -”

“Izuku - I - Izuku, please,” Izuku interrupted, his voice as quiet as ever, but just a little louder.

“Okay, Izuku, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Too loud, too smelly, too - too much, and it - it’s all still wrong!” the boy swiped at his ears and his nose, his voice cracking on the last part of his sentence.

Aizawa nodded as if he understood, moving to stand in front of Izuku. He crouched down so he was at eye level with him.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“S - something m - missing.”

“Can you tell me what?” Izuku started to shake his head, then paused, frowning and a bead of sweat formed on his eyebrows.

“W - water, cool, soft, um, it t - tickles, uh, e - earth, I think?” he replied unsurely, his eyes fixed on Aizawa.

The young hero tried to stop himself from shifting uncomfortably in the face of pale emerald green, unblinking eyes as he nodded again.

“Okay, do you need the earth or -”

“I don’t k - know!” Izuku cried, “I don’t know! This - i- it started happening a couple weeks ago, b - but it got r - really bad a few days ago a - and then a start getting this f - feeling somethings wrong, that something’s missing and now I want to touch the ground - f- feel the earth beneath my f -feet, f - feel something, okay?”

“Okay, Izuku, we got it, we’ll be right back, okay?” Aizawa stood up when he got a confirming nod from Izuku, gesturing for everyone to leave the hospital room.

“What is it, what’s wrong with the boy?” Ms. Joke asked eagerly. Aizawa glared at her.

“I’m guessing this is a quirk-related matter?” the doctor nodded quickly.

“His quirk is unlike anything we’ve seen before - it’s a sensory emitter-elemental quirk that also has a mutant variant that affects his eyesight - he’s blind, can’t see a thing, but he can, now. What we’re worried about is that everything’s been thrown out of the timeline. He wasn’t supposed to go blind yet, he still had between a year and two. It was a car crash that took away the rest of his already-fading sight. His quirk was adjusting his body to fit in it and would only appear once he’d settled into full blindness - about a year afterwards. The car crash - Izuku-kun going blind so fast, the quirk coming in even faster, this was all unpredicted. Because the quirk could come in without doing any of the fixing of his eyes it’s stronger, coming in faster than we anticipated and we aren’t equipped to handle him. Even worse, we don’t know what type of element he can manipulate. We’ve ruled out Fire and Water - wind’s practically out at this point too, so it has to be earth, but -”

“It’s an earth-type, you’re right on that,” Aizawa interrupted the frazzled doctor, who’d almost started pacing during his explanation.

“Excuse me, but how do you know, can you help him?” a woman with shoulder-length purple hair asked, her husband and daughter, it seemed, encompassing her.

“Can you help ‘Zu?” the little girl demanded. Aizawa smirked into his scarf.

“I think so, kid, I think so.” Aizawa turned to the doctor. “He said he felt something missing, that something was wrong - he insisted on it, actually, quite strongly in fact. He then described to me what he felt was missing, said something told him what was missing, but he was pretty incoherent about it, like he didn’t know himself. He said it felt wet and cool, like water, but not. He mentioned earth, needing to feel it on his feet, his body, said it was ‘soft’ and that it ‘tickled’. Can we do anything with that information?” Aizawa asked as he turned to the face the doctor once more.

The doctor nodded slowly, processing the onslaught of new information.

“Yes, we should be able to with that, but could you relieve him of his pain, even a little? Give him some comfort while we try to sort this out for him?” the doctor was almost begging as he requested Aizawa’s help.

Fukukado, Ms. Joke and ‘Zashi, Present Mic, weren’t helping.

They were, annoyingly enough, nodding along and offering his help for him. He couldn’t say no to a Problem Child in the making, though, so he sighed, put all thoughts of a nap away in his mind and strode into Izuku’s room, sitting cautiously on his bed and taking one of Izuku’s hands.

The boy flinched violently, but he relaxed somewhat when he realised Aizawa’s hold was gentle, not meant to harm or hurt.

“You’re back,” he whispered quietly.

“I said I would be, didn’t I?”

“I thought you were lying,” he admitted.

“Well, I’m right here and I have something we could try, is that okay?” he asked. Izuku paused, wary eyes landing, unseeingly, on him cautiously, before the boy nodded.

Aizawa took a deep breath, then let his quirk flash on Izuku and the boy gasped, flinching away from Aizawa, shocked.

“You…what did you do?” he questioned Aizawa, who let go of his quirk. Izuku flinched more violently, his eyes never leaving Aizawa.

“You made the pain go away,” he whispered, almost reverently to Aizawa. You took my pain away.”

“Only for a minute, Kid. It’s not permanent.”

“But you made me not hurt.”

“I did, was it okay?” Izuku nodded as fast he could, latching onto the hero.

“It was amazing! I was hurting, it was everything at once and you made it stop! It went away and everything was quiet! Thank you, hero,” Izuku’s volume dropped to a bare whisper further into his speech.

It was Aizawa’s turn to look shocked when the boy called him ‘hero’.

“Thanks, Kid. I actually came here with some of my friends, want to meet them? I’ll use my quirk again on you, they’re quite loud so it could be tricky as you are,” he offered. Izuku paused, tilting his head to the side as though he was pondering his situation, then nodded shyly.

“Yes, please,” he replied. Aizawa hid a grin. ‘Zashi and Fukukado would love him, he knew it. ‘Zashi because the boy was ‘cute’ in his eyes and Fukukado because Izuku was as straight-faced as he was.

Izuku nodded silently to Aizawa, indicating he was ready. He straightened his face out to his usual blankness and Aizawa activated his quirk, calling to Present Mic and Ms. Joke.

“You’re free to enter,” he said simply and just like that, the doors to Izuku’s hospital room were thrown wide open.

“Is this him, Sho! He’s cuter than the last time we saw him!” Mic screeched excitedly.

“He is indeed. Shota! Let’s have our own baby!”

“For the last time, Joke, I’m marrying ‘Zashi. Stop being a pain,” the Erasure hero groaned, keeping his wide open eyes and quirk on Izuku.

The boy in question stared at the two new heroes, then let his sightless eyes drift over to Aizawa.

One eyebrow rose in incredulous question and Aizawa didn’t bother to hide the snort of amusement that left his lips.

“Yes, Problem Child, they’re always like this. The annoying woman is Fukukado Emi, an underground hero by the name of Ms. Joke. Next to that disgrace of a hero is my loudmouth partner and soon to be husband, Yamada Hizashi, or Present Mic, if you prefer his hero name.”

“Aw c’mon Sho, we aren’t that bad!” the voice hero complained childishly.

“Where’s your sense of humour gone, Mr. Gwumpy-pants?” Joke asked Aizawa with a cheeky smirk.

“Six feet under,” Izuku responded in perfect deadpan, before Aizawa could and all eyes turned to him in disbelief, before Joke burst out laughing.

“Oh gosh, Shota, where did you find this kid - he’s a riot!” she wheezed. Izuku gave her an unimpressed look.

“I thought Underground heroes were supposed to take their jobs seriously, what happened to you?”

“Love!” she replied immediately and Aizawa groaned.

“For the last time, no-one here is in love with you,” Aizawa ground out, the hero’s attitude grinding his nerves and whatever lick of patience he had to dust.

“Lighten up, Eraser,” Ms. Joke grinned. She then turned to Izuku and her smile softened.

“Not everyone can be as stoic and serious as Eraser, Kid. Especially with the variety of quirks out here in the world. Mine relies on making people laugh - what better way to make someone laugh than bad jokes?” she asked.

Izuku pursed his lips, pondering the thought.

“That still doesn’t explain why you have to fight with rubber chicken.”

“Uh uh uh - weighted rubber chicken, Shota, weighted. They deal some damage. Not too much , but I can still slay!” she posed for dramatic effect.

Aizawa and Izuku both gave twins sighs and shook their heads while Present Mic laughed and grinned at her antics. Somehow, Izuku could see the two rambunctious heroes being good friends.

“Sorry to cut this short, Izuku, but my quirk’s not meant to be used for so long,” Aizawa grimaced, straining his eyes to keep his quirk active.

Izuku shook his head, his blank expression fading the slightest amount.

“It’s okay, your quirk could strain your eyes if you aren’t careful. Just please be quiet when my quirk’s active again, the noise hurts like nothing you’d ever believe,” he told Aizawa simply.

The three heroes nodded and Izuku once again covered his ears with his hands, allowing Aizawa to let go of his quirk.

Present Mic, Ms. Joke and Eraserhead all hurried out of his room quickly and quietly as Izuku went back to flinching and whimpering in pain.

Aizawa paused at the doorway, glancing back at the kid on the bed.

He was a problem child for certain, but one day, he would make a brilliant hero.

That, Aizawa knew for certain.

Chapter Text

A month and a half.

It took a month and a half for Izuku’s injuries to heal enough that he could leave the hospital and even though he’d gotten used to his senses being amplified, nothing could have prepared him for the sensation of finally stepping foot on soil.

The hospital hadn’t been too bad - just loud and noisy with way too many people and way too much disinfectant, the earth, the soil, it was cool beneath his bare feet. It was calm and cool and attuned his senses, as if he was connected with the earth - as if he was an extension of it.

Unbidden, memories the earth had carried with it flowed into his mind and Izuku took a shuddering breath, releasing it and closing his eyes.

He knew the Jiros, who signed him out of the hospital were behind him, Ms. Joke, Present Mic and Eraserhead were, too. Ms. Joke, it seemed, had made it her life’s work to make him laugh, or at least smile.

Izuku was sure she’d start trying to get him to call her ‘Mom’, just like she kept asking Eraserhead to marry her.

Izuku refused resolutely every time, but he had progressed to using her name, at least. Present Mic was insistent that Izuku call him ‘Uncle ‘Zashi’ and Eraserhead ‘Uncle Shota’. Aizawa had no trouble being called that and so Izuku agreed - though Present Mic was still 'Hizashi-san'.

His excuse was that he knew Shota better than Hizashi or Fukukado, but it was really that he enjoyed messing with the man.

Kyoka saw through him in an instant, it was still funny, though.

Izuku’s brief memories of his brief stay in the hospital fled in mind and were replaced with memories of old; memories that had been stored in the ground and the soil and the deepest parts of the earth.

It was more of a story of elemental quirk users, but they weren’t quirks.

Elemental powers gifted to those who studied the ways of old, each elemental style based off of a martial arts.

He saw a young boy, twelve years of age, practising circular walking and a palm-style fighting method for air manipulation - airbending, it was called.

There was a girl, practising tai chi and manipulating water from streams and even from her gourd water bottle.

That was Waterbending, Izuku mused.

Next was fire, a boy older than the girl and other boy was practising Kung fu.

This one, Izuku knew, was a northern Shaolin style and ‘firebending’. That had to be the proper calling of the fighting style. He’d had the chance to read up about Kung fu styles, even if kids his age shouldn’t be reading stuff like that.

The last figure was two figures, which confused Izuku greatly.

They seemed to also be a style of Kung fu, but unlike the previous firebender, the two different styles the two different people used differed.

One of the figures was a man, a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered man wearing long, flowing pants cinched at the ankles and waist and a tight-fitting, sleeveless shirt tucked into his pants.

His Kung fu style was heavy, based on the man’s obvious physical strength and using his weight and solidity to push at the ground, command it with strength like a wild animal, that wasn’t an option for him.

He would never be so built and he could train for strength, but his slight, slim build and short height - plus his blindness, wasn’t suited for such a heavy, forceful style.

The other figure, on the other hand, was a girl, years older than him, but with his build, slight stature and short height, she was using the same earthbending style as the man and it wasn’t any more elegant, but it was a lot more fluid, a lot easier to connect blow to blow.

The style focused on low-to-the-ground ankle kicks using the earth to target her opponent and elbows and hands to direct strikes, much like a praying mantis.

The girl kept her hands out and open, as if she was holding a giant book in the air. From there she struck, using whatever part of the arms she needed. Forearm, upper-arm, fingers, hands, even her shoulders, she used it all.

Her stance was a lot more upright than the man’s, which allowed for greater circular stepping motions.

Izuku noticed she kept her stance wider than shoulder-width, which was proper for a fighting style, and that she kept her eyes open.

“She’s different,” Izuku muttered to himself, unknowingly out loud.

The six onlookers watched with puzzled expressions as Izuku stood on the earth of a park just across the road from the hospital.

“He’s just been standing there, should we be worried about his sanity?” Fukukado joked.

Mika sent her a glare and the laughter hero shrugged, smiling back.

Izuku paid them no mind, studying the girl’s forms and fighting style as she battled. She faced all kinds of opponents, old, young, men, women, and she beat them all easily. Her feet were flat on the ground most of the time, but she was up on the balls of her feet when she faced an opponent or moved into her stances.

They were usually wide with her feet turned in so the outlines were straight. She used chops and strikes to direct earth, her knuckles and fingers as well, for quicker attacks and blocks.

She used her elbows primarily for deconstructing and breaking walls that were far too solid to be dirt or wood and her large knuckles and the backs of her hands for smaller blockades and structures.

Izuku watched the girl, fascinated with the way she moved, the way she fought, the way she thought.

He noted down her appearance and method of dress, her hairstyle and footwear - before he noticed she never wore anything on her feet.

Izuku’s expression narrowed in suspicion and his eyes focused on her face, or rather, her eyes.

They were the same type of lightened emerald green, as if they’d been replaced by mist or had the light sucked out of them.

“She’s blind,” he whispered.

She was a slightly built, blind girl, that’s why her earthbending style was different from the man’s - she couldn’t use the general power/strength type.

She didn’t have the body for it, she was small so strength wouldn’t do her any good and she was blind, which meant, if he was right, she could use the earth around her - vibrations of objects and people around her, to determine their locations, how they fought, where their weak points were, she used something he could learn to do himself and he didn’t even need a physical teacher!

Quickly, Izuku opened his eyes again and turned back to the Jiros and the three heroes, not exactly grinning, he did his best to keep his face neutral, but his eyes sparkling with excitement.

“I’m an earthbender,” he said bluntly.

“Okay, and what’s an earthbender?” Kyoka asked with a confused stare at Izuku.

“Someone like me, someone who can use the earth around them, manipulate it into shapes! And there are others, other elemental benders, ones part of the four cardinal elements. I saw it all, the earth showed me!” the adults around him stared at him, uncomprehending.

“‘Zu, what the hell?” Kyoka asked him, unimpressed. Izuku deflated, the shine leaving his eyes.

“Do you need an explanation, or…” he left the question hanging in the air and the adults quickly nodded.

Izuku sat down on the grassy earth of the park and waited for the others and Kyoka to do the same.

As they settled around Izuku, he prepared his mind to tell the story he read from the earth around him.

“So, care to tell us what this is all about?” Aizawa asked, a tired sigh leaving his lips.

“Yeah, wanna explain why you think you’re some crazy elementalist quirk wielder?” Kyoka chimed in with a glare in Izuku’s direction.

“The earth told me - I read its memories, sort of.”

“You … read the earth’s … memories?” Kyotako stared at him blankly.

That made Izuku groan.

“Yes, I read the earth’s memories. From what I could understand, elemental benders existed a millennia ago, manipulators of the four cardinal elements - you know what those are, right?”

“Water, wind, fire and Earth,” Hizashi replied.

Izuku nodded. “Right. Back then, everything was imbued with or had the attribute of the four cardinal elements.”

“Everything?” Mika’s eyes widened.

“Some were clear on attributes, like heat and volcanoes and the sun were fire attributed and as its opposite, waterfalls, brooks and streams and the moon were water attributed. Air attributes were wind and the sky while earth attributes were all around us, grass, ground, plants and the stars. Animals had attributes too, wind, water, fire, earth. They were the four elements that controlled nature. Humans were born and raised with respect of these elements, great respect and they soon found themselves the masters of the elements literally. Those who could control the elements were called elemental benders and each bender was attributed to an element, but to control those elements, something else was necessary, control over the mind, body and spirit and so elemental benders also turned into martial artists. There was a different martial art for each element. Waterbenders used Tai chi, for its fluid and smoothness from blow to blow, just as water was. Firebenders used the Northern Shaolin style of Kung fu for its strong arm and leg movements. Air benders practised bagua, which is a lot of powerful circular movements and Earthbenders used Hung Gar, a style that found its root in the animals of the wild. These martial arts helped expand and grow the world of elemental bending, until the benders split apart, separated.”

“Why’d they do that?” Kyoka asked eagerly.

“The firebenders believed strength reigned over everything, the airbenders thought freedom would be found away from worldly problems, earthbenders wanted to defend themselves first and foremost and the waterbenders hid to protect themselves from a great catastrophe they had warned the other benders of, but the elements were never meant to be apart from each other. The four elements of nature had a bond and pact stronger than the warrings among humans like us and so the Avatar was born. The Avatar was a bender chosen by the sacred elements to learn and connect the elements together as they once were. Unlike normal benders, who could only use the bending style of their elemental attribute, the Avatar had the potential to learn and bend all four of the elements.”

“I guess that’s where ‘connect the four elements’ comes from,” Hizashi tried.

The joke fell flat and Izuku continued his tale.

“The Avatar was always chosen in a pattern, once every hundred years and one from every clan of benders in a pattern. Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, the cycle continued. The Avatar once more joined together the four nations and the four elements, but the Fire Nation grew greedy. They gathered their armies, their benders and soldiers and attacked the Avatar and the other benders, forcing them to bow to the will of the fire element. The emperor of the Fire nation at the time was pleased at his conquest, which of course was when the prophecy was delivered to him. The Avatar of Air would be the downfall of the Fire Nation. The emperor became mad, furious, and attacked the Air Nomads, leaving the Avatar cycle broken and the air- benders lost to the wind - or so it was thought.”

“Seriously?” Kyoka complained, eagerly hooked on the story.

The adults seemed to be a little more sceptical than the five-year-old girl, but they listened quietly as his story went on.

“A hundred years passed and the elemental benders of the Water and Earth attributes were weakening and losing strength, but a young girl, the only waterbender of a small waterbending tribe, Katara and her brother, the mighty warrior Sokka, found the Avatar frozen in the Southern seas. Aang, the last Airbender and the Avatar, along with his Waterbending master Katara, Sokka the warrior, The blind master Earthbender Toph Beifong and the exiled and traitor Prince Zuko of the Fire nation travelled the four elemental nations in search of what being an elemental bender truly meant and banded together to defeat Zuko’s elder sister, the talented Princess of the Fire nation and their Father, the emperor. Peace was brought back to the world, but the world of elemental bending was already coming to a close. The elemental benders were lost to history as the modern times arose and centuries after that came the era of quirks - our era. Does that explain much?”

“Oh yes, more than needed, Izuku. Why, after that lengthy explanation, do you believe yourself to be an earthbender? According to you - well, the earth, they died out a millennia ago. That’s a thousand years, Problem Child,” Aizawa groaned.

“Well, I’m not a real earthbender, as you said, they died out a thousand years ago. So far, I’m the closest thing to one the earth has ever seen, apparently. I have ties, connections to the earth and I bet, I bet you that there are others. Others like me, who have seemingly straight-forward elemental powers, simple water or wind or fire manipulation, but with the right nudge, the right style of fighting, they could become something akin to the elemental benders of old,” Izuku replied, the shine of excitement gleaming in his eyes.

“And you know this style, the one you need to learn in order to manipulate the ground in such a way you’d be recognised as an earthbender?” Ms. Joke, who’d stayed silent as a grave throughout Izuku’s explanation, raised her voice.

“That’s … actually a little complicated?” Izuku winced at the question in his voice.

That caused Aizawa to groan again and he was sure the older man was contemplating what his life would be like without ‘Problem Children’ as Aizawa put it.

“What do you mean, Izu-kun?” Mika asked carefully, her eyes full of worry.

“It’s nothing dangerous, I promise, but the style of earthbending the average earthbender uses won’t help me at all. That style was made for power and physicality, not for someone like me, with a slimmer build and slighter, shorter stature. That’s why I want to study Toph Beifong.”

“Who now?” Hizashi questioned confusedly, rubbing his temple.

“Toph Beifong. She taught the last Avatar to Earthbend, I was hoping she could teach me.”

“How?” Aizawa demanded.

Izuku shrunk in on himself, drawing circles in the dirt with his finger nervously.

“By reading the earth and copying what she’s doing?” that earned him his third groan of the afternoon and Izuku felt bad for his Uncle Shota, wishing he could stop traumatising the man.

“Please, I know what I’m doing, slightly, I can manage - I think,” Izuku’s reassurances weren’t all that reassuring.

“That is cool and stupid at the same time, ‘Zu,” Kyoka grumbled at the end of his story.

“I know, Kyo-chan, but I can do it, I can copy her movements and learn how to fight from her! And I’ll be at an advantage, because people won’t know how to counter me. Toph’s fighting style is aggressive and active, but it’s also a perfect fit for someone like her - like me. The best part about it is that even without my quirk, even if someone like Uncle Shota takes it away, I can still fight.

Earthbending and the bending styles center elements around martial arts, not martial arts around quirks and that means I can use it both far away, with my quirk, and close combat, with the martial arts. I know I can do it, I promise I can!” the adults – the sensible ones – glanced at each other, unsure of what to do.

Fukukado, Hizashi and Kyotako, all inspired by Izuku’s great speech nodded agreement enthusiastically, turning pleading eyes on Mika, Aizawa and Kyoka.

The little girl scowled at her father and the other two sentimental saps.

“You’ll be safe?” Mika asked.

“Probably?”

“You will be safe, Problem Child.” Aizawa said and this time it wasn’t a question.

“You won’t make me pull out for a broken bone or bruises, will you?”

“Not for minor injuries like that, but anything too dangerous and we’ll stop these experimental training sessions in their tracks, understand?”

“Yes, Sir, I promise!” Izuku nodded seriously.

He knew his Uncle Shota took nothing more seriously than personal safety and safety while training.

If Izuku returned with more than bruises or scrapes more often than Shota deemed appropriate, He wouldn’t be allowed to train until his Uncle and Mika were certain he was safe.

“You’ll also have at least one supervisor with every training period. Either me, ‘Zashi or Fukukado will be with you. You train without supervision and you spend a month training under me, understand?” Izuku shivered at the threat and nodded quickly.

He liked Aizawa, liked him very much, but from what he’d heard, the man was utterly ruthless when it came to punishment training.

“I’ll take care of myself and follow all of the rules, Uncle Shota, can we go home now, Auntie Mika?” he turned to the Jiros. Mika smiled and nodded and she took Kyotako by the arm, leading him and Kyoka away from the park and hospital with the three heroes calling out their goodbyes.

He hoped, for a reason unknown to him, that the Jiros were his ticket to the fresh start they seemed to always promise to him.

“Alright Izuku, welcome to your new home,” Kyotako grinned as he held the car door open for him.

Izuku glanced at Kyotako, puzzled, but not having a direct connection with the ground - with the earth dulled his senses majorly.

He could still ‘see’ and hear at above average rates, but outlines of objects were vague and blurry.

It got better once he left the car and got his feet on the ground. It was strange, as if he could feel his connection to the earth running through his body like an electrical charge and it was as if that charge was doused whenever he left the ground.

Ever since he first left the hospital, the first time he set foot on the grassy earth of the park, his feet bare and devoid of protection, it was as if all the noise he heard, the people he felt and the smells he smelled all dulled away and were wholly controllable in every way through the earth.

His very first connection to the ground allowed him control over everything he could do with the ground - that included his senses.

It also meant he could Earthbend, or close enough to it to resemble earthbending. It also meant he could read the memories of the earth to watch Toph fight and live and maybe learn a thing or two from her that didn’t involve fighting or martial arts in the slightest.

As wrapped up in his thoughts and feelings as he was, he still managed to follow the Jiros inside the house.

It was the same, mostly immaculate space he’d gotten used to over the past year from his music classes. He wondered if he’d be alright to keep playing, but if he could see the outline of the instruments, he should be okay.

He memorised every aspect of each instrument he played exactly for a situation just like this one.

“Since you know what most of the bottom half of the house looks like, we’ll skip the tour straight through to your surprise.” Izuku blinked himself out of his thoughts, staring at Kyotako, Mika and Kyoka.

“My what?” he asked bluntly.

Kyoka snorted, elegance at its finest.

“What did you think we were doing while you were sleeping your days away?”

“Work? Music? Daycare?” Izuku shrugged with his answer, still a little baffled at the fact they’d prepared something for him.

“It’s not much, but we wanted you to feel at home. You’ve never been upstairs, have you?” Kyotako asked him gently.

Izuku shrugged again. “Only to Kyo-chan’s room, other than that, I stayed downstairs.” Kyoka blushed lightly as her parents turned smirks on their daughter.

“I just wanted to show him my stuff,” she muttered.

Izuku nodded agreement.

“There were a lot of instruments, I thought it was cool,” he said.

Kyoka blushed harder, spearing him lightly with one of her earphone jacks to get him to shut up.

Izuku flinched at the sudden pain, but otherwise said nothing.

“Alright then,” Mika grinned, “I think you’ll like this,” she led her family plus Izuku up the stairs that led to the second floor.

Unlike the first floor, which held the family and living rooms, the second floor was lined with cupboards and closets and rooms, most of which were for storage. There was a bathroom and plenty of instruments lining the hallways, but Izuku paid little mind to it.

He’d seen a lot of the second floor when Kyoka brought him to her room to show him things. It was a cute room, purple and black in colour and fairly neat, as well as full of instruments. He wondered what they were doing up on the second floor, unless -

“Izuku!” Mika called him out of his thoughts, “welcome to your room,” she opened a door on the right, not too far from the stairs, but not close either.

Izuku stared out at the Jiros, even as they grinned at him, waiting for him to take the first steps into his own space. He stepped inside carefully, a little awed and happy that they’d go out of their way to accommodate him.

The little room was neat, a good-sized bed tucked away in the far right corner.

Two windows spanned the back wall by the bed. In the opposite corner was a desk and chair piled with books on braille and books with it so he could read and study. Apart from those few things, instruments lined the walls.

His flute, guitar, violin and a whole slew of other instruments Izuku wanted to try, but never had the time to, hung on the left and right walls. As Izuku gazed about his bedroom, he spotted his two quirk analysis notebooks and he smiled.

Izuku turned back to the Jiros and offered them a warm smile.

“Thank you so much,” he said, “It’s perfect.”

“Thank goodness,” Kyotako sighed in relief.

“He was worried you wouldn’t like it,” Mika added, while her husband blustered.

The two adults bickered good-naturedly with each other as Kyoka approached Izuku, who was admiring the brilliant shine of his new instruments.

“You like them?”

“They’re amazing.”

“I hoped you would. You’re always saying you want to learn more, now you can.”

“The question now is which one to start with,” Izuku chuckled.

“I’d recommend the cello, oboe or clarinet, they’re the most similar to what you started with, so they should be relatively simple - though that does mean more theory work,” Kyoka sniggered.

“With quirk practise and music lessons, will I even be able to fit in dance and gymnastics?” Izuku wondered out loud.

“Don’t forget your studies!” Mika interrupted loudly.

“I won’t! But those don’t really start until we turn seven, so it’s not a big deal.” Izuku shrugged.

Mika frowned. “That’s another issue. Izuku, you do go to a daycare, right?” Izuku nodded.

“I do, but I don’t like it there. Everyone’s mean and make fun of me because of my eyes,” he explained.

He had been pulled out of daycare for the past two months due to the crash and his injuries, so no-one knew about his quirk, but he didn’t want anyone to know - specifically Mirano Yurika, Asano Itsumi, Kiriko Kamijo and his old friend Bakugo Katsuki.

Mirano Yurika was about his height with light skin, freckles around her nose and short orange-yellow hair.

She’d gotten her quirk a month or so after Bakugo and it was impressive. Not quite as impressive as explosions were, but conjuring glowing balls of light she could manipulate to her will was cool in its own way.

She’d called it ‘Sunlit Orb’ after much deliberation.

Asano Itsumi’s quirk came in about a week after several other kids got their quirks.

He was a bit on the tall side, lean with a slim build, pale skin and light blonde hair.

His quirk was called Papercraft and it allowed him total control over anything that could be classified as ‘paper’. It meant he could reinforce paper to make it as sharp as steel and hard as iron.

It also meant a lot of papercuts for Izuku wherever they were paired together for activities.

Finally Kirito Kamijo. His was one of the last quirks to come in, barring Izuku.

He contrasted Asano almost perfectly with a short, stocky body, dark olive skin and raven black hair.

Where Asano looked apathetic to everything, Kamijo carried a leer that never seemed to leave his face.

He’d called his quirk ‘Shift’ simply because that’s what he did.

It used his own energy and stamina to transform himself into anything he knew the name of. He couldn’t shift into another person, but he knew plenty of animals, plants and objects.

His three bullies still worshipped the ground Katsuki walked on, but he’d also started to take note of them, marking them down as potential rivals - though he scoffed at the paper-manipulation quirk and that made all three of them angry.

He won the resulting fight, but with a lot more scratches and scrapes than he was used to.

He kept his mouth mostly shut about their quirks after that.

Izuku was the only one who hadn’t gotten his quirk yet.

That was one strike for social outcast. He was also smart and preferred studying and reading to playing. That was strike two. And for the final strike: He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, but emotions were rarely seen on his face.

The other kids didn’t like him in the slightest and he felt the same about them. They all wanted to be heroes, yet none of them acted as heroes should.

They were all bullies and arrogant narcissists.

So they had strong quirks; what was a strong quirk without a likeable personality?

“We could put you in the same daycare we have Kyoka attend, or do you want to be pulled out completely? We know you’re smart enough to not need it,” Kyotako mused seriously.

Mika hummed in agreement, but Kyoka pouted.

“How come he doesn’t need to go? I don’t need it, either!” she whined.

“Kyoka, this is essentially preparation for elementary, we’re pulling you out next year to focus on family time before you two start school and we have to take longer work trips, do you understand? Izuku doesn’t need it - he’s already at an acceptable level for elementary school.”

“I am?” Izuku asked uncertainly. Kyotako snorted. “Kid, I doubt you realise just how smart you really are,” he grinned and ruffled Izuku’s hair.

“I know I’m smart - the other kids hate me for it,” he protested.

“You are very self-aware for a five-year-old,” Kyotako replied with an incredulous shake of his head.

Mika laughed, amused. “I thought you realised that back when he first started bandying words with our little Kyo-chan.”

“What about dance class and gymnastics?” Izuku piped up suddenly, Interrupting Mika’s teasing of her husband.

The two adults paused in their discussion and hesitated. He’d just gotten out of the hospital, he needed more time to rest up and heal - not go gallivanting about in classes he thought he was ready to take, then collapse in on himself!

A nagging voice in the back of her mind raged about, not wanting Izuku to go in and screw himself up even more, but surely the boy knew what he was doing, right? He knew the state of his body even better than she did, he had to be fine if he was requesting lessons again, right?

“Do you think you’ll be okay to resume your lessons?” Mika asked kindly.

Izuku nodded resolutely. His sensing abilities were lessened indoors, but they were still good enough that he

could go back to the classes he loved - rather than the bully-frequented daycare he’d been forced to attend.

Mika sighed, not pleased with the decision, but alright with it.

“We’ll talk to your teachers,” she said reluctantly.

She knew Izuku had his dream, but she wished he’d slow down just a little.

Izuku took things at his own pace more often than not, but his pace was fast, with no room for rest and relaxation - it was like every moment in the little boy’s life was meant for activities to help him become a hero faster.

At the rate Izuku was travelling, he’d burn out before he reached his teen years.

She hoped he’d slow down, hoped he’d take things easy, particularly with his quirk.

He’d only had it for a few months and yet he already knew exactly how he wanted to use it and how to train it.

There were so many things in his life that he could do, things he could explore, but she knew he’d blow right past them if they didn’t have anything to do with his goal - friendships included. Mika guessed she should be lucky he found her, Kyoka and Kyotako, otherwise he’d have gotten stuck with a foster family and no hope of adoption with the way he acted.

All she could do, however, was pray Izuku slowed down and made time for other things.

He was smart - exceptionally so, and kind and sincere and he knew that,

so Mika could only hope Izuku knew what he was doing. “Thanks Auntie Mika, it means a lot,” Izuku replied quietly.

He turned to Kyotako and said the same thing and they both smiled warmly.

Even if they couldn’t adopt, even if it seemed like Izuku wasn’t taking care of himself, even if Kyoka threw up a fuss (Doubtful, she loved Izuku as a brother just as they loved him as a son)

Izuku was well on his way to becoming a member of the Jiro family, and none of them ever wanted it to end.

Chapter Text

Five years, Izuku thought, snuggling deeper into his blanket, five years living with the Jiros.

He was ten, now, he was ten and not much had changed since his first day out of the hospital. The Jiros loved him like he was their own, Kyotako and Mika were amazing and Kyoka was the closest to a sister he’d ever had and it was amazing.

Ever since the hospital, the Jiros had looked out for him, helping and encouraging him the entire time.

All his projects - Gymnastics, dance, music, they’d let him do it all without complaint. His bond with the three heroes had grown deeper, too.

Uncle Shota and Uncle ‘Zashi had gotten married a couple years ago and although the grumpy, Underground hero acted as if his husband was the most annoying man he’d met, he knew he loved the other dearly.

Aunt Emi was another factor in his life.

Izuku’s emotions were still as blandly shown on his face as ever and Aunt Emi seemed to make it her personal mission to make him smile or laugh - she never succeeded, but she still kept trying.

Izuku admired the woman, how cheerful she was and how much fun she seemed to have, the way she loved tormenting him and Uncle Shota with her personality and the way she never took things seriously until she did.

Izuku sighed, shaking his head.

That was one side of Aunt Emi he never wanted to see again, though it was his fault to begin with.

True to their word, the three heroes allowed Izuku to start training his quirk and always, one of the three was with him.

They all taught him something different, from Uncle Shota’s situational awareness and close combat drills to Aunt Emi’s tactics of unorthodox surprise and shock and awe to Uncle ‘Zashi’s quirk control and precision.

He loved learning from them, but he loved training with his quirk the most.

His earth manipulation quirk, he’d come to realise early on, was one crazy powerful quirk. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with the earth if he willed it hard enough and the earthbending style came so naturally to him, it was as if he’d been born to be an earthbender.

Toph’s bending style suited him perfectly and soon he was adding his own little twists and turns to her moves, improving them and changing them so he could use them just as she could.

It amazed Izuku every time he watched the girl fight - she was so strong and stubborn, with a sarcastic wit and dry humour.

If he didn’t like talking and socialising as much as he did, he’d give her mode of human interaction a try. As he looked deeper into the earth’s memories, he realised that Toph was so similar to him in a lot of ways.

She had the same overbearing parents he did, the ones that always contained and suffocated her in the name of safety.

She came from a rich household that allowed her great access to the world around her, but she was alone. She never had a real friend or a support group until Aang, Sokka and Katara broke into her house to convince her to join them.

In a lot of ways, Toph reminded Izuku of himself - even if his sister was his only friend. Jiro Kyoka was, perhaps, the greatest sister and best friend he could have ever asked for.

She was always there for him when he needed her, she looked out for him and always seemed to know when he was in a ‘mood’ she called it.

Izuku chuckled fondly at the many memories he’d gained of his Kyo-chan.

She was all scowls and rudeness to other people, but to him, smirks and sarcasm - she was the best. Kyoka was brash and headstrong, she had her own opinions and wasn’t afraid to let people know what she thought, as demonstrated numerous times in the past to their homeroom elementary teacher.

She was fierce, especially towards anyone who showed hostility or anything remotely resembling disgust or pity directed at him. Even if she didn’t have an offensive quirk, her attitude and personality was still tough and brave enough that other kids left the both of them alone.

She protected him from a lot of people who wanted to put him down and, in turn, he did the same to her. There were some people that, even with all her skills, Kyoka could just not face and so, Izuku did it for her.

He faced down everyone she couldn’t, defended his sister from the people she wasn’t a match for and protected her from any harm those around them wished to cause her.

And oh! Elementary school was a thing!

He’d been moved from the daycare he’d attended when his parents were still alive and was put into elementary school at seven - the same one Kyoka was supposed to attend.

It was a private school, exclusive and on the outer perimeter of the Musutafu district.

It was a good school and it was affiliated with an equally exclusive and private middle school.

The rules were strict and the children high of status - that meant uptight and stuffy children from rich families from the support industry, business and heroics.

The hero children were the worst of the lot, stuck up and always thinking they were better than everyone else. They had powerful quirks and steadfast dreams of being heroes just like their parents, but they were nothing more than bullies, just like Bakugo.

He wasn’t quite sure what happened to his old childhood friend, but from what he’d heard, he was attending Aldera elementary.

It was a crappy school full of mediocre teachers and worse students. No matter how much the students at his school hated him, they could never do anything to him.

The teachers didn’t allow bullying or discrimination and even if the teachers missed some of it, Izuku had just as powerful a quirk as they did - not to mention Kyoka’s earphone jacks hurt a whole hell of a lot if stabbed by them.

It didn’t matter if the other kids went after him or Kyoka, they never succeeded.

Toph’s aggressive and fast-paced earthbending style, while perfect for him, still had some limitations.

The style Toph used focused more on the fact that Toph’s sight required her to have her bare feet on the ground as often as possible as she could feel and interpret the vibrations sent into the earth through the movement and positioning of people and objects back into sight, allowing her, a blind girl, to see.

His quirk didn’t need him to do that.

As long as he was near the earth or ground - or directly above or beside it, he could still functionally see.

That allowed him to fit a little more flexibility and creativity into his earthbending and fighting style.

Front flips, backflips somersaults, high kicks, knees and handstands, they could all be fit into his fighting style and direct his quirk.

Earthbending was, as he’d already stated, an overpowered quirk.

He could directly manipulate the earth in whatever way he willed it and his control had grown immensely since he was five. Under the careful and watchful eyes of Aunt Emi, Uncle Shota and Uncle ‘Zashi, he practised control and precision with his earth, bending and moulding it into different shapes and figurines.

The first time he tried, he couldn’t do anything that weren’t circles or ovals.

As his control increased, that limit extended to squares and hearts, growing into the incredibly detailed precision control he boasted now.

More often than not, he used his quirk like Toph used her earthbending, with some minor and major differences alike. He was a lot more versatile in his use with his quirk, but every bit as aggressive and ruthless in fights as Toph was.

Speaking of his Aunt and Uncles, he’d grown close to all three of them, a lot more than he or Uncle Shota cared to admit. Each of them brought a different, colourful aspect to his once-dull life.

Uncle ‘Zashi lit up his world with bright cheer and optimism, Uncle Shota a world of dark wit and wry sarcasm, as well as a logical disposition and Aunt Emi? She was the one who inadvertently made him want to laugh and love and live.

Not that he’d ever tell her, she didn’t need an even bigger ego or a swollen head.

She was fun and silly and rash and everything Izuku should have avoided in a parental figure, but she was also incredibly smart and kind and loving and it made him wish his own mother was still alive and with him.

He was ten already, and yet he only had his foster parents and sister with him.

Kaori-sensei had stuck with her word, though. His ballet teacher taught him so much about trying to fend for himself.

She helped him out whenever she could, with classes and braille, with self-defence or even just listened to him rant about how stupid his day had been, but no matter how much Kaori-sensei or Aunt Emi acted like it, they could never replace his parents.

Izuku snuggled deeper into his bed, wrapping the sheets tightly around him.

It had been five years to the day since his parents died and he felt no desire to celebrate his tenth birthday. Even if it was a day and cause for celebration, he didn’t ever want to celebrate his parents’ death day, not even by proxy of celebrating his birthday.

It had been this way for every birthday of his since his mother’s and father’s deaths - he couldn’t bring himself to get up and enjoy growing a year older, it didn’t feel right.

Aunt Mika, Uncle Kyotako and Kyo-chan had all tried to draw him out, but he refused to answer them, staying under the covers and remembering his parents. Most of his memories of them were mere fragments, he was too young to remember a lot about them before, but now he was older and they weren’t here.

Why did they have to go?

Why did they have to leave him?

No matter how much he wished they’d believe in him, or how much he wished they’d listen to him, they had always been there for him, but now they weren’t.

They were gone - just gone.

The Jiros and his Uncles and Aunt Emi made up for their departure, but not by much and he still felt their absence everyday. It didn’t help that the kids at school somehow found out about his parents’ death day falling on his birthday.

That just gave them more ammunition. It was one of the reasons the Jiros allowed him to stay at home if his birthday ever fell on a school day.

Izuku hated it - hated the lack of their presence in his life, the bullying and comments of him killing them, the guilt he felt and the pain it caused him.

Izuku didn’t express emotions often, but July fifteenth was the one day he almost always did.

July fifteenth was the Nothing Day.

Izuku drowned in the memories he had - the ones he could remember and the ones he wished he didn’t.

There, in his bedroom, buried under blankets on his bed, he wallowed in all the pain and sadness and grief and regret he trapped inside of himself, only to be pulled out of it all with three sharp raps on his bedroom door.

“Kyo-chan,” Izuku murmured quietly, lifting his head out of the bundle he’d wrapped himself in to stare morosely at his door.

It was his sister, he knew it was.

Over the past five years, all the adults who’d cared for him had done their best - had tried to get Izuku to emerge from the blanket of sadness and guilt he buried himself in, in his room on Nothing Day, but no matter who it was, Izuku ignored everyone.

Everyone except Jiro Kyoka, his one and only sister.

After years of no response from him on Nothing Day, Aunt Mika and Uncle Kyotako began to think that it was best they just left him alone, left him to his own devices on Nothing Day, but Kyoka - but Kyo-chan disagreed and even to this very day worked to get Izuku out of his pit of despair.

It wasn’t really despair, Izuku knew what he was doing and just wanted to be alone on the one day of the year he hated the most.

Kyo-chan didn’t like that - didn’t like that he hated his birthday and hated the fact he mourned his parents’ death on Nothing Day instead of celebrating his birthday.

What else could he do?

It didn’t feel right to throw a party, celebrate his life when his mom and dad didn’t have theirs anymore.

It was a fact that they were dead, pure and simple and Izuku couldn’t do anything about that, so he did the next best thing.

Mourn them.

He didn’t like his birthday, he didn’t really remember July fifteenth as ‘Midoriya Izuku’s Birthday’, but rather as the ‘Nothing Day’, ‘Death day’, ‘Mourning Day’.

He didn’t want to remember it any other day.

He snorted quietly to himself, even as the rapping on his door grew into thumping.

“Do I have to remember it any other way?” he asked himself.

“Open up, ‘Zu, I know you’re in there - you’re always in there on your birthday!” Kyoka called.

The thumping grew into banging as Kyoka grew impatient. Izuku sighed, sitting up in his bed.

“Go away, Kyo-chan, it’s Nothing Day,” he replied as he always did.

“Not today it isn’t!” she retorted, an air of finality in her stubborn tone of voice.

“I’m not leaving my room, no matter how much you want me to. Leave me alone Kyo-chan, leave me alone on Nothing Day.”

“That’s the thing, you brainless bush, it’s not ‘Nothing Day’. It’s the fifteenth of July, the day my best friend and itty, bitty brother Midoriya Izuku was born, don’t you get that?”

“Brainless bush?” Izuku asked himself incredulously. “And I’m not itty bitty, Kyo-chan. I may be a little short and yes, I’m younger than you - but only by two months,” he grumbled.

Quietly. He heard Kyoka snigger outside his door, before she sobered up and sighed in exasperation.

“Come on, ‘Zu, is it really worth spending the entire time locked in your room? It’s your birthday!”

“It’s also Nothing Day. I’ve told you before, Kyo-chan, I’m not celebrating the death of my parents. No matter how much I wished they’d believe in me, or at least not act as if I were fragile or a freak, I loved them and I know they loved me. And now they’re gone.”

“But that’s exactly my point, you Bush!” Kyoka yelled, “you’re not celebrating the death of your parents, you’re celebrating your life and the time you’ve spent living and being alive! It might be ‘Nothing Day’ or whatever to you, but to us, it’s the birthday of our brother, son, nephew and student. Mom and Dad might have given up on getting you to come out, but I haven’t. I know they leave your birthday presents outside your door - I’ve seen them do it, but I’m not. I won’t. You’re going to leave that stupid, bland bedroom of yours and come accept your gift from me and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Kyoka insisted and Izuku just knew she was scowling.

“You do realise there’s plenty I can do about it, right? Like not coming out of my room, for instance?” Izuku replied, quietly amused by the entire situation.

Yes, he knew Aunt Mika and Uncle Kyotako left presents for him outside his bedroom door.

They had been doing so for longer than Kyoka knew.

Izuku’s birthday had always been one of the worst times of the year and he knew that.

It wasn’t often he had both parents to celebrate with at all. Sometimes Inko and Hisashi were both busy and they’d give him his two presents – one from each parent – and they’d run off to work, giving him a simple hug and a kiss, and then he’d be left at daycare, with the people he almost constantly disliked.

But sometimes … sometimes both Inko and Hisashi could celebrate with him.

Sometimes they’d stay with him and take him on picnics and day trips together and it was like they were a real family, before the sun would set and dawn would rise on a new day and both his parents would leave him at daycare and rush off to work again.

The spell would be broken and Izuku was left wondering if they even saw him - truly knew that he was their son.

He had never minded it - much. They were busy, he understood, they still enrolled him in activities and classes, how could he complain? His parents were always doing things for him and that more often than not made up for them never being around - not really.

It was one of the reasons he loved the Jiros - loved Aunt Mika as a mother, Uncle Kyotako as a father and Kyo-chan as his dearest sister.

They got along well - better than even Izuku thought they could, which was a bonus.

It was rare for them to get into fights, but they had their moments, just like all siblings did. There was no parent in the world who actually expected all their children to get along perfectly without any arguments whatsoever, right? That would be impossible.

Kyoka huffed and stamped her foot in annoyance.

“Dammit ‘Zu, now’s not the time for technicalities!” she yelled.

“Why don’t you just give up with this?” Izuku inquired snappishly.

He had his reasons for doing what he did and, even if he was happy Kyoka never stopped trying, sometimes he wished she would leave him alone to mourn, was that so hard to do?

“Because I don’t want to spend another damn birthday of yours sitting at an empty table. Every year, Mom and Dad bake a cake and light candles, but you never come down. They used to wait downstairs for you to show yourself so that they could surprise you. They were devastated when you didn’t come. They tried reaching out to you, persuading you, bribing you, but nothing ever worked. They just gave up, you know? Not on you - never on one of their kids, but on the idea they’d ever celebrate your birthday with you. That was hard to watch. They still wrap your gifts and bake you a cake, but I’m the only one there, downstairs, waiting for you to show. I’m the only one at the table in the evening with the candles on the cake lit and I’m the only one who tries to pull you out of your stupid blanket of misery so you can actually live and enjoy life, but you’re as stubborn as a mule,” Kyoka grumbled, wiping moisture away from her eyes.

“I know your parents are a complicated topic and I know you miss them, but you can’t spend every damn birthday locked away in your room and pushing everyone else away because you’re upset. People care about you, Izuku, but you don’t seem to realise or care about that fact. It’s been five years, ‘Zu, you need to move on,” she said quietly.

Izuku could hear the pain and sadness in her voice, he knew she wanted him to be happy and safe and feel loved, but that wasn’t something he could feel so easily.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to - of course he did, he just couldn’t.

He’d never felt things as strongly as other kids did - never cared enough to make a fuss over things.

When he grew up a little more, he began to think he was just mature, smarter, more logical than everyone else around him, but he soon learned that wasn’t - that it could never be it.

Two years ago was when he realised why.

He was full into the swing of training and he might have gotten a little carried away, which might have resulted in him growing over-confident in his ability over his quirk, which might have led him to start training sessions without an advisor watching over him.

Those impromptu training sessions might have gone a little too well, which might have made him want to train more, so he might have started sneaking out of the house at night to train at a nearby park, which might have eventually led residents near the park and some heroes to believe a villain was attacking.

That might have ended up with Izuku arrested for, not villainous activity, but illegal quirk usage and the police might have called the Jiros, which might have resulted in serious scoldings.

After they were done with him, they might have called up Uncle Shota, Uncle Hizashi and Aunt Emi, who might have given him their own tellings off, which might have earned him a three month house arrest / grounding and a six month ban from quirk training.

He was still allowed to attend his other classes and lessons, but let’s just say he slowed down considerably after that.

Back then, the only thing Izuku cared about was getting as much practise with his quirk as he could, but that didn’t lead to any ‘mature’ decisions Izuku could recognise.

Izuku was smart and certainly more level-headed than most kids his age, but maturity was not much present in his life.

What he realised it was, was his own form of logic and rationality and, granted his stunt with his training wasn’t very logical, it was still rooted in a pathway of thoughts Izuku had believed to make sense. 

“‘Zu, Are you so caught up about your parents you hate your birthday?” Kyoka asked quietly. Izuku sighed and shook his head, responding verbally after he realised Kyoka couldn’t see him.

“I don’t hate my birthday, Kyo-chan, I don’t think I could if I tried. It’s just - Mom and Dad were only ever rarely there for me on my birthday, they were either called in at the last minute or they had to take a shift, or they’d already made plans. I just thought they were busy, that was a better thought than ‘Mom and Dad can never make time for me’. I don’t express my emotions a lot, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, we love trash-talking the other kids because they’re scared of that part about you,” Kyoka responded quickly.

“I can still feel emotions, I think I’d be a zombie without them, but it’s like they’ve been muted, toned down, so I don’t feel the as strongly as others do, but whenever I start thinking about my birthday, the day my parents used to leave me alone at home or at daycare, and then the day when they died? It’s like everything - every one of my emotions starts trying to burst through my chest and I hate it, because I don’t understand what I’m feeling, never had to put a name to an emotion before,” he snorted quietly, his tone bitter, scared and grieving all at once.

Kyoka was quiet for a while after that. She was never so quiet for so long and Izuku had almost started to believe she’d left, if it weren’t for the outline of a tiny human outside his door.

“Izuku, do you want to leave your room and celebrate with us?” she asked eventually.

Izuku paused, thought about the question and finally, nodded.

He did want to celebrate with his Uncles, Aunt and the Jiros. He did want to see them, want to hear their voices, but the nameless emotions always threatened to burst out whenever he left the room and so he never did.

He told his sister as much and he ‘saw’ her outline nod.

“You have your violin with you, don’t you?” She asked again, rather abruptly this time. Izuku raised a quizzical eyebrow, but replied with an affirmative.

“Pack it into its case and follow me, I think I know how to help.” was her final instruction.

Completely perplexed and bewildered at this point, it was all Izuku could do just to follow her instructions, taking a deep breath and opening the door to his room quicker than his thoughts could persuade him not to.

Jiro’s smiling outline greeted him and inside his heart he started to feel as if he’d made the right choice, violin case clenched tightly in hand.

Izuku followed his sister down the hallway and up a set of discoloured, dusty stairs that seemed to creak with every step. He didn’t have much problem following her, what with the amount of plants the Jiros had bought.

It was a year after he had been taken in by the Jiros and had begun quirk training with the three pro heroes that he started to understand his quirk.

One of those understandings was the fact that all his enhanced and increased senses – and his ability to ‘see’ outlines of people and objects – relied on the amount of earth, plants or soil nearby.

He also discovered that the type of ‘earth’ he could manipulate relied on one’s understanding of what ‘earth’ is.

Izuku, since he was learning the art of earthbending from Toph - or the earth’s memories of the master earthbender, classified ‘earth’ as the ground beneath his feet. He believed it to be soil and dirt, but conceded the fact that plants and trees and flowers, anything that grew from the earth, excluding what you could eat, like veggies, were also often classified under the term ‘earth’.

What this meant for Izuku was that his senses increased - his ability to see outlines of people, places and objects, feel, hear and smell, by the amount of houseplants, soil, dirt or even trees or flowers were near him or his immediate location, even though he could only manipulate the ground, soil, not trees or plants.

It was weird and complicated and illogical, but Uncle Shota was always talking about how quirks were weird and complicated and illogical to begin with.

Once he’d told Uncle Kyotako and Aunt Mika this, the two adults had gone and layered their house with little plants and flowers so Izuku’s ability to ‘see’ was always sharp.

“This is us,” Kyoka snapped Izuku out of his thoughts again, startled to see an empty expanse of white cloud and mist right where the edge of the house’s outline ended.

“Are we on the roof?” he asked, somewhat incredulously. He’d raised an eyebrow at her - she knew their parentals didn’t like it when she took him somewhere he couldn’t return from easily and the roof had always been a banned zone, even if Kyoka had been there by herself.

“Yup - and not a word about how Mom and Dad hate it when I go up here - that also means no pointing out the fact that me bringing you here is a probably terrible idea,” Kyoka rattled off calmly.

Izuku sighed and shook his head at her.

“Okay, fine, but if Aunt Mika and Uncle Kyotako asked, I never knew we’d be going someplace they’d banned us from.”

“Oh don’t worry, you had no choice in the matter. Here, repeat after me: I have no choice in the matter,” she droned, her smile growing sharp and cheeky. Izuku sighed again.

“I have no choice in the matter,” he said wearily, “now will you tell me why we’re here - and why me bringing my violin was a good idea?”

“Okay, it’s a little past dawn, but it’s still early enough in the morning that the sun shouldn’t have reached its peak yet.”

“Kyo-chan, it’s only 10:12,” Izuku deadpanned, his head turning to face her.

As far as he knew, they were both facing the sun, their backs to the house mostly behind them, but Izuku was now looking at Kyoka and as much as she loved her brother, she still found it a little unsettling to have a blind boy know exactly where she was.

“Whenever I have too many emotions - too many things I want to feel, to say, Mom and Dad tell me I should play one of my instruments, or sing, to get out everything I feel, because sometimes you feel too much, you can’t put it in words.”

“You brought me up here to play out my feelings because there aren’t enough words to express my emotions?” Izuku questioned skeptically.

Kyoka gave him a flat look and Izuku sighed, kneeling down to unstrap his violin from its case.

“Just so you know, if this doesn’t work, you’re taking the blame for why we’re up here when the parentals banned us from being up here,” Izuku grumbled, before taking up his bow, set his violin in position and bow on strings and drew out the first note of a melody he’d played a hundred times over.

It was by no means a simple song - it was long and filled with processions of short notes in quick order, followed by several long, drawn-out notes to produce a sharp, sad song filled with all the emotion Izuku had poured into it, his unseeing eyes closed as a light smile crossed his face.

Kyoka watched him with a smile of her own, the stunning music played without a pause, stutter or mistake, played almost as  if it were second nature. The music was loud and sweet and sad and she doubted Izuku even felt the tears running down his cheeks.

He played with all his heart, the sharp, sweet and depressing melody under the streaming morning sunlight, though she didn’t account for how loud the playing would be and the crowd forming on the pavements outside their house was definitely going to signal to her parents - if the playing wasn’t signal enough.

Eventually, Izuku played the final note, letting it draw out and hang in the crisp air and all was silent - for half a second.

“Play it again!”

“Dude, that was epic!”

“Can you play an Attack on Titan theme song?”

“Do bluebird!”

“Mommy, can he play for my birthday party?”

“Midoriya Izuku and Jiro Kyoka! What are you two doing on the roof!” came Mika’s annoyed voice.

The two children yelped, scrambling to get down from the roof, much to the amusement and disappointment of the rather sizable crowd they’d managed to gather.

They made it down from the roof, into the dusty attic, down the creaky wooden steps to stop in front of Mika and Kyotako.

Neither adult looked happy.

“What have we told you about climbing onto the roof?” Mika asked them both, frowning at them as only a disappointed parent would.

“I told you we’d get in trouble,” Izuku hissed at his sister

“Izu, if you knew that, why did you follow Kyoka?” Kyotako asked with a sigh. The most he could offer to that question was a shrug of his shoulders - something neither parent appreciated.

“Could you at least tell us what you were doing up there?” Mika relented, herding the children to the couches in the living room of the first floor.

“‘Zu said he had too many emotions and that words were stupid, so I told him to play and the best place for him to do that was the roof,” Kyoka muttered, slumping on an armchair guiltily.

Kyotako and Mika looked at Izuku, who nodded sheepishly.

Mika sighed deeply, massaging her forehead with a hand in exasperation.

“Even so, please warn us the next time you try that, guys, you scared us,” Kyotako replied for Mika. “In any case, Happy Birthday, Izu, we’ve been waiting to say that for five years,” the man grinned, reaching over to Izuku from where he sat and ruffled his hair fondly.

Izuku gave a shy smile. Kyoka had been right, as much as he hated to admit it.

The emotions that had bogged him down before felt like they’d just evaporated into thin air.

For the first time in five years, Izuku felt like he could really, truly enjoy Nothing Day.

Chapter Text

Two weeks after Nothing day, or rather, his Birthday, Izuku found his life slowly but surely changing around him.

The first of those changes actually began on Nothing day; his first real celebration of his birthday with the Jiros and Uncle Shota, Uncle ‘Zashi and Aunt Emi, the latter two of which smothered him in hugs and presents.

His previously grey and mostly-dull coloured room, seeing as Izuku couldn’t see colours, he didn’t really care what his room looked like, was now bursting with reds, greens, purples, yellows, dark greys and deep turquoises - alongside the silvers, golds and browns of his numerous instruments.

Izuku had asked what the point of having a colourful room was when you couldn’t see colour, but Uncle Sho had just told him to let Aunt Emi and Uncle ‘Zashi work, because they couldn’t be dissuaded, apparently.

That was another change in his life.

‘Uncle Shota’ had become ‘Uncle Sho’ and Izuku loved it.

The three heroes had only grown closer to Izuku after he showed for his birthday celebration - with Aunt Emi especially. She had gradually started leaving Uncle Sho alone to pester Izuku instead and though he thought she was annoying as heck, Izuku had to admit, if he expressed emotions as one normally did, she would have gotten him long ago.

As it was, all the smile hero received from him was a bland stare and a raised eyebrow.

She never stopped trying though, and an ‘every couple of days’ visit turned into a ‘once every two days’ visit.

There was more, though, that happened in the last two weeks.

For one, Izuku had found a friend - Kyoka too, but they fought like cats and dogs.

Izuku had also, amazingly enough, had started to earn some money not from the Jiros, the three pro heroes or Kaori-sensei. It turned out, playing a not-beginner violin song practically perfectly on the top of his house for all the street to hear was a brilliant way to be hired by people who wanted entertainment for parties and other events.

It started with one comment from one little girl and suddenly their family was contacting the Jiros in hopes of hiring Izuku as a party entertainer.

After that hit – And Izuku showing off a few of the many, many instruments he could play, one family after the next asked him to perform at their kids’ or relatives’ parties.

That number of people, interestingly enough, increased somewhat once people learned about Izuku’s blindness.

One of the events Izuku was hired to play at was as an accompanist to a drama club’s play at one of the public elementary schools near where the Jiros lived.

Later, Izuku found out the club had to beg their advisor to allow this and that it was the club’s advisor who’d contacted the Jiros, but that was where, out of all the places, Izuku and Kyoka found their first friend outside of each other.

It was bright, sunny - it was storming, actually.

Nah, it was sunny.

The day started off brilliantly and after roughly a week of practising the songs the club wanted him to play, Izuku was dragging Kyoka around the house as he rushed to finish preparing for the play that afternoon. She was getting sick of it, after a few hours and smacked him over the head to get him to calm down. 

“You’ve been preparing for this stupid play ever since those kids asked you to play in their play last week!” she snapped, dragging him to the couch and forcing him to drop his backpack full of notebooks, sheet music and his pencil-case and carefully deposit his violin case on the ground by his feet.

Izuku pouted, but did as she ordered anyway, sinking into the couch by her side.

“I can’t help it, Kyo-chan, I’ve never done something like this before.”

“You’ve performed in front of a crowd, though, why’s this any different?” she questioned, confused.

“Yeah, but I’m usually the main attraction, this time, I need to coordinate with the drama club. We’ve never even tried this before, which is rather silly, to be honest, but I’ve memorised my cues and when I need to enter and exit and the script, but I hope this goes well,” he confessed.

“You’ll do fine, Izuku, you’ve been playing those songs like a madman, nonstop, since you got the sheet music. You’ve done all you can, now you have to trust the drama geeks to get it right - they asked for this, after all,” Kyoka told him. “Besides, isn’t that why we’re arriving at Musutafu Elementary early - to practise timing with the club.” They talked and – tried – laughing to distract Izuku from the slowly-advancing time, until Mika and Kyotako finally announced it was time to leave.

Izuku was up, out of the house and in the car faster than the Jiros could walk out the front door and, in his haste, almost left his violin in the house. Kyoka wouldn’t leave him alone after that stunt; she wouldn’t forget either, if Izuku knew her at all.

It felt like the drive was agonisingly slow, to Izuku, but it was in no time at all that they arrived at the school and showed to the gym by a young man with spiked silver hair and a slightly shiny sheen to his skin.

His eyes were watery blue and he was dressed in a loose chequered shirt tucked into fading blue jeans.

“...Are you sure he’s a teacher?” Kyoka asked incredulously - and loudly. 

“More of an advisor for the clubs, but I am a teaching Assistant for Maehara-sensei,” he grinned.

Izuku elbowed Kyoka in the ribs to get her to be quiet, but she only glared at him in return and continued asking her questions. The man answered them all smoothly, as if he’d answered them a hundred times before.

In hindsight, he probably had, seeing as he was an elementary school assistant teacher.

Kids were curious, Izuku knew, he himself having been hounded by the kids he entertained at birthday parties about himself and his quirk. The man – Izuku had to ask for his name, this was getting ridiculous – led them around the school until they arrived at the gym where the kids in the club were to perform in.

It was a Saturday, which meant most of the other kids were still in morning classes and the play would begin about a half hours after classes ended to give parents and guardians time to arrive and make their way over to the gym.

The drama kids had been excused from class to set up and prepare the stage for the play.

It also meant Izuku and Kyoka were pulled from class to help out.

The gym, when they entered, was full of mostly-coloured props and sewn costumes.

The play the club was supposed to be putting on was a sort of ‘Robin Hood meets Little Red Riding Hood’ thing, in which Little Red is devoured by the wolf, but instead of a woodcutter saving her, Robin Hood did.

He and his Merry Men heard the commotion as they were fleeing through the forest from the Sheriff of Nottingham and saves Little Red.

Bonding over their love of cloaks – albeit with different colours – Little Red joins Robin and becomes a thief and a Merry Man, eventually becoming Robin Hoods’ Second in Command and takes over leading them once Robin dies.

She becomes known as ‘Red Hood’ in honour of Robin Hood and rescues the people of England from King John’s reign as Robin Hood once wished to do. It was interesting enough and the combat scenes were well-scripted, but Izuku guessed they needed something extra to make it perfect, which was where he and his violin came in.

Loud, fast-paced and energetically tense music for combat and action scenes and slow, quiet, sad music for scenes like Robin Hood’s death and funeral.

The man – who’d finally introduced himself as Miyakura Ioto – weaved and wound them through the props and costumes to where children, who looked to range anywhere from eight to twelve years old, sat near, around and on-stage.

Several appeared to be re-reading through the script and others acting on the stage, meanwhile more were in the background, arranging scenery props and laying items like swords, flowers, arrows and even a couple bottles of fake blood around the wings of the stage and on the stage itself.

“Gareisawa, the musician’s here!” Iota called out. All at once, any and every action around and on the stage halted, eyes flickering over to Izuku and the Jiros. 

“At last! We have been awaiting your arrival!” cried a slightly tall girl with glowing ginger hair gathered in a ponytail high on her head.

She was dressed in an unusual set of hose, breeches and tunic underneath a bright crimson cloak, the hood down. A plastic quiver of fake plastic arrows was looped over one shoulder and opposite hip.

She leapt nimbly from the stage and rushed over to where Izuku and Kyoka stood, Mika and Kyotako a few paces behind them. Her eyes shone with delight as she positively beamed at them.

“It is fate that you should be here today! After all, when we saw you performing at Yosei’s party like a natural, I made the expert decision to hire you on! Our showcase of talent shan’t be complete without your playing!” she babbled with an eager grin.

Izuku was unfazed, having faced down both Uncle ‘Zashi and Aunt Emi at the same time before and won, but Kyoka backed up a little, squinting at the energy the girl seemed to give off.

“Introductions, Gareisawa, then straight into rehearsals, we don’t have much time before the people start arriving and the gym has to be cleared of all this before then,” Iota reminded her. Quick as a flash, Gareisawa straightened up, completely unbothered with her enthusiasm.

“Right, I am the brilliant and fearless Gareisawa Yuika, president of the dramatic, enthusiastic, completely bombastic drama and theatre club and the peasants behind me are but my minions in the cause of raining a performance meant to delight on our poor, unsuspecting audience!” she posed dramatically and spoke without pause as the rest of the kids in the club groaned and rolled their eyes.

One blonde boy snickered quietly to himself. Izuku’s eyes landed on him and stayed there. He stepped forwards not long after, bowing with a flourish and an elegance unexpected for a kid – a boy, no less – Izuku’s and Kyoka’s age. 

“It is a pleasure to meet a jongleur such as yourself, and that you would give us aid in the form of your talents in our dark times is a fact we shall strive to repay. I am Monoma Neito, my dear Lady Yuika’s second in Command and fellow lover of drama,” he said.

Kyoka backed up a little more, while Izuku merely sighed. He glanced sightlessly at the outlines of the other kids, again rolling their eyes at Monoma’s bold statement.

“Will they listen if I introduce myself normally, or…” he left the question hanging. A few of the other kids managed grins and Izuku heard a few snorts around the stage.

“Outside of the theatre and stage, yeah they would, but in here, everyone has to speak like they live in the pre-quirk olden days or neither Monoma-kun or Yuika-san will listen,” someone helpfully pointed out.

Izuku sighed again, already wishing he was somewhere else.

“This is a waste of time, you know that, right?” he called out.

“Then you better get on with it!” another kid yelled back.

Izuku had no doubt they were all smiling.

“Greetings to thee, my Lady Yuika and you, Lord Neito. It is my pleasure to offer you and your party of entertainers of the arts and my services. You may call me Midoriya Izuku, simple Jongleur and musician of the old instruments. The good Lady behind me is my dearest Sister, Jiro Kyoka and with her are her Sir and Madam, my Aunt, Lady Mika and my Uncle, the good Lord Kyotako. Might I request we commence the rehearsal to what, I have no doubt, will be a stunning masterpiece?” he rattled off smoothly.

The drama and theatre club kids had fallen silent completely, by this point and Izuku was absolutely sure all eyes were once again on him, but he supposed if Monoma’s were too, he didn’t mind as much.

Even the unshakeable Gareisawa seemed to have frozen slightly, which Kyoka took no pause in reporting to Izuku. Behind him, he was sure Mika and Kyotako were grinning widely at him, before their attention was captured.

“Alright, the main introductions have been completed, the rest of you introduce yourselves to Midoriya in your free time - we have a show to put on, let’s move it, people!” Ioto scattered them like ninepins as the kids rushed to tidy up the gym space and position themselves for the first rehearsal’s beginning.

It did not go well.

Because Izuku was to be a part of the play, essentially, he was made to put on a costume of his own and while Izuku was fine with it, the costume inevitably looked like a dress instead of the grass-green, flowing outfit and veil it was supposed to be.

And who knew trying to figure out timing and entrance and exit cues would be difficult with only outlines as his basis?

As such, not only was his timing off, but the actors kept getting confused and forgetting their lines, stumbling over each other and generally making a mess out of the play while Kyoka sat with Mika and Kyotako on a fold-up chair laughing at the failure that was the play rehearsal.

Not usually one to get wound up, Izuku found himself promising revenge on Kyoka when they finished with the play. Thankfully, though, they still had about an hour and a half until morning classes finished and slightly longer than that to start making their way into the gym.

After several more rehearsals, the play came together and flowed without many mistakes at all. Kyoka fell silent sometime during the third rehearsal and was enraptured by the time they had to start getting ready for the live performance.

It made Izuku want to smirk, but he didn’t, because he knew Kyoka believed it would work out the entire time.

Ioto and the club soon got to work, setting out fold-up chairs and mats at the front for their audience, tidying up the stage before the very first audience members started arriving. It wasn’t long after that, that the gym was filled and the play ready to begin - the actors too.

None of them had any idea Izuku was there at all, in fact he had been hidden away at his choice, not wanting to be known to the audience to keep the magic of the story alive. The play began with violin music so quiet the audience couldn’t hear it, but as Izuku grew the sound and the curtains lifted and lights brightened that the audience fell excitedly silent, anticipating the reveal of the musician.

Except that didn’t happen and the story opened with Gareisawa as Little Red Riding Hood being eaten by a younger member of the club, which the audience found hilarious. A small, tiny boy pretending to eat a girl almost a head taller than himself, comedy gold.

The story progressed brilliantly, from vibrant, fast-paced action scenes to the softer, more emotional bonding moments between Robin and Little Red, Gareisawa’s character’s name up until she assumed the name ‘Red Hood’ at Robin’s death.

Monoma, fascinatingly enough, was chosen to play Robin Hood and although Izuku couldn’t enjoy the play to its fullest, the way Monoma played the role made Izuku want to follow the story just as closely as the audience did, but he had his own job, he reminded himself, pulling a sharp, distinct high note from his violin and plunged automatically into the last battle scene between the sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood and Little Red and the Merry Men before Robin’s tragic death.

The audience was caught between curiosity and intrigue, the mystery violinist’s music always present, yet not a sign of them at all.

The play drew to a glorious end with the freedom of the people of England and Red Hood being laid to rest near Robin Hood as her duties as the leader of the Merry Men and Robin’s wishes were finally complete.

The aftermath of Izuku’s decision to stay hidden was not properly thought out, he realised, as all exits to the gym were blocked off by the crowd demanding to know who he was. 

“You seem to be stuck, Midoriya,” Monoma grinned at him. Izuku shot him an annoyed sideways glance, but the boy only laughed lowly

“I jest, just a joke, but you are stuck. You don’t want to be discovered and they want to know who you are, my, my, what a pickle", he teased.

“Do you have to do this now?” Izuku asked him, irritated. Monoma danced around Izuku, who closed the door that led from the changing rooms behind the stage to the gym harshly. The boy seemed full of humour and cheekiness, because his teasing of Izuku didn’t end there.

“Now, if only you knew of someone so kind and helpful, who knew the school and could get you out of here without being seen by the crowd, what would you do for that?” Monoma laughed, smirking annoyingly at Izuku. The blind boy sighed, eyeing Monoma.

“You can help?”

“For a price. I want your phone number.”

“Why?” Izuku asked, now thoroughly confused. Monoma paused, frowning at Izuku.

“Obviously I’d want my new friends’ number,” he replied.

“Oh. Didn’t know that. Are we friends? I just met you.” Izuku told him.

For all of his knowledge of pretty much anything logical, he was inept at reading social cues and interacting with people who didn’t automatically hate him.

Monoma must have picked that up, because the wide, teasing grin slowly replaced the frown on his face and he clapped a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. 

“Not to worry, my new friend, I shall teach you everything you need to know, then we shall prove our superiority over the society that holds us back, hahahahaha!” Monoma laughed.

“Why would we need to do that?” the question from Izuku made Monoma pause in his demonic laughter.

“To - t - to, uh, make people eat their words?” the answer came out as more of a question.

“Let them laugh, they’ll be eating their words when we become heroes,” Izuku snorted. “Trust me when I tell you people will only listen to what they want to hear. You need to force people to listen, make them see they were wrong. Win in silence until then and make them think we’re losing,” he said.

“How did you know I want to be a hero?” Monoma asked, startled.

“ Every kid our age wants to become a hero. It’s all they think about. I’m no different, but I, at least, have been working towards that goal.”

“I see, interesting. Come with me for now, you don’t want to be spotted, right? There’s a back door behind the stage in one of the wings, people use it all the time to get out of here unseen,” Monoma told him.

Izuku nodded and they traded numbers, then ran off in search of the door.

After a successful exit, Izuku met up with the Jiros and they left the school, Mika declaring they’d eat out to celebrate a job well done. They’d let Izuku pick the restaurant, but were uncertain how to progress with his silence otherwise.

The car ride to their eating spot was mostly quiet, with a few murmurs of conversation from Aunt Mika and Uncle Kyotako. Until Izuku’s voice spoke up softly from the back of the car.

“I think I made a friend today,” he remarked and the car fell silent completely.

“What?!” Kyoka screeched, spinning around in her seat, her eyes bulging as she gawked at him.

“Mhmn. Monoma, he cornered me in the changing rooms backstage when the audience accidentally trapped me in, bribed me for my number in return for a safe exit and promptly declared us friends. He’s like Uncle ‘Zashi, except more cynical and sly,” Izuku explained simply.

“ Woah ,” Kyoka breathed, a grin playing on her lips. “You get the attention of everyone , don’t you?” 

“It’s not like I planned for that to happen, you know. It’s not my fault I’m socially incompetent and most of our conversation flew over my head,” he protested mildly, not even panic crossing his blank face.

“But that guy? Seriously?” Kyoka exclaimed.

Izuku nodded.

“Somehow, I made a friend. I even gave him my cell number.” Izuku paused, then cocked his head to one side, curiously. “I wonder how a blind person texts, anyway.”

“Really, ‘Zu? There’s such a thing as voice messages,” Kyoka groaned with exasperation. Izuku shot her a bland look, one eyebrow raised in calm question.

“And you, someone as socially inept as I am and who has just as many friends as I do can relate?” Kyoka flushed, scowling.

Okay, so she didn’t have any friends - or a real need to text, but she knew how cell phones worked, stupid foster brother.

“Fine, I’ll accept him, but I want to meet him first,” Kyoka declared. If he plans on hurting my brother at all, he’s getting jacked in the face , she added silently in her thoughts.

She raised her earphone jacks threateningly and Izuku sighed, already guessing at what was passing through her head. Mika and Kyotako merely grinned at each other, before telling Izuku and Kyoka to shelve the conversation for later.

They had a filling lunch at a cosy little restaurant near their house, then headed home. There, Izuku managed to ask Monoma for his parents’ numbers, so Mika – because she didn’t trust Kyotako to not harass the family – could set up a meeting between Izuku, Kyoka and Monoma. It went about as well as expected.

“Midoriya! Good to see you, my friend, on this day!” Monoma cried as he and his parents were led into the Jiros’ living room.

“It’s good to see you, too, Monoma,” Izuku replied.

From her place at Izuku’s side, Kyoka glared at Monoma suspiciously.

Her brother was amazing, kind and strong. He was her best friend and no dramatic, loud blonde was going to take him away from her, not if she could help it.

“I hope you remember my sister, Jiro Kyoka?” Izuku asked almost hopefully.

“Right, the one who came with you to our performance,” Monoma’s face scrunched up slightly. Izuku prayed Kyoka didn’t take offence at that. Kyoka took offence.

“And I remember you too, blackmail’s low for the vice President of a drama club,” she sneered.

“Behave, Kyo-chan,” Izuku whispered into her ear resignedly.

“I don’t trust him, ‘Zu,” Kyoka hissed back, glaring at Monoma. Izuku sighed, then turned to his guardians. 

“We’ll be in my room if you need us, but if you hear yelling, it’s safe to say Kyo-chan attacked Monoma,” he said, deadpan.

Monoma’s parents looked slightly miffed at his sentence, but Mika and Kyotako nodded their understanding, even if they had to hide smiles behind hands. As Izuku, Monoma and Kyoka left for the stairs, Mika and Kyotako turned to Monoma’s parents.

“Sorry about our daughter, she’s fiercely protective of Izuku, a lot of other kids don’t exactly like the two, so they’re practically the only friends they have. Neito-kun’s sudden announcement of friendship between him and Kyoka didn’t go over so well,” Mika apologised with a sheepish smile.

“It’s alright, we understand Neito can come off as a little strange, but he does genuinely want to be friends with Izuku-kun. I’m not sure about Kyoka-chan, though, I think he sees her as a sort of rival,” Monoma’s mother replied with a laugh of her own. “I’m Monoma Hibiki and this is my husband, Monoma Arai, it’s nice to meet you officially,” Hibiki smiled, bowing to Mika and Kyotako. Arai nodded with a bow of his own.

“Well then, now that we’ve got that sorted, why don’t we continue this chat over some tea and snacks? The kids might be up there a while,” Kyotako grinned, gesturing towards the kitchen.

“That sounds lovely, thank you for the invitation,” Arai replied, flashing a small smile of his own.

Monoma Hibiki was a petite woman, slim and slender and oh so short compared to her mammoth of a husband. They both had the same twinkling blue eyes, but Hibiki’s hair was a pale blonde and Arai’s a very light blue.

The conversation between the four adults proceeded amicably, Arai, the quiet giant he was, chimed in every once in a while, but no more than a few words or so, content to let Hibiki do the talking.

Kyotako and Mika took turns speaking and all of them thought highly of the other set of parents, thankfully.

Hibiki and Arai agreed the Jiros were friendly, kind people who wouldn’t turn out to be quirkist and the Jiros thought the Monoma's were interesting and good people who wouldn’t turn out to be ablest.

Each set of parents’ thoughts only solidified when footsteps could be heard descending the stairs and Izuku walked into the kitchen with his usual blank expression.

“Izuku? What’s going on, shouldn’t you be upstairs with Kyo and Neito-kun?” Mika asked in confusion.

Izuku merely shrugged.

“They kicked me out, said they wanted to talk to each other alone, so I’m making myself useful and getting us some tea and snacks. By the way, Neito showed me his quirk.” Izuku turned to Hibiki and Arai, who stiffened ever so slightly. Was their boy’s new friend quirkist?

“He’s got one of the coolest quirks I’ve ever seen. He can copy my quirk without any of my side- effects, even if it’s on a weaker scale. He can copy my quirk.” Izuku turned to the Jiros. “And still see. Coolest. Quirk. Ever.” he said without hesitance.

Mika’s and Kyotako’s eyes widened. This was perhaps the most emotion Izuku had bothered to show to someone he didn’t know all that well and first names already? That boy was a definite keeper.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘he can copy my quirk and still see?” Hibiki questioned, her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

Arai’s did the same, then his expression cleared as if he realised the answer. He turned to Izuku, who’s face became guarded at the unintentional slip-up. 

“I believe this makes your parents’ explanation a little clearer. Little Neito’s had to face the same problem, except over his quirk. I’m sure he appreciated the positive  reaction," he said quietly.

Izuku nodded, relaxing again.

“He did, just as I appreciated the lack of reaction from him over my eyes.”

“What do you mean, your - oh. That explains why he warmed up to you so fast,” Hibiki grimaced.

Both sets of parents turned to each other and grinned happily. 

“Discrimination sucks.” Mika snorted.

“It does indeed,” Hibiki laughed.

“I think that much is clear,” Izuku said mildly. He glanced up at the roof, pausing in his activities in the kitchen. “Do you think they’ll damage my instruments in their argument?”

“If they do, it’s coming out of their allowance,” Mika and Hibiki chimed together.

“Those two will be in debt for years,” Kyotako and Arai muttered to themselves, clutching their heads sadly. Izuku nodded wisely and kept quiet, wondering if this was the beginning of having two sets of the same parents.

He glanced up at the ceiling again, and seeing everything was quiet, shrugged and returned to his duties.

He’d been asked to remain downstairs for the time being and not be present for their argu - er, conversation, in that many words and less.

Monoma was polite.

His sister, on the other hand, not so much.

“Me and Mr. Dramatic over there need to talk. Go downstairs and no checking on us with your time damned Overpowered quirk, understand?” she demanded.

Izuku didn’t have a problem with it, so he left them alone. In his room. With his precious instruments.

All.

Of.

Them.

Izuku sighed.

He was going to regret this, wasn’t he?

Jiro Kyoka, Monoma Neito thought, was possibly the best sister his first – and only, Monoma was in denial – friend could have ever had.

He could see it in the way she stood, straight- backed, defiant, glaring at him, and in the way she spoke of him.

To be honest, when they requested (Read: Demanded ) privacy from Izuku so they could talk, he hadn’t really expected her stout questioning in defence of her brother.

What made it even more admirable was that the two weren’t biological siblings in the slightest.

He’d learnt a lot from Izuku about the green- haired boy’s situation over texts and the odd call.

Kyoka and her parents were just his music teachers before Izuku’s parents died in two separate car accidents on the same day ( really, what were the odds, if that wasn’t suspicious he didn’t know what was ). They took him in only so Izuku didn’t have to go into foster care and even then, Kyoka didn’t have to see him as a brother at all, but she did.

Izuku was her brother and Kyoka Izuku’s sister.

Their dynamic intrigued him greatly.

Izuku was usually calm, organised, unable to be flustered under most circumstances. He kept a level head and a blank face. Izuku had said he really didn’t understand emotions all that well and it had been that way since he was a kid.

Kyoka, on the other hand, was a revolving door of expressions and emotions.

She wore her heart on her sleeve and her thoughts on her face. She was smart and full of sarcastic retorts and snarky replies. She was a wall of stone on the outside and a marshmallow inside.

For all her love of rock and dark clothes and lighting, Izuku had told him of her love of sprinkles and plushies, of the soul and emotion she poured into her singing and the love she exuded when she looked at or played one of her own collection of instruments.

Monoma stared at her, his bright blue eyes sharp and his smirk dangerous, taunting.

Kyoka’s scowl deepened and Monoma knew he’d pissed her off.

“‘Zu’s gone now, and he doesn’t break his word unless it’s for the greater good, so spill. What do you want with my brother?” she practically growled.

Monoma raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t have many friends, do you?” he asked bluntly. Kyoka flushed red, glaring at him and then jabbing one of her jacks into his side.

Monoma yelped, pulling away from her.

Now it was his turn to glare.

“That was uncalled for.”

“And you didn’t answer the question. What do you want with my brother?”

“I want to be his friend, Harmony knows he needs one,” he muttered the last part to himself, but Kyoka’s earphone jacks didn’t only grant her instant wireless headphones, it also gave her enhanced hearing she couldn’t exactly turn off.

It was the gift and curse of mutant quirks.

“Harmony? And he has me, I should be enough,” Kyoka glared at him.

Monoma sighed patronisingly, shaking his head and trying hard not to laugh.

“Jiro, you can’t be Midoriya’s only friend forever, that won’t work and it won’t happen. Believe me when I say that apparently not everyone our age is the equivalent of human garbage.

Kyoka gave a snort of amusement before she could stop herself and her eyes widened.

She narrowed her eyes at Monoma.

“So you’re not out to bully or hurt Izuku?”

“Of course not. I want to be his friend because he needs one just as much as I do and,” Monoma’s eyes fell softly on Kyoka, “I think you might need one, too.”

Chapter Text

Kyoka’s eyes widened for a moment, her mouth falling open.

That was not what she was expecting to hear from the kid who’d taken a liking to her brother.

She needed a friend too?

She was fine, she had Izuku, they didn’t need… okay, she could kind of see what he meant. But was it really their fault? No-one else would look past their quirks or, more correctly, Izuku’s eyes and Kyoka’s willingness and eagerness to stick by his side.

Her ‘weak’ mutant quirk didn’t exactly help either.

At school, Izuku was that one blind kid who wanted to be a hero and Kyoka was his freak sister.

They weren’t bullied, not quite, but being ignored or whispered about in the halls where they could hear and do nothing about wasn’t a fun experience. Teachers couldn’t do a lot about that though, they couldn’t punish kids for talking or having opinions.

That had mostly stopped after Parents’ Day, but the memories remained and both Kyoka and Izuku could do without them.

Parents’ Day was an event their school hosted every year where parents and guardians of the children got to come along and view the activities and lessons their kids took part in.

It was usually meant to be a fun event in which classes turned into half-days so the afternoons could be used for fun and games.

Children paired up with their parents and guardians to tackle sports’ day games and the like. There were prizes and trophies for both the class who had done the best or most and the student and their parents who’d won or earned the most amount of prizes.

It was split up per year level and usually a very successful event - and usually three pro heroes didn’t show up to watch over one of the children.

Damn, that was a laugh, Kyoka thought to herself, hiding a grin that was bubbling up. She glanced at Monoma, who had been standing and waiting for her to answer. She sighed, running her hand through her hair.

“Neither ‘Zu or I are used to having people who want to be friends with us just because, him especially. A lot of kids at school focus on either his quirk or his eyes and want to use him or make fun of him. That means they either push me aside or try to get Izuku to hate me. It never works ‘cause he’s my brother, but genuine friendship’s something we aren’t used to so forgive me if I come off a little closed off and protective.”

“It’s nothing to be sorry for, I’d be the same way if I had a brother or sister, but seeing as I’m an only child, bullies can run scot free and I didn’t have anyone to stand up for me before Yui-chan showed up and recruited me to the drama club. Now people just avoid the ‘two weird Drama nerds’.”

“I get that, I don’t think a lot of people would like a copy quirk. It got better for us after Parents’ Day.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it was hilarious. Let me tell you the story…”

School was as boring as ever, nothing much happening at all as our English teacher droned on and on about prefixes and suffixes.

Izuku was fluent and myself almost so, thanks to friends.

We have seats side-by-side so we can help each other out - only now we used it to pass messages in code back and forth. The teachers actually found it hilarious we had our own code and secret language.

The deal was we could message each other, but we also had to pay attention to the lesson and if we were caught we had to read the code out to the class.

Anyway, the day was ending and we were in english class.

We finished the lesson, when the teacher stopped us from leaving and gave us an announcement and a piece of paper to hand to our parents. A lot of the kids were excited - Parents’ day happened every year.

“As most of you know, Parents’ Day is next week, hand these out to your parents and start preparing something special to show off to them. Class dismissed - Jiro, Midoriya, stay behind for a moment.”

“What’s up, teach?” I asked after the rest of the class had filtered out of the room.

“Since Midoriya’s being fostered by your family, have you made arrangements on which parent will accompany which one of you?”

“I don’t -”

“Mom, Dad and I will sort something out, we have an idea around this sort of thing, though you might want to inform the class that heroes will be present for Parents’ Day this year,” I grinned.

The teacher stared at me for a second, before sighing.

“Yeah, that’s valid. You Jiros haven’t stopped messing with this school since your parents attended our halls.”

“Just to let you know, Sir, I claim plausible deniability,” Izuku spoke up bluntly. The teacher sighed again, grimacing.

" I thought you might, your purple gremlin sister’s more likely to cause trouble without telling you than she is to tell you about her plans. This is exactly how Mika found Kyotako,” he groaned.

“Don’t worry Sir, Kyo-chan and I are way too gay to ever fall for each other,” Izuku replied without a pause or change in expression.

“Of course you are,” the teacher accepted plainly.

“Is that all, Sir?” I asked. He nodded, his face pained.

“Yes, but please don’t cause too much of a fuss at Parents’ Day, please.”

“Don’t worry, Sir, we won’t.” We left the classroom to quiet grumblings and wishes for alcohol and I was happy, I knew Parents’ Day was going to be brilliant.

A week passed by quickly enough and both Izuku and I were ready to show our stuff.

We entered the classroom on the awaited day and it was like a buzz of fun and excitement had taken over the school. Part of that was the event itself was popular with the kids, but another part of that was the rumour of heroes attending Parents’ day.

Mom and Dad came in with us and joined the rest of the parents of the kids who were in class already.

One of the boys nudged Izuku a little too roughly in the side.

“Hey, Sightless, where are your set of freaks,” he sniggered.

Sightless is one of Izuku’s stupid bullies’ nicknames for him. Seeing as it’s a parody of Toothless, it doesn’t bother us too much.

“They’ll be here soon. Uncle ‘Zashi and Uncle Sho just need to pick up Aunt Emi. They’ll be here before first bell,” Izuku replied calmly.

T he boy backed off inhumanely quickly and we both knew why.

Izuku’s composure during times when people aren’t exactly composed scared the scrap out of everyone at school, not just our year.

As the time kept ticking ever closer to the start of the school day, more of our classmates and their parents arrived until everyone was present.

The doors to the classroom were closed with a minute to first bell, when the doors slid open with a BANG and Fukukado Emi strolled in, wearing her full Ms. Joke hero uniform. She was followed by Hizashi, dressed to the nines in his hero persona, Present Mic, and Shota, in his scarf and jumpsuit, his hideous yellow goggles hanging around his neck.

Everyone stared.

Ever so slowly, Izuku turned around to look at me and with the straightest face he could muster, said:

“I told you they’d make a dramatic entrance, Jokey and Presentation Michaelangelo just can’t resist.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, three thousand yen,” I sighed.

Silence reigned until the class lost it.

“WHAT?”

“You know Pro Heroes?”

“Oh My Gosh, That’s Present Mic!”

“They know the Voice Hero, the Smile Hero and… some guy who looks homeless?”

“I think I heard a rumour about an Underground hero who runs around and looks like he’s homeless - that him?”

“Wow, ‘Zuku, do you have to tease me about my hero name too? These two are already bad enough,” Hizashi whined playfully.

“If you didn’t want me too, you should have come in incognito mode,” Izuku snorted homourlessly.

“I told them this would be a bad idea, but of course -”

“Of course they wouldn’t listen, Uncle Sho, it’s these two,” Izuku finished the hero’s sentence.

“Aw, you know you love us, Zuzu,” Emi pounced on Izuku, cuddling him and ruffling his hair. Izuku sighed and waited for the woman to get off of him, before turning to the front of the class. 

“We’re in school, Uncle Mic, Aunt Joke, behave yourselves otherwise I’ll hide the karaoke machine and dad joke book from you,” he threatened.

The two heroes fell silent in an instant while everyone except Aizawa, used to their antics, sweatdropped at the randomness of the working threats.

The second bell rang soon after and Parent’s Day officially began…

“And that’s the story of how Izuku and I scared our school into never bothering us outright again,” Kyoka said with a chuckle.

Monoma shook his head in exasperated fondness.

His two new friends either hated everyone or hated everyone and loved to torment them.

They were an interesting family, he thought, no-one was left out or alone.

Izuku was treated as a son and a brother and Monoma doubted he’d find better people to foster his friend.

Kyoka was a good sister, too, he hoped she’d allow their friendship to grow - oh, no doubt they’d be at each other’s throats every chance they could get, but that was the beauty of friendship.

“Wonderful,” Monoma said as he realised Kyoka had been waiting for him to speak, “I do believe we’ll all get along smoothly, then.”

“What do you mean, ‘get along’? As far as I’m concerned I can protect ‘Zu myself, I’m his best friend, his first friend, got it?”

“And I shall be his second. Besides, don’t you think that call’s for him to make, not you?” Monoma replied smugly. Kyoka gritted her teeth and growled through them, letting Monoma know he’d won that battle.

“Fine, but you better protect my brother, or so help me I’ll - I’ll - I’ll gut you, then skin you, then burn you alive!” Kyoka threatened him loudly.

Monoma snorted in amusement at her words, promising her that, yes, he was planning on protecting Izuku and no, he had no ulterior motives around the boy… yet.

And finally, after all their talking and yelling, agreeing and disagreeing, death threats and friendships formed, Kyoka and Monoma - Neito, he was Neito, now, Kyoka and Neito smirked at each other, Neito holding out a hand and Kyoka taking it.

They shook, once, twice, before solemnly vowing to forever protect Izuku and stick by him no matter what happened, not knowing all of the crazy events that would surround the trio.

They were oblivious to the friendships that would arise in the coming years, of the elements that were still to find wielders and that, even as Izuku looked into the core of the earth, reading its memories to learn and protect, that the person he found so curious, the person he was always watching and studying, well, she was watching back.

Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why, but his role model, aware of his presence and actions, aware of his situation and ability, was planning to help him become the best Earthbender he could be.

And if Toph was having just a little bit of fun confusing her friends over the continuous drills she’d run through, dissecting her weaknesses and fighting style? There wasn’t anyone who could prove it.

And after all of that, after everything that was going on upstairs in Izuku’s room, unbeknownst to him, the two came down, grinning like maniacs.

“Alright, what did you two gremlins do?” he asked with a sigh that dreaded their answer.

“We talked,” Kyoka began.

“And we discussed,” Neito took over.

“And we decided,” Kyoka finished.

“We shall be watching over you as we please and you can’t do anything to s top it,” they chanted together, gleefully watching as concealed horror took over Izuku’s expression.

“Hear hear!” cried two voices from the living room. Izuku almost groaned, what was going on now? Couldn’t anything be normal? 

“Um, Author? We need to talk,” Izuku muttered, turning away from his friends. 

No breaking the fourth wall, it’s expensive and you’re not the one paying for it.

“Then sort out this mess and we’ll be good, got it? Good,” Izuku muttered. He turned back towards Neito and Kyoka, who wore puzzled expressions on their faces.

Izuku met them with a cool, blank stare.

“I don’t know what that was, I don’t want to know, but good job,” Kyoka snorted, shaking her head.

“You saw nothing you can prove,” Izuku intoned far too robotically to sound innocent.

“Sure pal, whatever you would have us believe,” Neito laughed, patting Izuku on the back.

Soon after, Mika pooper her head around the door frame, smiling at the three kids. 

“Neito-kun, your parents told us they’d pick you up in a few hours. They had some shopping to get done, but if you would like, Kyo’s and Izu-kun’s Aunt and Uncles are here if you’d like to meet them.” she said.

Izuku lit up as much as he really could, which was the equivalent of wide eyes and an almost vibrating body.

Kyoka grinned as she heard the news - Uncle Shota, Uncle Hizashi and Aunt Emi were a ton of fun and she hadn’t seen them since last month’s Parents’ Day fiasco outside of Izuku’s supervised practises and training sessions.

Neito nodded, almost mystified at the responses from his two new friends and he wondered who they were that they would cause such a reaction.

Of course Kyoka told him about Present Mic, but he thought that was a joke.

There was no way The Present Mic would show up for a school event of a child that wasn’t his own, Neito didn’t think heroes did that for their kids. They were always too busy or too tired or too late to care much about what their child or children were up to, weren’t they?

There was a kid at his school who was a real rich asshole and he bragged about his parents meeting Endeavor to discuss a certain case the kid’s father was involved in.

The two got to talking, wondering how they were doing and what was new in their lives.

The mood grew sombre, the boy had said and the conversation simply ended there.

The boy had said Endeavor looked almost heartbroken, so maybe something happened to the Hero’s eldest, Todoroki Shoto? That had to be it, but why would there be news about a kid not even ready for hero school - or high school?

“Do you want to meet them?” Izuku asked quietly, carefully dragging Neito out of his thoughts.

“If you insist -”

“I didn’t, I asked because you hadn’t responded.”

“- then I shall gladly accompany you, Midoriya Izuku!”

“Just Izuku, please. We’re friends now, don’t you think friends should be on a first name basis?” Neito smiled softly down at the quiet young boy who he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of.

“Then I am Neito, it’s a pleasure to be in your wondrous company,” Neito replied with a beaming smile. 

“So are you coming? Mika asked and the two boys suddenly realised she’d been present for their entire conversation.

Kyoka had been too, Mother and daughter smirking at them as if saying ‘ I know something you don’t ’. 

“Yes, Auntie, we’re right behind you,” Izuku told her blandly, his blank face and monotone voice sending the purple-haired mother and daughter pair into giggles.

Izuku took Neito’s hand in his own and Mika and Kyoka led the way to the lounge area, where two men and a woman sat on plush couches and an armchair, smiling and talking to Kyotako and each other until they entered.

Neito’s mouth fell open even as the three heroes’ eyes lit up at the sight - yes, even Aizawa’s, but the gruff, grumpy hero played it as cool as he always did.

“Izuku.”

“Izu-chan!”

“Baby Zuzu!” the three heroes exclaimed.

Neito slowly picked his jaw up off the ground and turned to glare at Kyoka – who wasn’t hiding her smug smirk in the slightest – and Izuku.

“You didn’t tell me you were related to three pro heroes!” Kyoka raised a hand. “Don’t even start, I thought you were joking,” he grumbled.

“No, Neito, meet my Uncles Shota and Hizashi and Aunt Emi.”

“You know Present Mic’s real name,” came the soft, disbelieving reply.

“”Zu just has that effect on people,” Kyoka grinned, slinging an arm around his neck.

“Hey, don’t ignore us,” Emi whined, the Smile hero hiding a grin as Izuku rolled his eyes almost affectionately.

“Believe me, Aunt Emi, you are the least ignorable person in this room,” Izuku said blandly, taking a page out of Aizawa’s book.

“Aw, you do care, Baby Zuzu,” she replied cheekily.

Neito gives Izuku a look at the nickname, one that Izuku ignores completely.

He isn’t sure where that name originated from, but he is sure he never wants to know - not if he wanted to keep his sanity intact.

“How are you, Izuku, we haven’t been able to keep you company during training sessions as often as before, but our new positions keep us fairly busy,” Aizawa interjected after a quick hello.

“We’ve been good, actually, I might need some new kind of help,” Izuku glanced at Neito before dragging Hizashi away from the group.

“Woah there, Lil’ Listener, what’s up?” Hizashi asked with a chuckle.

“I made a friend, but I don’t know how to friend.” Izuku told him seriously.

Hizashi stared at the boy before him incredulously. Laughter bubbled to his lips unbidden and Izuku spent at least two minutes glaring at the blonde Voice Hero before the man calmed down enough to hold a proper conversation.

“Sorry, Izu, that was mean,” Hizashi giggled, ruffling the blind boy’s hair.

“You’re fine,” Izuku sighed, “but seriously, I don’t know how to friend.”

“You mean be a friend, right? Because ‘Friending’ isn’t a thing, lil’ buddy.”

“Just tell me how to do it,” Izuku grumbled.

“Just be yourself, Izu.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, sure, there’s things like communication and listening to each other - you know what? Act like you plan to marry them in the future and treat them like you would treat your future girlfriend,” was the hero’s advice.

Izuku eyed Hizashi down as if he was the dumbest person on earth.

“Uncle ‘Zashi, you know very well I’m as gay as you are for Uncle Sho, so that’s future husband, and I doubt Neito would appreciate that - I act like I’m a mini Uncle Shota,” Izuku sighed. “You know what? Thanks for trying. Uncle Sho? Uncle ‘Zashi’s being useless, can you be of some help?” he called back into the room.

He ignored the snorts of amusement emanating from the lounge as well as his Uncle ‘Zashi’s pouting as the two heroes swapped places.

“Let me guess: Friendship’s weird and y ou want to try it?” the Underground hero asked blandly.

Izuku nodded with a sigh of relief.

“I should have gone to you in the first place.”

“Yeah Kid. Now, listen, Hizashi would have told you to be yourself. Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.”

“Hey!”

“Go away, you morons!” Aizawa and Izuku called back.

Once they heard shuffling and muted voices of disappointment did they continue.

“Look Kid, friends are a weird breed of human in which the extroverts adopt introverts and drag them into little cliques no-one else understands, like how Kyoka took you in, Monoma’s doing the same. The most you can do is just let them do whatever, it’s easier than fighting whatever plans they spontaneously made last-second,” Aizawa told him with a sigh.

“Is sitting in a corner and reading even a choice?” Izuku asked wearily.

“Trust me Izuku, not even a choice, I know, Hizashi did that to me - never left me alone for a minute and ended up getting me into more trouble than I care to admit.”

“What a pain.”

“Absolutely, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Resistance is futile, Izuku. Repeat after me: I will not have a choice in the matter.”

“I will not have a choice in the matter.”

“Again.”

“I will not have a -”

“Shota, what are you teaching the lil’ Listener!” Hizashi screeched, throwing open the door to the room Izuku and Aizawa had taken for his consultation on the matters of friendship.

With the blandest, most deadpan look on his face he could muster, Izuku turned towards the blonde cockatoo and said:

“I do not have a choice in the matter.” Aizawa, with an expression eerily similar to Izuku’s, raised a hand slowly and, in full view of Hizashi, pet Izuku’s hair.

“Good job Izuku, you’re doing well.”

“Shota!” The blonde squawked loudly, a scandalised expression taking over his usually grinning face.

“That’s how I learned friendship,” Aizawa shrugged, unbothered.

“That’s not how it works and you know it!” Hizashi glared playfully at his husband - husband, they were married now, Izuku forgot about that little detail.

He stalked back to the group in the living room which consisted of Emi, Kyoka and Neito, who seemed to still be trying to figure out the past five minutes, and Mika and Kyotako.

“Guys, I have figured out friendship.” Izuku declared without a change in expression.

Kyoka snorted while Mika and Kyotako held back smiles.

Poor Neito looked as if he wasn’t sure whether Izuku was serious or joking.

When he switched his confused expression for one of fond bemusement, Izuku guessed he thought Izuku was serious.

And he was.

“Well, what did you find out?” asked a smiling Mika.

She must be thinking Izuku was joking.

“I do not have a choice in the matter. I have been adopted by extroverts and resistance is futile.” he recited proudly.

Now, keep in mind, Izuku was a blind child with only so many role models towards how one should act and Aizawa Shota, an Underground hero who loved his ‘logical ruses’ was one of them.

There wasn’t really anyone to blame for Izuku’s thoughts as they were, even as Kyoka reeled with laughter, as did Emi and Neito and the only other adults shook their heads with fond sighs.

It did give Izuku the impression that that was not how friendships worked, but oh well, that’s what he had to work with.

“Shota’s corrupting our baby,” Hizashi complained as he and his husband returned to the living room.

“He can’t corrupt me if I was like this to begin with,” Izuku replied with a slightly off version of Aizawa’s own terrifying smile.

Stifled laughter filled the air at Izuku’s comments, which did little to appease the distraught voice hero.

“See?” Hizashi yelled out, pointing at Izuku, who hid a snigger behind a blank, questioning look. It wasn’t as if it really mattered in the long run anyway, but it was fun messing with the heroes - even if it wasn’t always appreciated.

“As hilarious as this is, you two, can we please get on with why you visited to begin with?” Mika asked with a giggle, Kyotako rolling his eyes with a fond smile plastering across his face.

Kyotako and Mika always knew their relationship was odd, especially in sight of all the pranks they’d pulled on their old teachers.

Sure, they weren’t exactly boring, but their ideas weren’t always great.. 

“Ah yes, there was a reason we came here,” Hizashi nodded sagely.

“You don’t know either, ‘Zashi,” Aizawa sighed exasperatedly.

“Were you told?”

“I didn’t have to be, it’s obvious, my oblivious love.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t my place to tell. Emi?” Aizawa turned to raise an eyebrow at the heroine, who cleared her throat and stood with a grin.

“I’m expecting!” Aizawa face-palmed as the group collectively lost it.

“WHAT? FUKukado Emi, you didn’t tell me!” Hizashi exclaimed, equal parts excited and upset, losing control of his quirk in the process.

Aizawa flashed his own quirk and a glare at his husband, then turned on his friend.

“Really?”

“Yup!”

“No Way!” Kyoka squealed.

“Congrats Emi, but I didn’t know you were married,” Kyotako smiled warmly at her.

Mika sighed, already done with the heroine’s antics.

“She’s not, love, Emi’s being dramatic. Why don’t you tell them what you really mean, Emi,” the woman levelled her own glare on Emi, who just laughed it off.

“I jest, joking, you funny bones,” she laughed.

“Emi, tell them or I will,” Aizawa sighed, rubbing tired eyes.

“Alright, fine, grumpy pants,” she rolled her eyes and giggled, before straightening up a little. “What’s actually happening is I’m planning on adopting. The request’s gone through and it’s pending review, but it looks good,” she said. “I was planning on informing them soon, but I wanted to tell you all, first.” Izuku stared at her for a moment, before a burst of happy cries took over the room, although Neito was a silent witness.

His Aunt Emi, whom he’d grown to adore in ways he never showed, was adopting, but if she was telling them altogether, it wasn’t him.

Feelings welled up inside him that he couldn’t name and while everyone else was happy and celebrated, he couldn’t bring himself to congratulate his aunt.

A blank look fell over him and it was like he’d taken a step back, away from the noise and activity, just a silent witness, Neito by his side.

“Are you alright, my friend?” the blonde copycat asked quietly.

“I’ll be okay, this is just hard for me,” Izuku whispered back.

“‘Zu? Is something wrong?” Kyoka called out. Izuku shook his head silently.

“Everything’s okay,” he turned to Emi, “I’m happy, congratulations.” 

“Dammit, Emi, if you keep this up I swear -”

“Stop looking so upset Baby Zuzu! I have an important question for you,” the Smile hero giggled at the confused expression on everyone’s face - except Aizawa, who wrestled the information from Emi before their visit.

The tired hero sighed, why were his friends such headaches?

Well, this would be good for Izuku either way, he just hoped the kid wouldn’t be too put off by Emi’s game.

Emi was a good hero, a funny one, even if her jokes made him want to dig himself a grave and be buried alive and he’d sooner pull his teeth out than admit it, but she could get carried away at the worst of times - those times being ones where seriousness was required.

Aizawa glanced over the room’s occupants, most of them looking excited and confused, but also slightly shocked at the shenanigans his friends were causing with Izuku.

The boy was almost a miniature version of himself, with a few differences. He was honestly blunt and didn’t, more like couldn’t, hide things from his friends and family.

He wasn’t very expressive, but his thoughts were made apparent even if he didn’t want them to be.

He could be cryptic when he wanted to be, but that was really only when playing games with ‘Zashi and Emi. Even now, Aizawa could see the confusion and suspicion building behind what was going to be a very expertly done blank face.

“To be perfectly blunt,” Izuku interrupted, “what is going on here?”

“Problem Hero over there,” Aizawa shot a glare over to the grinning, giggling Emi, who smiled and waved at Izuku, “wants to ask -”

“I wanted to ask if I could adopt you, Izuku, as my son and not as a nephew.” Emi took over for Aizawa, her voice uncharacteristically soft and her face serious.

Izuku stilled, the entire room falling eerily silent, waiting for the blind boy’s decision.

Izuku said nothing, did nothing, could hear nothing, everything was moving too fast, but too slow at the same time and he ran from the room, too blinded by his own thoughts to hear the commotion he generated from the room he left.

Shouts and yells echoed behind him, but it was like Izuku could hear none of it and as soon as they realised his reactions, he was gone.

Almost instantly, Aizawa turned one of his best glares on Emi, who wilted a little.

“There were so many ways to handle that, Emi, but you played it off as a joke. The one thing this Kid’s wanted more than anything is a family and you blew it off as one of your games. We all know Izuku adores you as more than an aunt - all you had to do was ask him kindly, gently, and he would have said yes,” Aizawa glared at her, making the hero wilt more and more with every word.

“Sho, you need to calm down, Emi made a mistake, but she can fix it. All we have to do is find Izu, find out why he reacted like that, then make it right. That’s all we can do, and all we can hope for,” Hizashi said, laying a gentle hand on his husband’s shoulder.

Aizawa sank into the touch with a soft sigh.

“You better be right, ‘Zashi, because if you aren’t, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I didn’t mean to scare him off, I thought he’d like it,” Emi mumbled, for once not smiling.

Emi’s quirk required her to be funny, to get people to laugh, jokes were the best way to do that.

Her entire hero persona revolved around her being unpredictable and silly - which is why she fought with joke cream pies and weighted rubber animals.

Though, it really didn’t help when she smacked a villain with a rubber pig and it snorted loudly. She found it hilarious, which meant villains laughed and were subsequently captured.

Over the years, her hero persona and every-day persona merged, it seemed and she made serious situations out into jokes to lighten the air. This was probably a bad idea now, but it was all she really knew.

She would try, though. She’d try for Izuku, the boy who had nothing, yet dealt with everything, the boy she’d come to love as a son. She wanted to adopt him and if that meant getting a little serious?

Nothing was going to stop her.

Chapter Text

Izuku ran.

He ran and ran and ran and didn’t stop until his lungs were bursting and his legs were shaking and he just couldn’t run anymore.

He’d left the house and his friends and the adults behind, not focusing on the scenery that made its way through his senses and just running.

Out of the front door and down the streets, his mind was in turmoil every step he took. It wasn’t until he stopped, that he was gasping for breath and almost collapsing did he think to survey his surroundings.

There was never, usually, anyone better at directions and navigation as Midoriya Izuku was, thanks to his quirk, but now, for the first time ever, Midoriya Izuku was hopelessly lost. There was nothing remotely familiar around him - street names, places, heck, even the roads and streets looked unfamiliar.

Thankfully, he was never one to panic, although on the other hand, he’d left his phone at home in his sudden haste to leave… oh.

Right, he left.

Izuku moved out of the streets and began walking, sifting through his thoughts in a much more calm, much more collected manner.

Aunt Emi asked to adopt him.

She wanted him, but she made fun of every minute of the ‘Reveal’ as he started to call it.

She didn’t take it seriously, she thought it was a joke, was he a joke?

Was that all she thought of him?

Why was she really - where was that music coming from?

Izuku felt himself drawn to lively, upbeat music filling the streets, so he followed the sound, not exactly knowing what to expect, but not exactly caring, with the day he was currently having.

The music led him to what he ‘saw’ as a partially run-down dance studio.

Paint was old and peeling, the out-front sign was battered and on its last legs and the structure of the building itself didn’t seem to be very stable, but the music - the music was perfect for a spin out on the dance floor, Izuku thought. He erased his presence, just like Uncle Shou had taught him and entered the building as quietly as he knew how.

The entrance and inside of the place were in almost the same conditions as the outside, with only a slight difference: The wooden floors were polished and wiped, the floor-to-ceiling mirror shone with not a speck of dirt and the bar, while not perfect, still gleamed with care.

On the far back wall was an instruments rack and Izuku could feel himself almost smiling at the sight of it.

He could feel the vibrations from the music player set on the floor and the light, fast steps from people.

Two adults and five kids, it seemed, Izuku thought as he stood just beside the doorway, hidden from sight.

They were loud, laughing and cheering, booing and taunting as the adults watched and he wondered what was happening.

He didn’t want to be caught, but the instruments caught his eyes as he was about to leave them to their devices.

They had several guitars – acoustic and electric – and a base, a set of drums in the corner and a keyboard.

There were a few other classical instruments and they were taunting him, he could swear they were. Izuku took another peek at the people, but they were busy doing what they were and he was cloaked, so it wasn’t like they’d catch him, he could chance it, right? Yeah, he’d be fine, Izuku grit his teeth, then caved, he wanted a closer look at the instruments, dammit!

He stepped quickly and lightly, hiding his footsteps amongst the footsteps of the strangers and their music until he’d reached the instruments’ corner.

They really were beautiful, all clean and maintained well.

The strings were tuned and the keyboard was covered with a dust-cover, the drums too.

He checked on the people again, to make sure he was still safe, then crouched down so he was more or less ‘face-to-face’ with the instruments and ran a hand down one of the acoustic guitars. That was when the music switched off and he froze, hoping he hadn’t been caught.

He checked on the people again, praying they hadn’t noticed him, but both adults and all five kids were staring right at him.

Damn, Izuku knew he wasn’t exactly the tallest ten-year-old around, but did they have to tower over him like that?

“Um, hello there?” one of the kids said, almost questioningly.

Izuku booked it.

“Hey, wait!” they called after him.

From what he’d ‘seen’ the adults were both men, both tall, but the taller man on the right had been burly with muscle while the other was slimmer - just as muscular, though. He had messy hair, not long, but not short, either, that sat flat and flopped on his head.

The burly man had very short hair, cropped close to his head and just his luck, both decided to chase after him.

Out of the kids he’d ‘seen’ three were boys and two girls and again, just his luck, all five were taller – probably older, too – and knew this part of town and the streets far better than he did.

The ‘high-speed chase’ didn’t even last five minutes before he was cornered, so Izuku made the brilliant choice of exploiting Uncle Shou’s parkour lessons and dashed to the rooftops. He thanks the Lord above for the sensory part of his quirk on the unknown parts of town.

He knew he was still in Musutafu and his decision must have been a good one, if the cries and curses of annoyance from below were anything to go by. Of course, the good times could never last as the two adults told the kids to wait below and… of course they could parkour as well.

Them not being able to was too easy apparently.

Dang it, he’d almost gotten away with it too, Izuku thought as the burly one snatched him up by the scruff of his T-shirt. He gave a yelp as the sudden tugging sensation and, dangling in the air, he could only barely make out the man holding him, face to face.

“Did you catch him, Kaguya?” the other adult asked, catching up to the burly man who held him in the air.

“What does it look like, Kisei?” the burly man, Kaguya, snorted. “Now,” they turned their attention back to him, “we have some questions for you.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Izuku muttered quietly.

Not quietly enough, it seemed, when Kisei, the long-haired man, chuckled.

“We have a mouthy one, Kaguya,” he laughed. The pair left the rooftops - only after Kaguya had slung Izuku over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

It was a very disgruntled Izuku, a sniggering Kisei and a grumpy-looking Kaguya that rejoined the five kids on the ground.

“You caught him!”

“Way to go, guys!”

“Does he speak?”

“Don’t be an idiot, of course he does, right?”

“Hey, do you? And what’s your name, and -”

“Alright, alright kids, tone it down. Let’s get back to base and we can interrogate him there, got it? Leave him be to sort things out ‘till them, you gremlins,” Kaguya ordered gruffly.

The kids whined, then agreed so quickly Izuku’s head started to spin and he wondered what the heck he’d just gotten himself into - for that matter, Izuku groaned.

“Thanks to you lot, I now owe Uncle Shou fifty pushups, great,” he grumbled.

From the group’s collective sniggering, there was no sympathy to be found there.

They made it back to the run-down old building in a matter of minutes and Izuku was deposited on the floor inside, surrounded by the five kids, both adults on either end of the little semi-circle to stop him from running off again.

“Alright, talk kid, what the hell were you doing near our instruments?” Kaguya questioned, and ‘gruff and tough’ must have been the man’s motto, it was like Izuku really was in an interrogation.

“Smashing them, duh,” Izuku replied, hiding a smirk.

“Do you have a name, kid?” Kisei asked next.

“Sure I do, I’m Nobody,” he continued his game, fighting down the smirk he so badly wanted to release.

“So we were chasing No - oh. Sneaky kid,” he heard one of the boys laugh.

“How does a squirt like him even know Greek Mythology anyway?” one of the two girls groaned.

“It’s called a Library, ever heard of it? They’re everywhere - and free,” he snarked back. “Might want to search it up sometime.”

“There’s that mouth of his, are we ever going to get straight answers?” Kisei gave him a strange look, a smile crossing his face.

“I don’t -”

“Izuku! Izu, where are you?” cried a voice outside, joined by several more.

“‘Zu! Come on, where are you?”

“Are we even sure he’s here? He can’t have gotten so far.”

“Yeah, not unless he was freaked out and unable to think properly,” the voice huffed a laugh.

All eyes turned to the direction the outside was and Izuku flinched.

The seven turned back to him, some curious, some grinning slyly and some smiling sympathetically.

“...Crap.” Izuku muttered, hunching in on himself at the hungry gazes set on him.

“Haruna, go get those people, please, I think we just found their runaway,” Kisei ordered with a smile.

One of the girls saluted cheekily and shot off while the rest eyed him like hungry predators. Not ten minutes later, two frantic children and two frantic adults rushed inside, the children tackling Izuku.

“‘Zu!”

“Izuku!” they cried.

“Hey Kyou-chan, Neito, sorry for running off,” Izuku mumbled reluctantly.

“I’ll say, you scared us, Izu-kun!” Mika cried, enveloping him in a tight hug after Neito and Kyouka were done with him.

“Gotta say, Izuku, didn’t think you could run so far,” Kyoutako laughed, ruffling his hair affectionately.

“I’ll say, brat really made us work,” Kaguya muttered loud enough for all of them to hear.

“What did you do, Izuku?” Mika and Kyouka asked with matching sighs.

“I only wanted to look at the instruments,” he blurted out calmly. 

“Did you ask if you could?” Mika gave him a stern look.

“No,” Izuku replied sheepishly, turning his head to avoid her disappointed expression.

“Our music was kind of loud,” admitted one of the kids with a grin.

“Thank you for finding him, it must have been a bother. Sorry for the intrusion, please accept our apologies,” Kyoutako said as he and Mika, Neito and Kyouka bowed for Izuku.

“It’s all okay, don’t worry about it,” Kisei laughed, “he’ll be welcome back again anytime - as long as he doesn’t sneak in, next time.”

“That’s very kind of you, we’ll make sure he’s supervised next time, right, Izuku?” Mika glared at Izuku.

“How many times do you expect me to run off after this - it was a one-time thing and you know it. I don’t want to hear any jokes about this in the future, either, Kyou-chan,” Izuku got to his feet, his calm, blank face back in place.

“We should be going, then, we need to talk, Izuku.”

“See you soon Izuku!” one of the boys grinned.

“Don’t run off on us again, please!”

“No flaking on us either!”

“You better be here next week, too!” the kids called.

Izuku’s eyebrows crinkled in a sign of confusion, but before he could ask why they wanted him back, Neito and Kyouka had dragged him out of the building and away from the unknown people.

Izuku held in a sigh as, inevitably, he sensed motion behind them. One ‘look’ at Mika, Kyoka and Neito confirmed that they knew nothing about their little stalkers despite Mika’s and Kyoka’s enhanced hearing.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we have some tag-alongs,” he spoke up suddenly.

By the way the five kids behind them jumped, they had been within hearing range.

Mika, Kyoutako and Kyouka stared at him, shocked, then whirled around in surprise while Neito sniggered with a lazy grin spreading over his face.

“Of course we have some fans, we are remarkable - on-stage and off,” the blonde preened.

Izuku merely sighed, tapping his foot as their stalkers revealed themselves sheepishly.

It wasn’t long that Kisei and Kaguya caught up, either, and didn’t bother hiding their displeasure at their wards’ antics.

“If you wanted to come with us, all you had to do was ask,” Izuku broke the silence.

“We had no way of knowing if you really would come back, so we wanted to see where you lived and drag you back if you didn’t show yourself within a week or two,” one of the boys muttered, he and the other children flushing red at the admittance. Mika and Kyoutako giggled and Neito and Kyouka snorted with amusement.

Izuku had trouble hiding his irritation.

“Why don’t we give Kisei and Kaguya his number instead?” Mika asked, smiling.

“Aunt Mika, no!” Izuku hissed.

He really didn’t want anything to do with these people, not really after the day he’d had.

He felt a gentle hand rest carefully on his arm and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other rested on his hip.

“I’m heading home to calm down, there’s no guarantee I won’t throw a hissy-fit otherwise,” Izuku mumbled, stalking off by himself.

He didn’t know the way home exactly, but he had learnt a fun little trick from exploring the nature of his quirk. Fun fact: The sensory aspect wasn’t limited to only his sight. It worked on all of his senses. He could turn them on and off as he pleased, now that he had his connection with the earth, but his ‘sight’ sense was pretty much dead and his ‘Touch’ sense was almost always on.

His other senses not so much, his smell and taste were nuisances and almost always off, only on the most basic human level, when they were fully on, though, he was better than a dog bred for tracking scents.

Kyouka liked to joke how he was basically a puppy himself, at that point, but if it helped him get back to his friends and family?

He didn’t much care what he was called. Izuku paused in his tracks and took a deep breath in, held it, then let it out.

He breathed in deeply through his nose and suddenly, every scent and smell around him flushed into him.

Izuku flinched at the influx of everything, wrinkling his nose at them all, before toning down the strength of his quirk to a manageable place. He breathed in again, tracking through everything he smelled until he hit the faint, lingering scents of Aunt Mika’s perfume, Uncle Kyoutako’s cologne and Kyouka’s and Neito’s emotions.

Yes, he knew that sounded weird, but with senses on par with an animal’s Izuku thought it would be weirder to not be able to sense the emotions of a human, even if he didn’t exactly have those emotions.

He took a deep breath again and followed the traces of the scents he knew well. 

“What a day,” he sighed to himself quietly as he walked.

He hadn’t meant to run off. The shock of Aunt Emi’s proposal and the way she said it, as if it were a big joke, that she was taking him in on a whim, it made something in him break.

He couldn’t handle teasing from the adult he, which he would never say out loud, loved hanging with the most, through all of her terrible jokes.

He hated that he ran, now, but how could he face his Aunt like this?

He sighed again and kept walking, taking another deep breath. He knew the scents he was following would get stronger as he got closer to home, but he wished he had one of his instruments with him.

Kyouka’s suggestion of playing out his emotions had really helped and he did so every time he felt overwhelmed or afraid. It was great practise for his instruments, too.

He enjoyed playing his flute and violin the most of his instruments, but playing the piano was fun for him, too.

He preferred acoustic guitars over electrical and classical instruments over the more modern ones.

He was different from Kyouka in that way, he knew she loved playing more modern instruments – electrical guitars, drums, bass – over the classics.

She could play them, just like he could play the modern instruments, but they had their preferences.

As he walked home, he thought about everything that had happened in his life so far, and wondered if Katsuki ‘Kacchan’ Bakugo even remembered him. 

It had been a while since they had last seen each other, but the five years they’d spent together had to have meant something to the fiery blonde, right? Izuku knew he’d loved playing with the other boy when they were young, and he knew the other boy loved playing with him, too, but when Katsuki’s quirk came in, the boy’s already confident self swelled up and his confidence had started to turn into arrogance.

Ever since then, because the other kids had followed Katsuki’s lead, they started picking more and more on him, because his quirk hadn’t come in and when it had, they’d all been told Izuku would lose his sight, but even then he found ways to surpass the other kids.

H e became practically untouchable after he started his classes and no-one could deny the skills he’d started to pick up.

That made it harder and harder for the other kids and Katsuki to pick on him, especially since he was the ‘poor dear losing his eyes’, and ‘such a fragile little boy’ that they had to ‘be careful when playing with our friend Midoriya-kun’, otherwise they’d get into trouble.

And then the accident happened and he moved in with the Jirous, that was the last time he saw Katsuki, really and truly.

He couldn’t see anything at all, for one, but also, even when he was in the hospital, even if Aunt Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru stopped by frequently, Katsuki never once came by and they hadn’t crossed paths in the five years he spent with the Jirous otherwise.

It made caring about the other a whole lot harder.

Izuku was sure they weren’t really friends anymore, and they hadn’t been since Katsuki got his quirk, but he and Katsuki had practically been raised together, side by side until his fifth birthday so he couldn’t just stop caring about the blonde. Izuku’s feelings and emotions may have been dampened, but Katsuki would never be removed from his heart.

Izuku’s thoughts wandered from Katsuki to the other kids at his daycare, the ones who’d always proclaimed they’d become heroes, but were boastful, arrogant and picked on him as their favourite pastime, he hadn’t seen them in years, either, but he wondered if he would, when he got into hero school.

This might have sounded strange to anyone else, but Izuku wasn’t sure if he really, truly wanted to go to UA.

It was a good school, sure - best of the best, but despite the strength of his quirk and the effort he put in to train it, he wasn’t sure if being a Spotlight hero was for him.

He knew all about UA, of course he’d research it, and he found almost all of their graduates went into Spotlight heroics, with only one or two going Twilight or Underground per heroics classes.

It had the most public events - sports festival, cultural festival, and by the time the licensing exam came around, pretty much everyone else taking the exam knew their quirks.

That wasn’t a bad thing per se, especially since heroes had to be prepared to take on villains who knew their quirks in the industry they’d committed themselves to, but it made things that much harder.

Despite all those negative points, just having UA as a place of attendance did wonders for future employment and admittance into higher education.

It also helped that, besides the hero course, UA’s other divisions - support, business, general education, were the best of the best even if the school was most known for its heroics courses. He knew his sister wanted to go there, regardless of if she got into the hero course or not.

It wasn’t so cut-and-dried with him, though.

He loved all parts of the industry, support, business and the heroes themselves and even if he wanted to be a hero, competition for the school itself was insane.

It wasn’t as if other hero schools were less competitive or as intensive as UA, but a lot of them were lesser known because of the many, many top heroes who graduated from UA.

All Might and Endeavour were both included in that number.

The other schools were probably just as good as UA, but because the number  of heroes and All Might himself graduated from the famous hero school, it rose to the top of the top of hero schools in the East, along with Shiketsu in the West.

They were the best, so why did he feel so apprehensive about them? He knew Uncle Shou and Uncle ‘Zashi took up teaching positions there and Emi had gone to a hero school called Ketsubutsu to teach there. He had no clue what she taught, she wouldn’t tell him, but he knew she taught there.

He was… nervous, to say the least, about his looming conversation with his Aunt.

He knew she didn’t mean to treat it like a joke - that was just her personality, and he shouldn’t have run out on them, he panicked, but still, the thought lingered.

What if Aunt Emi really didn’t want to adopt him after all?

He knew he liked to play at acting like his Uncle Shou and not react to her silliness, he enjoyed their games and teasing, it was just how they communicated.

Yes, he’d admit he felt closer to her than Uncle Shou and Uncle ‘Zashi, and he had always wondered what having a real family was like. He’d been told so many times that his stay with the Jirous was always going to be a temporary thing, that they were only a foster family.

Mika and Kyoutako looked after him as if he were their actual, biological son. He wondered if his Aunt Emi was even capable of taking care of a kid.

The scent of his family got stronger as he walked, so he knew he was heading the right way.

He followed it silently, wrapped up in his thoughts, everything that could have, should have, would have been, if only. Memories and thoughts were picked apart, his Aunt and Uncles in most of them, with his sister.

Emi was always laughing, making a stupid joke or leaning off him or Aizawa and it made the corners of his lips tick up.

Soon, sooner than he would have liked, the familiar two-story house the Jirous lived in came into ‘view’. Two cars were parked with the Jirous out front and Izuku sighed to himself, eyes to the ground.

They hadn’t left. All three of them - Uncle Shou, Uncle ‘Zashi and Aunt Emi, they’d waited for him.

He slipped inside quietly, trying to ignore his thumping, racing heart and made his way, as slowly as he could, to the lounge.

He saw the sleep-deprived hobo first, napping.

He spotted the way too loud and bright spotlight hero next, admiring the records and posters on the wall.

He saw the silly, joking smile hero last, sitting on the of the couches with her head in her hands.

It was an atmosphere he almost didn’t want to step foot in - and wouldn’t have, if Aizawa hadn’t spotted him.

“Problem Child,” the man grunted without sitting up, “Next time remember your phone, Mika and Kyoutako both tried calling you a few times before Kyouka found your cell on the table,” the tired hero glared at him. Hizashi had whirled around at his husband’s voice and Emi had whipped her head up, their eyes wide open in shock.

“Zuzu! Where’d you go, kiddo? We were worried!” Emi wasted no time in jumping on him and smothering him in a breath-expelling hug.

Hizashi joined her not long after, wrapping them both up in his long arms as he wailed about how scared he was when Izuku ran out and to never scare him like that again.

The three stayed together in their impromptu group hug for a while longer, Hizashi and Emi somehow roping Aizawa  into it, too and that’s how Mika, Kyoutako, Kyouka and Neito found them.

All things said, Izuku was proud of his sister and new friend when they stifled their laughs and settled for merely grinning mischievously at them instead.

“Okay, ‘Zashi, Emi, I think you’ve suffocated him enough,” Mika interrupted with a small smile and a twinkle in her eye. The two heroes gave him one last tight squeeze and finally let him go, Aizawa having let go a moment before the others walked in. He sat, grumbling, on the couch as his co-workers, husband and friend, took a step back, but fussed over Izuku.

To his credit, Izuku stood patiently and endured it while Aizawa sent him looks of amusement crossed with slight pity.

He’d been on the other end of one of Hizashi’s fussing sessions more than once and it, somehow, managed to involve more than three cats, a meal out and a lot of stress-baking from the man.

Eventually, though, Izuku found a way to weasel out of their grips and spirit away to lay on the couch with Aizawa, the two trading sympathetic groans and looks.

“Alright, you three, we’re going to give you some space to work things out, we’ll be gone for an hour. Shouta-kun, please make sure those two don’t destroy the house,” Mika called out, hustling Kyouka, Neito and Kyoutako out of the house even as Kyoutako and Kyouka complained about ‘missing the show’, whatever that meant.

As they listened to the hum of the car’s engine, backing out of the driveway, the four of them sat in silence, none of them broaching the topic at hand.

Once the tension in the lounge grew a little too much for him, Aizawa decided to work his magic, by shoving Izuku and Emi into one of the smaller rooms and locking the door behind them, leaving them alone in a small space.

Emi and Izuku stared at each other incredulously, before aiming their gazes of betrayal at the door.

After a moment, Emi burst into peals of laughter, even as Izuku held his own deadpan expression, the corners of his lips perking up ever so slightly.

He did want to emulate his Uncle Shota, mostly because people told him not to, but oh well, they were missing out on a lot.

He waited for Emi to calm down, doing his best to fuse with his mind to find a solution to the now awkward silence.

“Sorry, Kiddo, about the whole ‘reveal’, thing. I thought that would be fun, I didn’t mean to scare you off,” Emi began quietly,  her eyes looking everywhere but him.

“I didn’t mean to run off either, I just - it felt like everything was too much, you know? The adoption came as a really big surprise and the way you asked - with all the jokes and laughter, I thought that was a joke too,” Izuku explained, just as quietly as Emi. 

“Aww, Kiddo, that would never be a joke! I just never learnt to take things seriously, you’d think I would, with Shou as a friend, but nope!” she giggled wetly and it was only then that Izuku realised they were both silently crying.

How did he not notice the tears?

“I know you made your hero persona to be a fun, silly person who doesn’t take things seriously - I’ve seen the rubber animals, you construct of insanity, but you really need to learn to take things seriously,” he chuckled, leaning into her grip as she wrapped him in yet another hug.

It was a soft one, this time, gentle and loving and this time, Izuku hugged back.

They stood there together for a moment, basking in each other’s presence, before Emi leaned back.

“I don’t know,” she laughed with a wink, bopping him on the nose, “maybe you should learn to be a little more silly,” she did jazz hands and, all of a sudden, Izuku saw the paint.

Red paint.

Coating her hands.

“Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer!” Emi sang with a mad cackle, bursting out of the room with a furious, but trying to hide a smile, Izuku right on her heels, “Had a very shiny nose! And if, you ever saw it, you could even say it glows - oof!” Izuku tackled Emi to the ground, glaring at her as she laughed her head off with no remorse.

“Did she get you with one of her pranks, Zuzu?” Hizashi asked sympathetically, he and Shota sitting at the dining room table, each with a cup of coffee.

“Uhuh, but I’ll get her back, she’s going to be my new Mom, after all,” he said smugly. “Well, that and Uncle Shou said he’d show me how to make coffee the right way once I turn thirteen,” he grinned savagely at the, very rightly, paling woman.

“Shouta!” two voices screeched, horrified.

Aizawa glanced at the two, raising an eyebrow as if to ask ‘ did you really not see this coming? ’ 

“You should work on your investigation skills, if you didn’t see this coming,” he snorted, taking a sip of his coffee idly, “And if you hadn’t noticed, Izuku just agreed to be adopted,” he added.

The other two adults stilled, as Izuku and Shota rolled their eyes and covered their ears.

Rightfully so, as the screech of joy the two let out as they jumped up and down and danced around the house, was only quietened by Aizawa’s quirk cancelling Hizashi’s.

The house would’ve collapsed otherwise, Izuku thought and Shota agreed.

As he watched his new Mom prance around the house, lit up in joy and screaming her lungs out in excitement, Izuku found himself smiling.

Whatever happened in the future - whatever situation or setback he found himself going through, he knew he’d never be alone.

He had a future ahead of him, one with his new mom, his Uncles and Aunt Mika, his sister Kyouka and his new friend, Neito.

He didn’t know what was going to happen, no-one did, but that was okay.

He had a family, he had a dream and he had belief, now all he had to do was wait for the time to come and when it did?

The hero schools wouldn’t know what hit them.

Chapter Text

Three years passed by in a flash and before Izuku knew it, his thirteenth birthday had come and gone. It had been a strange few years, with strange changes and strange new people entering his life.

After his Mom had adopted him and registered the adoption with CPS, He’d slowly but surely moved out of the Jirous’ house and in with his new Mom.

Emi was a brilliant Mother, but at times she could be a little… careless?

Reckless?

Thoughtless?

Whatever the word, there were times she didn’t quite think things through and though it usually ended in disaster, they were often the cause of the most fun banter and word play between him and Emi.

Once, after a particularly… interesting round of Uno, in which Emi had kept cheating, somehow, and Izuku told her to quit in a snappish tone, she poked her tongue out childishly at him and demanded:

“Keep your morals away from me!”

to which Izuku replied, in a mutter under his breath:

“I’m going to need therapy after this.”

More examples of their interactions were more of Izuku snarking at his Mother every chance he could.

Emi didn’t mind, even when he told her to:

“Please be quiet, I can’t even hear myself losing the will to live,” or that “If being clumsy was a currency, you’d be a billionaire.”

Each one made Emi lose her cool and she’d burst into laughter.

With her quirk being what it was, they both tried to make sure Emi didn’t completely go off laughing spree, but there were also the absolutely ridiculous times when he and his Mom had been out and accidentally stopped Villains on a rampage because Izuku made her laugh.

It made no sense whatsoever, but, Izuku supposed such was life when living with someone literally known as the Smile Hero, Ms. Joke.

Izuku stared at himself in the mirror in his room.

It was bigger than his one at the Jirous, but it was also a lot more colourful. Emi had insisted, even though he couldn’t see colour.

Along with about half of his instruments, a single king-sized bed, a closet, bedside table and a desk and chair for his homework, his room was littered with dark reds and forest greens that merged into black.

Fairy lights had been hung up around his bed and posters of various heroes hung on the walls.

Several plushies lay neatly on his made bed, given as gag gifts across his birthdays.

Why gag gifts? His Uncle ‘Zashi had been giving him plushies of himself, his Uncle Shou, one of his Mom’s, even though they were underground heroes, one of his Uncle Tensei’s and Aunt ‘Nemi’s, even though they’d only met recently, and several of the UA staff.

His Mom loved it, his Uncle Shou thought his Uncle ‘Zashi was an idiot and he agreed.

The plushies themselves were pretty and comfortable, so Izuku kept them, but only after telling his Aunts and Uncles that he’d burn any others they got him.

He had more than enough of them and any more would both be a waste and wouldn’t fit onto his bed.

That had ended the plushie spree quickly enough. He smiled to himself, taking in his appearance after three long years.

Izuku had grown a little and was now only a couple of centimetres shorter than his sister, Kyouka. He was still short for his age, and slim too, but that was okay.

His eyes had dulled a little more, from a dull emerald to a dull min colour, and he’d grown his hair out.

It was longer than before and he had bangs and a fringe.

It came down just past his shoulders and where it had been a dark green when he was younger, his roots were still the same green, but the tips had darkened fully to a raven black, matching his Uncle Shou’s hair.

It was still a curly, unruly mess, but now it was an ombre curly and unruly mess.

He’d changed just as much as his surroundings had, Izuku mused, raising a hand gently to the mirror. It wasn’t as if his blindness had suddenly disappeared, it was still there, but he could ‘see’ more now.

He still had his slim, wiry build, but now it was augmented with lean muscle and the flexibility of a cat.

He had long arms and legs, coated lightly with well-trained muscle. His athleticism from his younger years had stayed with him and to say that he was good at sports was a complete understatement.

“Zuzu! You ready to go?” he heard his Mom call and a small smile tickled the corners of his lips, even as he rolled his eyes at the childish nickname.

“More ready than you, Mom!” he yelled back, huffing a quiet laugh at the silence that followed, silence that meant he was – as usual – right.

Without a pause or stumble, Izuku tore himself from the mirror and easily navigated the halls of the apartment, barely needing his quirk at all.

He knew the apartment he shared with Emi like the back of his hand at this point.

He stopped by the door and pulled on his shoes, standing up and waiting for his Mom to come barreling through their home, dishevelled and unprepared, still in her slippers with her hair unbrushed and headband askew on her head.

It was practically tradition, by now, for Izuku to have to help his short-term-memory-esque adoptive Mother get ready on a Saturday afternoon.

As an Underground hero, she usually patrolled at night and Fridays were longer shifts than usual, so she slept in Saturday mornings while Izuku slogged through his half-day of school, before making his way home for his usual Saturday afternoon activities.

After the adoption, he’d had to move almost half-way across Musutafu, far away from the Jirous – though they still stayed in close contact, Kyou-chan would always and forever be his sister – Kaori-sensei and his old school.

He had to find new teachers, in both dance and music, ones who’d be willing to teach the ‘disabled’ blind kid who had uncanny senses.

Thankfully, Kisei and Kaguya, no matter how much Izuku felt like punching them and their wards, had a few contacts on the north side of Musutafu and Saturday afternoons were dedicated to dance.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to find another music teacher, but Mika and Kyoutako took it upon themselves to send him songs and instructions each week for practise.

Neito and Yuika helped too, having both joined the Drama club at their middle school and convinced the rest of the club to at least give Izuku a chance as a musician.

One performance in front of them and their advisor was all it took, really, so he had a few chances at performing a year.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Emi screeched, tumbling out of the hallway.

“Huh,” Izuku whistled, “this is new. You do realise you’re not supposed to go out in public in your pyjamas, right?” he asked her deadpan.

His Mother made a sound like that of a strangled cat and raced away, returning not five minutes later in her hero outfit and Izuku sighed again.

“I’m ready now!”

“I love your complete confidence in the face of complete ignorance,” he replied mildly.

Emi groaned, took another look at herself, facepalmed and left to change again.

“What is it with me and the crazy ones?” Izuku asked himself, as his Mom finally showed up in clothes fit for an outing to a dance studio, then across town to visit Kyou-chan, his Aunt Mika and his Uncles.

Emi pulled a face at him and ushered him out the door.

Izuku checked the time before being pushed out the apartment, noting with some surprise that they weren’t too late.

As long as traffic wasn’t bad, they’d make it to the studio on time, un -

“You rethink that sentence, Author, you are not making me late to dance.”

What have I told you about breaking the fourth wall!

“Not to, and I’ll stop, if you stop making my life a nightmare,” Izuku grumbled.

I’m not too happy, Izuku is being annoying about this, but as the saying goes: If you aren’t annoying, you aren’t human, and he is human, so I just have to deal with it.

“Now look who’s breaking the fourth wall.”

Shut up and get back in character, you character .

“Izuku? Are you alright?” Emi asked, speeding through the streets like a maniac.

“I’m fine, Mom. Just an annoying fly buzzing around in the car. It won’t go away,” Izuku smirked.

Someday Imma punch him.

“Alright, then. We should be on-time, traffic isn’t too bad, today,” she grinned, glancing at him quickly, then returning her gaze to the streets she was driving crazily on.

“Hey, Mom? You know I’m blind, right?” Izuku spoke up carefully. Emi snickered.

“No, I had no clue my nephew of five years and son of three was blind, how could I have failed to realise?” she asked in a mock horrified tone. Izuku rolled his eyes, deadpanning at her as she laughed at the joke. “It’s a little hard to miss, ‘Zuzu.”

“I know, it’s just - I had an idea, when I was little. Do you remember Gojo Satoru? He wears that blindfold over his eyes all the time even if he isn’t blind and, well, I wanted to do the same. It really doesn’t matter if I wear one or not, I just thought it would be funny,” he shrugged, leaning towards the window and relaxing against it nonchalantly.

Emi laughed again, shooting a quick grin over at her son, before the road ahead of her called  back her attention.

“Fukukado Izuku, if you don’t do that, then I’ll be mad at you!” she told him, giggling. “You better confuse the heck out of everyone, though, and play dumb if they ask about it.”

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have asked, you aren’t really the best person for these sorts of things.”

“Excuse you - I’m a great role model!”

“Says the hero trying to convince her son to run around and confuse people with a blindfold,” he snarked back at her.

Emi pouted, pulling into the driveway of the dance studio right on time.

“We’re going shopping for some after dance, so we might be a little late to lunch with the Jiros and Monoma’s! Oh yeah, Shouta said he and ‘Zashi adopted recently, so they’re bringing their own kid over, be nice Izuku, and make sure Kyouka-chan and Neito-kun don’t attack anyone this time. See you soon, kiddo!” Emi yelled as Izuku jumped out of the car and sprinted inside.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Sightless,” one of the kids sneered. Izuku sighed, he recognised that voice.

“Mirano-san, great to see you again - not,” he smirked as he ‘saw’ his old daycare bully stiffen.

“Shut the hell up, you blind freak. What the hell are you doing at my studio?”

“Seriously? I didn’t know you grew up to be a possessive blowhard. It’s not anyone’s studio except the owner’s and if I remember correctly, I’ve been coming here for three years. This is your first day. If anything, it’s more mine than yours. And I’m here to dance, so get off my back and focus on your terrible posture,” he shot back, setting his bag and jacket against the wall to start stretching.

Mirano had been doing the same, but straightened up to start glaring at him for his last remark. 

“At least I can actually see what I’m doing,” she snaps and Izuku snorts.

“So can I. Sensory quirk, remember?” he smirks, “or can you really not remember the day you started to pick on me?”

“Shut your mouth, I’m going to be a hero and there’s no way a blind stick in the grass like you will ever be anything more than a sightless, helpless loser!”

“Mirano-san! Keep that kind of talk outside the studio! We do not tolerate those kinds of remarks here. If you don’t accept this, you can leave,” the dance teacher - a slim woman of average height walked through the door, wispy lilac hair tied up in a tight bun. 

“Yes Ma’am, sorry about that,” Mirano grumbled, glaring at Izuku.

“Not to me, I wasn’t the one you insulted. If you insist, however, Fukukado-kun is one of our studio’s best students, blind or otherwise, whereas you would do well to learn you are not the best at everything,” she eyed Mirano coolly. Izuku hid a smirk.

“Where’s everyone else today, Madam Furuya?” Izuku spoke up. The dance teacher’s eyes softened the slightest bit as she glanced over at Izuku.

“Atsuyo-san and Kumiko-san have informed me that the pair of them are sick and won’t be making it to a few lessons and Riku-san and Emio-san are visiting relatives outside of Tokyo for a couple of weeks. I do not know where the others have gone, but Hamiha-san, Deiko-san and Muraiya-san informed me they will be late to class today -”

“We’re here, we’re here! Sorry for being late!” three girls rushed into the dance studio, hurriedly dumping their gear against the wall and beginning to warm up.

Izuku nodded cordially at him as they chirped out greetings, their eyebrows furrowing in confusion as they saw Mirano.

“Madam Furuya, who’s that? Do we have a new dance-mate?” one of the girls asked excitedly.

“Perhaps, if she can curb her tongue for the rest of our session,” Madam Furuya glared at Mirano, who huffed and rolled her eyes. Izuku sighed, silently taking his place in the middle of the floor.

The three girls eyed Mirano with some confusion, but copied Izuku, Mirano following them. Madam Furuya nodded acceptance.

“Very well then. Class will begin. Mirano will sit out for the first half and work on Barre exercises while the rest of you get to working on your routines - I know only Fukukado-kun’s gotten approval for his,” Madam Furuya scowled at the three girls, who winced. “The recital’s in a month and I expect all of your routines to be finished and perfected by then, understood?”

“Yes Madam Furuya,” the class chorused, before they split into different corners of the room.

Mirano made her way to the bar with a scowl at not getting to dance right away, but she knew if she didn’t follow orders she’d be thrown out of class and then have to find another studio to dance at.

She got to work, glaring at Izuku all the while. Izuku ignored the less-than-friendly eyes on him, slowly going through the motions of his routine. In all honesty, he was lucky it was approved.

There were some jumps and moves in there Madam Furuya questioned his capability in, but after Izuku’s stout assurance of being able to pull them off, the dance matron reluctantly approved it.

As she’d said, the recital was in a month and it was his chance to show what he, a blind boy, could do to everyone who came.

As long as he could help it, no-one would ever call him helpless again.

The lesson passed quickly and before Izuku knew it, he was packing up his things and racing outside to the carpark, where his Mom was waiting impatiently.

He was in the car and buckled up in an instant, and then they were off, careening crazily through the streets so they had time to go shopping and make it to lunch with their family on-time.

That was another thing that had changed over the three years he’d spent with Emi.

Izuku had become an incorrigible, straight- faced prankster.

He didn’t know how that had happened, nor when this developed, but he knew it had and he knew it wouldn’t fade.

He supposed the years of being Kyou-chan’s brother, Neito’s friend and Emi’s son, as well as the nephew of two, fun-loving (Present Mic) and petty (Eraserhead) heroes.

This was why he found himself inside a cloth store close to the Jirous’ house, eagerly looking for blindfolds with his ecstatic mother.

Emi was just barely keeping from cackling with glee at the thought of Izuku’s newest round of fun.

If it wasn’t for Izuku’s tight grip on his emotions, he would have lost it at the sight of the poor store attendant, completely lost at what a young woman and young boy would ever want with the absolutely numerous blindfolds they were collecting.

Even better were the completely absurd patterns and pictures they found.

“Look at this, Zuzu, what even?” Emi hooted, holding up an atrociously-coloured piece of cloth.

“Mom, why on earth?” Izuku groaned, glaring lightly at her. Emi grinned brightly at her son.

“Because we can!” she replied enthusiastically.

The blindfold was garish and bright, Izuku assumed, given that he still couldn’t see colour.

His vision was as monochromatic as the day he became blind.

It had a strange pattern of stars and stripes, like the American No. 1 hero.

“But why?” he replied, resisting the urge to face-palm and leave the room.

Emi put down the garish blindfold, her eyes taking on a mischievous glint and her smile took on a strange shape.

“Zuzu, we’re picking out several different sets for you, that’s why,” she told him, going back to pouring over the cloth bins.

Izuku turned his attention back to them too, his mom’s words running through his thoughts.

“Different sets, is there a reason?” he asked.

He did his best to keep his voice steady. His Mom seemed to pick up on Izuku’s lingering thoughts.

“I know you think of this as a brilliant prank, Zuzu - and it is. There’s just so much else you could use these for than just a simple prank. For example, say you choose to go limelight,” Emi held up a piece of cloth, “the blindfold would not only confuse villains, but it would also be a statement. To yourself, to the public, you would be a blind hero, a hero with a disability. Some would be against it, sure, but more still would adore it. You would give others hope with the knowledge of a blind hero, others like you. Besides, with the different sets, there’s no telling what people would be willing to say knowing they’re saying it to a blind kind,” her grin lit up the store and Izuku had to agree that his classmates’ reactions to his increasingly bizarre blindfolds would be absolutely hilarious to listen to.

So he sighed, sucked up his embarrassment at the store clerks’ obvious disbelief and incredulity at the checkout and left with a blindfold over his eyes, hiding a smile at his Mother’s cackling.

They’d collected a couple bags full of blindfolds, Izuku didn’t really care about what colour they were, he couldn’t see colours any way, but his Mom had said there were lots of green and red ones.

Izuku could work with that.

The blindfolds were sorted and labelled into different categories so Izuku could tell what they were.

They’d have to label each of them separately so he could pick what he wanted to wear each day.

He did think his mother had a good point - not that he’d ever admit that out loud.

Emi would never let it go, otherwise and he didn’t need anything to inflate his Mother’s already large head.

She had way too many jokes in mind as it was.

“Come on, squirt, Kyouka-chan and Neito-kun are too impatient to be kept waiting for long!” she cackled, flinging herself into the car.

Izuku rolled his eyes underneath the blindfold, before diving into the car after her.

What could he say? He took more after his mother than he’d ever admit.

“You’re the one driving - don’t kill us, please, otherwise they’d be waiting forever for us and we’d never come,” he drawled, buckling himself up.

Emi snorted as she slipped the car into action and they were back on the streets praying to God they’d make it in one piece.

A thought came to Izuku’s mind and he couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him.

“What’s that for?” Emi asked him as they both ignored the loud honking from another car as she cut them off. Izuku weighed the pros and cons of telling her, then caved.

“Just a thought - a quote from one of those anime you love. ‘ I cannot guarantee this will be a safe or comfortable ride; enter the vehicle at your own risk - for the love of God, please buckle up! ’ Sounds a lot like your car-rides,” Izuku smirked, even as his mother let go of the steering wheel to smack him upside the head.

“Don’t be a smartass, brat,” she smirked. Izuku rolled his eyes.

“When you start learning to drive properly ,” Izuku stressed, flattening himself against his seat.

“Oi, I’m a great driver!”

“Says the squealing tyres and angrily horn-honking other drivers,” he pointed out.

Emi was many things, but a good driver she was not. She could drive and get around, definitely, but did she follow the road rules properly, or did she stretch them to the point of breaking, but still legal?

She was an Under, and Heroes of the Underground were notorious for bending rules as far as they could go, but not breaking them. Come to think of it, his Uncle Shou drove just as badly, or maybe worse, than his Mom did - and boy, wasn’t that a scary thought?

Two drivers just as bad as each other and didn’t his mom say his uncles had just adopted?

Boy, he hoped the kid would never be in need of a ride and Uncle ‘Zashi wasn’t around.

The car ride didn’t take too long, especially with his Mother’s crazy driving at the familiar, two-storey house he’d lived in for five years came into view.

He could ‘see’ Aunt Mika waiting for him with a smile. Uncle Kyoutako was standing with her, his Kyou-chan jumping eagerly up and down between them.

Neito stood with his parents, a wide grin on his face and next to them stood his Uncles Shou and ‘Zashi, a tall, lanky boy with fluffy purple hair that looked like it defied gravity with them.

He looked bored, confused and suspicious all at once.

Izuku waited for Emi to park, before hopping out of the car. It took all of five seconds for him to be bombarded with his two friends jumping on top of him.

“Izu-kun!” Kyouka squealed, “it’s been forever! You haven’t visited in ages!” she beamed at him.

“Indeed, my friend, we missed your presence among us mere mortals and for this you shall be punished with hugs.” Neito declared.

Izuku withstood it all with a sigh, glancing at the purple boy with a dry look. His friends hadn’t even noticed the blindfold, but it seemed he did.

“What the hell?” the boy whispered, shocked beyond belief.

Izuku snorted.

“Do you mean Kyou-chan and Nei-kun, or do you mean the blindfold?” he asked, smirked when his two friends froze comically at his words and jumped off him, staring at his eyes with wide open mouths and eyes.

A small giggle came from the gaggle of adults.

“Of course you two didn’t notice,” Aizawa drawled, hiding a smirk in his capture weapon.

“Don’t be mean, Shou, they were excited,” Hizashi admonished.

Mika giggled.

“You’re right on that front, so eager,” she grinned.

Kyouka and Izuku made faces while Neito blushed.

They hadn’t figured it out, did they?

He didn’t want Izuku to find out until high school, that way Neito could woo him properly.

Kyouka helped him make his plan!

“Gross Mom! Izuku’s my Brother!” Kyouka fake-gagged. Izuku nodded in agreement with his sister.

They grew up together, practised and made fun of each other. Romance was the last thing on both their minds and he knew Kyouka knew that.

Besides, Kyouka wasn’t the one he wanted to impress.

She was his sister and he loved her like one, but someone else beat her.

“Oh Kyou, dear, we weren’t trying to imply anything,” Kyoutako hurried to reassure her. That didn’t stop her from scowling at her grinning parents.

“I’m sorry, can we return to the fact there’s a kid in a blindfold and no-one cares?” the purple teen spoke up incredulously and Izuku sighed when he heard Emi start to cackle.

“That’s it Izuku, I told you it would be priceless!” she hooted.

“Yeah, but this was my idea, so go talk boring adult talk with the adults and us kids can go do something fun in my room,” Izuku snarked at her, snagging the purple teen, Kyou-chan and Neito and leading them inside the house as the adults’ laughter echoed behind them.

The purple teen seemed beyond confused, at this point, while his sister and cru - friend were relaxed, giggling to themselves.

Izuku must have let out a laugh or a giggle of his own, because all eyes were on him.

He sighed, a smile playing on his lips as he pulled them all into his bedroom.

“Alright, what the heck is going on here? Who are you and why are Aizawa and Yamada so relaxed at my kidnapping?” the purple teen exploded, glaring at them all. His eyes then fell on Izuku and he didn’t need his quirk to know the boy was suspicious of him. “And what the hell is up with that blindfold? You people are crazy!” he groaned, running a hand down his face.

“Crazy awesome,” Kyou-chan smirked.

Izuku snickered and Neito cackled, earning flower-withering glares from the purple teen. Izuku relented on the teasing, just slightly.

“We should probably start with names,” Izuku took charge.

“I’ll go first then!” Kyouka grinned. “I’m Jirou Kyouka, I like music and I want to be a hero. My quirk is Earphone Jack,” she extended her ear jacks and wiggled them at him.

“I, my good new friend, am Monoma Neito, future hero extraordinaire and a fan of the wonderfully whimsical life of theatre!” Neito announced in his own special way.

The purple teen just stared at him as if the blonde was crazy. Izuku deadpanned at Neito with a sigh and translated for him. He knew not everyone could decipher his speeches.

“That’s Monoma Neito, he likes acting and dramas and he wants to be a hero. He didn’t tell you his quirk because he likely forgot in his excitement,” Izuku glared playfully at Neito, who smirked at Izuku without a care. “It’s called Copy, he can copy emitter and transformation quirks for up to five minutes at a time and three at once. Cool, isn’t it?” Izuku asked, his eyes shining.

The Purple teen eyed Izuku suspiciously and Izuku rolled his own eyes under the blindfold.

“And you are?” the purple teen asked dryly.

Izuku sighed again.

“Fukukado Izuku, I like playing pranks on everyone and reading. I want to be a hero. My quirk’s called Earthbending. Yes, I can ‘see’, but also yes, I’m blind.” Izuku replied, offering up no other information and the purple teen glared at him, that seemed to be the theme between him and Izuku and Izuku couldn’t say he was a fan - he’d be lying.

This was getting on his nerves.

Badly.

“That’s it? That makes no sense! There is something wrong with all of you,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, but at least we introduced ourselves. Besides, my brother doesn’t owe anyone an explanation,” Kyouka folded her arms, defending Izuku.

The boy only seemed to grow more confused.

Izuku could see the cogs in his head turning and the frustration building as the boy struggled to figure it out.

Izuku gave him the answer quietly.

“My parents died in car crashes when I turned five and Kyou-chan and her parents took me in. My Mom adopted me three years ago, but Kyou-chan and I are siblings, through and through,” he said and the boy sighed, sitting down and trying to calm down.

“Sorry, it’s been a day,” the teen said, exhaling deeply.

“Yeah, I get that. Today has been chaos, pretty much. I ran into one of my old bullies today, she still hasn’t gotten her act together, so I had to suffer through an entire morning of snide comments,” Izuku grimaced, smiling quickly at the teen, who relaxed at Izuku’s confession.

“You have bullies too?” he asked hopefully and confused at the same time.

“Yeah, when I was really little. My quirk came in late, the other kids teased and tormented me viciously,” he shivered at the bad memories flooding him.

“Pushing you out of food lines, stealing the toys you were playing with, pushing, shoving, blaming things on you when they messed up?” the boy asked.

Izuku nodded with a wince.

“You too? How bad was it?” Izuku gave the boy a smile as he slowly relaxed.

“Not as bad as that - it never got physical. I did get in trouble whenever I talked, so the other kids liked to push me to the forefront whenever they got into trouble for stuff and I couldn’t contradict them. They took full advantage of that,” the boy responded.

“Ah. So I had the assholes, you had the jerks and Neito and Kyou-chan had the asses and jerkholes,” Izuku grinned at the snort of laughter he drew from the other boy.

“You have a way of words, don’t you?” the boy questioned him.

“Yeah, and no-one will ever believe you,” Izuku smirked.

The boy let out a bark of laughter as Kyouka cleared her throat, glaring at them, unimpressed.

“Did you two seriously forget we exist?” she gestured to Neito and herself. 

“No, but we definitely ignored your presences,” Izuku retorted.

She glared as Izuku sniggered.

“So, purple kid, do you have a name?” she flicked her attention to the purple boy.

“Of course I do, the question is whether or not I give it to you,” he snarked.

“Oh, I like this kid, Kyou-chan,” Izuku grinned. Kyouka rolled her eyes at him and shook her head.

“Ugh, there are two of them now,” she groaned.

“You’ve got to admit, my dearest Kyouka, two of them does mean more fun,” Neito interjected with a grin of his own. Kyouka turned a glare on him, but Neito remained unfased.

“My name’s Shinsou Hitoshi. I want to be a hero too - an underground one, though. I can’t stand it when I’m the centre of attention,” he shuddered. "I like cats and coffee and my quirk is brainwashing. A villain’s quirk,” he grimaced. Izuku frowned at his choice of wording.

“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Hito-chan.”

“Woah, woah, what? Where’d the nickname come from?” Hitoshi wrinkled his nose at it. Izuku’s expression fell; he thought he’d chosen a good one for his newest friend.

“Don’t mind the nicknames, we have one for all of us. I’m Kyou or Kyou-chan, Izuku’s Izu, Zuzu, Izu-kun or Izuku-chan and Neito’s Nei-chan or Nei-kun,” Kyouka shrugged. Hitoshi groaned.

“Would you not call me that if I told you I hate nicknames?” 

“Nope!” they replied with sly grins.

“Thought not,” he grumbled. Izuku giggled at his disgruntled expression.

“You said you want to be a hero too, right? Where do you want to go? UA? Nei-chan and Kyou-chan want to go there too. I don’t, though. Want to train together? Is Uncle Shou training you? What type of -” a hand muffled his sudden stream of words.

“Breathe, Izuku, I don’t think Hito-chan got all that,” Kyouka chuckled.

Izuku grinned sheepishly.

“Have you started training yet? Uncle Shou and Uncle ‘Zashi are the best teachers you could get. Uncle ‘Zashi has a lot of experience with vocal quirks and Uncle Shou’s a combat master, then we can all train together and become heroes together!” Izuku slowed down and relayed his plans to the purple teen. Hitoshi blinked at Izuku, shocked.

“You - you want to be a hero with me?”

“Yeah! There are hero teams, Hito-chan. Kyou-chan, Nei-chan and I are going to be an Underground Hero team, and since you’re going to be our quad, you’re obviously joining us,” Izuku said as if it were logic. Hitoshi hesitated, then smiled, then grinned.

“Yeah, sounds like a plan,” he said.

He was smiling so wide it hurt and Izuku grinned, himself.

“That gives us two years, guys, to train for hero schools. Let’s do this!”

“Yeah!”

Chapter Text

The years passed quickly and soon, Izuku’s second and third years in middle school came to an end.

It was finally time for the most nerve-wracking exams of his life.

He’d applied for only two schools - both hero schools. He knew which one he’d attend already, but he wanted to placate his Uncles by taking UA’s entrance exams at least. His Mother taught at Ketsubutsu Academy and he’d been planning to go there since he was adopted four years ago.

The exams were still a week away, though, and he would have thrown himself into training if he was nervous, but that was never a good idea. The one time he did, he was grounded for a quarter of a year and forbidden from training for half of one.

That time was torture, but at least he had his instruments to keep him from getting too bored. He wasn’t stopped from doing basic exercises and going through warm-up motions, but he hadn’t been allowed to use his quirk to train or do any martial arts.

A lot of that time was spent observing his dead Master, Toph, which ended up being incredibly useful - more so than he first thought.

“Hey Izu-kun! Over here!” he heard his sister’s voice call.

Izuku spun around, using his quirk to pick her out of the crowd in the shopping mall. He sensed her figure by a fountain in the center, two others by her side and he knew those figures well. Izuku grinned and made his way over to them nimbly, dodging, ducking and weaving through the crowds around.

Sometimes, being short was a good thing.

His grin widened as he heard several voices and figures pointing and whispering in disbelief at him. He knew why and the blindfold he was wearing today was one of his favourites.

This was the one he planned on wearing to his exams.

Soon enough, he had arrived at the fountain and was jogging up to his friends. His purple-haired, goth-girl sister brightened up at his appearance and wrapped him in a hug. They had both grown over the two years, but frustratingly enough, Izuku wasn’t that much taller than her.

Neito gave him a courteous boy with a flirtatious wink and he rolled his eyes under his blindfold.

Neito had also grown, but more into himself than upwards. He was fit, like they all were, with a lythe build and cat-like reflexes. He’d suited grappling styles and, surprisingly enough, Aikido best when they trained and he was good .

Izuku guessed it was because his quirk required touch to work. He’d also grown more handso - no, no Izuku! We are not going there! He had a nice smile and a nice figure to ogle, but his kindness and flair for the dramatics had never changed.

It was one of the reasons Izuku found the blonde so attractive.

Izuku bowed in return, doing nothing to hide the soft, absolutely in love smile he wore whenever he was around Neito, then it was Hitoshi’s turn.

The purple teen took one look at Izuku’s blindfold and groaned loudly.

Hitoshi had grown the most out of all of them. He was the tallest with broad shoulders and a muscular build, but he was flexible and pliant, fast, strong and agile. He’d built up a whole toolbox full of tricks both with his quirk and without it.

Izuku was still the best fighter there, but Neito, Hitoshi and Kyouka always made him fight for the wins.

“Seriously, Izuku? You’re wearing that hideous thing?” he Saw Hitoshi wrinkle his nose at the atrocious blindfold.

Personally, Izuku didn’t think it looked too bad, but then again, he couldn’t see in colour and details kinda blurred together if he looked at them for too long, so he wasn’t sure how accurate he was with his assessment.

“Please tell me you’ve reconsidered wearing that thing to the exams, Izuku, or so help me I will disown you as my brother,” Kyouka threatened. Izuku snorted at her attempt.

“We both know you’d miss the competition I bring to the table too much to do that, Kyo-chan, so how about you threaten me with something that would work?” he smirked at her. 

“And that, my dear friends, is a point to Izuku. The score is now 220 to 230.” Neito interjected.

“Dammit, I was catching up to you, too,” Kyouka grumbled, offering him a disgruntled frown.

Izuku gave a small giggle as Hitoshi rolled his eyes.

“You keep believing that, Kyo-chan, you keep believing that - won’t make it any more true than it isn’t.” Neito piped up again, which left Izuku smirking pridefully and Kyouka glaring at her brother.

Hitoshi pushed between the two of them, glaring at them both.

“Will you two cut it out with your word-play competition? This is getting seriously messed up and we only have an hour and a half before Dad and Pops pick us up, do you think we can get a move on? And Izuku, I swear, take that stupid blindfold off, it’s making people stare,” Hitoshi scolded them both.

Once they looked suitably chastened, he then turned on Neito and told him off for egging their friends on.

Izuku sighed quietly as he took off the blindfold, stuffing it in his favourite dark green shoulder bag and pulled out a different one.

He knew why his friends and sister hated the blindfold, but Izuku found it hilarious. It was a plain white piece of cloth, but two ducks had been drawn on the front of it and one was wearing a completely white blindfold. There was a speech bubble next to it that read:

“Haha, I’m blind and you’re not!” as if the blind duck was taunting the other, normal duck.

It made absolutely no sense whatsoever and was completely stupid. Aizawa found it one day and gave it to Izuku for his fourteenth birthday last year. It was instantly his favourite even as everyone else yelled at his Uncle for feeding his ridiculous prank.

Izuku had to admit, it was a brilliant practical joke, but maybe the ducks were going a bit too far.

He could concede on that, at least, couldn’t he?

He relented and pulled his spare blindfold on, tying it expertly himself behind his head. This was an equally hideous one, but a little tame in comparison to the duck one he’d just been wearing.

It was a mass of weird patterns and colours and looked ridiculous, but no more so than the other dozens of blindfolds he had back at home.

“So, where in this wondrous world of fashion are we headed to?” Neito asked with a smile. Izuku snorted at his dramatic antics. The four of them had decided to take the week off from training to prepare and rest up for exams - a plan the three hero-parents completely agreed on, which was why they were at the mall.

All of them needed at least some new equipment and in Kyouka’s and Hitoshi’s cases, wanted to finally see Neito and Izuku get together.

Or at least go on a date.

It was obvious to them their friends were pining for each other, Neito made it obvious he was interested in Izuku. Izuku, for however smart and observant he was, turned out to be utterly useless with detecting and using emotions.

It took the purple duo a while to figure out Izuku had feelings for Neito, but when they did, they both teased him mercilessly for it.

“Can we go looking for shoes? I need new running shoes and a tracksuit. I know I should have gotten them a while ago, but I didn’t notice they were falling apart until they fell apart - it’s not like I use them often,” Izuku sighed. The others nodded energetically at his self-criticism, but Neito laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Fear not, my brave companion, we shall seek and find our treasures. Onwards!” the dramatic blonde grinned, leading Izuku off into the stream of shoppers.

“Oh my gosh,” Kyouka and Hitoshi deadpanned at the same time, before turning to each other.

“How do they not see this? They’re head over heels for each other!” Kyouka complained.

“You know them, Kyo-chan, hopeless is what they are. Neither of them would be able to read emotions even if it was written in straight Japanese,” Hitoshi huffed with a wry smile.

“It’s annoying.” Kyouka scowled, kicking at the ground.

“I know, but you helped Neito plan his big moment, right?” that question made Kyouka grin.

“Yeah. Even better is I got your parents in on it, too and they got the whole UA staff to help. Izu’s going to be so embarrassed, pure blackmail material!” she cheered, smirking deviously at Hitoshi, who laughed at her.

He shook his head, wondering where Kyouka could have possibly gotten her sly and revenge-seeking nature from, but then he realised his Dad, their Uncle Shouta, pretty much helped raise her since she was five and he was the pettiest man anyone would ever meet. It wasn’t as much of a shock if he thought of it that way.

“I need a few energy drinks and Dad bribed me into buying him jelly packets, want to head off to the mart?” Hitoshi asked Kyouka and she considered the question, before ultimately agreeing to it. He knew she would, just as he knew what she was going to say next.

“Sure, but we have to hit the music shop afterwards, there are some records on sale that I have to get - they’re vintage!” her eyes sparkled. Hitoshi chuckled fondly.

“Will you let me take you on a date after we get our results from UA’s entrance exam?” Hitoshi smiled softly at her. Kyouka looked up at him in surprise, then turned away, her shoulders shaking. Hitoshi grimaced.

Had he messed up?

Did she not like the idea?

“Y - you certainly took your time, waiting like that. I’ve been waiting for that question ever since I figured I was bi and not straight gay! You owe me, T - Toshi,” Kyouka stuttered, hiding her red face and punching him lightly on the shoulder.

Hitoshi’s face lit up as he nodded quickly.

They walked off in silence, but if anyone noticed how their hands weaved together, no-one in the crowd at the mall said a thing.

Too bad Izuku and Neito weren’t having it so easy.

Neito was quick to split off from the group with Izuku, but that was before he realised he’d be alone with the boy he loved. Neito had a flair for the dramatic, sure, but he didn’t count spouting nonsensical lines to his crush as drama!

The blonde groaned inwardly as he let Izuku lead him around the sports store, critically eyeing the goods on the shelves.

Izuku didn’t have any sense of colour - his sight took that with it when it left him and never gave it back, so as long as something fit him, he bought it, but that also led Izuku to having the worst fashion sense Neito had ever seen.

There was a reason Emi had always forbidden Izuku from going clothing shopping alone and Neito had never properly understood why until now, as Izuku picked up a stupidly bright tracksuit his size.

“Izu-kun, my dear, that garish thing shan’t suit you in the slightest,” Neito told Izuku gently, carefully taking the tracksuit from him and hanging it back on the rack. Izuku huffed at Neito, folding his arms and Neito thought he was about to die.

Why did Izuku have to be so cute?

“It’s fine if it’s in size, right?” Izuku complained, sighing as he crinkled his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with my pick this time?”

A few other shoppers glanced their way and snickered.

“You don’t have much sense for colours, do you Kid?” one of the employees questioned him with a grin. He approached from behind and Izuku spun around to face him, the kid blanching when he caught sight of the blindfold.

“Seeing as I’m blind and my quirk’s sensory aspect doesn’t return colour to my vision, no I don’t have much of a sense of colours,” Izuku told him plainly.

The employee breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t scare me like that, Kid! I really thought you were completely blind,” he muttered.

“I am blind - can’t see to save my life, but I don’t need my eyes to see,” Izuku said cryptically.

Before the employee could even begin to decipher that remark, Neito jumped in with a forest green tracksuit in Izuku’s eyes and matching sneakers.

“Go try these, Izu-kun, they should fit,” he said. Izuku nodded reluctantly, taking the clothes and shoes and heading for a changing room. T

he employee smirked at Neito knowingly.

“That’s one hell of an eye you got Kiddo, good pick,” he whistled.

“Izuku’s the best,” Neito blushed, “I have a confession planned, but I’m not sure he’ll accept it.”

“Trust me, blondie,” the employee laughed, slapping Neito on the back with a wide grin, “he’s as smitten for you as you are for him.”

Neito exploded into crimson.

“Is it that obvious?” Neito whined, covering his face with his hands while the employee of the store snickered at his obliviousness.

“Oh, absolutely, I don’t think anyone thought otherwise,” the employee gestured around to the other shoppers, several of which either grinned, winked or did both at him.

Neito whined again, when Izuku popped up beside the two.

“It fits. Should we take it?” he asked, then stared at Neito as if examining him under an X-ray. “Are you alright Nei-chan? Was this guy bothering you?” Izuku sent a suspicious glare to the store employee. The man smirked and raised his hands in a mock gesture of surrender.

Neito hurried to assure Izuku he was alright.

“I’m perfectly fine, Izuku. I am the white knight here to rescue you from fashion disasters,” he grinned dashingly at Izuku.

Izuku felt himself smiling at Neito’s silly antics.

“Yeah Kid, calm down. I didn’t touch your boyfriend,” Izuku squawked at the store employee, feeling his ears get hot.

What kind of stupidity was that?

“I’m not his boyfriend, don’t you have a job to get back to?” he hissed menacingly.

“Yet,” the employee shot back, “and I don’t think anyone’s minding with the show we’re putting on,” Izuku scowled at him, then turned on his heel and stalked off to the checkouts, Neito following close behind him.

The employee chuckled, then felt arms slip around his waist.

“Who were they, Yo?” came a quiet voice that sounded as smooth as silk.

“A couple of kids pining for each other, nothing to worry about, Hattori,” the employee patted the arms circling his waist. 

“They were cute, do you think we’ll see them again?”

“Maybe? I don’t know, but the green-haired kid does look familiar… didn’t Ms. Joke-sensei tell us she adopted a kid who’d be coming to Ketsubutsu next year?” the employee asked.

“Hmm, maybe. If he is, he’ll be a lot of fun.”

“Don’t annoy the poor kid too much, you’ll break him, you know.”

“I didn’t break you.”

“Because I know how to deal with your quirk. Your eyes don’t work on me, Hattori.”

“I don’t think they’ll work on the Kid, either, Yo. He did say he was blind.”

“I doubt it’ll work, besides, how will we get close to him? I have a feeling this won’t be easy - do you still want to try?” the arms encircling the employee’s waist tightened.

“Of course I do, Yo. He seems like such an interesting friend to make, and we can teach him a lot of things to do with his quirk he hasn’t figured out.”

“Okay Hattori, just - just take it easy, okay? Not everyone is as welcoming of quirks like yours as our class is. We don’t want to scare him off, particularly if Ms. Joke-sensei’s his Mom.”

“I guess you’re right, Yo. Anyway, when does your shift end? Wanna go on a date?”

“I want to do whatever if it’s with you Hattori, was there anywhere you wanted to go?”

“Coffee. Anywhere’s fine as long as there’s coffee. I want some.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear your quirk was powered by coffee, the way you down it.”

“You like coffee just as much as I do and you know it.”

“No, Hattori, I don’t. I can’t - no-one loves coffee more than you do.”

“True. Coffee is the life-blood of the black and soulless.”

“Really? Did you have to get all goth on me? Get real Hattori…” the conversation shifted away as Izuku’s quirk stretched itself to the limit.

Izuku didn’t let anything show on his face, but hoped beyond all measure that he ended up staying far, far away from those two weird kids when he got into Ketsubutsu.

The day of the entrance exam arrived without fanfare. Izuku woke up to his alarm beeping at him and he hopped out of bed, getting dressed in a hurry. He could feel the sun’s warmth smiling down on him through his window, but all Izuku really felt was anticipation.

He wasn’t actually trying to pass the exams - he didn’t want to get into UA, he was merely moral support for his friends, who were trying to get into UA.

He could smell breakfast in the kitchen, and he ‘saw’ his Mother’s figure running around in the kitchen trying to not burn whatever was in the pan on the stove.

He knew it was burning.

Izuku sighed and shook his head with a smile on his face.

His Mom was useless at anything not teaching or heroics related, but other than that, she was ridiculously bad at everything else. He tied a blindfold over his eyes and packed his shoulder bag with his tracksuit and running shoes - he’d broken them in over the week so he wouldn’t get blisters on his feet during the exam and hinder him for Ketsubutsu’s.

His pencil case and several braille books were shoved in, too, because while Izuku didn’t want to sound like he was bragging, he knew he’d be one of the first kids finished with their written tests.

He wasn’t arrogant - he was smart.

Everyone told him so, so he had to be, right? Several spare blindfolds, including the duck one, were chucked into it, too. He sensed his Mother packing him a lunch box and rolled his eyes, marching out of his room, ready for the exam.

“Hey Mom, what did you burn for breakfast this morning?” he called, ducking under one of her special rubber chickens she used for heroing being thrown at him and sat down at the table, chuckling.

She almost never got a rise out of him, but he always managed to make her pout.

“My own son’s being rude to me, oh the agony, my life is falling apart. Oh my dear sweet boy, how could you do this to me,” she wailed dramatically, smothering him with hugs and kisses. Izuku sighed and let her, glancing over his shoulder at her, unamused.

“Need I remind you I have an exam I can’t be late for?” he asked mildly.

“Of course not, but my baby’s not worried about passing. After all, he’s going to get into Ketsubutsu where his mommy works and be with me forever!” Emi cackled mock madly, grinning at him and ruffling his hair.

She set a plate down in front of him and he stared at it.

“Wow Mom,” he began, “I can’t believe you managed to not burn anything,” he said incredulously.

His Mom nodded proudly and he tucked into breakfast hungrily.

“Yup! I put in all this effort for you, so go kick but - and please just ask little Neito out already, this pining thing the two of you have going on is getting ridiculous,” she replied, taking a seat opposite him and starting on her own breakfast.

“It’s not pining. Besides, Nei-chan doesn’t like me like that Mom. We’re friends and I don’t want to hurt that,” Izuku mumbled. Emi sighed, but let the subject go.

“Are you all ready for the exam? Do you have everything? I made you lunch for your lunch,” Emi muttered, then paused and re-said her words. Izuku snorted.

“You made me lunch for lunch? Gee, thanks Mom. I didn’t know I’d be having lunch for lunch, it’s such a treat,” he intoned with only the ghost of a smile hovering about his lips to indicate his mood.

Emi rolled her eyes fondly and gently clipped her son on the back of his head.

“Come on, smarty pants, into the car with you if you’re ready.

“Aren’t you going to get ready? We had a whole scene to perform when we got to UA! You know, the one Uncle Shou said he’d kill us for if we even thought of doing it in front of all those people?” he couldn’t help the eager tone seeping into his voice - this wasn’t his idea, he swore!

He heard Emi cackle and relaxed. He felt her disappear into her room and return with a pair of costumes.

He couldn’t help the smile that spread slowly over his face.

His Uncle was going to hate him for this, but this was going to be brilliant.

“Of course I wouldn’t forget! Anything to get under my dear Shouta’s skin, besides, Principle Nezu’s not going to complain about us causing a little bit of chaos,” she grinned, handing him one of the costumes.

Izuku couldn’t stop smiling as he took it carefully.

“I know Nei-chan loves drama, but how did we talk him into this, again?”

“You asked, he can’t say no to the other half of his OTP and said yes,” Emi shrugged, smirking at his confused expression.

If there was one thing that absolutely stumped him, it was slang like that. “Put that on, grab your violin and let’s get going, don’t want to be late, do we?” she asked and it was Izuku’s turn to shrug.

Ten minutes later they were both walking out of their apartment in the most ridiculous outfits Emi could find and speeding down the street in Emi’s car to UA’s Entrance exams.

Izuku had gotten used to his Mom’s crazy driving and let out a laugh.

“So, Uncle Sho’s going to kill us for this, isn’t he?” he asked as they stood outside UA’s gates.

Students in all sorts of uniforms were gawking at them openly, not bothering to hide their stares.

It made sense, Izuku would be staring too, if he could.

Emi was dressed as a pre-quirk era pirate - hook hand, eye-patch, stained, ragged and wide-sleeved, colourful clothing and Izuku in white, a flowing outfit that could have been easily mistaken for a wedding dress, if not for the clear parting of the free-flowing half-top and billowing pants.

A white lace veil covered his face and of course his shoes were nonexistent.

He carried his violin in one hand and its bow in the other, waiting for Neito to show so they could begin their performance.

“Of course he is, so we have to give a great performance before we die,” she replied off-handedly.

The car had been parked not too far away, so the walk they took to get to UA wasn’t that much of a hike. 

“What ho my friend, you fiendish pirate! Return my musician this instant!” came a loud, amused voice, the signal for their impromptu performance to begin.

Emi swept Izuku up and Izuku brought bow to string and began playing as Neito, dressed as a pre-quirk nobleman confronted the ‘fiendish pirate’ that was his mother’s character. 

“Never!” she cackled and the pair began a back-and-forth dance that had the examinees gawking.

Izuku knew why.

Were the fencing foils a touch too much? Oh well, it was too late to do anything now.

Izuku was swept up in their ‘fight’, moving swiftly and elegantly between Neito and Emi as they ‘fought’ with their blades, tugged this way and that, but constantly playing until:

“Oh my gosh, Izu-kun, I cannot believe you,” his Sister’s voice groaned amusedly.

“You two better get going, Pops found it hilarious, but Dad’s on his way over and he’s going to kill you three, though the reactions you got are freaking brilliant,” Hitoshi smirked.

Izuku stopped playing, flipped up the veil and grinned.

Emi and Neito disengaged and, with a flourish, set their fencing foils away.

Emi winked Izuku, high-fiving him before bolting.

Izuku and Neito bowed cheekily to their unsuspecting audience.

“This has been a pleasant beyond pleasant experience, my dears,” Neito began with a grin.

“Thank you for watching, our dear examinees, enjoy the next five hours!” Izuku called, his face lit up with joy.

“Fukukado Izuku and Monoma Neito. What. Are. You. Doing. ” came the incredibly quiet voice of Aizawa Shouta, a band of capture weapon sliding around his and Neito’s waists.

Izuku simply grinned at his Uncle, shrugging mischievously. 

“I know you said not to do it, but since when did I ever listen to reason?” he asked, holding back a laugh as he was dragged through the crowd of gaping kids. The scruffy-looking hobo that Izuku knew as his Uncle Shouta dragged him through UA’s halls, Neito having been let go.

The walls were a pretty blue trimmed with white and every so often, the pair passed enormous doors that were no doubt classrooms. Aizawa didn’t let Izuku go until they arrived and entered a large conference room, several grinning and heaving-with-laughter heroes were seated around the table.

A small, white-furred mammal was sitting at the head of the circular table, a sharp smile and excitement brewing on his face and in his beady black eyes.

“Principal Nezu,” Izuku nodded at the mammal cordially, his face setting back to his default neutral.

The mammal’s smile widened.

“Well, well, that was a sight to witness today,” Nezu chirped.

“Mom said you wouldn’t mind - and I’m not trying to get into UA, so it doesn’t matter if I’m punished for the stunt I pulled, but Neito - Monoma was pulled in by me and Mom and is not to be held accountable for his actions.” he said, and heard shocked sputtering at the admission.

“Not trying to get into UA? But it is All Might’s old school, shouldn’t you be eager to attend UA?” asked a tall, pencil-thin skeleton man with piercing blue eyes and long, bright blonde hair.

Izuku scoffed and rolled his eyes. How full of himself could the NO. 1 hero be?

“Who cares where All Might went to school? I plan on going to Ketsubutsu with my Mom and besides, Uncle Shou would never let me pull a single prank,” Izuku pulled a face. He heard a groan and felt an ice-melting, flower-withering glare turn on him, his quirk fading away.

“Grounded.” Aizawa hissed. “You are grounded until the end of time, now sit down quietly , while I work.” the Underground hero ordered, dragging Izuku over to a free chair and depositing the short boy on it.

Izuku felt his quirk return and the capture weapon unravel itself from around his waist.

Izuku shrugged again and set his bag down, pulling out a book and opening it. He ‘saw’ several heroes start in surprise and realised he was still wearing his blindfold and veil.

Sitting around the conference table were heroes Izuku knew well - Midnight, Snipe, Ectoplasm and Powerloader among them. Screens and cameras were plastered all around the room, most likely to keep an eye out for cheaters during the written exam and to score the practical.

“Shou, are you going to give them an explanation?” Izuku heard Hizashi ask with a grin and decided to pipe up himself, Aizawa scowling into his capture weapon. 

“Hi, I’m Fukukado Izuku. I’ve known Uncle ‘Zashi and Uncle Shou since I was five! Fukukado Emi, otherwise known as the Smile Hero: Ms. Joke adopted me when I was ten. Eraserhead’s my favourite hero and my Quirk is called Earthbending. It’s an earth manipulation quirk with a sensory aspect to it, too. Yes, I’m blind and yes, I can see, thank you very much. I like playing jokes and pranks on people and I want to be a hero, but I don’t want to go to UA. is that sufficient enough?” Izuku addressed Hizashi, who grinned and flashed a thumbs-up at him as they left the other heroes to decipher all of that.

Midnight hid a snort of laughter, disguising it as a cough and Izuku shot her a discreet smile.

“You’re still grounded,” Aizawa grumbled, glaring at them.

“I know, but look, everyone else is more relaxed, aren’t they?” Izuku pointed out.

“True enough, Fukukado-kun!” Nezu spoke up, positively beaming at him.

“Please call me Izuku, Fukukado’s too long, for my liking,” Izuku made a face. Aizawa waved his hand tiredly at Izuku and continued glaring at him.

“Shush you, I said sit quietly.” Izuku saluted him mockingly and returned to his book, while the written exams commenced on the screen before them. The written exam passed quickly, Izuku’s attention firmly on his book and completely ignoring the mutterings of the heroes and pens and pencils scratching on paper.

He ignored Aizawa’s glares that became less and less heated and he ignored Nezu’s intrigued glances at him. None of the others in the room were too subtle about their interest in him, either, considering their focus should have been on the examinees in the auditorium, currently taking the exam.

It didn’t take too much longer for Izuku to get fed up.

“Shouldn’t you all be paying the examinees more attention than you’ve been paying me?” he asked mildly, not taking his attention off of his book. Using his ‘sight’, he ‘saw’ most of the heroes start, heard Hizashi snigger and Aizawa sigh and felt the look of hunger on Nezu’s face.

“How…” Powerloader whispered, baffled. Izuku snorted at the question.

“Did you miss the part where I told you I’ve known Uncle Shou and Uncle ‘Zashi since I was five? Who do you think trained me when I said I wanted to be a hero?”

“To be fair, Listener, you also said you were Emi’s son,” Hizashi grinned. Izuku made a noise of understanding, then tipped his head in a so-so motion.

“Okay, that makes more sense, but she taught me more how to throw people off completely than how to fight or use my quirk - or anything like that, really. It’s thanks to Mom I can pull off an outfit as stupid as this one and not feel an ounce of shame,” he gestured to himself calmly.

“Yes, and you’re both grounded.” Aizawa bit out.

“From training or from hanging out with Hito-chan?”

“Both.” Aizawa glared at him with his quirk activating. Izuku turned to Hizashi.

“Uncle ‘Zashi… could you help me train?” he asked with puppy dog eyes shining at the hero.

“Of course, Listener!”

“No, ‘Zashi, that’s what ‘grounding’ is,” Aizawa glared at his husband and Izuku, both who merely grinned back at him, showing zero remorse whatsoever.

“Sorry to interrupt – very sorry, this is hilarious – the written exam has ended, Eraserhead, Present Mic. The examinees have an hour for lunch, then it’s time for the practical exam. Are you prepared, Mic?” Midnight cut in with a smirk.

Hizashi smirked back.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied.

Chapter Text

Izuku really, really did not trust that phrase.

He knew they were absolutely planning something - he just hoped it was good and not all-around embarrassing. He wondered how Nei-chan, Kyo-chan and Hito-chan were doing, hoping they’d all pass.

Unless you were talking technically, none of them had very physical quirks, nothing bright or flashy like the other examinees.

Izuku knew they could do it, though.

He knew they could.

His Mom and Uncles were the ones who trained them and Mom, Uncle Shou and Uncle ‘Zashi were nothing if not thorough when training. His friends had even had him show them a few earthbending moves they could potentially use against both robots and people, but Izuku had hesitated on that one.

Robots were tough, if they used earthbending moves without the earth, he knew they’d break something, but he showed them a few, simple moves and had them practise the stomp-kick-clap combo until they could all do it on instinct.

That had, admittedly, taken a while.

It was simple, sure, stomp on the ground to spook the opponent, kick out shallowly to get them to give you a bit of space, when step forward into theirs and clap your hands around their heads to immobilise them.

Kyo-chan and Hito-chan asked him why making space was necessary when they’d be charging in to immobilise them, but Izuku pointed out that, if you wanted to run away and pulled the sequence of right, you’d have the space to run away while also having an opponent who wasn’t sure if he should follow you.

His style was aggressive, he knew that.

It was fast, aggressive and low to the ground so he could feel and sense around him properly, but he wasn’t limited to the ground.

His situation was a lot different that Toph’s and since he could still ‘see’, for lack of a better definition, off the ground, dodging high was less of an issue. It had taken a while to learn how to work around less sharp senses while in the air, but he’d worked through them, no problem.

Izuku didn’t move from his seat as the examinees moved from the written testing halls to an auditorium where Present Mic was waiting in the wings.

“He’s going to be over the top, get no response then be disappointed throughout the rest of the presentation, isn’t he?” Izuku noted with a sigh. Aizawa snorted with a grin hidden in his capture weapon. That’s exactly what would happen with his loudmouth husband.

“Congratulations - you’ve figured out the secrets of Yamada Hizashi,” he smirked. Izuku rolled his eyes.

His Uncle Shou was so weird sometimes.

“Oh please, you knew I’d be more like you than him since I first asked you how to ‘friend’,” he deadpanned at the Underground Hero, both of them ignoring the incredulous stares of the other teachers.

He was ten, alright? Asking that was completely natural.

“Oh my gosh, there’s two of them,” he heard a muffled voice groan - Vlad King, the Blood Hero.

Izuku hadn’t actually met him before, but now that he had… he and Aizawa turned sharp grins on him and he shivered in fear.

“Be afraid,” they chorused, “be very, very afraid.”

“Shouta, Izuku, stop scaring Kan and the other teachers,” Hizashi scolded them as he slumped into the room.

He wore a pout and sounded vaguely like a disappointed parent. He was still wearing the disappointment from the Physical Exam presentation on his face and it showed. Izuku sighed, staring at the Voice hero blandly.

“We told you, Uncle ‘Zashi. In a room full of nervous kids about to take an exam, no-one’s going to respond to an over-enthusiastic question,” he said.

Aizawa nodded with him and Hizashi’s pout deepened. He didn’t agree, it seemed.

“I was only trying to lighten the mood!” he complained. Loudly.

“It didn’t work much, did it?” Aizawa snorted at his husband.

“That’s not the point, Shou!” Hizashi whined loudly, as Izuku and Aizawa heaved matching sighs and levelled matching deadpan stares at him.

They ignored the whispers of -

“Help, there really are two Eraserheads,” in favour of watching the practical unfold.

Hizashi screamed “Go!” to them and Izuku smirked at the monitors when he noticed only Kyouka, Hitoshi and Neito ran into the mock cities.

There were four of them - labelled, unhelpfully, testing sites ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’. His friends had been split up between them and he would have been in the fourth, but his little stunt with his Mom and Neito meant he didn’t have to take the exam - whoopie.

The robots roamed the streets and from what Izuku could see, each testing site only held about two hundred and fifty robots each.

With almost a thousand examinees, it was a first come, first served sort of basis. In the context of UA and hero school exams in general, it was actually a pretty good test - or it would be if it didn’t cater so heavily towards physical quirks.

His friends were all running through the streets of the mock cities that were the testing sites and were well ahead of their fellow examinees, thank goodness.

The cut-off was forty points, considering only thirty-six examinees made it to the hero course through the practical exam. The last four entered through recommendations and the forty in total students were split between the hero course.

Twenty went into 1-A, Aizawa’s homeroom and the other twenty into 1-B, Vlad King’s homeroom. It wasn’t like one class was better than the other, the students in 1-A were just featured more, remembered better.

Izuku was sure it was the teacher in charge of the different classes, not the classes themselves.

Vlad focused a littles too much on the rivalry between 1-A and 1-B while Aizawa actually put work into making sure his class feared him and that his class would obey him completely.

It, admittedly, wasn’t the best tactic, but it ensured Aizawa’s students wouldn’t ignore his orders in a crisis. Of course, it always meant he wasn’t the most favourite teacher on staff, but Aizawa was a teacher - he wasn’t participating in a popularity contest.

Izuku watched the screens with half-hearted interest, not really caring about most of the action - more than half the examinees were going to fail, so what was the point?

Then he saw them.

On the same screen.

Izuku stared. 

“H - hey, Uncle Shou?” he asked quietly, his eyes firmly rooted on the screen before him. “Who are they ?” he breathed, his eyes wide.

Aizawa glanced at the screen Izuku was fixated on, then grinned impishly. Izuku didn’t see it, not wanting to miss the sight before his eyes.

“Why do you want to know?” he inquired slyly.

“An Airbender and a Waterbender, right before my eyes, Uncle Shou, who are they ?” Izuku emphasised with a hard tone.

Two boys on-screen were devastating robots left and right, one wielding water with a scowl on his face and the other blowing them to bits, surrounded by air currents.

He wore a grin, as if he enjoyed the destruction, but Izuku didn’t care about that. He could see their elements, shining as bright as the sun, but even if his attention had been captured by them, he couldn’t feel anything from them.

Maybe his dreams were wrong.

Maybe the stories running through his mind every night, the words and the memories haunting his dreams, of both the past and the future, were just that, dreams and stories.

Izuku shook his head, tearing himself away from their screen and moving on, trying to find his sister, friend and crush.

The exam continued on like that for a while, robots crushed here, robots destroyed there, a careless examinee saved here and there, when a low chuckle caught Izuku’s attention.

“Well well, two minutes left. Are you ready, Mic?” Nezu, the Principal of UA asked and Hizashi nodded, almost jumping up and down with excitement. Izuku leaned over to Aizawa.

“Ready for what?” he whispered, feigning disinterest. Aizawa only smirked.

“You’ll see,” he replied cryptically, turning his attention back to the screens and Izuku’s followed. Izuku glanced at the screens, slightly confused, then his eyes widened.

“I really hope you lot know what you’re doing,” Izuku hissed, whipping his head around to glare at Aizawa.

On screen, four enormous robots appeared, taller than the mock buildings in the cities and twice as wide, crushing everything in its path.

One for each mock city, Izuku knew.

His friends were in there with them - Kyou-chan, Hito-chan and Nei-chan. They better be safe.

“Of course we know what we’re doing,” a tall, skeleton-looking blonde with a sunken face and long bright blonde hair scoffed, folding his arms.

Izuku growled at him.

“I don’t care whether you think you have this under control - I want to know you’re in control because if my friends - my sister and her boyfriend and my best friend get hurt, I’ll be coming after you with all the wrath of All Might himself.” Izuku hissed, a serious glare darkening his face.

Many of the teachers shifted in their seats, fidgeting.

“Calm down, Lil’ Listener, I promise no-one’s going to get hurt beyond a few scrapes and bruises,” Hizashi laid a gentle hand on his honourary nephew’s soft green curls.

“I - I know, Uncle ‘Zashi - but what Idiot thought this was a good idea? Robots cater to people with physical quirks, meant for people like me with strong offensive powers. It’s not made for people like Kyou-chan and Hito-chan. They have a mental quirk and an ear mutation quirk. How’s that going to help against robots? It’s silly and biassed,” he huffed.

“I’ve been saying that for years, Izuku, but it’s not up to us or even Nezu. The Commission want strong daylight heroes, Investigation heroes and Undergrounders like me aren’t as valued to them, so Practical exams of successful hero schools are made for physical quirks and the fittest and smartest others,” Aizawa grumbled.

It wasn’t fair at all, but that’s how it went.

“Stupid corrupt Hero Public Safety Commission,” Izuku frowned, his eyes flicking over to Nezu.

“When are you going to destroy them and take over power, Rat King? We all know you can,” he remarked, to almost all of the heroes’ horror.

Nezu smirked at him and Aizawa snorted, amused.

“Soon, Fukukado-kun, I am merely biding my time and waiting for the opportune moment,” the principal’s eyes flashed with anticipation and Izuku found himself grinning.

“Oh Uncle Shou, I like him,” Izuku grinned ferally at Nezu. 

“I knew you would,” Aizawa huffed, rolling his eyes, but hiding a smile in his capture weapon.

“Shouta! Stop corrupting the Baby!” Hizashi cut in with a frustrated pout.

Izuku and Aizawa stared at him blandly.

Where did that come from?

“Baby?” they asked incredulously. Hizashi nodded confidently.

“He’s the precious baby,” the Voice hero declared. Izuku and Aizawa wore matching deadpans.

“He’s fourteen, Hizashi.” Aizawa told him, unimpressed.

“I’m about to start high school,” Izuku added plainly.

“You’re still the precious baby boy! Hitoshi too, our baby,” Hizashi grinned cheekily. 

“Uncle Shou, you married him.” Izuku turned to stare at Aizawa.

“I did,” Aizawa sighed, nodding. He didn’t know where his husband got it from.

“Why him?” Izuku groaned, pointing at Hizashi. The blonde’s lips twitched and the rest of the staff had to hide grins and smiles. This was by far the most amusing interaction they’d witnessed all day - and there were so many memorable moments to choose from.

“Remember Izuku, when an extrovert adopts an introvert -”

“They have no choice in the matter, I know,” Izuku interrupted, ignoring the -

“That is not how friendship works, you two, and you know it!” from Hizashi.

“Apply it to feelings -”

“Ugh, emotions,” they both shivered, then snickered at each other. They really got along like a house that set itself on fire. Maybe this was why Hizashi refused to leave them alone together.

“And you end up with a loud blonde husband. Beware the blondes, Izuku, beware.” Aizawa warned him in the deadest tone of voice he could muster.

A quiet snort had Izuku’s and Aizawa’s eyes shooting over to the other staff, Midnight, Powerloader, Vlad King and Snipe all trying and failing to hide their laughter and shaking shoulders. 

“Aizawa-kun! If I didn’t know how utterly in love you were with Hizashi, I would have asked if Izuku was your secret love child!” Nezu chirped as Izuku and Aizawa choked at the confession.

Hizashi chuckled, turning his attention back to the exam he was meant to be officiating, when a loud explosion went off in Mock City C and all eyes swung to its corresponding screen, just in time to see the fireworks coming out of the giant zero-point robot, lighting up the sky.

Izuku stared.

That was Neito’s exam site.

Without thinking, Izuku fled the viewing room, dashing through the halls. 

He was desperate to find him, Neito better be okay otherwise he was going to kill someone. Izuku rushed towards the mock cities used for the exam, using his quirk to move himself faster than the buses and dashing inside it as quickly as he could.

The city was pretty much in ruins, buildings partially destroyed, robots laying on their sides, smoking and on fire, the streets and concrete torn to pieces, but Izuku couldn’t have cared less.

He had to find Neito!

He ran through the streets, searching desperately with his quirk to find the boy he’d grown so fond of. He raced past the examinees, stopping a few times to help out the few who couldn’t seem to help themselves, but continued making his way towards where his best friend and crush of a few years most likely was.

Neito always was drawn to dramatics and theatricality and explosions counted as just that.

Izuku used his quirk as best as he could, actively expanding out his area of influence so he could sense more, hear more, feel more than anything he could with his usual abilities.

There!

Izuku gritted his teeth, he’d found Neito!

Izuku ran through the torn up streets, ignoring collapsed and caved buildings and the decimated robots laying about everywhere and made his way directly towards the large pillar of smoke rising into the air.

He ran and jumped and slid past robots, rubble and other examinees, until the person he’d been searching for came into view, kneeling in front of the giant robot on fire. Relief flooded through him - Neito was okay.

“Nei-chan!” he yelled, practically bulldozing through the examinees crowded around the blonde, a brunette and a built boy with blue hair and engines in his calves. Neito looked unhurt, for the most part, and was largely pleased to see Izuku, the blind boy running towards him frantically.

“Neito! You’re okay! For the love of time itself, I swear if you scare me like that again you’re sleeping on the couch the rest of our lives!” he yelled, tackling the boy in a tight hug. Izuku heard Neito cackling in his ear and pulled back, confused. Was the robot…?

“Nei-chan, did you do something to make the robot explode? You know I can’t exactly see the goings-on of the sky and stuff,” he frowned at the smirking blonde.

“Wait, that’s -” the brunette whipped her head around to stare at Izuku, but Neito shushed her.

“Quiet, witness, for today you shall view history!” Neito declared, and Izuku groaned.

“Nei-chan, do you have to be so dramatic all the time?” 

“But of course, my beloved. I believe this moment deserves a flair of fancy,” Neito told him. He pushed away from Izuku, reaching into his tracksuit pocket to pull out a small, black box.

Izuku could only stare at his crush’s ludicrous thoughts.

“ Please don’t tell me you’re -”

“My dearest Izuku-kun!” Neito interrupted with a grin, getting down on one knee and holding up the box like it was a precious artefact. “You captivated my attention from the moment you first performed on my stage, you played my heartstrings in time with your heartbeat and I want to take this time now to ask you if you would have me for the rest of eternity, captivate my soul and continue playing the perfect melody of our hearts,” he said softly, Izuku’s eyes opening up wide.

Did he -

Did Neito -

“Y - you share my affections? Truly?” Izuku whispered, hating the fact his heart was pounding, his face was flushing and his palms were sweating - oh no.

Izuku watched Neito open the black box, revealing a lovely silver chain and the most beautiful pendant. His name was written out in cursive on top of a crest with all four elements represented. Neito dug into his tracksuit and pulled out a necklace similar to Izuku’s slung about his neck - with his name on it instead.

It wasn’t their real names, though, it was their proposed hero names and Izuku felt his heart burst with happiness at the sight of it.

Neito wanted him.

Izuku gulped and slowly turned to the camera that had been watching the event play out.

“Uncle Shou,” he began slowly, “I have fallen in love with a loud blonde. Does the rule still apply here?” he asked and a little red light on the camera blinked red.

“ Repeat after me, Izuku ,” came the slow voice of Aizawa, “ You do not - ”

“- have a choice in the matter, I understand,” Izuku sighed.

“ For the last time you two, that is not how relationships – friendships or otherwise – work! ” Hizashi screeched into the camera.

He was promptly ignored.

So was the whispered -

“Was that Present Mic ?” he turned to Neito, the boy grinning as he held the box aloft in the air and Izuku shook his head with a small smile.

“Was the explosion really necessary?” he asked, feigning disgruntlement.

“No, but it made for great entertainment,” Neito smirked.

Izuku groaned and helped Neito to his feet, the blonde boy helping the greenette pull the necklace around his neck.

“Does this mean you accept?” Izuku practically felt Neito’s emotions swell up and he rolled his eyes.

His new boyfriend had to be so dramatic all the time.

“Of course, you dummy. I love you too,” he gagged at the end of the sentence, then carried on, “besides, our Aunts and Uncles went to such great lengths to get us together, how could I say no? By the way,” he turned back to the camera and scowled into it, “one of you better have a  better explanation for putting them all in danger otherwise someone’s losing their claws,” he growled.

He felt Neito take his hand in his and relaxed in an instant.

“It was my idea, my beloved, though we forgot your ‘eyes’ don’t have access to the skies above,” Neito chuckled softly, caressing his hands ever-so-gently. Izuku leaned into the touch, sighing softly before a thought reached his mind.

“Hey, Nei-chan? Does this mean we’re a couple now?” he asked curiously. Tilting his head sideways just the slightest bit. 

Neito smirked happily and, without warning, pulled Izuku into his first ever kiss, taking the usually stoic boy by surprise.

Izuku squeaked in shock, then melted into the kiss, Neito’s lips soft and warm and oh-so-hungry against his, devouring his lips.

Izuku let him take control, too surprised to do anything but hug Neito back and melt into the kiss. When Neito finally pulled back, letting Izuku stumble back a few steps, their hands connected and the rioting crowd all but forgotten at that point.

Izuku’s face felt hot and red and he tried to put words into place, unable to do anything but stare at Neito.

“You - y - you,” he stuttered, his thoughts crashing about in his head. Neito smirked again, smugly and triumphantly and Izuku knew it wasn’t over yet.

Neito had k - kiss - ki - kissed him !

“Yes, my beloved? The blonde slowly pulled Izuku into another embrace, one hand slowly roaming down his cheek, the other holding his waist firmly in place.

“Uh - Ne - Nei-chan, we’re in public,” Izuku whispered, his face flaming. The blonde chuckled and let his partner go for the time being. Izuku stumbled back, mumbling a half-hearted -

“See you after the exam, Sunshine,” then ran off, passing through the streets and past all the destruction and gaping children in favour of rushing back to UA, back to the halls and bursting into the viewing room.

He ignored all the sniggering adults and fell against Aizawa.

“Uncle Shou, help, I think I might have fallen in love with a loud blonde,” he groaned. Aizawa petted him on the head and nodded sympathetically.

“I know, I know, I’d like to say it gets easier, but, sadly, they only get louder,” Aizawa sighed.

They both ignored the snorts and chuckles of the other teachers in the background and Hizashi’s soft mumbling that really carried no heat behind it.

It had been the dynamic of the trio for as long as Izuku was smart enough to understand what such an elaborate running joke was. Aizawa nudged Izuku out of thoughts with a swift ruffle of his soft green curls.

“The exam’s over, kiddo, go find the other Gremlins and head over to the Jirous with Kyouka. Your Mom will pick you up from there,” he told him.

Izuku nodded with a cheeky salute, dodged a playful swipe from Aizawa and a hug from Hizashi, running out of the viewing room as quickly as he could. He could feel people staring after him, both in amusement and concern.

“Be glad he’s not applying for UA, otherwise we’d have all four of the problem children and the school would be burnt down before you know it,” Aizawa snorted, smirking at his husband. 

“My, my, Shouta-kun, is that a challenge?” Nexu smirked mischievously, paws circling a tea-cup filled with steaming tea. Hizashi and Aizawa laughed.

“No, Sir, it’s a fact,” Hizashi chortled. Our son Hitoshi, Jirou Kyouka, Monoma Neito and Fukukado Izuku have been friends for most of their lives. They know exactly what the others are thinking and come up with as many schemes as you do, Principal Nezu, with Izuku at the forefront,” he said. Nezu hummed in understanding.

“And there is no chance he would reconsider?”

“Not in the slightest, Principal. Ms. Joke works at Ketsubutsu - she’s not leaving, either,” Aizawa huffed gruffly. Nezu nodded and relaxed back into his chair, only the slightest bit disappointed. He watched the greenette running through the halls on one of his monitors and smiled maniacally to himself.

This year was turning out to be very, very interesting.

Izuku didn’t stop running, he knew the halls pretty well, he thought, with his senses. The amount of cameras and secret passages Nezu had decided to build within UA’s walls was actually ridiculous, though, and the vent tunnels.

Was Nezu a secret agent, or a spy or something? 

“Izuku! Hey over here!” Izuku glanced around him, his pace slowing to a jog as he reached the front doors of the enormous school and saw Kyouka and Hitoshi waiting for him. He grinned and waved at them, then saw Neito and his face exploded into flames.

“Dude, your face is red as hell,” Kyouka giggled.

“He did the explosion-robot-proposal thing, didn’t he?” Hitoshi smirked. It was a replica of his Dad’s, Aizawa’s, smirk and Izuku glared at them.

“That’s not it. He k - ki - kissed me ,” Izuku hissed, then buried his head in his hands. “In front of so many people,” he whined.

His friends cackled.

Arms slid over Izuku’s shoulders and he squeaked in alarm, his quirk having somehow missed his blonde boyfriend’s approach.

They drew Izuku into the older boy’s chest and for once Izuku cursed his fate of being short.

“I haven’t heard you get shocked by anything since we met, has my proposal flustered you so?” Neito whispered into his ear and it was all Izuku could do to not shudder.

“Y - you took me by surprise, that is all,” he muttered, drawing the veil and his headband down over his face in an attempt to hide the tomato-red flush coating his face and ears.

“I hope it was a pleasant one, there will be many more to come if that is so,” Izuku could hear the smugness creeping into his voice.

“Maybe, maybe not. Stop being so flirty, Sunshine, we’re in public,” Izuku grumbled, wriggling away from Neito’s hold on him and moving to his side, taking the blonde’s hand in his instead.

“Have you guys forgotten we’re still standing here?” Kyouka’s amused voice had their eyes rushing over to her and Hitoshi, the pair smirking, with Kyouka leaning comfortably against the much taller, broader boy. Their hands were also intertwined.

“I knew you two were dating,” Izuku said plainly, eyeing their connection.

“What of it, bush boy? You and Nei-chan are dating, aren’t you?” Hitoshi drawled.

“Sure, but we’ve only just begun our epic romance - yours has been playing out for several months now, hasn’t it? And you've gone from gay to bi, so congratulations, my friends,” Neito grinned. Kyouka flushed lightly, pouting.

“How the heck did you notice that?” she complained and Hitoshi laughed, shaking his head at all of them.

The examinees hoping to enter UA in April flowed out of the hallowed halls, several openly staring at Izuku, Neito, Hitoshi and Kyouka, who ignored all the eyes as they made their own way out of the school grounds, eager to get to Kyouka’s house – or in Izuku’s case, his second home – and discuss both their practicals and the romances blooming between all of them.

The walk to the train station didn’t take too long, nor did the train itself and within an hour and a half, the four friends burst into the Jirous’ home, Kyouka and Neito talking animatedly while Izuku and Hitoshi chilled quietly slightly behind them.

Mika and Kyoutako let them in easily, greeting each of them warmly - with a quick warning to Hitoshi about not being alone with Kyouka in a room with the doors closed.

Neito snickered and Izuku sighed, watching his friends, boyfriend and his honourary Aunt and Uncle with fondness disguised as long-standing suffering. Mika and Kyoutako then turned around and caught sight of Izuku… still holding Neito’s hand.

Mika’s eyes flashed with joy and, dare he say, something sly.

“My, my, I see our Kyo and Hitoshi aren’t the only two love birds in the squad anymore,” she grinned. Neito smirked happily, puffing up and drawing Izuku into himself, so that Izuku was facing sideways as Neito smothered him in a hug.
“The plan worked perfectly, so now my dearest beloved is truly mine!” he crowed. Izuku scowled lightly, elbowing Neito to make him let go. 

“Would you stop calling me that in public?” he grumbled goodnaturedly.

“You call him ‘Sunshine’ in public,” Kyouka smirked as Izuku glared playfully at her.

“And I thought you were my sister,” he grumbled and she laughed, dragging them all past her parents and into the house. Neito still held Izuku close.

“Are you going to let go?” he asked gruffly, jerking his arm out of the other’s boy’s grasp.

“But, my Beloved, I would be broken-hearted if we should ever part,” Neito pouted at him and Izuku flinched, straining away from the blonde.

Those eyes were just… they were too bright!

Izuku relented with a sigh, allowing Neito to capture his hand in his.

The blonde smirked triumphantly as Hitoshi and Kyouka grinned at them and they all climbed the stairs to Kyouka’s room. Izuku never could say no to Neito and it was obvious the blonde knew that completely.

Hitoshi nudged Kyouka as she led them all into her room and she grinned back, dragging him to her bed and they both fell on it, side-by-side. They heard Neito sit on her squeaky desk chair and, with the groan from Izuku, guessed Neito had pulled Izuku onto his lap. They hid their sniggers and sat up, grinning at the two.

“So how’d the exam go? I hope Uncle Shou didn’t stop you from taking the exams at all,” Kyouka began, after they’d all had enough of playing with each other and goofing off. Neito let Izuku slide off his lap, but the greenette stayed close, sitting down on the floor and leaning next to the chair instead. Izuku shrugged, gesturing to his outfit.

“He rounded me up with his capture weapon and deposited me beside him in the viewing room with the other teachers. Did you know they were watching the exams? That’s how they awarded points. He was annoyed with me at first, then we had fun messing with the other teachers. We had a great time. Vlad King thought I was Uncle Shou’s kid, though, that was fun,” he grinned and his friends rolled their eyes, but Neito urged him to continue.

“I watched you guys for a bit, then I saw something really crazy,” he leaned forward excitedly, “I saw an airbender and a waterbender,” he whispered brightly, grinning so widely he was almost beaming.

Kyouka jerked up and stared at him, her eyes wide in surprise.

“Seriously? Water and air at the same time? Are you serious?” she questioned him quickly, almost unbelieving of his statement. Izuku nodded enthusiastically.

“I know, I couldn’t believe my eyes either! Uncle Shou wouldn’t tell me who they were, though,” he grumbled, but the light was still there. “They actually did seem a lot like the originals - the Airbender was so full of fun and I bet he’s a real airhead and passionate, but not the smartest and I bet the Waterbender’s super reliable and intelligent, and don’t even get me started on their control and powers! Kyou-chan, you have to tell me all about them if they’re in your class!” Izuku grinned, eyeing his sister as she laughed and nodded.

Two more benders came into play, and Izuku was excited, sure, but what did it mean that they were all gathering now, that they were all rising up now?

Something didn’t feel right, to Izuku, and something told Izuku his first year of highschool would be anything but peaceful.

Chapter Text

It was a nerve-wracking week that followed in the wake of the exam. Aizawa and Hizashi weren’t speaking of it in the slightest and it drove Hitoshi and Kyouka crazy.

Neito wasn’t affected - or so it seemed on the outside.

Not even the unflappable performer could have been completely free of panic. Izuku could tell he was shaken by the wait, if not by the way he insisted on being even more dramatic than he usually was, then by the way he couldn’t sit still at all.

His parents found him exhausting, Kyouka found him irritating and Hitoshi found him exhausting, so, as was natural, apparently, he was pushed onto Izuku and forced to endure his clinginess from there.

It was cute, if Izuku was being honest.

Neito not being able to sit still meant they could go out to places and enjoy each other’s company.

It wasn’t quite what he pictured a date to be like, then again, Aizawa and Hitoshi always insisted their own dates with their own loves took place in cat cafes and vintage music shops, so it wasn’t all that strange.

At least Museums and theatre performances were somewhat quiet and dark which allowed them a moment together, even in the crowd.

Izuku had no problems with Neito dragging him out to take his anxiety out on whatever activity he had his heart set on, but did it have to always include crowds of people?

Izuku allowed it, of course, but he made it clear to Neito that the next time they went out on a date, he would be picking the activity. Neito didn’t bother protesting, only beaming at Izuku and dragging him out to yet another performance.

But the week of waiting was well-spent, Izuku thought and all too soon Neito, Kyouka and Hitoshi were running into the Jirou’s house, waving their letters in the air frantically. Izuku rolled his eyes and sighed, but allowed himself to be dragged to the couch.

“Okay, who’s going first?” Kyouka asked nervously.

“Paper, scissors, rock it out, honestly,” Izuku muttered, earning two slaps to the back of the head from Hitoshi and Kyouka. Neito perked up and beamed at him.

“That would be best, wouldn’t it?” Izuku deadpanned at his boyfriend’s cheer, ignoring his best friends’ sniggers. 

“Sunshine, that was sarcasm,” Izuku sighed, his lips twitching.

“I know,” he grinned triumphantly. Izuku nudged him with a frown.

“Just open the letter, Sunshine,” Izuku groaned.

“Um guys? We’re right here, you know,” Kyouka sniggered. Izuku rolled his eyes and they all watched as Neito tore open his envelope. A smooth, round disk fell out.

They stared at it.

“ GREETINGS, I AM HERE! ” Hologram All Might popped out of the disk yelling his signature catchphrase with his signature smile. “ MONOMA NEITO! YOU PASSED THE WRITTEN EXAM WITHIN THE TOP 20% OF ALL EXAMINEES WITH A SCORE OF 78%! CONGRATULATIONS! NOW FOR THE PRACTICAL! YOU EARNED THIRTY-FIVE VILLAIN POINTS, BUT THAT, UNFORTUNATELY, IS NOT ENOUGH TO PASS. ” Neito lost his smile at the declaration, but All Might wasn’t finished yet. “ WHICH IS WHY YOU WILL BE GLAD TO KNOW VILLAIN POINTS ARE THE ONLY POINTS THAT ARE AWARDED TO EXAMINEES, RESCUE POINTS! IN TOTAL, YOUNG MONOMA, THIRTY-FIVE RESCUE POINTS! YOU HAVE PASSED AT THIRD PLACE WITH SEVENTY TOTAL POINTS AND HAVE EARNED A SPOT IN CLASS 1-A! THIS IS YOUR HERO ACADEMIA!! ” Hologram All Might declared proudly, then the hologram shut off and silence remained.

“Oh my gosh, does he have to be so loud?” Izuku groaned, rubbing his sensitive ears. Kyouka grimaced, removing her own hands from her ears.

“I really hope we don’t have to do that again,” she said, eyeing her envelope warily. Hitoshi said nothing, but slumped further onto the couch tiredly.

“What happened to ‘peace and quiet’, does he not know what an inside voice is?”

“Are we forgetting the part in which I placed third? Unbelievable! And from my own Beloved, too!” Neito screeched, jumping up from the couch and pouting at his friends. Izuku chuckled, grinning at the playfully enraged Neito.

Kyouka shook her head with a smile and Hitoshi managed a thumbs up.

Neito huffed, but smiled back and sat down, the tension dissipating out of him as he leaned against Izuku.

“Okay, I’m opening mine next,” Kyouka called and opened her own envelope. The same round disk fell out and they all stared at it, again, until the hologram opened up.

They all breathed a sigh of relief.

“ What’s up, Listener? How are you doing today? I’m Present Mic and I’m here to deliver your  exam results, can I get an ‘oh yeah’? ” Kyouka deadpanned at the hologram of her loud voice Uncle while the others laughed at Present Mic’s predictability.

“I can’t believe he put that in a video,” Kyouka groaned.

Izuku snickered, then they all fell silent to allow the video to continue playing.

“ As you know, the exam was split up into two parts, the Written and the Practical Exams! Well good news for ya, you passed the Written Exam with flying colours at a whopping eighty-five percent! ” Hologram Mic cheered and Kyouka smirked. Nailed it. “ Onto the Practical. Thirty points isn’t enough to get you into the Hero course, I’m afraid, but what kind of school would we be if we judged you on villain points alone? Jirou Kyouka, thirty-five rescue points, fourth total in the Practical exam! ” beside Present Mic, a hologram video of Kyouka looking out for and helping the other participants played and she blushed lightly at the praise. She wanted to be a hero, what else was she going to do? “ Welcome to class 1-A of the Hero course, this is your Hero Academia! ” Present Mic flashed her finger-guns and a wink, then the hologram switched off.

“I did it, I passed! She cheered, jumping up from the couch and onto Hitoshi in her excitement.

“Kyo, seriously? What the hell?” the tired purple boy wheezed, shoving Kyouka off him.

“I passed, Hito! Guys I did it!” she laughed happily. Neito smirked at her.

“Indeed, we’re in the same class, too.”

“Oh,” Kyouka’s eyes widened, “Oh hell yeah!” she and Neito cackled madly.

Izuku caught Hitoshi’s eye and nodded his head at their cackling partners, rolling his eyes. Hitoshi nodded his agreement and they both shifted closer to each other, intent on getting the hologram messages over and done with.

Hitoshi’s hologram message was by far the best, they both thought, with Eraserhead delivering the results. He did so quickly and with stunning efficiency, not wasting time with greetings or pleasantries and it was a nice change of pace.

“ Shinsou Hitoshi, you passed the written exam with seventy-seven percent, congratulations. You had less luck in the practical, with only thirty-three villain points, but, as I’m sure you’re aware of this already, that wasn’t the only thing you were graded on. You were awarded forty-four rescue points for your heroic deeds, with a grand total of seventy-seven points, putting you in first-equal place. Welcome to class 1-A, this is your Hero Academia, ” Eraserhead drawled, then the hologram shut off.

Izuku patted Hitoshi on the back and Hitoshi sighed deeply.

“I came first? All I wanted to do was pass,” he groaned. Izuku nodded sympathetically.

“There there Hitoshi, it’ll be okay,” he crooned softly. Hitoshi scowled at him and shoved him off the couch.

“ Be okay ? Seriously? This is not what I thought would happen,” he groaned loudly.

“Wait - did you open your results without us?” Kyouka screeched loudly, glaring at them.

“You were busy planning Uncle Shou’s murder and the collapse of UA from within, so…” Izuku shrugged, smirking. Kyouka glared at him, before launching herself at Hitoshi and wrestling the hologram disk off of him so she could listen to it herself.

It was amusing, Izuku had to admit, watching his sister’s emotions flicking over her face.

“Kyo-chan, you will always be a revolving door of expressions,” he chuckled, once she’d finished watching the recording. Neito sidled up next to Izuku, capturing him in a side hug and Izuku melted into the warmth of his dramatic Sunshine.

“You came in first-equal ?” Kyouka shrieked at him, turning on Hitoshi with a betrayed look on her face.

“With good old Kacchan no less, Izuku rolled his eyes with a snort, “he’s not going to be happy.”

“How’d you manage that without an offensive quirk and no support items?” she pouted.

“Dad and Pops have both been training me, and Dad excels at weaponless combat. He’s a threat even without his support items,” Hitoshi shrugged, avoiding her judgemental gaze.

“What class are you in?” Neito asked with a smile, happy for one of his closest friends.

“My insomniac ass got put in the same class as the rest of you morons. Let’s burn the school down already,” he snapped, but it lacked any bite and instead made Kyouka and Neito cheer in delight.

Izuku groaned and fell back onto the couch.

“Great, they’ve corrupted you too now, why can’t my friends be normal instead of chaos-loving gremlins?” he shot them a smirk.

“Izuku, you’re a chaos-loving gremlin,” Kyouka deadpanned at him.

“Only because of Mom. It’s hard to stay sane when your Mom’s a hero who literally beats villains up with rubber animals,” he snickered, shrugged and the others paused.

“You know what? That’s fair,” Hitoshi nodded with a sigh.

“I doubt we’d turn out any different,” Neito agreed.

“You have a point, I guess,” Kyouka grumbled out. The three of them sighed and for a time, it was quiet, then -

“Zuzu! I’m here to pick you up! Ready for your exam tomorrow?” Emi hollered into the house.

“Seriously Mom? Tone it down!” Izuku yelled back.

“No shouting in the house, both of you!” Mika called out from the kitchen, smiling as she brandished a cleaver in the air. “Hey Emi, here to pick up Izuku?”

“Thanks for looking after my baby Zuzu,” Emi put on a crap-eating grin and directed it at Izuku, who rolled their eyes at her as his friends snickered at the nickname.

“ Baby Zuzu ? That fits,” Kyouka sniggered, nudging Izuku lightly.

“The nickname suits you well, my dove,” Neito crooned with a smirk.

“Shut up, Sunshine,” Izuku shoved him carefully. Hitoshi simply smirked at him.

“I’m not saying anything, but you owe me for it,” he grinned.

“This is what I get for falling in friendship and love,” he groaned, jumping up off the couch. He picked up his bag and strolled over to Emi, giving her the stink-eye as she grinned at him.

Izuku waved goodbye to his friends and walked off with Emi right beside him, scowling at her all the while. She just kept on humming, grinning and skipping, unashamed.

“Did you have to use that nickname around my friends?”

“Of course I did! As your mother it is my duty to embarrass you around your friends, it’s mandatory!” she chirped happily.

“No, you seriously did not need to do that. Is this how it’s going to be at school?” he wondered out loud.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Emi grinned, getting into the car. Izuku did the same, glancing at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Mom?” he asked, curiosity seeping into his tone of voice.

“I don’t know, you’ll just have to find out,” she said cryptically as she reversed out of the Jirous’ driveway. Izuku groaned again, was this his Mom’s way of telling him he’d have to wait and see? 

“For the record, I cannot wait for tomorrow to be over,” he sighed.

“Don’t worry, ‘Zuku,” the smirk faded into the smallest of grimaces, “I’m not looking forward to all the marking, either,” she sighed. 

That night, Izuku spent the time wide awake and jittering.

He was nervous and excited all at once, a hungry smile wanting to devour the exam taking place the next day.

He had no clue what it was going to be, only that there was a written and a practical exam, just like U.A’s exam.

He didn’t know anything about what he was walking into the next morning - Emi hadn’t told him a thing, nor had she let him search up the practical online since his Mom worked there and was his Mother at the same time.

He was going into this completely blind - pun intended, he snickered to himself.

He hadn’t worn the white duck blindfold to the U.A exams as he promised his sister he wouldn’t, but nothing was stopping him from wearing it to Ketsubutsu’s exams.

He knew his Mom wouldn’t mind in the slightest - she’d actually find it hilarious, if he knew her properly (and he did).

He was going to enjoy the exams, if he was being honest.

He hadn’t been looking forward to fighting robots in U.A’s exams, it would have been way too easy. Izuku wasn’t going to say he had perfect control over his quirk, because he didn’t. At best his control was solid and at worst it was fine, but he still had some problems with finite manipulation of the earth.

He struggled with getting it to perfectly go where he wanted to and in the right shape. Cones and spirals of earth were alright and squares and rectangles he had no problem with, but it was the more complex shape he struggled with, six-pointed stars, for instance.

It wasn’t like other people didn’t struggle with control too, it was just that it seemed extra hard for him to get down. Izuku sighed and felt his smile dim. This was probably just another facet of his quirk, since he never saw Toph doing anything like that either.

He knew there was no way he’d be able to perfect his quirk with only a decade of having it - less than that, even, but why did it have to be so hard? He knew having a strong quirk meant it would be harder to master, but still, did it have to be so hard?

And just like that, his confidence began to drain away.

Sure, he’d been trained by heroes, but did he have what it took to pass a hero exam?

Should he have tried to get into UA instead of fooling around so he had some security?

He didn’t know. Izuku sighed quietly and closed his eyes.

He had a big day coming up and he wanted to be ready for it.

“Rise and shine Baby Zuzu! Today’s the big day!” Izuku woke up to party poppers, streamers and his mother in his room. His eyes opened and the first thing he ‘saw’ was all the decorations that filled his room, then his Mother, who looked as ecstatic as his room.

“Mom, what are you doing?” he asked dryly because honestly, shouldn’t all this be saved for if he passed? Emi flicked his forehead.

“Ow, what did you do that for?” he grumbled at her as she sighed, hands on hips.

“You’re doubting yourself, aren’t you?”

“How could you know that?” he shot back. She smiled and chuckled.

“Because Mothers have intuition other people will never have. We need it to stop our children from making reckless decisions.”

“Mom, you’re the epitome of recklessness,” Izuku deadpanned.

“So I need to stop my son from becoming like me!” she grinned, winking at him.

“I can’t believe you’re my mother,” he sighed, but couldn’t help the smile forming on his face. He got out of bed and Emi patted him on the head roughly and skipped out of his room to get breakfast ready for them so Izuku could get ready.

He had the perfect outfit for the day, Emi helped him pick it out, which meant it was both practical and practically ridiculous, but hey, he was Emi's son after all, who didn’t like a bit of ridiculousness to brighten up a day?

The outfit in question was a half-sleeved, high-collared, tight-fitting crop-top, black in colour and a light grey choker around his neck with a white pendant sitting on his neck.

His pants were low cut on his waist, grey and wide, billowing longs gathered with a silver band at the ankles with a tight criss-cross belt holding it up. That with his white duck blindfold and a black sleeveless leather jacket made up his outfit.

His long green hair was tied up with, not a hair-tie, but, you guessed it, a black and grey braided cord. He stepped out of his bedroom and joined Emi at the breakfast table.

She took one look at her son and cackled, making Izuku smile. 

“They’re going to know as soon as you walk into the gates that you’re my son,” she smirked.

“Who cares? I want to be a hero, go to school and have fun doing it, letting the teachers know I’m your son is going to give such exciting reactions,” he grinned.

Emi cackled as they ate and after a quick breakfast Emi readied herself in her hero uniform and Izuku readied his shoulder-bag with the things he thought he might need. His pencil-case, a few books, a change of clothes he wasn’t going to use and a water bottle.

He met Emi by the door and they left the house together.

Izuku slipped into the passenger seat of their car and Emi got into the driver’s seat. They careened out of the drive-way and whirled down the streets crazily, going faster than the speed-limit, but not actually breaking it, somehow.

Izuku, used to his Mother’s crazy driving, just sat back with one of his books and relaxed. The drive didn’t take more than fifteen minutes, but to Izuku who was nervous and trying to hide it, it felt like a minute in a whirlwind before Emi had parked a block away from the school.

Emi had decided to let Izuku have his big day and she’d slip over the rooftops (and vents) to the staff rooms, then onto whatever she had to do for the exams that day.

Izuku slid out of the car quietly, his small stature and general quietness helping him avoid the majority of attention until he was far enough away from the car so Emi could get out and get to work.

Even at seven thirty in the morning, the blocks were buzzing with kids all dressed in uniform hoping and praying the exams would go well.

Some were tall, some skinny, some with mutations and some as normal as they came, all looking as if hell had swallowed all of their confidence as they passed through Ketsubutsu’s gates.

They weren’t as big as UA’s, but they definitely seemed a lot wider. They were wide open, gold, not too tall, but taller by one and a half than a grown man.

The path into the school was paved with red bricks and no it wasn’t bigger than UA’s frickin’ immense school with all its facilities and hectares, but it was huge enough for the wide, white building, blue-tinted windows, light-poles and benches along the path into the school, a white marble fountain glistening in the square in front of the school’s front doors.

Izuku joined the rush of kids and he wasn’t going to lie, they were almost all taller than him and he felt small.

And annoyed.

All these kids had height.

He had smarts.

Why couldn’t he have both height and smarts?

At least he was strong too.

His uncles had taught him and so had Toph.

He knew her moves, he knew how to fight her style - up front and aggressive, but he preferred, now that he thought about it, a sneakier fighting style. He wanted to be an underground hero - one who focused on stealth and intelligent take-downs, not publicity and showy, embellished fights that did nothing to keep the public safe. 

“Who the hell’s that?” a snickering voice brought Izuku out of his thoughts.

“Here we go,” he muttered under his breath.

With all the green around him, his quirk was pretty much at full strength and he let his hearing sharpen.

Murmurs filled his ears and not the good kind.

“He’s a shrimp!”

“Is he blind?”

“With that blindfold over his eyes?”

“Not even competition, he won’t last a second.”

“One less person to worry about.”

“Move it, shrimp, save taking the test for those of us with actual potential!” someone yelled out to him.

Izuku ignored them all, ducking and weaving through the crowd without so much as a stumble. If they were counting him out altogether, they weren’t even going to pass the first round of the practicals - if they could pass the written exam.

When Izuku glanced around with his quirk, he saw haughty, arrogant smirks, confidence seeping off them and he had to hold back a scoff.

Seriously?

These people thought he hadn’t prepared and worked his ass off just to be here?

Most of them looked like they barely had control over their own bodies, much less their quirks.

With the crowds and crowds of emotional, hormonal teenagers, not even Izuku and his quirk could examine each and every examinee and Izuku focused only on the overly arrogant or nervously flustered kids and as such he missed the rare, calm and collected, quietly nervous ones who held their heads up.

It wasn’t a mistake, per se, but he definitely regretted it.

In front and beside the steps and front doors leading inside the halls of Ketsubutsu Academy were desks set up, two of them.

Two teachers to a table for a total of four teachers and four lines of students lining up to be ID’d and entered into the school exams. Izuku lined up at one of them, not really caring in particular which queue he joined, patiently waiting for his turn, his face as blank as he could make it.

His Uncle Shouta was always saying -

“ Win in silence; let them think you’re losing. ”

And it was solid advice.

Whispers and sniggers at how they were sure he’d wouldn’t be competition still rang out around him and it stung, he knew it did and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise, but he was going to prove them all wrong, so he stayed quiet.

He moved slowly through the line - there were so many kids in front of him, when a hand tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around.

“Why are you just letting them talk like that about you? Step up and do something about it,” a voice whispered quietly to him.

“Come on, Man, we all know you’re better than those losers, so why keep quiet?” Izuku stared at the boys behind him, scowling in disgruntlement.

“Asano Itsumi and Kiriko Kamijo, fancy seeing you two here,” he replied, his voice stiff.

Asano Itsumi had only gotten taller and leaner, he looked fit with broader shoulders, his skin just a little darker than when Izuku saw him last. His pale blonde hair had grown longer and it was swept over to the right, brushing the upper part of his eye, but not covering it.

He wore glasses, now, which was a surprise. He had on sneakers and a dark tracksuit.

Izuku wanted to bet his quirk had gotten stronger with him.

On that note, Izuku noticed a backpack on Asano’s back - no doubt it was filled with paper for his quirk.

Kiriko had grown too.

He was taller than Izuku, but still shorter than Asano and while just as fit as his friend, looked a lot more muscly than Asano did. His shoulders were broad and his chest wide, his arms thick and his legs, while stumpy, looked powerful.

His skin was tanner than Izuku last remembered, his hair a lot longer too. He wore a backpack just like Asano and no longer looked like he was sneering at the world.

Come to think of it, Asano didn’t look apathetic to everything anymore either and Izuku wondered what sort of changes the other boy’s quirk had made after he left.

“Midoriya Izuku,” Asano’s eyes widened.

Clearly he hadn’t been expecting a reunion either.

“It’s Fukukado Izuku, actually.” he said shortly, keeping his face blank.

The last time he saw these two they were bullying him.

Izuku didn’t bet they had changed.

“Fukukado Izuku? Huh, what a change,” Kiriko said awkwardly, as if he didn’t know how to speak to Izuku.

Well that was nothing new.

No-one knew what to say to Izuku except his friends, Mom, Aunts and Uncles.

“Speaking of changes, aren’t you meant to be in uniform,” Asano sniggered, grinning.

“It’s not mandatory. Besides, I hate my uniform. This is way better.”

“Is it… practical?” Kirito hummed, frowning at the fabric.

“Of course it is Kiriko-kun. I’m the epitome of practicality.” Izuku said in monotone. Asano and Kirito stared at him for a moment, then snorted, grins cracking over their faces.

“I never took you for a joker, Izuku,” Asano chuckled.

“What are you talking about? I’m completely serious,” he avoided eye-contact with them.

“Liar!” they called him out in unison. That made the corners of Izuku’s lips turn up the slightest bit. The boys grinned and high-fived each other and Izuku rolled his eyes.

“Next!” the teacher marking their line called and Izuku saw he was next. He scampered up to the teacher and grinned, even as the teacher eyed him up and down with incredulity. 

“Name?”

“Fukukado Izuku.” Izuku smirked like the cat who got the cream as the teacher, a big, buff man in full hero uniform froze.

This was the expected reaction.

What was not expected was the way the other teachers marking down the examinees froze.

All their eyes swung to him in horror and he had to bite his lip to keep from cackling.

“Code red, I repeat code red! Emi’s kid is taking the exam!” the man in charge of Izuku’s line shrieked into a comms device in his ear and this time Izuku did cackle.

“Fear my reign of terror!” he yelled, just to keep the plot point alive while the teachers rose to their feet in panic and in turn throwing the kids still in line into panic as well. 

“Izuku? What’s going on?” Asano, eyes wide, nudged him with a poorly concealed smile.

“My Mom’s a hero and a teacher at this school, one of the crazy ones. Now her kid’s taking the entrance exam, poor teachers are terrified out of their minds!” Izuku laughed happily.

He wanted to cause chaos?

Chaos is what he caused and he was loving it - until he was plucked off his feet by the collar of his jacket and dangled, face-to-face, with two more someones he hadn’t seen for years.

Kaguya and Kisei.

They regarded him with raised eyebrows.

“You certainly have changed, kid. I thought we’d have to chase you down to get you to come visit, but here you are. Making a scene.” Kaguya told him dryly.

“K - Kaguya, Kisei, w - what a surprise,” he mumbled awkwardly.

After he met them and their charges that one time, he had never gone back, not even when Mika called them up.

He couldn’t believe they still remembered him - it had been five whole years. 

“‘Surprise’ is putting it mildly. You didn’t visit. The Kids were upset. Now you can make it up to them.” Kisei’s smile was downright terrifying.

“Just what kind of trouble have you gotten into since we last saw you, Izuku?” Kiriko’s voice was high and strangled.

“Uh, I… don’t really know how to answer that,” Izuku mumbled.

Kaguya set him down and both men folded their arms, regarding him with disappointed stares. It took a while for the teachers to calm down and longer for the teachers to calm the examinees down, but that was just how things happened when Izuku was around.

He, Asano and Kiriko were admitted into the exam with no problems, into the same exam room, even.

That was a surprise to Izuku. He didn’t realise just how much his friends had grown up at all until now. He knew Asano and Kiriko as bullies of his childhood self, but they were so much different now.

Well, Izuku thought as he took his own seat in the classroom assigned to him for the written exam, he had changed too.

He wondered if Mirano was trying to get into Ketsubutsu too and hoped she wasn’t. She would try to make his life hell if she did get in. She stood a chance of it, making it in, just like him and Asano and Kiriko.

Izuku sat in his own thoughts for the next ten minutes, quietly thinking and relaxing as the classroom filled with examinees. Once the clock hanging beside the board behind the teacher’s podium hit eight thirty, a bell rang through the school.

A teacher entered the room and the doors shut. He went over exam procedures sternly and thoroughly, then, once that had all been completed, the written exam began and the room filled with the sound of pencils scratching paper.

Izuku listened to the noise for a moment, allowing himself to relax just a little.

He opened the paper.

Ignoring his own pencil, Izuku felt along the paper and read all the questions before even thinking of writing down answers and, just as he expected, there was the snag.

The questions weren’t above a third-year middle-schooler’s level, but they were set for only the smartest; there lay the catch.

The questions were slightly insane, but in them were the answers to other questions.

Each question in the exam held an answer for another question, written in such a way only the people who were actually searching for the answers would find him.

A little smirk graced Izuku’s face.

This would be a piece of cake.

The exam was set for three hours.

Izuku finished in an hour and a half.

Half an hour later, Asano and Kiriko finished up and joined him in the cafeteria.

There was an hour’s break to rest for the practical, and for lunch, then the Practical exam would begin.

Izuku couldn’t wait.

Chapter Text

The cafeteria Izuku sat in was wide, large, filled with tables and chairs and was entirely empty, besides the chef.

He sat there, at a small, four-person table in a corner tucked away and hidden from view by a pillar, eating a delicious and nutritious lunch provided free of charge by Ketsubutsu’s chef. He sat quietly with lunch and a book in hand, music playing through headphones from his phone as he read and ate.

He couldn’t help but note the differences.

Usually, he ate with Emi either beside or in front of him, with her own lunch and awful jokes. He was all alone now, none of his friends or Neito, his boyfriend, or his Mother with him.

It was a feeling he had never really understood - he hadn’t felt it since he met Kaori-Sensei and his Aunts and Uncles, Kyouka, Neito and Hitoshi, his Mom not the least among them. He didn’t have any of them here, it was just him, all alone, and he hated it.

He was, well, he was lonely.

It wasn’t an emotion he wanted to feel often, or at all if he could help it. He flipped through the book in his hands, seeing, but not really taking in, the information it provided him, not exactly listening to the music playing in his ears either.

He was zoning out, really, not paying attention to anything, or doing much at all. Couldn’t someone relieve himself from the loneliness of the cafeteria? He hoped someone would finish their exams so he wouldn’t be so lonely.

“Oh? Hey, look at that! Izuku! Izuku? Hey, he’s not replying,” murmured a familiar voice.

“I don’t think he’s ignoring us… he’s probably listening to music,” another familiar voice replied. Izuku perked up immediately and slipped the headphones out of his ears, grinning at two familiar figures.

He knew these two well, someone must have heard his prayers.

“Asano-kun, Kiriko-kun!” he grinned, waving over to them.

He wouldn’t have even tried to approach them if they had never approached him first and showed they’d changed. The boys grinned back and bee-lined to his hidden table, taking a seat beside and before him with ease. Izuku couldn’t help but smile widely in their presence.

“You know it’s odd, right?” Kiriko said suddenly. Izuku blinked at him, then his eyes widened in understanding and he snorted.

That’s what he was hinting on?

Hilarious.

“I know, I think it’s rather funny, don’t you?” he smirked at his old bullies-turned- new friends. “You really have changed a lot, you two,” he smiled reminiscently. 

“I’d hope so, we were jerks back when we were kids,” Kiriko snorted.

“Our parents heard us with Mirano one day, bad-mouthing you and they got really angry. You always were a smart, quiet kid. All the adults loved you and I guess we were jealous because we never got attention the way you did,” Asano replied with a bashful smile.

They bowed their heads at him, Izuku sighing quietly as they did.

“We really are sorry for what happened when we were kids, Izuku.”

“We were young, but that’s no excuse as to how we treated you. We cut ourselves off from Mirano already, but we never apologised to you.” they said sincerely.

“Don’t worry about it, guys. We were all kids, it’s fine,” Izuku muttered. He really didn’t want them getting into a tizzy about what happened between them when they were all little kids. It was in the past and it didn’t matter. “We were kids, we said stuff out of emotion, that was it,” he said simply.

“ You said things out of emotion?” Asano tried to hide his smile.

“Izuku, you rarely said anything ‘out of emotion’, you were the most emotionless, rational and logical four-year-old any of us had ever met,” Kiriko laughed.

Izuku smiled lightly.

That did sound like him, didn’t it?

He went to reply, when a weight rested on his head and a familiar voice rang out with cheer and joy encompassed in it.

“Hey kiddoes, all done with the written stuff already? Must be smarties for that to happen,” a female voice laughed heartily.

Izuku let out a loud, rough groan.

“Must you interrupt a heartfelt reunion like that? What kind of woman are you?”

“Does my dear Izu not like the intervention?” Ms. Joke smirked, ruffling his hair with a sly grin.

“Get off me, you crazy lady,” Izuku grumbled, batting her hands away from his face.

She cackled, but waved them goodbye, picking up lunch of his own and left the cafeteria. Kiriko and Asano looked at Izuku with confusion and interest in their eyes at Izuku’s not too subtle grin.

“Hey Izuku, could you tell us who that was?” Asano asked hesitantly. Kirito said nothing, merely nodded eagerly, doing nothing to hide his curiosity.

Izuku smirked.

“Don’t tell anyone, but that was Ms. Joke, a Hero working as a teacher in this school. She teaches heroics, is a homeroom teacher for one year or another and she’s also the English and one of several Heroics teachers. And, on top of that,” he paused and grinned, “she’s my adoptive Mom.”

“You’re kidding!” Asano cried excitedly.

“No way, you’re joking!” Kiriko groaned excitedly, both of them grinning like madmen.

Izuku frowned at their excitement, not many people actually knew of Ms. Joke, the Smile hero. So to think his new friends not only knew of, but were fans of his Mother were rare to come across.

“You know my Mother? Like, know her career, know her?” he replied with his own question, a grin of his own reforming across his face. The other two boys lit up.

“Of course we do! We got really into underground heroes once we got into middle school. Ms. Joke and a bunch of others, Celeste, Eraserhead, Mr. Brave and Nighteye, even though the last two are Twilight and Intelligence heroes and not Undergrounders,” Asano chuckled. Kiriko nodded delightedly.

“We realised that I’m best-suited to Underground heroics, seeing as my abilities are literally shapeshifting. Asano wants to go into Twilight heroics - not Underground, but not completely a Limelight hero either. His quirk’s perfect for Intelligence, I guess, but stuff like assassinations and infiltrations the most,” Kiriko replied happily. Izuku found himself smiling again.

“I’m going into Underground Heroics, along with my friends. We’re going to form our own Underground Agency. I’ll be our leader, analyst and one of the patrollers. My Sister Kyouka’s going to be our reconnaissance hero, her boyfriend Hitoshi’s going to be our main patroller and filter through jobs and my boyfriend Neito’s going to be our infiltration and extraction expert - his Copy quirk is perfect for the job, and his eccentric personality,” he grinned, pausing at the looks he was being given from his new friends.

“Is there… something wrong guys?” he chuckled hesitantly, his smile faltering.

“No, it’s just, boyfriend? You have a… boyfriend?” Asano asked him, his smile fading awkwardly.

“Yeah, is there something wrong with that?” his eyes narrowed and his body tensed. If these guys made fun of Neito, they’d regret it, but to his surprise, the pair relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief instead. It made Izuku slow to a standstill.

“Thank goodness, I can’t believe we’re in the same boat,” Asano smiled, relieved.

“We’re never sure how to tell people, we’ll never know how they’ll react, so we just never tell them,” Kiriko shrugged, grinning at a thoroughly confused Izuku. It all cleared up after he saw the two holding hands and hiding blushes behind straight faces.

“So you’re both…”

“Gay and dating? Sure, keep that a secret, please, not many people accept relationships like ours,” Asano tilted his head to the side and raised a hand, smiling. Izuku matched the smile with one of his own, a genuine one shown only to his family and friends.

There was a lot about Asano and Kiriko that had changed over the years, but that was a given, considering Izuku hadn’t seen them in about ten years.

He was shocked he even remembered them clearly enough to recognise them on sight. Izuku chuckled to himself for a moment, thinking back on when they were all just kids.

The two boys were adorable, back then, but something bugged him and he couldn’t help but ask the question on his mind.

“Hey, why did you hang out with Mirano anyway? You had to have known she wasn’t the greatest friend to pick,” Izuku inquired curiously. The two boys glanced at each other, shrugged and sighed, grinning knowingly at Izuku, who stared back, puzzled.

“Izuku, only you would have known something like that - we were five,”  Asano sighed patiently.

“We were young and she was pretty. She was the only girl who really paid attention to us and everyone else avoided us because our quirks were almost as strong as Bakugo’s,” Kiriko shrugged blankly, his lips pursed in thought.

“Ah right, Bakugo. Have you heard from him recently?” Izuku asked and the other two boys went to answer, when a loud bell rang through the halls. A grin began to spread over his face.

“How much do you want to bet the written exams are over and lunch break’s beginning?” Asano couldn’t help but smile as wide as Izuku was.

“You know that’s a no deal, Itsu,” Kiriko rolled his eyes fondly. Further off in the halls Izuku could hear doors opening and footsteps marching towards the cafeteria, eager for some food before the next part of Ketsubutsu’s exam.

“We should probably grab some food before the commotion reaches the cafeteria and we’re stuck in a long line,” Izuku advised, getting to his feet with a smile.

Asano and Kiriko followed him to the counter with smiles on their faces, ordering quickly and retrieving their food just as the doors to the cafeteria burst open and dozens of kids flooded the wide open space.

There weren’t as many people as there had been for U.A’s exam, Izuku noted, but Ketsubutsu was a smaller school, known more for its Twilight and Underground Heroes than its Spotlighters.

Of course, the school did have its fair share of Spotlight hero graduates, but it had always been known as the school that catered towards invisible and non-combatant quirks.

As they ate, Izuku regarded his friends curiously.

“Do you know what we’ll have to do for the practical?” he asked. They glanced at each other.

“You don’t know? It’s all online and easy to search up,” Asano replied, slightly confused.

“Is it something to do with your Mom being a teacher here?” Kiriko glanced up from his food. Izuku shrugged sheepishly. It was a point he really didn’t want to argue with his mother about, it really wasn’t worth the headache, so he didn’t.

“Yeah, I know it’s kind of useless, since the basic information is on Ketsubutsu’s website, but never let it be said Ms. Joke is not a stubborn mule when she wants something.” Izuku rolled his eyes with fond exasperation. Asano giggled as Kiriko nodded sagely.

“My Mom’s the same way - and Itsumi’s. I think that’s just how all women are,” he explained, waving his chopsticks in the air.

“I guess. So? What do you think’s going to happen?” Izuku persisted with his question.

“The practical’s split into two parts, combat and stealth. For the Combat proportion, we get two chances, unarmed focused, quirks forbidden and quirks allowed. We have a choice of fighting each other or an examiner. Then those who don’t pass that get another shot in the stealth exercise. All we have to do is make it from one side of a fake city to the other undetected by the examiners. Your score depends on how far you make it across the city and how well thought-out your route was. It’s a pretty good exam all things considered. Thank goodness it’s nothing crazy like U.A’s ridiculous exam,” Asano explained nonchalantly. Izuku whistled.

“That’s actually a little complicated. How long is this going to take?”

“Honestly? Not as long as you’d think,” Kiriko grinned.

“I’ll take you at your word,” Izuku nodded, stuffing his mouth with katsudon. The hour passed quickly, thankfully, and soon all the examinees were shuffled off to an auditorium not unlike the one Izuku saw at U.A. They had all taken a seat, when an explosion burst from the floor of the stage and confetti layered them all. 

“Greetings to you all, lovely examinees! The sun is shining and it’s a perfect day to be pushed to your limits by sadistic teachers!” Ms. Joke cried, bungee-jumping from the upper rungs of the stage.

Izuku wasn’t the only one staring, but he certainly was one of the only ones cracking up at his mother’s antics. Asano and Kiriko looked at Izuku, then to a widely grinning Ms. Joke and back to Izuku, unsure how to react.

“This is…”

“What kind of influence have you been living under?” they stared at him incredulously.

Izuku grinned at them, but didn’t give them a reply as chuckles started rising up around the auditorium with alarming speed. He should have known his Mom would pull a stupid joke like this.

“I live with Ms. Joke guys, I think you forgot that.”

“Alright, examinees! Welcome to the Ketsubutsu heroics course exams that are going to have you bellyaching with laughter! Here’s what’s going down. You kids will be deposited at the entrance of four different fake cities. Your task will be to make your way from where you are to the other side of the city without being caught by the teachers monitoring your city. If you are caught before the halfway mark, you will be eliminated and will not be continuing the exam. The time limit is fifteen minutes. Return here for your next instructions once you have completed this first part of your exam.” Ms. Joke explained, pointing behind her to a giant projector screen, helpfully aiding her in her explanation.

With funny cartoons.

That were not actually very helpful.

Ms. Joke style.

“...Izuku?” Asano couldn’t help but stare.

“I know,” Izuku sighed, shaking his head. It was funny, but was now really the time?

“I wonder how you’re still sane after living with her for almost five years,” Kiriko added thoughtfully. Izuku shrugged, watching Ms. Joke continue giving out instructions.

“You all received ID cards, yes? Those IDs provide you the location of your exam sites, so get moving, clock’s ticking!” she grinned.

Izuku jumped up, Asano and Kiriko right behind him.

“Come on! If we don’t get moving, we might miss the start of the exam,” he murmured quietly, slipping out of the auditorium with the two boys right on his heels as the other examinees milled about in confusion.

The three of them ran out of the hall, down a flight of stairs and outside onto a field where they paused momentarily. Izuku checked his card and Asano and Kiriko checked theirs.

More staring ensued.

“Please don’t tell me I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing,” Kiriko groaned, a smile forming on his face. Asano couldn’t answer him, too shocked to talk.

“Heroes do have to be prepared for every opportunity,” Izuku said weakly.

“Izuku, a teamwork exercise and a scavenger hunt all before a stealth exercise?” Asano deadpanned at him with a raised eyebrow.

“It could happen?”

“When? When will this possibly ever happen again Izuku, answer me that?” Kiriko rolled his eyes. Izuku glanced down at his ID card and sighed.

“You’re right, someone’s just having some fun with us, what do we have to find?” he eyed his card, examining it closely.

Along with his name and ID number, the card held a small map of the school, two portrait pictures and a short list of things he had to find along with a set of instructions.

Ketsubutsu wasn’t as big as UA, so buses weren’t necessary, but to have kids who’d never been here before, much less never studied maps before, locate the two separate people shown on their ID cards and find, collectively as there was one item per person, three different items before making their way to the cities?

That was overkill.

What was completely unnecessary was the fact that Izuku’s teammates were Asano and Kiriko respectively.

They were also each other’s scavenger items.

Complete and utter overkill.

“Mom’s idea, I’ll bet. Come on, let’s get this over with,” Izuku let out a breath of resignation and held out a hand. Kiriko took it, Asano took Izuku’s other hand and together they made their way towards their exam site.

Yes, they were all at the same exam site. Coincidence? I think not. 

Revenge is sweet, isn’t it?

“Don’t worry, evil narrator, I’ll get you back for this,” Izuku muttered under his breath.

Asano and Kiriko glanced at him oddly, but didn’t say anything.

Izuku led the way as he was in the middle, following the map on his ID card closely. Naturally, they were the first to arrive at their city, but their examiners just so happened to be Kazuya, Kisei and a few other not-well-known teachers.

They certainly had a hell of a time laughing at Izuku and his two friends, but they marked them off the list sure enough. They were told they weren’t to let go of each other, however and wasn’t that a blow to their pride as men?

It wasn’t like they were going to be laughed at by the examinees also in their test site, not when they were carrying things like giant yellow rubber ducks, a bright hawaiian shirt (which Izuku would forever be questioning where the hell that particular examinee found it) a full-on baby pram and a family of plastic dogs.

It was a very embarrassed and less energetic group of teenagers that had gathered at the test site, all of them praying this nightmare would end soon. Izuku in particular was, currently, devising plan after plan to get back at his beloved and beloathed Mother for this stunt.

The examiners – hero teachers employed by Ketsubutsu – gathered at the front and called the crowd’s attention.

“Took you long enough. Now, you all know what you have to do, but there is a catch. This exam must be completed in the trios you arrived here in and with the items you collected. There has been a line drawn through the middle of this city, if you pass it without being caught, but do not have your trio or item, it is an immediate disqualification and you will not be continuing on with the exam. Your score, whether you pass or fail, depends on how far you get through the city. If you do not cross the barrier, but are close enough, as long as you have your teammates and item you will still have an opportunity to continue with the exam. Any questions?” Kazuya grunted out.

There was a general chorus of ‘no’s and ‘no Sir’s, when Izuku, still holding onto Kiriko's and Asano’s hands, lifted his own and Kiriko’s hands in the air.

“For those of us who are,” he took a deep breath in, “slightly occupied with their items, will we be granted time to strategise?” he asked sensibly. A few snickers wafted around the room, but a quick glare from Asano and Kiriko silenced them.

Izuku wasn’t asking just for his team’s benefit. He doubted the team with the baby pram and set of plastic dogs were getting far without time to plan and think out a route through the city.

Kaguya smirked slyly.

“Nice catch Kid. Yeah, you all get fifteen minutes to plan, then fifteen minutes for the exam.”

“Thank you very much, Sir.” Izuku lowered his hand. The groups branched off, each of them finding a place to sit down and talk in whispers, hurriedly trying to strategise. Izuku, Asano and Kiriko were no exception, except, given the amount of time they had, there was no need to rush.

“What’s the plan guys, any ideas?” Asano whispered as they all crouched down.

“Synchronisation is key here, since we need to be holding hands. A chain will be sufficient, they didn’t penalise or disqualify us for you two not directly touching each other. It’ll be like a three-person three-legged race,” Izuku explained. Kiriko frowned.

“You’ll have to lead the way Izuku, give us cues as we go. Asano and I will keep a look out for the teachers, so you make sure we’re making the best moves at the right times - keep us safe.”

“I got it, timing is everything. We’ll have to plan our route as we go, I’m not sure we’ll be able to see anything from the start point. Over or under?” Izuku glanced at his teammates.

“I’d love to say over, but would you be able to, um, see, jumping over rooftops?” Asano asked Izuku awkwardly. Izuku smiled reassuringly at him.

“Don’t worry, my quirk connects me directly to flora, there may not be much around a city as fake as this one, but it should have a few, I’ll be fine. Speaking of quirks, Kiriko, will yours be of any use?” Kirito hummed at the question.

“In a pinch, sure, but I can only hold human transformations for fifteen seconds, and that’s only on myself. I don’t know what the effects are on other people,” he explained apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll handle things if you can’t. Papercraft should certainly be of some help, right Asano?” Izuku directed a gaze at the other boy. Asano grinned and fished out a handful of paper from his pocket.

“I’m always prepared Izuku. Not to your extent, but enough.”

“I still can’t believe they’re making us do this,” Kiriko groaned. Izuku shrugged impassively. When you grew up with a mother who did ridiculous things on an almost hourly basis, you got used to things fast. In Izuku’s opinion, this was just Emi messing with him and his friends.

Ketsubutsu was known as a school for the more creative heroes for a reason.

“I think that’s part of the reason why they’re doing this. It’s a test in and of itself,” Izuku said quietly. The other two glanced at him, confused and he elaborated. “As heroes, we’re going to be put in uncomfortable and ridiculous situations all the time and we’ll need to work efficiently and smartly through it, regardless of the circumstances. If we falter just because we think we look silly, or the task is dumb or not suited to our hero personas, we wouldn’t be worth calling heroes.” Asano and Kiriko shared a sheepish look.

“I guess, but we don’t have to like it.” Asano told him, making a face. Izuku snorted.

“I don’t like it either, but we’ve got to suck it up. At least we won’t have the hardest time, as long as we communicate properly,” he gestured around them at the other groups and recognition dawned on his teammates.

How was one supposed to manoeuvre a city-scape without being caught by professional heroes and stick with a team with a baby pram?

For that matter, what about the boy with dolls, or the girl with the plastic puppies?

All they were doing was holding hands. They were lucky the examiners allowed them a loophole, since Asano and Kirito were still technically connected using Izuku as a sort of conduit.

Other teams weren’t that lucky, so they took a breath and steeled themselves, determination filling their eyes.

“Let’s do this.” they chorused. Izuku grinned like a madman, channelling as much Aizawa into it as he could and to their credit, Asano and Kiriko did a good job of not flinching away.

“We’ll be fine, guys, just try to keep up,” he smirked.

“Is that a challenge?” Asano lit up as Kiriko rolled his eyes. Izuku went to respond, when an alarm blared through the quiet murmurs and everyone fell silent.

In their haste to strategise, no-one had noticed the examiners disappear into the city, Izuku cursing his distraction.

The city’s cement walls had opened up and he, Asano and Kiriko didn’t hesitate, charging headlong into the city and taking cover almost immediately in the shadows of a dark alleyway.

It took the other examinees a second to realise their time had already begun and in their panic surged forwards into the city. Izuku’s group shoved everyone else out of their heads, focusing instead on their path forward.

Izuku thanked whoever made the layout of the city for at least trying to make it realistic, scouting ahead being a whole lot easier when he could draw on the earth someone had filled the sidewalks in with.

He had the layout of the city immediately and in a quiet whisper relayed the information to Asano and Kiriko. Their steps were as silent as they could make them and their progress was slow, but they covered more ground than some teams who hadn’t even passed a quarter of the city before getting caught.

It was as they planned, Izuku scouting ahead while the other two focused on getting them through the city, scanning for danger both ahead and above, since Izuku’s quirk didn’t give him a realistic image of the sky.

They worked well together, ducking and weaving in absolute silence, only speaking if it was absolutely necessary.

There was no better way of getting caught than needless talking.

They used the cover of any shadow they could find and the alleys, using them to their best advantage.

The main streets were often the most direct routes, but they would also be the routes the examiners were watching closest, which meant that, while a lot more challenging to get through and less direct, taking up more time on their final score, the alleys were less guarded and gave them the best chance of passing the midline.

That wasn’t to say they were completely safe to pass through - Asano caught sight of heroes passing overhead, over the buildings and rooftops more than once and it was thanks to his Papercraft and the shadows of the alley that allowed them to pass the danger unscathed.

With Izuku and Asano scouting, it fell to Kiriko to keep them moving, sharp and together on the count.

At all times, they had to be hanging onto some part of their item and with each other being their item, the loophole was their biggest asset. Keeping all three of them on time and in sync was harder than it looked and it was only thanks in enormous part to Kiriko that they managed to stay together.

Each of them had their own focal point and their strategy, communication and trust in each other was what led to them being the first team to pass the midline and keep going quite a fair distance through the city before an examiner caught them.

It was still rather funny when Izuku decided they weren’t caught until the examiner physically touched or apprehended them and it led to a full-scale chase through the rest of the city.

The three of them had gotten good at the five-legged-race thing and managed to avoid the examiner right up until the timer sounded.

He was glaring daggers at the three of them as they laughed their heads off - Izuku cackling in particular glee as it had been his idea. Well, needless to say they passed the first part of the exam.

Everyone who passed – at least half of the examinees – were led back to the auditorium to receive their next instructions for the second half of their exam. The one-on-ones were interesting, especially since they were informed they could choose out of a list given to them which hero-teacher they were to fight.

Izuku was surprised to find his Mother on his list, as well as Kaguya and Kisei and a few other hero-teachers. He ended up picking Kisei, not wanting to fight the bear that was Kaguya and already fed up with Emi’s fighting style.

He had to ignore the mock-hurt and pouting expression Emi shot at him as the examiners received the results, but that switched to glee as she realised just how many examinees actually picked her.

Izuku smirked to himself.

They didn’t know Emi, therefore she was either a mid-ranked hero with a weak quirk or a new, green hero, in their eyes.

No-one who chose her knew that she was a pro that had been working for more than ten years and was a lot more skilled than she ever let on.

It was a part of her persona and she played it up as often as she could so foes and enemies would underestimate her. It worked, apparently and Izuku was pleased for her. The heroes they’d be fighting lined the stage, each one grinning and excited to get a shot at their potential students.

“Who’d you pick?” Kiriko murmured to Izuku quietly.

“Kisei, hero name: Shotbolt. I’ve met him before, and their students, but I didn’t know he was Shotbolt until now,” he muttered back.

“I chose Ms. Joke,” Asano leaned in, joining the conversation. Izuku raised his eyebrows.

“Why, for the love of all things peaceful, did you do that for?” he couldn’t keep the flat judgement out of his voice and his friends could tell.

Asano sniggered as he explained.

“I figured I’d get a good reaction out of you, for once, and I want to test my quirk under stress. She’s not known as the ‘Smile’ hero for nothing.”

“She fights with weighted rubber animals, Itsumi. Weighted. Rubber. Animals. Some of them squeak.” Izuku mustered as much deadpan into his voice as he could to get the point across.

Asano just grinned at him, with no regret at all on his face.

“If it’s any consolation, I chose Kisei too. He’s one of my favourite Twilight heroes,” Kiriko admitted with a smile. Izuku breathed a sigh of relief, thankful he’d have at least one of them with him before Asano stilled, grinning stupidly.

“Izuku, you called me Itsumi.”

“What?” Izuku stared at him, shock stamped across his face.

“You called me me by my first name, Itsumi,” he repeated and Izuku’s face flushed red.

Asano and Kiriko took a step back in surprise, not expecting that reaction.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just got caught up with Mom, and -”

“Who said I’m mad! From now on, you’re only allowed to call me Itsumi.” he decided firmly.

“Wait, no. Asano -” Izuku began, but Asano cut him off.

“No, what did I say? You’re not allowed to call me Asano anymore. It’s Itsumi.”

“Then I’m Kamijo. Itsu’s not the only one getting called by his first name,” Kiriko interjected heatedly.

Izuku gave up trying to change their minds with a huff, hiding his pleased smile.

The glow he felt didn’t diminish even as they parted ways to follow their chosen examiners.

His bullies were now his friends and they wanted him to call them by their first names.

Izuku was on cloud 9.

Chapter Text

“Alright pro hero wannabes,” Kisei clapped his hands together with a wide smile on his face. Izuku snorted at his words, because wow that was the fastest way he’d ever seen teenagers start hating a teacher.

He wasn’t wrong though, considering what ‘wannabe’ actually meant. It was just used in decidedly not-nice settings, so of course people would get upset. Kisei’s smile only widened at the animosity his group was showing him.

Izuku knew first-hand that meant he was up to something. If he was anything like Ms. Joke, this was going to be a nightmare.

“The close-combat exercise will be one-on-one with instructors, but the rules differ per examiner. No, we didn’t tell you,” he raised his voice as calls of discontent and voices of indignation rose through the crowd.

It wasn’t small by any means, but it wasn’t as big as some of the other exam -miners’ crowds.

“At Ketsubutsu, we don’t just train punching experts, any idiot can punch things and get a crowd to hype them up. In all our tests are tests themselves, which is why we tell you not to trust a single source - Ms Joke, for instance. We hinted at this one through wording and actions. Why else would we let you pick your examiner?” Kisei snorted as if the answer was obvious and in hindsight it was, Izuku just never noticed.

Kisei led his group out onto Ketsubutsu’s sports field, where a two-metre circle had been drawn on the grass with marking chalk and stepped inside it.

“This is my challenge to you,” Kisei began, “at any time, a challenger can enter this circle. You win by either pinning me for five seconds or pushing me out of the circle, quirks only. Unlike most of the other examiners, I’m forbidding anything that does not apply to your quirk. If you think that’s unfair, you have the opportunity to show me what a nonphysical or mental quirk can really do, use anything and everything in range of your quirk to beat me and, since it would be unfair of me to tell you to try and beat with with your quirks when I know all of yours and only, what, four people? Five? Know mine, I’ll tell you, but first, can anyone guess what it is?”

“Flare.” Izuku was the first to speak up, almost immediately after Kisei posed the question. If at all possible, his smile widened. It reminded Izuku of Uncle Shou’s, not that it mattered.

“Oh? Do go on,” Kisei’s eyes sparkled and Izuku huffed his amusement.

“You’re hero name is Shotbolt, you’re a twilight hero who leans more towards Underground heroics in your work, but your quirk is a fire-type off-strand called Flare. As in the name, you emit bright sparks from your mouth that burst into fireworks after reaching a certain distance away from you. You can contain these as bombs as long as they do not leave your person and you can control the size and output of each flare and each ‘burst’. You can also vary the colour of each flare and they are useful for both rescue and villain apprehension,” he rattled off, Kiriko nodding happily at his side.

Kisei raised an impressed eyebrow as the other kids’ jaws dropped.

“It’s not rocket science, just analysis,” Kiriko remarked as the stares didn’t drop.

“Exactly boys,” Kisei laughed happily, “now with that information, use whatever you have to for your quirks so you can beat me, you’re welcome to step up at anytime,” Kisei shrugged and, to his examinees’ horror, lay down on the grass in the circle and closed his eyes.

“Oh, it is on.” one of the bigger, more built kids near Izuku growled, puffing up his quirk and storming towards the circle. Izuku sighed quietly, knowing exactly where this was going.

The boy’s quirk was a physical transformation, allowing him to grow spikes on his body. At this point he decided spikes on his fist was a good idea. Against someone who could defeat him from a distance. Weren’t these idiots paying attention?

“Uh, Izuku? You’re muttering,” Kiriko murmured to him softly, his voice tense with nerves. Izuku glanced at him, then at the kids around him glaring daggers into his soul.

“Don’t worry, they’ve got nothing on Uncle Shou’s glare, and Uncle ‘Zashi’s - you should have seen him when Uncle Shou gave me coffee for the first time, he was livid,” Izuku grinned his wide, Aizawa-inspired grin.

Several of the other kids took a pace away from him and Izuku cackled loudly, not paying any attention to the failures of the kids attempting to beat Kisei with the bare minimum of a strategy. Most of them decided punching was the best solution, Kisei didn’t even have to move from where he lay.

The man, smartly and as Izuku would have with a quirk like his, had prepared quite a number of small firework grenades that he simply tossed as the examinees after they stepped inside the circle and the shock-factor did all the work. For some reason, none of them had factored in surprises and unexpectedness from a teacher who worked with Ms. Joke. Literally the strangest hero in Japan and probably, he’d say, the world.

“To be fair, not a lot of people actually know who Ms. Joke is, Izuku, she’s Underground for a reason,” Kiriko chuckled. Izuku shrugged in reply and said nothing.

“Alright, this has been bothering me ever since we started the exams - what the devil, in hell’s name is up with that stupid blindfold?” a girl with darkened skin, long, straight black hair and a slight frame glared at him, stalking up to him and Kiriko, who chuckled at the question.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing Izuku, that blindfold thing is kind of stupid. What even is supposed to be the point of it?” he asked him amusedly.

“It’s supposed to be, and there really isn’t a point to it. I just like it,” Izuku chuckled happily, glad someone finally noticed. “It’s like Kisei-sensei and his lying down on the job - meant to make people angry and react. Looks like it’s working fine,” he smirked up at the girl, who scowled back, then took a deep, ragged breath.

Her scowl became less pronounced, but she also grew a little calmer and more social in return.

“Fascinating, is your quirk based on anger?” Izuku’s eyes glittered with excitement.

“Nah,” the girl rolled her eyes, “anger's just part of my personality. I get that a lot though,” she explained. Both boys laughed at that and she smirked lightly at them, happy someone found her personality amusing. Her Mother certainly didn’t think her bluntness was any good.

“How old were you when you thought this up?” Izuku asked, still giggling.

“Five and a half, it was Dad’s idea first. Mom told me not to think about it, so of course I did it. She pretty much disowned dad and I after that, but good riddance to her,” she started glaring at the ground and Izuku could see the change affecting her.

“Please don’t tell me your plan for this is to charge up to him and punch him,” Kiriko grimaced as the words left his throat. Izuku nodded vehemently.

“No, don’t do that. Bad, stupid idea, very stupid. Undoubtedly idiotic,” he said forcefully and she looked at them as if they were the stupid ones.

“You’d think I’d do that after how many times that hasn’t worked? Besides, my quirk wouldn’t work for that beyond stupid idea,” the girl looked offended.

(The other half dozen examinees around them still yet to go glanced away from them sheepishly and began to whistle idly. Time to come up with a new plan, it seemed.)

“Thirty-two - three,” Izuku relayed mildly as another examinee jumped out of bounds with another loud CRACK POP of Kisei’s Flares.

“You kept count.” the girl stated flatly. She looked at Kiriko. “What is this child?”

“He came like that, believe me,” Kiriko shook his head.

“If you want to blame anyone, blame my Mother. She thinks she’s a good influence when she fights bad guys with bad jokes and rubber animals,” Izuku piped up with a groan.

“Weighted rubber animals, remember Izuku? Weighted ,” Kiriko barely contained his snigger as Izuku’s face screwed up in distaste.

“You have a weird family.” the girl muttered, shaking her head.

“You’re telling me. Are you pulling your ‘anger’ thing now, by the way, or is this your natural personality?” he couldn’t help but inquire. The girl hummed, pursing her lips in thought.

“Blunt, rude and very sarcastic? Bit of both, actually. I was really meek growing up, then my dad came up with this idea and suddenly I was playing the angry girl role all the time. Not too much, otherwise I’d really fall into it, but angry enough I could defend myself from bigoted, quirkist bullies. Over time the two sort of fused together, I guess. What about you?”

“He had zero emotions when we were kids,” Kiriko jumped in, all too happy to tell the story. “Most straight-faced kid you’d ever meet, logical too - and we were four . Have you ever met a logical four-year-old? We lost contact a year later, but then he showed up with emotions and one of the worst senses of humour ever, so I’m guessing he met some odd as hell people.”

“Sounds like we could get along fine,” the girl grinned, thrusting out her hand. “I’m Maya Esteban and as you can tell by my first name, I wasn’t exactly raised in Japan,” she rolled her eyes, “We moved here a few years ago after Mom decided to divorce dad. Thankfully I got a choice in which parent I got to stay with and ended up with Dad.”

“Mine died,” Izuku said bluntly, which made Kiriko wince and Maya snorted. She liked the blindfolded kid more and more as they talked.

“That’s blunt if I ever heard it,” she smirked.

“It happened, I got over it, what else can I do?” he shrugged his shoulders, specifically ignoring the four years he spent curled up in his bed and refusing to come out of his room for an entire day after the incident. “They died in two different car crashes on the same day.”

“You’re kidding,” Kiriko’s jaw dropped, “that cannot be a coincidence.”

“I don’t think it is, but it’s not like I can ask them, they’re six feet under,” he gestured at the ground. Maya looked around them and sighed.

“Well, all the other morons have gone ahead and finished up with that idiot, so it looks like it’s my turn. I’ll try to survive longer than five seconds,” she grinned as they snickered. She strolled confidently towards the circle and Kisei, who watched her approach through lidded eyes.

“Esteban never did tell us what her quirk was, did she?”

“No, but I think we’ll find out - or you will and explain what happened to me, because I wouldn’t be able to tell what’s going on,” Izuku added thoughtfully. Kiriko chuckled and shook his head at his friend and they settled down to watch. Maya stepped into the circle.

It was a lot more interesting than the other forty-something examinees stepping into the chalk circle and freaking out over a small flare.

This actually had some action for once.

Maya didn’t falter when the flares burst around her and Izuku Saw with his quirk Kisei smiling a little wider. He was one of the odder instructors, Izuku felt, if this was how he tested his students.

Maya paused her gait when she had come a few lengths into the circle, flicking her wrist with a flourish. A burst of bright light and a bow and several arrows filled her hands and she wasted no time nocking the arrows and shooting them at Kisei. Her weapons glimmered faintly, as if they weren’t made up of any metal or solid substance, more like a fluid structure turned rigid at a command.

Interesting.

Kisei jumped up onto his feet for the first time during the one-on-ones, his eyes dancing. Beside him, Izuku heard Kiriko muttering to himself, devising strategies and tossing away the ones he thought wouldn’t work.

Izuku grinned as he Saw the other boy completely focused on Maya’s match and his own one after hers and he decided to do the same. Fixing his quirked sight on the match, he marvelled at the versatility of Maya’s quirk and creativity, creating weapon after weapon in her hands out of some sort of light, going as far as to conjure up a bright net and launch it at their examiner.

Kisei laughed and spat out some Flares, burning through the light net before it could reach him. There was a standstill for a minute or so, before Maya decided to say “Screw it” and conjured up a gun in her hands.

She aimed and shot and no matter how Kisei defended himself or dodged, the bullets kept coming, forcing him out of bounds.

Kiriko cheered for their newest friend and Izuku smirked, slow-clapping as if he was challenging her to see who could do better. By the scoff and the confident smirk, she took him up on it and sauntered out of the ring.

“Very well done, Miss Esteban, though I do have to be the one to warn you non-piercing rounds only,” he shot her a cool gaze, holding a hand to a graze on his shoulder and she groaned, nodding sullenly.

Kisei put himself back in the ring and turned his attention to Kiriko and Izuku, the former of which took a breath, steadying his nerves.

“If you want, I can go before you,” Izuku offered, but Kiriko shook his head, determination to succeed rolling off his shoulders in waves.

“No thanks Izuku, I’ve got this - and if you don’t believe me, just watch.” Izuku cackled at the bold quip, shooting him a thumbs up and nudging him towards the ring where Kisei waited.

Kiriko’s watch was a lot shorter than Maya’s one and involved a lot more creative thinking than Izuku had ever thought. It was fairly simplistic and ultimately hilarious, involving Kiriko shifting himself into a small red ball, speeding along the ground and coming to a stop at Kisei’s feet.

The man raised an eyebrow in confusion and disappointment, as if to say “that’s all you’ve got? Really?” and reached down to pick him up. That’s when Kiriko re-shifted and, surprising Kisei who was the master of surprises, shoved him out of the ring.

It took a few seconds for them all to comprehend what Kiriko had just pulled off, but Izuku burst into fits of laughter and Maya followed soon after.

The pair of them howled at the fact Kisei, the man who sent more than forty kids out with the element of surprise, was beaten at his own game and that it was done using a red-coloured ball.

Kiriko was both grinning and red with embarrassment, so Izuku guessed he was proud of his achievement. Kisei rolled his eyes, stepping back into the ring with a cold, icy smile at Izuku and Maya.

Kiriko glared at them too, but his reddened cheeks didn’t scream “fear me”. They did stop laughing eventually, small giggles still escaping them from time to time.

“It wasn’t that funny.” Kisei said calmly, the ice-melting smile that didn’t reach his eyes boring into the two middle-schoolers, sobering them up in an instant.

“But you do admit it was funny,” Izuku couldn’t help but remark. Kisei’s smile got frostier.

“Simply. Hilarious.” the man ground out. Izuku shivered at the tone, his giggle falling into a silent whimper. Maybe he’d bitten off a lot more than he could chew with Kisei’s temper. The man gestured to the ring and Izuku shivered again. Next time he’d save the smart-ass remarks for after he’d completed his test.

“That would be a smart idea, wouldn’t it?” Kisei added mildly and Izuku said… a few things that made everyone blink at his muttering.

“I’m not one to judge, but how the hell did you censor your own cursing?” Maya sounded as if she’d just asked for the secret of life.

Kiriko too looked a little frazzled and Izuku could tell Kisei was trying his best to not sigh and face-palm at him, like he would do with his mother and began to giggle. This was one of the first things Emi actually taught him after he settled in with her after she adopted him.

Aizawa had almost throttled her when they told him and Hizashi wasn’t any better, but Emi had said it was a good distraction and honestly? Izuku couldn’t disagree with reactions like these.

His giggling petered off and he almost bounced towards the circle.

He had a shock-factor of his own. He didn’t waste time, stomping down hard on the ground the instant he stepped foot inside the ring. The earth rose up to meet him in three spheres and he thrust his fist forward, fingers curled to the top of his palms. One was sent hurtling straight towards Kisei while the other two were launched at the ground near his feet.

Kisei blocked the first sphere, eyeing the other two cautiously, but not making a move to touch the dirt covering his feet.

A few quick gestures with his hands and the earth seized Kisei in a vice-like grip. Izuku lunged forward with his right foot, his left sliding up to it and stomping it before setting it down beside his right foot. His right elbow rose up swiftly and the earth rolled underneath both of them. Kisei was out of the circle before he could even blink.

Izuku nodded, satisfied, at the outcome, Kisei completely fine and the collateral damage of the ground easily fixable.

He knelt down and placed his palms to the ground and the earth melded to his will. It smoothed over, the earth Izuku carved out of the ground filled the space it left and the rolling flattened back into soft, straight, grassy fields with not a sight of the damage Izuku caused anywhere around. 

“Damn Dude,” Maya whistled, “That’s OP as crap.”

“It took a while to get used to, I caused accidents all over the place when I first got my quirk and all the adults around me just laughed at my panicking and helped me control it. This is the result,” he shrugged.

He could have done more, commanded the ground without using his motions, but to fool your enemies you first have to fool your friends. It was a weapon to use when he had no other options.

Control was important too and Emi had been helping him control it ever since they first met. A heavy sigh from Kisei had their attention fastening back on him.

“You kids,” he groaned, “help the others back to the auditorium and you’ll be released there.” he instructed, gesturing to the group of kids lying around on the grass. “And Izuku? Make your movements smaller or you’re going to struggle - and make sure you call the kids. They were devastated when you didn’t show. Mika still has our numbers, yes?” Izuku pouted, but did as Kisei asked, helping the others in their group up and on their feet.

A lot of them had accidentally used more of their quirks than they should have for matches that lasted barely ten seconds. Quirk exhaustion was a very real thing for them and most of them had forgotten they weren’t actually invincible.

Izuku glanced around and only five of them, at maximum, looked relatively unscathed. Izuku had a slight headache from the intense concentration and he saw both Maya and Kiriko massaging different parts of their bodies, but half of their group could barely stand, which was slightly amusing.

They hadn’t really done anything taxing and yet they were collapsing like the end of the world had come while the ones who actually worked were mostly fine.

Drama queens, the lot of them.

Kisei trailed behind them, massaging his throat and guzzling water from a bottle bigger than anything Izuku had seen in the past. It made sense though, Flare was a fire-based quirk and it did generate from his throat, which would leave him with a few sore spots after he used his quirk, just like all of them had.

I t took a few minutes for them all to trudge their weary behinds back to the auditorium, merging with the examinees who were coming from their own tests as they filtered in and took their seats.

Most of their clothes were dirt-stained and filthy with dust and mud, some absolutely covered and some only stained. The examiners were the only cheerful ones in the room, grinning out at them in a very pleased manner.

Izuku supposed they had fun beating the crap out of middle-school kids they’d soon be teaching a number of in a few weeks.

Emi and Kaguya especially looked like they’d had the time of their lives and by the time Izuku, Kiriko and Maya met up with Asano, who’d split with them to go with Ms. Joke, Izuku saw exactly why she was so pleased.

“Itsumi, why do you have one of Mom’s rubber chickens?” Izuku asked, horrified.

“I was the only one who managed to give her a hard time with my paper creations so she gave this to me as my reward,” he said reverently, eyes shining with glee as he eyed the bright yellow monstrosity. Kiriko struggled to contain his grin at Izuku’s horror, but Maya felt no such need.

“You lot are weird as hell and I love you for it,” she sniggered at them.

“Izuku, it clucks.” Asano breathed, amazed. Izuku proceeded to smack his head into the back of his chair, pained mentally and in more ways than one.

Maya and Kiriko both cracked up, doing their best to contain their giggles throughout the final presentation, Asano stroking the chicken with as much love as he could muster and Izuku dying inside as he watched.

Out of all the things Emi could have possibly done, did she have to give one of his friends one of her stupid toys? He was getting back at her if it was the last thing he did.

“Oh come on Zu, I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” Emi called after her son as he shoved the door of the car open and nearly stormed towards the Jirous’ house. Izuku didn’t reply - not even with a snappy retort or a witty comeback.

She sighed in amused frustration and watched him go, waving away Mika, Kyoutako, Aizawa, Hizashi, Hibiki and Arai, looking on in confusion and concern. Mika let Izuku inside, greeting him with a smile and a hug as always. 

“Okay Emi, what did you do this time?” Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. Mika regarded her with a confused expression.

“You two are usually as thick as thieves, what happened?” she asked her.

“Izuku met a few of his bullies from daycare at Ketsubutsu’s exams. According to what I saw, they’ve matured a lot since Zuzu last saw them. They got close throughout the lunch break and first part of the practicals. One of them put me down as his sparring buddy and he’s the only one who did relatively well with weaponry, so I might have given him one of my rubber chickens?” the adults winced and Emi could have sworn she heard Aizawa muttering something about “Adults who should think before they act”. 

“Is that it?” Kyoutako questioned, confused. Emi shook her head sheepishly.

“It might have been the one that made noises when it was hit? And the kid might have fallen in love with it and refuses to go anywhere without it? And - maybe he might have started making animals out of heavy paper to fight with himself?” she finished.

“Yeah, that would do it,” Kyoutako replied bluntly. Hibiki slapped her husband when he snorted at Kyoutako’s bluntness, but didn’t disagree.

“Emi, I really hope you understand why he’s mad at you,” Hibiki told her gently.

“I don’t, though and Izuku won’t talk to me so I can figure out why he is. The kid seemed like a fan, so I gave him a rubber animal as a joke. I didn’t mean for it to be one of the noise-making ones and I didn’t think he’d fall for it so much,” Emi ran a hand through her min-coloured hair.

“That’s the problem Emi,” Hizashi grinned at her.

“You don’t think, you act. You’re competent as a hero, not thinking actually helps you somehow. But children are different, you just got lucky with Izuku,” Aizawa levelled her with a flat glare.

“We know you’re a smart woman, but you crossed a line with Izuku. This is his friend and your fighting style wouldn’t work with his quirk and personality. If he was a hero on patrol, you might have ended up injuring him, killing him at worst,” Arai interjected thoughtfully.

“I told you, I didn’t mean for him to start using it as a weapon, I just thought he’d like it since he seemed to enjoy my fighting style!” The other adults groaned and began to berate a very sheepish, pouting heroine for her actions.

Not too far away from them, Izuku huffed grumpily and quietly slipped away from the door to join his friends in the living room. Neito wasted no time in pulling Izuku onto his lap from his spot on the couch and cuddling him, refusing to let him go.

Izuku didn’t mind in the slightest, wriggling back a little to be further enveloped in the warmth of his boyfriend. Kyouka and Hitoshi gagged jokingly, but they stopped as soon as Izuku pointed out they were cuddling too, just not as much as they were.

There were laughs and snickers all around and Izuku felt a smile forming on his face. He was glad he’d have friends at Ketsubutsu if they all made it in, but his sister, his first friend and the boy he loved would always be special to him.

He was a little sad they wouldn’t be together in high school, but they’d still have time to see each other on weekends - it wasn’t like they were apart for good.

“So have you gotten your results back yet? It’s been a week!” Kyouka asked him eagerly.

“I have, I just haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to do it with you guys because you’d make my life hell if I didn’t,” he replied flatly. Hitoshi nodded without shame.

“Absolutely we would. Hurry it up and show us how you did,” he grunted impatiently.

Under his blindfold (another garish one with a pattern none of them could make out) Izuku rolled his eyes and fished the envelope his results came in out of his bag.

He opened it slowly, lips twitching at his sister and friend and the frustration growing on their faces. Hitoshi hid it well under an Aizawa-like blank expression, but his eyelid kept twitching.

“Just open it already!” Kyouka burst after a few minutes. Izuku felt Neito’s chest shake a little with his light laughter and grinned, tearing open the envelope and fishing the papers out. There was no projection device, just a sheaf of papers, Izuku was happy to say.

It was done in braille, he noticed gratefully.

“Dear Fukukado Izuku, we are pleased to announce your acceptance To Ketsubutsu’s Heroics Course, Class 1-1 as its top scorer. You will be expected to give a speech to the students as such at the opening assembly. Attached to this letter you will find a form with instructions on how to fill out, design and send in a hero uniform with your measurements and any requests regarding materials used, colour schemes, support items and fitting, a list of materials you will need for this coming year and an order form for your school uniform as described by Ketsubutsu’s official website. We look forward to your attendance this coming semester, sincerely, Kizuki Naruse, Principal of Ketsubutsu Academy.” he read aloud.

There was more, but the delighted shrieks from Neito and Kyouka drowned out the next part of the form. Neito squished him tightly and Kyouka was up and jumping all over the place, squealing in pure excitement for him while Hitoshi offered him a quiet:

“Congrats ‘Zuku.” it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, being coddled and cherished by the people he cared for so deeply. Neito’s affections were the best of all. He wasn’t a fan of all the clinging, but Neito was affectionate by nature, which doubled when it came to Izuku it seemed.

“Of course my Beloved would succeed, he is the greatest among us!” Neito boasted happily, pulling Izuku to his feet and spinning him around in circles. “We shall be the best hero team in existence and no-one will ever out-do us!” he cried.

“With all of us together, there’s no way we could be anything but the best,” Kyouka smirked, “the only disappointing part is that Izuku won’t be able to terrorise UA with us,” she said thoughtfully.

“You’re worried about that? You three will do enough terrorising without me being there. You are all in the same class, remember? I feel sorry for Uncle Shou,” Izuku snickered, once Neito decided he was dizzy enough and pulled them back onto the couch.

“We won’t give him too much of a hard time,” Hitoshi admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Yeah, he almost got twenty-one of us in his class this year instead of twenty - how’d that happen, by the way?” Kyouka wondered, surprise filling his voice.

“Too many kids with potential? And Nezu - the rat certainly has something to do with it, but he stuck with twenty in the end, didn’t he?” Izuku replied knowingly. Neito cuddled him closer.

“Yes, but Izuku, my Beloved, you understand the principal is not a rat, yes?”

“I know Sunshine, but “Rat King” just fits. It also plays into that whole “Am I a dog, a mouse or a bear?” thing he likes to pull,” Izuku chuckled.

Nezu amused him greatly, and not because he was altogether all and none of those animals. He was one of the most intelligent mammals in the world and decided to dedicate his life to raising future top heroes, out of all the things he could have chosen to do.

If someone caught his ire, he was merciless and if someone needed saving, he’d save them, regardless of their quirk, money or status. He helped them because he could - and he was a bastard when he wanted to be.

Neito chuckled again and rested his head on top of Izuku’s dark green, slightly curly hair.

“School starts up in a few weeks,” he said quietly. A pang of sadness ran through Izuku’s heart.

“So I won’t see you every day, we still have the weekend,” Izuku comforted him.

“You know it won’t be the same Izuku. Hito-chan, Nei-chan and I are in the same freaking class - we’ll see each other so often we’ll get sick of each other -” Hitoshi’s hand tightened around her hand she leaned into his side, quietly telling him it was just a joke “- but you’re on the other side of the city, in another school. We’ll miss you,” Kyouka bit her lip, trying not to get emotional.

“And I’ll miss you too. In fact, if you three don’t call me every day as soon as classes finish, I’m disowning all of you - yes, even you Sunshine,” Izuku declared loudly. “We’ve come too far to mope around about parting - it’s not as if I’m dying -” Kyouka flinched at that and Izuku winced.

“I’d really hope not. That one time when we were kids was enough for me,” she grumbled, glaring at him. Izuku held up placating hands.

“What I’m trying to say is we wouldn’t fall apart after everything we’ve been through together just because we’re going to different schools. We’ve always got the weekends to catch up, work on homework, complain about our teachers and all that. We’ll be fine,” Izuku grinned at the all. “Right?” Kyouka leapt up from the couch indignantly.

“Of course we will. All for one?” she prompted. Hitoshi rolled his eyes, but got to his feet and Neito burst up, Izuku following along.

“And one for all!” the three boys cheered back. Meaningless chatter filled the room after that and Izuku grinned at them all.

They’d be alright, it was them, after all.

Chapter Text

Two weeks passed by in a flash and before Izuku knew it, his first day at Ketsubutsu Academy arrived in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t all that hard keeping his emotions in check, but Emi had laughed at him and told him to lighten up.

Apparently he was too stiff for a teenager with a penchant for irritating the hell out of everyone.

They had made up eventually after their little fight. Izuku got back at his mother ten-fold - she complained that she was still finding cereal and glitter in her hair and clothes. Izuku regretted nothing.

Over the last two weeks of break he’d kept himself busy. There were forms to be filled in, rules books and codes of conduct to be read and a hero uniform to design. He hadn’t called it a costume since Emi lectured him harshly on what wearing a hero suit actually meant.

For once she was more than a little helpful, having the experience and knowledge of heroics and the danger it posed. With her help Izuku was able to design a hero uniform that he liked, with the right colour scheme for what he wanted and with suitable defences on all the vital parts of his body.

It was also practical and changeable for different weather - it wasn’t like heroes got a day off if it was raining, snowing or storming. She also helped him to find his school books and order him a uniform that fit him and he could move in comfortably.

It also turned out that he couldn’t tie a tie to save his life, no matter how many times she tried to teach him.

That resulted in Emi cracking up and burning their lunch.

She had gotten a little better at cooking than she had been when she first adopted Izuku, but she did still frequently burn food and one mention of that, along with their burnt curry rice as proof, Emi suddenly found their messy apartment lounge so interesting it made Izuku smirk.

Keeping to his word, Izuku, Kyouka, Hitoshi and Neito met up several times together when they could. They were all as busy as Izuku was, given the fact they too had made it into hero school, but that didn’t stop them from going out on “double dates” together, seeing as they were all dating someone else in their little group.

When they couldn’t meet up, Kyouka and Neito blew up his phone with texts and Hitoshi welcomed him into the wonderful world of over-texting and memes.

The purple-Aizawa was a well-educated meme lord, it turned out and had no trouble at all spamming his phone with phrases, pictures and quotes he didn’t understand, much less see, half the time.

Kyouka, educated just as well as Hitoshi was on memes, simply laughed at his blank confusion and didn’t even try to explain them. Neito took pity on him, only because he was utterly twisted around Izuku’s finger.

To be fair though, Izuku was just as soft for his boyfriend as Neito was for him - UA’s exams proved that true. He wondered how Kyouka’s, Hitoshi’s and Neito’s classmates would react once they realised who exactly was in their class.

Just because they weren’t all together didn’t mean his sister, friend and boyfriend were any less of a gremlin group. He also wondered about the other element-quirk users he saw at UA’s exams. He hoped they got in - and hoped the others would meet them. 

“Izu, you ready kid?” Emi called outside his bedroom door.

“Yeah Mom, be with you in a minute!” he called back in monotone. 

“Lighten up, kiddo, the kids won’t bite your head off,” she laughed at him. Izuku could tell she was content to wait for him by the door to their apartment and quickly picked up his school bag and left his room, playing with the tie strangling his neck.

The Ketsubutsu uniform was as comfortable as uniforms came - a light grey polo shirt and a striped tie for the boys, while the girls got a bow, and brown pants. There was also a blazer, navy blue with the Academy’s logo on the left side of his chest over his heart. The blazer wasn’t compulsory to wear, but Izuku decided to be formal on the first day.

He had also written a note to Kizuki Naruse, The Academy Principal, asking if he could wear his blindfolds and with a bit of wheedling on Emi’s part, he was reluctantly given a green light.

He’d chosen a fun one for his first impression on his classmates, and no it was not the duck one.

This one was fully black, white writing filling the front of it, over his eyes, that read: “You laugh because I’m different; I laugh because you’re all the same.”, which made him snort out loud. Emi took one look at him as he joined her by the door and giggled loud and long, shaking her head at her son.

“You’ve got everything you need? Lunch? School books? Notebooks? Pencil case?” she asked him, concerned. Izuku nodded his head, his mouth a straight line.

“I’ve got everything. What about you?”

“All set. Let’s get going then,” She grinned and linked arms with him, the pair of them marching out the door and onwards to Ketsubutsu. Seeing as they lived in Academy staffing apartments, there was no need for a car or train-ride as the school was a whole five-minute walk away.

They were still at least an hour early for class. Emi was a teacher and that meant she had to prepare for her own homeroom and core classes. She was class 2-2’s homeroom teacher so unfortunately she wasn’t in charge of Izuku’s class, but she was all six Heroics classes’ English teacher and one of several Heroics Practicals teachers.

Izuku found it amusing how the woman who literally almost broke traffic laws on a daily basis and could barely keep herself together through civilian interaction without telling them a stupid joke or two was a Heroics teacher.

He didn’t mind getting to school as early as they did, it meant he had a bit of time to explore school grounds and find his classroom to settle in before his classmates showed up.

From the frantic excited texting of Maya – who insisted on being called by her first name since she was used to it – Asano and Kiriko, they had all been put into 1-1 with Izuku. He was happy they were because they’d be the only ones who probably wouldn’t inquire as to why he’d arrived at school without shoes or socks.

It wasn’t like he needed bare feet for his quirk to work. If he was near earth or soil, he could at least see his immediate vicinity and work from that, but being in barefoot was more comforting than wearing shoes and socks, as well as it helping his sight if there wasn’t a lot of earth around him.

He always kept a bag of soil with him in his bag or pockets; wherever it could fit. When he stepped foot in his classroom, he was pleased to find a layout written up on the board and braille on a sheet of paper pinned up next to it.

He could have guessed which desk was his anyway, from the packed-in earth that was filling the wooden frame.

It helped his quirked sight immensely and resolved to profusely thank his teacher.

He was the only one in the room for about half an hour, reading quietly at his desk to pass the time until movement outside the classroom doors caught his attention. His spirits rose when he recognised the slim figure with long hair rattling the door handle.

He stifled giggles as he watched the figure trying to prise open the door.

“Slide it, Maya. Don’t push it, slide it,” he called after a minute of her forgetting what Japanese classroom doors were like.

A disgruntled grunt on the other side of it sounded, right before the door slid open with a rumble and Maya stalked inside, grey polo shirt crinkled and buttons undone, skirt pulled up a little to allow for better movement and the bow was nowhere to be seen.

She raised a hand at Izuku, checking the board.

“What the hell am I supposed to get out of that?” she snorted, confused. She jabbed a thumb at the board, where the seating chart had been put up and he made a noise of understanding.

“I thought you’d understand how seating charts in Japan worked by now,” he stated, showing her to her seat. Coincidentally, she was beside him, so that was fun.

“Not really, I didn’t care enough about school to learn more than teachers’ names and what classes they taught,” she shrugged unconcernedly.

“Well, at least we got lucky with our seats,” he grinned at her and gestured to the window beside his desk. She looked at him, puzzled and he huffed a laugh.

“It’s a lot easier to daze off with a window next to you when the teacher starts getting boring and we’re near the back, so more chances to fool around,” he smirked and her expression brightened up. She pumped a fist, looking giddy to start the year.

More kids started to trickle in after Maya arrived and he could tell they didn’t know what to think of him and Maya.

The girl was a lot different from typical Japanese kids - considering the fact she’d grown up in America , and Izuku, well. That was all that needed to be said, right?

“Oh shut up, Narrator. Not like you’re any better.”

Fourth wall, you character!

Izuku rolled his eyes and glanced out the window as Maya snorted next to him. They both ignored the stares of their classmates, some trying to decipher his blindfold and others just deciding Izuku was too much to deal with on the first day.

They were all interesting though. Their quirks especially.

Izuku couldn’t tell most of theirs, since they seemed to be emitter or transformation types mostly.

There were three mutation quirks he could see, a girl with gills, eyes glazed over with a protective sleeve and fins on her arms and legs and slightly blue-tinged skin, a taller boy covered in black fur and a long tail curling behind him and another girl with long claws, tiger ears and eyes and orange-black stripes on her arms.

Unlike the former two, the latter was mostly human in appearance. Izuku caught her staring at him, but it wasn’t hard to spot.

She likely didn’t know the meaning of subtlety and would either get along with Maya like a house set on fire or a house that lit itself on fire. Kiriko and Asano raced into class several minutes before the first bell, frazzled and out of breath, startling them all. 

“Izuku! You are not going to believe this!” Asano yelled, gathering the attention of the entire class. Izuku sighed and turned to them, quietly wondering if this was worth it.

“Is it news I’ll like or news that’ll make me want to throw you two out of the window?” he gleefully noted they were on the third floor and his friends glanced at each other, grimacing.

It was the latter, then.

Goody.

“Mirano was accepted as a student here. She’s in our class.” Kiriko said bluntly. Izuku dropped his book and banged his head on the desk.

“Dammit. Could life give me a break for once?” he groaned, Maya raising a questioning eyebrow at him.

He groaned again, not wanting to explain.

“Girl with a strong quirk who thinks she’s the best and bullied me when we were kids. She still hates my guts - we go to the same dance studio on Saturdays,” he explained. Maya scowled as Kiriko and Asano took their seats.

All three boys looked at the only empty seat in the classroom, glad as hell it was in the front row.

“She’s not going to be happy you’re the heroics course top scorer,” Asano warned him. All attention, if it wasn’t on him beforehand, was suddenly now on him, the students with predator mutation quirks especially interested in him.

“Wait, that was you ?” asked an incredulous boy. Other students matched his disbelief.

“Yup, that’s me. This quote is quite accurate, isn’t it?” he pointed to the blindfold and employed his best “creepy Aizawa grin”. Funnily enough, their reactions were to snigger or snort at him, telling him their names and promising they’d push him out of his top spot at midterms.

Izuku, surprised, but utterly gleeful, told them to: 

“Go ahead and try, if you think you’re hard enough.” that managed to rile them all up. Izuku laughed and smiled as he started to become acquainted with his classmates.

“I didn’t think you’d become so popular so fast, Izuku,” Asano muttered to him quietly.

“Yeah, well, this is new to me, too,” Izuku muttered back, easing into the chatter of his classmates, when the door slammed open and the last person in the world he wanted to see strutted in arrogantly, freezing at the sight of him.

“Sightless Deku,” she sneered, “what are you doing in my school?” she demanded hotly. Izuku rolled his eyes, not bothering to give her anything but a deadpan and raised eyebrows.

“Seriously Mirano? Haven’t you learned a thing since your first lesson at Madam Furuya’s dance studio? Like how to be a better person?” Maya snorted next to him while Asano and Kirito fidgeted uncomfortably. Mirano glanced around the room and her eyes fell upon his friends, her sneer turning into smug satisfaction. 

“Itsumi, Kamijo. Good to see you losers made it in. You’re sitting with me at lunch.” she ordered. They avoided her eyes, shrinking in their seats. The atmosphere in the room grew tense, but before anyone could say another word, the bell rang.

Mirano smirked proudly and sat down at her desk, the other students doing the same. Izuku glared at her stiffly, settling down when the door rattled open and in strolled their homeroom teacher.

“Alright squirts, settle down. I’m Takagi Ken, Pro Hero Rock Lock and your Homeroom teacher. I will also be one of your Heroics Practicals teachers along with Kaguya Keijirou and Makino Kisei, Pro heroes Ash Fist and Shotbolt. We don’t have time for anything but introductions, so get to it. Name, quirk, favourite hero or a hero you look up to and the reason you want to be a hero.” he introduced himself bluntly, pointing at the student at the right-most seat near the windows.

The girl occupying it stood up in a hurry, unprepared for being singled out. She had short, blonde hair and an awkward smile, eyes shifting colour every few seconds.

“U - um, my name is Yuna Akemi and my quirk is Mood Stabiliser, which allows me to match the mood of anyone to mine. I want to be a rescue specialist like Thirteen because they’ve always been an inspiration to me,” she said bashfully, before sitting down again.

The student next to her stood as Akemi sat down. They were slightly shorter than Akemi was, with spiked-up light brown hair and a scowl on his face.

“Maseda Kouya, my quirk’s Alter. I can alter my physical appearance to anything I want. The reason I’m here is I think lime-lighters don’t do crap and I want to actually make a difference. I’m gonna be a stealth hero like the Underground hero duo Moon and Lunara, ‘cause it fits my skill set.” he grunted, crossing his arms. He sat down and another boy stood up, this one broad-shouldered and grinning like a maniac, his long orange-yellow hair flowing down his back.

“I’m Renga Hajou, and my quirk is called Enter Code! It lets me basically code anything I want into existence, but it takes more time to materialise for larger, more complex objects. My favourite one to make is a self-igniting Katana! It takes about ten seconds now, so I use it the most! I want to be a hero because my ancestor, Rengoku Kyojirou was one too and saving people is the coolest thing to do! I’m going to be a lime-light villain apprehension specialist like Hawks, but I also want to be a rescue hero!” he declared very, very loudly.

Mirano was next in line, rolling her eyes as Hajou sat down grinning to himself, pleased with his introduction.

“Mirano Yurika. My quirk is Sunlit Orb. I can conjure balls of light and control brightness and temperature. I’m going to be a villain Apprehension hero because, like Endeavour, they’re clearly the best,” she bragged, ignorant of their classmates’ dislike of her growing with every word.

The last student in the front row stood up, sighing quietly and smoothing back floppy black hair tinged purple on the ends. He looked as gloomy as Izuku wanted to be.

“I’m Juraga Kakechi, my quirk is called Vanishing Act. It makes me disappear for as long as I can hold my breath. My record is fifteen minutes and thirty-five seconds,” he mumbled. “I want to be a stealth hero because it works well with my quirk and it means people won’t make fun of me after I save them. I want to be like Eraserhead. Hopefully I’ll make a difference,” Kakechi shot back into his seat as Izuku and the others tried not to stare.

He could hold his breath for almost sixteen minutes. What the hell? Izuku found himself vibrating with curiosity.

“I guess that means I’m next!” the girl behind Akemi jumped up excitedly. She had long multi-coloured hair braided into one plait resting gently down her back, her purple-pink eyes wide with excitement. “Ichikawa Nori! My quirk is called Life-like! My fingers act like paint brushes and let me make illusions connecting to different Kanji! I want to be a twilight hero because one of them saved my life when I was a kid! She told me to follow my heart even if others thought I wouldn’t make it. Midnight’s an inspiration!” she beamed. Izuku Saw Mirano roll her eyes.

Like she could have an opinion when she thought she had the right to everything.

The student next to her stood up, another girl. She looked completely uninterested in everyone, bored out of her mind and short hair that flopped into her right eyes, the left side of it shaved off completely. Izuku hummed quietly as she stood, this would be good.

“Tokiwa Kenna. My quirk is Technopath. I’m a hacker and a recommendation student. I’m here because this was one of two ways I could be a legal hacker. I’m not a people-person, so don’t talk to me unless you have to. I’m going to be an Intelligence hero like Sir Nighteye.” she said in a dead monotone.

Izuku had to hold in a snigger. He liked this girl. Next to Kenna, the black-furred boy stood up and pulled at his tie, obviously uncomfortable and Izuku could relate.

“I am Kuroga Hadate, my quirk is Panther. I can do anything a panther can, including using their sharp senses. I want to be an Underground hero like Beast since, in my opinion, they have the right idea,” he said simply, before bowing to Rock Lock and sitting back down again.

The girl with glowing orange hair cut into a bob and bright red eyes stood up next, smiling.

“I’m Sena Raika and my quirk is Flash Bang! My hair and eyes glow and I can manipulate that into sharp bursts of light that blind someone temporarily. I want to be a lime-light hero or twilight hero, similar to Midnight or Present Mic because they make people feel safe when people see them and that’s what I want to do!” she grinned at the class and sat down again.

Next was a rather short boy with hair almost as long as Izuku’s curls, but his were auburn and loose, bangs tied away from his face. He yawned, bags under his raven black eyes, skin pale as a ghost.

Izuku hid a snort as a cough, he looked almost as bad as Aizawa and Hitoshi and wasn’t that a sight? The boy flicked his eyes to Izuku for a second and Izuku grinned at him.

“Iku Terushi, quirk’s called Sleep Deprived. For however many hours I haven’t slept, I can put someone else to sleep for up to that number with a touch. I want to be an Underground hero like No Name. They’re the one I could always count on as a kid, so I want to be like them - and it works with my quirk.” Terushi yawned and sat down again.

It was Izuku’s turn to introduce himself and he stood up, fighting the urge to prank them all - then he decided what the hell.

“My name is Fukukado Izuku -” he fought a grin as Rock Lock groaned audibly “- and I’m blind.” the class, except his friends and Mirano, who scoffed, blinked at him, stunned.

“ What? ” came the collective yell, even from the kids who looked half-dead and uncaring - Kenna, Terushi and Kakechi. Izuku cackled.

“Oh, so this is what you meant, back at the exams,” Asano shook his head, Kiriko busy trying to decide if he should laugh or sigh in exasperation. 

“Okay, okay,” he giggled as Rock Lock simultaneously glared at him and calmed his class down.

“My quirk is called Earthbending, which allows me to manipulate the ground to my will. It also allows me to be aware of my surroundings.” his classmates gaped at him. “It means I can see,” he elaborated. Some of them scowled at him and he grinned widely. “Fooled you,” he snickered delightedly. “I want to be an Underground hero like Eraserhead and Ms. Joke because one of them saved me when my quirk came in and he and his friends that were there that day stuck around. They’ve been more like parents to me than my real ones and that’s saying something,” he shrugged. “But in all honesty, being a hero was the only thing that really felt right to me, so here I am. Pleased to meet you all,” he grinned again and bowed happily.

“And now that he’s finished his whole “freak out my classmates on day 1” thing, it’s my turn,” Maya smirked and stood. “The name’s Maya Esteban and if I get mad at you, I kinda can’t help it anymore, sorry about that. Call me Esteban and I will kill you though, fair warning. I grew up in the US and this whole “last-name” crap won’t fly with me. My quirk is called Lunar Powered. As you can tell, I’m literally powered by moonlight. I can use an internal reserve of moonlight to manifest anything I could possibly imagine, but I can faint if I use too much. That almost never happens though, since even a quarter moon gives me as much energy as two cups of double-shot espresso. I’m going to be an Underground hero because A) Spite and B) It helps people a lot more than being some dumb lawyer or whatever it is my Mom does. Moon and Lunara rule and you can fight me on that,” Maya rolled her eyes and scoffed, sitting down again and tapping her foot.

Izuku quietly handed her a fidget toy and she glanced at him oddly, before deciding to not ask and took it with a muttered thanks. The boy next to her, messy grey-black hair falling into his up-tilted and slanted eyes.

“Furaba Rukano, my quirk is Replay. I can recreate a scene up to twelve hours after any activity has occured in my brain and project it using my eyes. I want to be an Intelligence hero like Nezu and Nighteye because I’ve always been a fan of intel-gathering and coordinating hero-raids, and this is something me and my quirk could really be useful at,” he muttered, ducking his head.

He sat down in a hurry and something told Izuku he wasn’t the biggest fan of attention. Luckily for him, the girl with the fish mutation was next up for introductions.

“I’m Nobuta Kikio, As you can see I have a mutation quirk. It’s called Sailfish and I have all the characteristics of the Sailfish fish, which is the fastest fish in water. I want to be an aquatic Rescue and Villain Apprehension hero. Mutation-quirked heroes aren’t popular just because they aren’t fully human. I want to change that. Selkie and Gang Orca are my inspirations, since they don’t let bogus discrimination prevent them from doing their jobs as rescue and Villain Apprehension heroes. If any of you have a problem with that, bite me.” she snapped, glaring out at them - Mirano especially, who chortled.

“Why, do you taste nice?” she smirked. Izuku rolled his eyes at her, then glanced at Kikio.

“Nobuta, I’m literally blind. You being a mutant is tame,” he smiled at her and that seemed to console her a little.

She sat down with a nod to Izuku and a less hostile expression on her face. The last student in their row stood up once Kikio had sat and regarded the class with an unreadable expression on his face. He had short, green-red-black hair swept to the side. He was on the taller side with a broad build and a slender waist.

“Gouda Yuuta. Target. Any projectile weapon I throw lands solidly wherever I target. I’m as accurate as four out of five shots on-target. I’m going to be a hero because my parents suck and think such a weak quirk doesn’t belong on the frontlines. I’m going to prove those crapheads - and anyone else who said I can’t, wrong. Like Nezu did.” his eyes dared anyone to challenge him and Izuku snorted.

What was with these teenagers and spite?

“Same,” Izuku and Maya chorused, high-fiving each other with matching smirks. Yuuta raised an eyebrow. Looks like he didn’t believe them.

“How many times do I have to point out I’m blind? Doesn’t the blindfold speak loud enough? You know how much crap I got because of something as dumb as having eyes that are useless?” Izuku gestured at his eyes. “Enthusiasm starts our engines, but it’s spite that keeps us going. Most of us here want to prove something to someone, and hey, not all heroes wear capes. Some wear kevlar,” he smirked at the boy.

“You’re one odd teenager,” Yuuta grumbled, before catching Maya’s eye. “What the hell is he?” Maya laughed at the question and Izuku scowled playfully at both of them.

“I don’t know, but this idiot’s capable of heights of dumbassery the rest of us can only dream of,” Maya replied through her giggles, only to laugh harder as Izuku shot her a scandalised look.

“You know it’s true,” Asano sighed, standing up behind Izuku. “I’m Asano Itsumi and beside me is Kiriko Kamijo, to make everything go faster. My quirk is Papercraft, which lets me manipulate paper to my will and his is Shift, which lets him transform into any object he’s looked at. We’re going to be a Twilight-Underground hero duo to save as many people as we can and Ms. Joke is our inspiration.” Asano said. Kiriko nodded and Asano sat down.

The tiger-quirked girl got to her feet, smirking lazily in a way that let her fangs show.

“Notori Haku, my quirk is Sumatran Tiger. Basically gives me all the qualities of a sumatran tiger. I’m going to be a hero for largely the same reasons as everyone else who listed spite as a motivator and Gang orca rules,” she said, eyes falling to Izuku.

The girl next to her stood, slipping long red-purple hair over her shoulder and bowing to the class.

“Notori Makina, I’m Haku’s twin sister, but my quirk takes after Dad instead of Mom. Shock is a short-term paralysis quirk that relies on touch, skin contact especially. Same reason as her, too, except she’s going lime-light and I’m going Underground because my quirk works better that way. Hurricane is my favourite,” she explained quietly, bowing again and sitting. The last student in the class, a tall, beefy boy stood, a cold smile on his face.

“The name’s Itana Tsumugi, the second recommendation student. My quirk is called Shield and it lets me deploy a shield around my body that’s bulletproof and mostly indestructible, Fatgum’s encouraged me a lot, but I can only hold it for fifteen minutes before it fades away. I’m going to be a lime-light hero, same reasons as stated by pretty much everyone in class,” he said, sitting down again.

“Great, now we know everyone’s name and quirks, it’s orientation time. Yay.” Rock Lock drawled with as much enthusiasm as his students showed.

As Izuku stood and filed out of the classroom with his classmates, he began to wonder if Kyouka’s, Neito’s and Hitoshi’s first day was turning out to be as weird as his. With their Uncle Shou as their teacher, he prayed for everyone’s sanity.

He laughed to himself, quietly so he wouldn’t draw too much attention to himself - at least, no more than he already had, and dodged an elbow Mirano tried to “sneakily” throw at his head. He levelled her with an unimpressed expression as class 1-1 followed Rock Lock down the halls of their new school.

Izuku knew most of his classmates were excited about being here, even the ones that sounded dead or listless, but there were a ton of different feelings floating around inside Izuku, one of which was confusion. Why were the mutation kids – and Haku’s sister – staring at him? Maya nudged him lightly.

“You have a fanclub,” she whispered tauntingly.

“No Maya, fanclubs are groups of people who talk about you behind your back who you pretend are fans because it angers them to no end. This is just a bunch of creepers.”

“So you have an opinion,” she snorted back, making Izuku roll his eyes.

“It’s either the blindfold or the shoe thing, which I’m surprised no-one has commented on,” Izuku shrugged. Maya stared at him, confused, before she glanced down at his feet.

“Shoe thing, right, got it,” she groaned, glaring at him decidedly unamused.

“What did you think I meant?” he started chuckling. Maya threw her hands up in the air and Asano and Kiriko sidled up behind him.

“Why are our mutant classmates staring at you?” Asano whispered into his ear.

“And why are we whispering? It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to hear us just because we lowered our voices - the hallways aren’t that wide,” Kiriko said at a normal volume.

“Then our mutant classmates can answer our question for themselves then,” Izuku said loudly. The three mutants and Makina just kept staring.

“Keep it down back there, I know you’re excited, but no shouting in the halls,” Rock Lock called out behind him at his students. 

It had been a paper-scissors-rock battle between him and the other first year heroics homeroom teacher, Makino Kisei.

The other man had been Fukukado’s Kid’s practical examiner and he did not want the kid in his class on account of him being a “disrupting Menace”. Takagi didn’t want the headache of Emi bragging about her brat and the trouble he came with, but after three straight rounds of ties, it came down to their principal ordering them to just draw straws and he got the short end of the stick - pun unintended, but funny either way.

So now here he was, Pro Hero Rock Lock with a class of Heroics students so green they’d put grass to shame and the biggest obstacle any teacher had ever faced: their annoying, but unfortunately capable, prank-loving co-worker’s son.

And boy, he did not disappoint.

Takagi doubted any child of that menace Emi could grow up sane and he was half-right. He couldn’t really judge the boy’s motivation - spite was what got him through his classes in the first place.

He just wished he wouldn’t freak his class out every chance he got.

Let it be known that Pro Hero Rock Lock didn’t give up, not even when faced with a challenge no-one would face otherwise.

He was a heroics course teacher - every kid dreaming of wanting to be a pro one day was a little bit messed up in the head, but having spite as a motivator, while also coming to school in a blindfold and without shoes on, just to alm ost send his class into a panic attack was not ordinary-level sane on any level.

Takagi took a deep, quiet breath and let it out again.

God help him, because he was going to need it.

Chapter Text

Almost at the same time as Izuku, that very morning, Kyouka was up in her room adjusting the infernal thing UA liked to call a tie. It was a bold red thing Kyouka loathed with her very being and from the slightly garbled texts Hitoshi had sent her that morning, he wasn’t happy either.

Oh well, at least she didn’t have to get to school an hour early because her parents were teachers.

It was funny listening to her boyfriend lament about that fact on the phone last evening and he had promised vengeance, but she knew he was soft on her just like Neito and her brother were for each other. Speaking of Izuku, she dropped the tie, finally satisfied with it, and picked up her phone, checking her contacts.

The only things Izuku had sent were “good luck”, “have fun” and a smiley face emoji. Nothing else. That must have meant he’d left for school too. She giggled to herself and wondered if he was going to terrify his teacher like she, Neito and Hitoshi planned to do.

It was a lot more fun planning it all out, seeing as their teacher was also their Uncle Shouta, the man who’d pretty much raised her and Izuku, trained Neito and adopted Hitoshi.

They wouldn’t give him too much flak because of that, but they’d give him a little just to live up to their collective group name given lovingly by their forever-tired Uncle Shouta: Problem Gremlins.

Kyouka knew she, Izuku, Neito and Hitoshi all loved the title and put it to good use, terrorising all of their parents when they were all together. Neito’s parents, Aunt Hibiki and Uncle Arai were more than pleased at Neito’s choice in partner, but a little less pleased with his choice in fun.

Antagonising people to the point they felt the need to punch him really shouldn’t have been a fifteen-year-old’s hobby.

Neito loved it though, and she loved watching the fury grow on his opponent’s face when they realised Neito was more than experienced in fights. She knew Izuku wasn’t exactly happy with their choice either, but Neito only grabbed his hands and bent his knees so the two boys were face to face and proceeded to kiss Izuku.

Her poor brother had no other argument to make after that, hiding his burning red face in Neito’s chest as the blonde cheerfully declared there was no problem.

What a hell of an understatement. Kyouka hummed to herself as she checked herself in the mirror, smoothing down her skirt and adjusting her tie.

“Not bad, not bad,” she muttered, making sure there were no wrinkles and adjusting everything she wore at least three different times before she was satisfied.

She seized her bag, laying about on her bed and rushed out of her room, a little too energetic for the hectic morning of her first day of high school.

Her bag was a gift from her parents for passing UA’s exam and graduating middle school.

It was a sleek, black leather bag with enough room for everything to fit and still have space left over. Izuku had a matching one, also a gift from Mika and Kyoutako, but his was a sweet dark green.

They were both pleased with the gifts and each reacted in their own ways - Kyouka excitedly and Izuku calmly with a happy smile.

She greeted her Mom and Dad with a beaming smile, sliding into the table ready for breakfast and somehow not wrinkling her uniform. Mika laid a plate of steaming pancakes in front of her with a smile.

“Ready for your big day?” she asked, grinning happily.

“Ready as I’ll ever be!” she chirped happily. “Don’t worry, I won’t make Uncle Shouta’s hair turn grey, as he keeps bemoaning,” she rolled her eyes with a snort.

“Remember to be respectful to your teacher, Kyo, I don’t want to hear anything from Shouta except the usual nonsense, got it?” she warned her daughter.

“I know Mom, what type of student would I be if I drove my teacher crazy on the very first day?” Kyouka inquired, scandalised.

Mika eyed Kyouka, who was intent on holding her innocent act.

“They really should have separated you three,” Mika grumbled eventually, making Kyouka giggle fondly.

Mika had a feeling Kyouka felt the same way, but wasn’t going to say a thing.

“Morning my darlings!” Kyoutako strolled into the dining room and pecked his wife on the lips and his daughter on her cheek. 

“Really Dad? Was that necessary?” Kyouka grumbled, watching her parents chuckle at her with a small smile on her face.

No matter how annoying they could be, Kyouka knew she’d never be able to stop loving her Mother and Father.

She finished breakfast and checked the time, grinning when she realised it was time to go. She was meeting Neito at the gate and Hitoshi in their classroom since he was already at UA. His texts had started coming through a lot clearer if the constant ping of messages was anything to go by.

She rolled her eyes again and turned her notifications off. Hitoshi wasn’t allowed to blow up her phone just because he was bored. She set her dishes in the sink and left home, calling goodbyes and “I love you’s” to her parents, making it to the train station just in time.

A short train ride later and she was almost skipping to school in all her excited nervousness. She wondered who she’d be meeting, who her class- mates were and how excited they’d be to be training at UA.

“My dearest Kyo-chan! Over here my Sister-in-law!” she heard Neito’s signature dramatic voice cry over the crowd on the streets and hanging out around UA.

Kyouka grinned and waved enthusiastically back at the tall blonde, a smug smirk painting his face.

“Ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

“As ready as ever. We shall take this school by storm and leave it razed to the ground when we’re finished with it! UA shall never know what hit it,” Neito told her with an exaggerated bow.

Kyouka laughed and Neito joined in after a moment, both of them revelling in the dreaded and fearful looks the other kids around them sent.

She knew they were a lot to handle, but adding in Hitoshi to the mix made everything worse and Izuku almost doubled that, so she shrugged and let them wonder what sort of crazy person admitted two devils in teenagers’ bodies into UA.

They finished giggling at the other examinees and began to make their own way inside UA, not ashamed to admit they might have “oohed” and “aahed” over the ginormous campus.

It wasn’t long before they found their classroom - not like it was hard.

The door was as huge as anything else in the school, with 1-A painted on in giant red letters. Kyouka made to open the door, but Neito stopped her, putting fingers to his lips in a hushing motion, a sly smirk replacing the smug one.

Kyouka took a step back and gestured at Neito to take the lead.

He did so gladly. 

Hitoshi knew his morning was going to be crap when the coffee machine in his home with Aizawa and Hizashi broke down.

He knew it was going to be ridiculous when his Kyo-chan laughed at him for his messy lavender hair and less-than-legible texts.

He knew he was going to have the morning of his life when she and Neito informed him they’d be arriving together.

He was right about everything.

He was first inside the classroom, of course he was, and had no desire to talk to the next person who arrived almost half an hour later.

Mornings were too early .

It wasn’t until he knew two figures were standing outside their classroom, already half-filled with all sorts of loud, boisterous teenagers, that he perked up, a wild grin on his face and if the students around him were slightly startled by his actions he made no comment, because the door had just been thrown open with a smoke bomb exploding just inside the doorway.

Hitoshi swore some of his classmates’ eyes popped out of their heads when he started cackling his little meme-filled heart out - even more when Neito and Kyouka burst in with all-too-pleased expressions on their faces. Once in front of the class, Neito did jazz hands.

“Greetings Classmates! The wonderful Monoma Neito has arrived!”

“And his emo partner-in-crime, Jirou Kyouka,” his girlfriend smirked at him and he couldn’t help himself. He’d apologise to his Dad later, he thought as he picked himself up off his desk and slipped over to join his ridiculous friend and girlfriend.

“Add in the meme-lord who hasn’t slept in a week and we’re almost complete,” he kissed Kyouka on the cheek and she laughed.

“But wait, there’s more!” Neito’s face was wild with delight and the two purplenettes almost lost at when the girl with the round, bright cheeks mouth to the girl with the obvious frog mutation:

“There’s more ?” first impressions were everything and this was the best thing they could think of. Props to Neito for actually going through with it though.

“In place of my Beloved, who sadly could not be here with us today, we have come up with -”

“What the hell did I just walk in on?” exploded an incredulous, gruff voice.

Neito, Kyouka and Hitoshi all paused in their little presentation to look at the doorway of their classroom to see a boy about the same height as lanky Hitoshi, a scowl on his face and arms crossed, a bright red hat with two yellow horns sticking out of it pressed down on raven black hair, spiked down.

The trio pouted at him, the boy glaring at them in lieu of asking for an explanation.

“You ruined our entrance!” Neito grumbled at him, sulking as he took a seat. Hitoshi laughed and shook his head, taking a seat himself as Kyouka huffed.

“That was going to be real funny, thanks for ruining it.”

“I still want to know what the hell I walked in on. Seriously, are you sane?” the boy interrogated them, unmoved from his position at the doorway. He was soon joined by a boy with mostly pale skin, his forearms covered in horrendous burns.

His eyes were a glimmering light blue, like the bottom depths of a clear river. His hair stood upright on his head, a stark and brilliant white.

Next to him was an enormous boy, barrel-chested and built as big as a bear, his head almost completely shaved and an excited expression on his face.

“What’s going on over here?” asked the white-haired boy calmly, cocking his head to the side with an intrigued expression on his face.

“GREETINGS CLASSMATES! IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU ALL!” bellowed the barrel-chested boy, making everyone inside the classroom and the two boys outside of it to wince and cover their ears.

Kyouka especially, head starting to ache from all the noise.

“Oi, keep it down loudmouth, some of us have sensitive hearing,” Hitoshi glared at him, pointing at Kyouka who waved with an ear jack.

The boy smiled sheepishly and proceeded to bow so low his head smashed into the floor. The entire classroom winced again.

“I am so sorry!” he yelled at a much more manageable level. It was still loud, just not as bad as his first greeting.

The first bell rang overhead and the loud boy, white-haired boy and hat-boy all shuffled into the classroom.

It took them all a few seconds to settle down, the excitement of the first day at one of the best Hero schools filling them with nervous energy.

“It took you all ten seconds to settle down. That’s not going to cut it in the future. Rational students would understand that,” a grumpy voice drawled from somewhere no-one in the class could name.

Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka were hard at work already, too busy trying to stifle their laughter to pay attention to anything else.

All of them heard a slurping noise, then a bright yellow figure rose like the dead behind the teacher’s podium and Kyouka’s laughter peeled out as a few new students screamed.

Aizawa, clad in his warm, obnoxiously yellow sleeping bag, glared at her. Kyouka, used to it after seeing it the first hundred times, ignored it completely and kept right on laughing until it petered out, Aizawa pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Are you finished, Jirou?” 

“Yes Sir, finished completely,” she giggled, earning herself a groan from the tired man.

He unzipped the sleeping bag and stepped out, tuning out the sighs of relief as his students realised he wasn’t the dead coming to life to eat their brains, but their teacher. Aizawa fished a packet of brand new gym uniforms from the podium and slapped it onto his desk.

“Anyone who isn’t out on field Gamma in ten minutes can consider themselves expelled.” he growled, vanishing from the classroom before 1-A could blink.

Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka were moving as soon as he spoke, rushing out of the classroom after Aizawa. It was Kyouka who noticed they weren’t being followed by their classmates and groaned.

“Well? Are you coming? He’s not joking and I know you don’t know where the changing rooms are,” she stuck her head around the doorway and raised an eyebrow at her stiff classmates, who all decided to burst into action at once, creating a ruckus unneeded in their class.

Kyouka rolled her eyes and joined Neito and Hitoshi.

They led their classmates to the changing rooms closest to the specified field – because only one set of changing rooms in a school as ridiculously huge as UA is stupid – and some of them swore the three of them were part of a quick-change routine with how fast they were out their uniforms and into the gear, running out of the changing rooms in thirty seconds flat.

They joined Aizawa out on the field and he glanced at them.

“Three minutes, I know you can do better,” he admonished them in a low tone.

“Our classmates took a while to realise you were being serious,” Kyouka huffed.

“And they didn’t know where the right changing rooms were either,” Neito shrugged.

“And what kind of heroes would we be if we didn’t help them? We may have sacrificed a better time for that, but thinking logically, isn’t it only natural to help classmates?”

Hitoshi smirked at his Dad and Aizawa snorted, ruffling his kids’ hair roughly.

Line up, Gremlins,” he huffed lightly, “and no more of your antics, Kyouka.” Aizawa glared playfully at her and she smiled genuinely up at her Uncle.

“We’ll behave,” she promised. “We were just making a show for our classmates,” she giggled.

“Their reactions were good,” Neito smirked, dropping the flair for now.

“Even more when the dead-to-the-world purple kid jumped up and joined in,” Hitoshi grinned widely, trying his best not to burst into chuckling.

Aizawa rolled his eyes at his gremlins, but all four of them straightened up and wiped the fond expressions off their faces as the rest of 1-A trundled out onto the grounds looking decidedly unnerved by Aizawa’s blank, tired glare.

“Seven minutes, acceptable for now. That time will be down to two by the end of the semester.” it wasn’t a request. “You will be completing a quirk apprehension test,” he told them. Murmurs arose through the class and one, the brunette with round, blushing cheeks raised a hand.

“A quirk Apprehension test? What about Orientation?”

“Orientation is a waste of time which could be put to better use. Softball throw, fifty-metre dash, sit-ups, push-ups, side-to-sides, long-distance run, grip strength, long jump. You completed these eight physical assessments in middle school where the use of quirks was forbidden, yes? The school board doesn’t recognise how illogical that is. Shinsou, Bakugou. You two scored highest in the heroics practical exam. How far could you throw a softball in middle school?”

“Sixty-seven metres.” Bakugou, a gruff blonde with spiky hair sneered.

“About seventy, I think,” Hitoshi answered, ignoring the growl and glare the blonde Bakugou shot his way. Aizawa nodded and tossed Hitoshi a softball.

“Using your quirk, throw that as far as you can, don’t leave the circle.” he instructed.

“Does it have to be with my quirk?” Hitoshi raised an eyebrow and Aizawa smirked into his capture weapon.

Smart kid, but then again, he did raise him.

“Use whatever you can,” Aizawa elaborated and he saw the moment Hitoshi’s brain clicked into gear.

Hitoshi smirked wildly at him and held out a hand. Aizawa, without a word, took off his capture weapon and plopped it around Hitoshi.

It was a little big, but fit mostly around his neck. Aizawa frowned and pursed his lips. It was about time Hitoshi got his own one. The purple boy stepped into the circle, adjusting the capture weapon about his shoulders and tossing and catching the ball with a hand.

Both teacher and student ignored the pop-eyed stares of the class, even Kyouka and Neito a little dazed.

Hitoshi hadn’t told them he was training with Aizawa’s capture weapon for a reason - this was it. He tossed the ball high in the air and sent the end of the capture weapon after it, the fabric wrapping, wrapping and wrapping around the ball. Hitoshi spun it around and around in the air until it was just a blur. He let it fly and it sped out of the grounds faster than any of them could track.

Aizawa held up a device, eyes and grin wide and wild. Hitoshi nodded, satisfied, at the result. 500.56 metres was good for a capture weapon - farther than he thought the ball would go. He handed the capture weapon back to his Dad and sauntered back to his friends as the class exploded into cheers of awe and disbelief.

One quirk-based glare and they were silent in an instant. Aizawa picked up another ball and tossed it at Bakugou, still glaring.

“Your turn, same rules apply.” he grunted. Bakugou scoffed and marched to the centre of the white-chalk ring.

Kyouka narrowed her eyes at him and, as he reeled back his arm, she yelped and covered her ears. Bakugou slung his arm forward and let the ball go with an explosion and an unnecessarily screamed:

“DIE!” the ball whistling away from them all. Aizawa held up the device again.

“705.2 metres? That’s amazing!”

“That’s so cool!”

“We get to use our quirks for this? It’s going to be so much fun!” A pink-skinned girl with yellow horns and black sclera cried excitedly, pumping a fist in the air.

The interested expressions were wiped from the trio’s faces, replaced with fear as Aizawa’s quirk flared.

“Fun?” he growled, causing the girl to falter. “I have three years to turn you all into decent heroes and you think this will be fun ?” his voice was quiet, but no-one had mastered the art of “quiet menace” as Aizawa had. “How about this for “fun”? The person who comes last will be expelled immediately.” Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka exchanged weary glances and matching sighs.

Of course he’d pull this crap on them. He meant it, too. 

“You can’t do that!” their classmates yelled, the blonde with black lightning streaks in his hair, the boy with bright red hair, the boy with bulky elbows and the girl with the alien mutation all looked horrified.

The loud boy, white-haired boy and hat boy all looked grim-faced, as did the boys with tail mutations and multiple arms. The girl with the black spiky ponytail looked mostly calm, as did the boy with big lips. The boy who looked like a mountain was trembling, but that could just have been his natural state.

He was a shy kid, from what the trio had observed. The raven-headed boy inclined his head and cheeks girl was scandalised. The girl with the frog mutation ribbeted quietly in surprise. The boy with dark blue hair was spluttering in shock and stunned into a frozen silence.

“That’s unfair!” cheeks girl burst fearfully, but Aizawa glared her into silence. Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka winced visibly. This was not a topic Aizawa was fond of.

“Unfair? You think this is unfair? Alright then, are accidents that leave people disabled fair? You think villain attacks are fair? What about natural disasters, deaths of innocents who leave behind family and friends? You think that’s fair? What about quirk discrimination?” all of 1-A collectively flinched at the pure vitriol in his voice. “None of this is fair and it never will be. It is our job as heroes to make it fair. It is our job to give people hope where there isn’t any and restore the balance between disasters and peace. If you think you’re ready for that, step up now, or I will send you home. I will not be responsible for the deaths of students who were unprepared for the dangers of the industry.”

Aizawa made sure he stared every single one of his class dead in the eye unflinchingly, making sure they knew he was one hundred percent, completely and utterly serious.

To give them credit, they all matched him, a spark of strength and determination brimming in their eyes. Not a single one of them backed down and Aizawa showed his teeth in his wide, creepy grin. 

“Fifty-metre dash, get going.” was all he said. 

The quirk Apprehension test was more than just Aizawa testing his class’ limits.

It was about testing them, more than their quirks, although figuring out a base-line for each of them was handy.

The blue-haired boy, Iida, with engines in his calves needed to let loose and explore his creative side.

Asui, the frog girl, needed to round herself out a little more and Uraraka, the girl with the blushing cheeks, needed to explore her quirk’s limits and take more advantage of what she had around her.

Some of his students couldn’t exactly use their quirks for this - Kyouka, Kaminari, the blonde boy with lightning streaks in his hair and Kirishima, the red-headed boy.

Some needed a little more confidence, Yaoyorozu – the girl with the spiky ponytail – for instance.

Some could do with a little humility - Bakugou, and some needed to tone down their emotions, Yoarashi, the loud boy and Izumi Kota,

the boy with the horned hat. Some, like Todoroki Touya, needed to explore the limitations of their quirks a little more.

Aizawa felt the boy could do a lot more with his orange-blue flickering fire than he showed, but the burns on his arms made Aizawa hesitant to press.

Ashido, the alien mutation girl, Sero, the bulky-elbow boy and Kouda, the shy, rock-like boy, needed both a little more confidence and more faith in their quirks.

Tape, Acid and Anivoice could do a lot more than they showed.

Neito and Hitoshi, as they’d been told time and time again, needed to start pressing their advantage.

Copy was as useful a quirk as Brainwashing was, but fear of discrimination and believing they’d be better off in the shadows put them off constantly.

Satou and Tokoyami, the boy with the big lips and the boy with the raven head, respectively, needed to learn what control and restraint was, but Ojirou and Shouji, the final two members of 1-A, would have benefited from learning the opposite.

All in all, his class had potential and so, when he revealed the rankings of his class, with Kaminari at the bottom of the list by the skin of his teeth, Aizawa knew that none of them would be sent home on his watch.

This thought was solidified as Kaminari faced him boldly, holding his head up defiantly even as Aizawa could sense an undercurrent of fear rocking the boy’s body. There was only one solution for this situation and Aizawa put on his best “I’m a bastard” grin.

“I lied.” he stated calmly, enjoying the shock and annoyed mutters running through his class.

His three gremlin children gave him the stink-eye though, they knew he hadn’t been joking. Aizawa had expelled 154 students so far and would keep adding to that number if they hadn’t shown potential.

Potential to be heroes, potential to step up to the challenge and potential to use their quirks creatively and uniquely. That’s what a hero needed most of all.

“Class is over, change and return to the classroom, you’ll find the semester’s syllabus on the teacher’s podium. Take one before you leave. Shinsou, Jirou, Monoma, stay behind.”

“Yes Sir,” his kids chorused, their eyes crinkling at him like they knew what he wanted to discuss and to be fair to them, they weren’t wrong.

His disgruntled class trudged away from them, a few shooting uneasy looks and confused gazes over their shoulders as they left. Aizawa waited until they were all certainly out of earshot before turning to Kyouka, Neito and Hitoshi.

“Yoarashi Inasa, Izumi Kota and Todoroki Touya.” he said simply and the trio beamed.

“Izu-kun’s going to get a kick out of this,” Kyouka grinned, buzzing with excitement.

“Wind, Water and Fire all in one class, my Beloved shall certainly be ecstatic,” Neito rubbed his hands together, excitement rushing through his veins.

“I still can’t believe that whole Elemental wielder thing is real, I wonder how he’ll react though, wouldn’t it be better to keep this to ourselves until we’re sure of this?” Hitoshi wondered. The other two gremlins looked at him confused and Aizawa pushed Hitoshi to elaborate.

“What if we tell Izuku and he rushes here to meet them, only to find they’re not who they say they are. What if this distracts him from his own classes - we all know how much going to Ketsubutsu meant to him. With the prospect of having other elemental users at UA, how would that make Izuku feel? Ketsubutsu was and is his dream heroics school, but having the chance to interact with people like him and missing out on it would kill him. I think we should wait for them to meet naturally,” he explained to them. Kyouka and Neito fell into a thoughtful silence.

“If it’s like that though, he saw them on one of the screens of UA’s entrance exam and he’ll see them again at the Sports Festival,” Aizawa said and Hitoshi drooped.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Kyouka spoke up. If he knows about them, he’ll ask and we can tell him what we know about them. He’ll learn more from the festival so when they do meet, Izuku will be able to approach them without dying of excitement,” she explained. Neito perked up next to her.

“Informing those three of Izuku and his quirk would probably help the situation too, that way no-one is too shocked and can interact with each other mostly normally,” he proposed. Hitoshi started to smile, pleased his idea had panned out a little. Aizawa sighed and shook his head, smiling fondly at his Problem Gremlins. 

“If you’re finished, brats, get going. I don’t want to be the one explaining to Mika, Kyoutako, Hibiki and Arai why their children are late home,” he ushered them back towards the main school building and they laughed, running off and calling out goodbyes.

They’d see him soon enough, of course they would, but for now, they deserved to be a trio of first year high school students, enjoying the rest of their day.

Training, worrying about schoolwork and assignments, making friends, enemies and everything in between, making their teachers go grey, that could all come later. For now, Aizawa had a loud, dumb blonde trying – and failing – to spy on his class to scold. Aizawa put on his best glare. This should be good.

“You can come out, All Might,” he called gruffly, completely displeased as the skeleton shuffled out from behind a tree.

He looked sheepish and a little frightened, being called out like that and Aizawa felt a sense of satisfaction run through him.

“Ah, young Aizawa! I am sorry to interrupt you like this -”

“If you were, you wouldn’t have done it. What do you want?” Aizawa cut him off. He took great pride in watching the man flounder about, looking for excuses.

All Might had never been his favourite hero, but in recent times his dislike of the man had only gotten worse.

He had no teacher’s licence, he refused to take “no” for an answer and went to the Hero Commission crying. They forced Nezu’s hand, which was the only reason why he was here.

“I - I wanted to talk to you about your class. Wasn’t that a little harsh on them?” All Might asked eventually. Aizawa eyed him distastefully.

“No I don’t. My students need to learn that life isn’t fair. Heroism isn’t a game, like you and so many other heroes seem to think it is. I’m not going to baby them just because you think you have a say in how I run my class.” he told All Might bluntly.

“B - but expulsion right off the bat is -”

“Is for students who think they can coast by with just their quirks alone. It’s for students who think they don’t need to try, or that they can do anything they want because of the quirk they were born with. It’s for students who wouldn’t make it one day in the real world. Luckily for this class, none of them are like that. They put effort into this test, they held their heads up, proud of their results and they worked as hard as they could to make sure they weren’t the ones in that last spot. Unfortunately for Kaminari, someone had to come last and that fell on him.”

“Kaminari didn’t deserve -”

“If you were here to observe my class for the entirety of the test, I believe you heard my speech? Life is unfair, life isn’t kind and forgiving. Life takes and takes and takes and you can’t do anything about it. As I said, someone had to come last. Yes, that fell on Kaminari’s shoulders but he, unlike you, understood that. If he had cried and complained, thrown a tantrum and demanded to stay in this class, I would have booted him in an instant, but he didn’t. He knew his results were just unlucky. He knew that even if not him, someone would have taken that last place spot. He was proud of his results anyway and he faced me down for it. He didn’t deserve that last place spot, no, but none of the others did either. You don’t have a say in how I run my class, All Might. Now, are you finished, because as far as I remember, your first Practical Heroics lesson is in a week and you still don’t have an acceptable lesson plan, or has that changed in the last few hours?” Aizawa glared him down and All Might deflated – not literally – and left Aizawa on the field alone.

He took a deep breath and let it out, doing his best to get himself under control. The blonde buffoon always got on his nerves, but he’d never gotten angry at him as much as he was now.

You’d think after almost ten years of teaching he knew what he was doing by now.

Aizawa grit his teeth and rid himself of thoughts of All Might. That man had burned all the friendship cards he had with Nezu to get the spot on staff. If he did anything - anything to jeopardise the safety of his students, he would pay.

He made his way towards UA’s main building slowly, listening to the bell ringing overhead. The bell rang, another day had ended and another school year began.

He hoped they survived the experience.

Chapter Text

Izuku ducked under a fist swinging towards him, surging forward and grabbing the outstretched fist and grabbed the collar of Hadate’s Ketsubutsu Tracksuit, kicking his legs out from under him and sending the panther boy crashing over Izuku’s shoulder onto the floor.

He quickly pinned him down, securing limbs in a position he wouldn’t be able to escape from.

Hadate thrashed and struggled, but Izuku held fast and Takagi called time after a ten-second pin. Izuku let go immediately of his classmate, offering him a hand up.

Maya, Asano and Kiriko were the only ones cheering him on, the others slightly stunned possibly because Izuku insisted on wearing one of his awfully coloured blindfolds.

He had a different one every day, which confused them all, apparently. Izuku shrugged and paid them no mind, but it was funny, seeing them so confused.

“I still don’t understand how the guy whose eyesight is literally shot can be better than all of us at quirkless sparring,” Hadate grumbled lightly. Izuku smirked.

“Training, Kuroga, training.” Izuku laughed at his classmates, booing his answer.

“No fair! Give us a real answer! I get my flash bangs wouldn’t work on you, but how do you win every time? Even against Maya?” Raika pouted, folding her arms.

“Maya’s good, but we’re standing on dirt, Sena. My quirk relies on the earth, remember? I have almost perfect vision, thanks to that. Maya and a few others - Kuroga, Notori Haku and Nobuta would probably beat me on other grounds or areas, but the rest of you have no formal hand-to-hand unarmed quirkless combat training,” he explained.

Time had really flown for him at Ketsubutsu.

Already Izuku found himself in his second week of classes and none of his teachers showed them any mercy. He was good at Maths?

They gave him harder work. Fluent in English? He was tasked with sign language and when he and Maya both said they were proficient in that too they were given a list of six other languages and told to pick two.

Izuku chose Spanish and Russian and Maya decided on Russian and Italian, for some reason.

All of their teachers were fair and none of them said a word about quirks or personalities, doing their jobs professionally and well and Izuku had noticed he wasn’t the only one who appreciated that.

Yuuta and the Notori twins as well as Hadate, Kikio and Kakechi were all appreciative of their teachers’ efforts.

That meant there were few disruptions in class and all work was handed in on-time and reasonably well done.

There were a few things Izuku noticed about his classmates, habits and behaviours they had and did during school.

Akemi was always fidgeting and a little nervous in classes, but always serious and focused in Practical lessons and Hajou was easily distracted unless he had something to remind him to focus.

Mirano had continued acting huffy and stuck-up and almost everyone else had started to get a little fed-up with her.

Kakechi, Kenna and Terushi had all sort of banded together to become the “Antisocial Trio”. Nori, Raika, Yuuta and Kouya had also formed a little group of their own, Hajou squeezing his way into it and Rukano somehow being wrangled into it by the two slightly hyper girls.

The Notori twins, Kikio and Hadate had struck up a Mutations club they’d dragged Izuku into on technicalities and Maya, Asano and Kiriko joined him because as Maya had said, Izuku got into the weirdest crap when they weren’t around and it was their task to prevent him from making everyone else go insane.

Tsumugi remained a loner until Kenna decided she and the other two other antisocial teenagers were going to adopt him. Akemi flitted between groups, making friends with everyone.

Izuku had overheard Takagi, Rock Lock, talking to other teachers, saying he’d never seen a class of first years band together so quickly before and that he blamed “Emi’s evil hellspawn” for it.

He snickered quietly to himself at that description, because it wasn’t far off from his Uncle Shou’s own title for him and his three closest friends. He preferred Problem Gremlin over evil hellspawn though. It wasn’t like he was that bad - was he?

He shrugged and left quietly, happy he was giving his teacher a hard time even by doing absolutely nothing. The first week of classes had been hectic and fun and now the second week had just begun, but Izuku quickly found a problem.

The staring from his mutant classmates and Makina hadn’t stopped - it had only grown worse.

Now, instead of only a few teens staring at him, almost the entire class was staring and it was unnerving him more than anything else. They wouldn’t even tell him why they were staring and it only happened outside of classes.

Break times, lunch times, before and after school, staring, staring and more staring. During classes? Not a single soul. Lessons were more important than boring a hole into his soul apparently. They wouldn’t tell him, either.

None of them answered him when he asked, they ran away or blinked at him wordlessly. He wasn’t sure if this was a prank or if they were trying to figure something about him out. He wished they’d stop.

He didn’t really voice this out loud, the class would tell him why they were staring eventually, right? They were nearing the end of class and it was just their luck Practical Heroics was their final class of the day.

They’d been working on quirkless sparring since their first class and for those who were already experienced in it helped their inexperienced classmates improve.

Their attention had been fixed on their lesson instructor for the day - Kaguya.

The gruff man was thorough and ruthless when drilling them and if not for Aizawa’s own rigorous training, Izuku would have been dropping to the ground like the rest of his classmates.

They’d been sparring against each other in a round robin type thing for five minutes each.

Kaguya informed them bluntly that they needed to get used to fighting multiple different opponents otherwise they’d crash and burn first day on the job.

It quickly deteriorated in gaping at Izuku as he handed each and every one of them on their asses in five seconds flat.

It wasn’t like he was inexperienced, he had three hero parents looking after and training him, he hoped he could kick their butts.

Kaguya watched them as Kakechi stepped into the chalked circle they were sparring in. Rules were to pin for ten seconds or knock the opponent out of the ring for a win. It’s what Izuku had managed to do so far and no-one had come close to beating him even without his quirk.

He kept an eye on the two boys as they settled into their stances, Izuku taking a moment to fix Kakechi’s feet and direct him to raise his hands a little, before Kakechi darted forward with a quick jab. Izuku blocked it and danced forward with his own lightning fast right.

Kakechi jolted back and Kaguya frowned. He had a habit of getting unnerved when someone countered him and Izuku used that to his advantage, darting mercilessly into his personal space.

Kakechi flinched, hesitating and ultimately making the worst mistake he could.

It gave Izuku time to hook his ankle around Kakechi’s feet and push lightly, the other boy’s momentum doing the rest.

He felt like a stone and Izuku was on him in mount position, hands pinned above his head. Kakechi froze stiff, not even trying to buck Izuku off him. Kaguya counted to ten disappointedly, checking the time.

“Alright students, gather up!” he bellowed through the gym.

The teens padded over to him, all of them bruised and weary and a few limping after being kicked in the legs or tripped onto the ground by Izuku.

He and Kakechi were last to gather around him, the two standing together with Izuku leaning on the hunched-in teen’s shoulder tiredly.

“You did well today, making progress faster than I thought you would. You still have some kinks to iron out - the number of you who just gave up once Fukukado pinned you was atrocious. Hit the showers and get out of here,” he grunted, the bell peeling out a minute after they straggled out of the gym.

He saw the dropping boy’s friends sling his arms around their shoulders as they left, shaking his head. 

“They’re doing well, aren’t they,” Emi sidled up beside him from the back entrance of the gym.

“Those kids are going to give him a heart attack,” he snorted. Emi laughed and agreed with her colleague. She’d seen Izuku and his classmates.

“Have you figured out why they’re staring at him?” Kaguya shook his head.

“And neither has he. They’re not subtle, they’re as interested in him as half the second years are - by the way, did you have to brag about your brat to your classes? You’ve robbed him of a peaceful life,” Kaguya raised a curious eyebrow at her.

Emi laughed again, leaning an elbow on Kaguya’s shoulder and shaking her head lightly.

“Izuku’s an antisocial menace,” she began calmly, her smile turning soft. “He’s the worst socialiser I’ve ever met, second only to Shouta. My second years may be a handful, but they’ll be good for him. He’s gotten better at expressing his emotions, he could barely smile when I first met him, but my class… They’re sensitive towards other people. I know you and Kisei have a few wards in third year who’re planning to chase my son down,” she grinned.

“Maybe that wouldn’t be happening if your brat didn’t blow them off every time they tried calling,” he retorted, shaking off her elbow and marching out of the gym after his students.

“Oh come on, you should have known he would!” Emi followed after him, on the verge of laughing, again. The back-and-forth bickering continued as the pair left, both in good company.

Turns out, Izuku didn’t have to wait as long as he thought to find out why all his classmates were intent on carving a hole into him.

The staring continued all through the second week of school and into the first day of their third week, where Takagi had an announcement to make.

“Today’s going to be a little different,” he began with a scowl.

Izuku tilted his head to the side curiously. He had been keeping track and their teacher hadn’t deviated from routine homeroom classes since the second day. What was going on now?

“What do you mean Sir? What’s happening?” Akemi raised a hand shyly.

“Today,” their teacher sighed loudly, “you’ll be picking a Class Rep and Vice Rep.” Takagi eyed them all closely. “Usually your teacher - that is, me, would be choosing these positions, but since the other staff have noticed your solidarity as classmates, the Principal has decided to allow you this privilege. Don’t abuse it. Any nominations?” Hajou’s hand shot up, the bright smile on his face not faltering once.

“Fukukado Izuku, Takagi-Sensei!” he declared loudly.

The pencil in Izuku hands clattered onto his desk as he tried to comprehend those words.

“I’m sorry, what?” he blanked out, emotions failing him.

“Seconded!” half of their class called out.

Mirano huffed and glared at him, then at Asano and Kiriko.

She looked like she wanted them to nominate and second her, but both boys avoided her eyes and said nothing. Izuku’s eyes swept over his class.

“Maya Esteban.” Izuku’s hand lifted itself, the words leaving his mouth on autopilot. Maya’s head whipped around to stare at him, eyes wide.

“Second,” Asano grinned from behind them.

“And thirded,” Kiriko snorted.

Maya shrugged at them, a little dazed, but nothing like Izuku, who almost completely shut down. He hadn’t been expecting for anyone to nominate him - especially not the class he’d barely spent a month with.

Were they right in the head?

“Anyone else?” Takagi asked, his voice bland. No-one else put up their hands, so he moved on. “Right. We’ll be taking a vote then. Hands up for Fukukado?” eighteen hands were raised. “Hands for Maya?” two hands lifted up.

Takagi tried not to snort.

“I guess that means Fukukado’s our Class Rep now. That’s better than the other options,” Yuuta shrugged amicably, all of them watching as Takagi wrote Izuku’s and Maya’s names on the board.

He passed over Class rep introduction speeches and all of that because there was no way Izuku would have been able to manage with the emotionless, blank expression on his face and class continued.

Izuku remained that way well into the school day, vanishing with Maya, Asano and Kiriko as soon as the lunch bell rang.

The other fifteen kids looked at each other, a spark of understanding in their eyes. Mirano had stormed off darkly, unhappy she hadn’t been chosen for any important roles.

All of them filtered out of their classroom at once, marching off like kids on a mission.

In a way, they were. All of them had spent the past few weeks watching and observing him and what Izuku showed them didn’t relieve worries.

It was in the way he never wore shoes, in the way he always carried around a bag of earth in a pocket, in the way he always made sure he had an exit in his Sight, in the way he deflected topics with a joke or sarcastic retort and in the way the smile he wore never truly matched with what he was feeling.

None of them were stupid - not even Hajou, who was almost determined to prove he was.

They knew those signs. Quirks like Akemi’s Mood Stabiliser and Yuuta’s Target weren’t the pride of ‘Strong Quirk Talks’ younger kids liked to have with each other.

Quirks like Kakechi’s Vanishing Act and Kenna’s Technopath were always compared to ‘Villain Quirks’. Hadate’s Panther, Kikio’s Sailfish and Notori Haku’s Sumatran Tiger were mutant quirks that were the butt of almost every joke and snide comment.

Hajou’s Enter Code was laughed at and taunted, Kouya’s Alter, Terushi’s Sleep Deprived and Raika’s Flash Bang were shamed and forgotten.

Tsumugi’s Shield and Notori Makina’s Shock were dismissed with crude snorts and all of them were told that with the quirks they had, they’d never make it as heroes.

It wasn’t true and they’d proved all of them wrong by being part of one of two Ketsubutsu Hero Courses.

If it was like that for them, how bad would it be for a teen like Izuku?

How bad would it have been for the boy slowly going blind?

How bad would it have been for the boy smarter than all of them combined?

For the boy willing to work harder than all of them combined.

They’d seen Izuku in the classroom.

They’d seen him in Practicals. Always focused and never wavering, always helping and never dismissing.

Always willing to go the extra mile and always, always acting as if they wouldn’t accept.

Why wouldn’t they though?

From day one, when all of them walked into their classroom greeted by the sight of a boy sitting calmly at his desk running hands over a book with a blindfold over his eyes, they knew he’d be different.

And he was.

He listened to them, agreed and pushed them forwards, even going so far as to encourage them.

He knew just as well as they did that their motives for becoming heroes weren't exactly pure.

He had gotten the top score in both Practical exams and the Written tests. He had surpassed all of the first years.

He had every right to be condescending and stuck-up, but he wasn’t.

He was snarky and fun and when they challenged him, he challenged them right back.

He had no qualms about ripping into them when they tried to separate themselves from the rest of the class because they were sure their quirks would be laughed at and shamed again.

He was the first one to point out spite was one of his motivators and refused to let them bask in it all alone.

He was one of the first people to stand up for them and one of the first people who couldn’t have cared less.

So they stared.

They watched and wondered and as they learned in class, it didn’t take long to start applying it to their regular “Izuku-watching” escapades.

It didn’t take them long after that to realise he was just like them - only he hid it better than they ever did. It was still visible in certain moments - Mirano would say something or he’d do something where he needed his proper vision and his smile would grow tense, taut.

As if emotions failed him, but he needed to put on a brave face for them all, saying “screw it” to bullies and discrimination.

They were all familiar with that feeling. It didn’t take them long to find Izuku, Asano, Maya and Kiriko, the four kids sitting on one of the landings of one of Ketsubutsu’s many staircases.

None of them were talking, but Izuku had his phone to his ears and they could all hear the dial tone.

None of the four had seen them yet, so they stayed put, watching them silently. Izuku looked better than he had in class, the colour back in his skin and a little bit of expression on his face.

The dial tone clipped off and they all held their breaths.

“ Izu-kun? What’s wrong? Are you okay? ” they heard a girl ask anxiously.

“Kyo-chan, Code Crimson,” Izuku sighed, rubbing a hand over his blindfolded eyes and holding the phone away from his eyes as he heard a screech echo across the stairs.

All of them blinked.

This was going to be informative.

Kyouka had several things in mind for the day.

She knew Aizawa would put her and her class through the ringer, especially after last week’s failure of a Heroics Foundations 101 class All Might planned for them - seriously.

What kind of teacher decides to throw his students into quirked battle in the very first lesson?

Half of their class could kill them without a second thought or at the very least maim them.

To her amusement however, she stepped in and called Aizawa before the human explosive, the human whirlwind, the human tsunami and the human volcano went to town at each other - and again, what kind of teacher pitted the four kids in the class with the most destructive quirks against each other and thought everything would be okay?

Kyouka seriously doubted All Might would be teaching classes again unsupervised.

Again, Kyouka had several things in mind for the day. Izuku calling her in the middle of one of Aizawa’s law and ethics lectures was not on the list.

When her phone started ringing, she frowned at the caller ID, glancing sheepishly at Aizawa, who was glaring at her.

“I’m going to tell you right now, there’s only one person who can get past the silent mode on my phone,” she began hesitantly.

Aizawa didn’t stop glaring at her and she groaned loudly.

“Fine,” she grumbled, putting the phone on speaker before answering the call. “Izu-kun? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” she asked worriedly.

“ Kyo-chan, Code Crimson, ” a young boy’s voice sighed tiredly. Kyouka blinked, screeched loudly, then her expression fell flat and she made an irritated noise, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Code Crimson, Izuku, you called me in the middle of class for Code Crimson ?” she asked incredulously, “code ‘My classmates are concerningly observant and noticed all the bullcrap I have going on in my life and chose me as the class Representative’ crimson,” she grumbled out, ignoring the open-mouth, shocked expressions on her classmates faces, Neito and Hitoshi trying to hold in their laughter and Aizawa just looking done with them.

“ I’m sorry all my previous classmates have been assholes, but I seriously have no clue what to do. I thought since it was break time over here, you guys would be on break as well. Forgive me for assuming, you damn people-person socialite, and help me out here! ” her brother’s annoyed, fearful voice filtered through the phone and Kyouka went to answer, when a thoughtful expression took over her face.

She looked around at her own classmates, then sighed.

“Izu, just talk to them, I don’t think they’re all that bad if they noticed your insecurities. Heck, most of the time people are too busy trying to figure you the hell out to notice what you’re hiding behind that blindfold of yours -”

“Blindfold?” Uraraka mumbled out loud.

“Wait - you mean the one who kissed Monoma at the entrance exams?” Kaminari burst. On the phone, Izuku squawked indignantly and Neito smirked.

“You’ve got it wrong, my dear electrical classmate,” Neito grinned, speaking over Izuku’s -

“ Don’t you dare, Sunshine! ”

“It’s the other way around. I kissed my Beloved.” the class exploded into a flurry of voices and laughter on Izuku’s end of the phone joined in the chaos.

Aizawa didn’t even try to get them under control, simply rubbing his eyes and groaning.

“ But seriously Kyo-chan, this hasn’t happened before! I can’t do this - what if I mess it up? ”

“Izuku, you mess up all the time, why are you freaking out now? And using Code Crimson, no less,” she shook her head with a smile. “You’ll be fine, Bro, if you used that one, they can’t be bad, can they?”

“ They’re not, they’re really fun - except for Mirano. She’s a quirkist bully, ” her brother grumbled.

“Then it should be fine. If that’s all, I’ve got to go. I can’t deny my classmates their education for much longer. Say ‘bye’ to Hitoshi, Neito and Uncle now,” she grinned slyly as her teacher glared at her. She heard Izuku snort on the line.

“ You’re such a gremlin, Kyo. Bye Hito-chan! ”

“See you Saturday, Izu,” Hitoshi smirked.

“ Bye Sunshine! ”

“Goodbye, my sweet Beloved. Send my love to Aunt Emi!”

“ I will. And last but not least, Bye Uncle Shou! ” there was silence for a moment, until -

“... Goodbye, you little green Problem Gremlin,” Aizawa groaned, a hand still over his eyes. Kyouka ended the call with Izuku’s laughter loud in her ears. By that time, the class was pretty much finished kicking up a fuss over the call and Aizawa was now regretting ever making Kyouka put it on speaker-phone.

She smirked at everyone staring at her, gaping in awe and confusion. She high-fived Neito and Hitoshi without looking.

“... Okay, you have so much to explain here, because none of this makes sense,” Kota glared at her, a hand playing with his pencil.

Next to him, Touya nodded with a small smirk.

“Oh yeah, you’re not getting out of this like you did last time - who the hell asks someone out on a date at Entrance exams?” he asked, laughter bubbling up in his throat.

“Such… HOT-BLOODED PASSION!” Inasa boomed excitedly.

“Quiet.” Aizawa growled, a quirk-fueled scowl silencing them all in seconds. “Jirou, Detention. Monoma and Shinsou, you would join her, if I knew you three wouldn’t terrify the teacher running detention in minutes if you three were together, so you’ll be running suicides in Hero Foundations for the next week.” he snapped. Kyouka couldn’t even find it in her to pout, though the grin did fade a little.

She had been told not to infuriate Aizawa not too much. She’d probably be grounded once Aizawa called her parents, but oh well, she’d been having fun.

“If it’s any consolation, I am sorry Aizawa-sensei,” she smiled sheepishly, turning to the three boys. “I’ll tell you a few things, but not everything. I haven’t told him about you either,” she said secretively.

The three of them exchanged confused looks. Aizawa got his class’ attention again and all was peaceful again for the remaining ten minutes of class.

The bell rang and classes ended for the morning. Aizawa vanished after giving them their homework, no doubt to find a place to sleep away the awful headache Kyouka left him with and Kyouka, Hitoshi and Neito found themselves left in the class with Kota, Inasa and Touya.

The other three Elemental Benders - although they didn’t have a clue about that aspect of their quirks.

“So? You said you’d tell us. Tell us the truth - the whole truth,” Kota crossed his arms.

“Calm down, hotshot. We’ll tell you all about Kyo’s little brother, give us time,” Hitoshi huffed, rolling his eyes and leaning an arm over Kyouka’s shoulder. Neito laughed at the shock left on their faces from the information she gave them.

“He’s your little brother? Is that why you’re so familiar with him?” Touya cocked his head to one side, voice tinged with curiosity.

“Adopted brother, but yeah. We’d known each other for about a year before his parents died in two separate car crashes - yeah, that happened,” she chuckled at the disbelief Kota showed on his face. Inasa also looked a little unsure.

“That’s the truth and not you toying with us because you think it’s funny?” Touya questioned her again. Kyouka shook her head with a laugh.

“Oh no, that’s the truth. It happened on his birthday, too. He was in the hospital for months after the accident. With both of his parents out of the picture, he had to go somewhere and he didn’t exactly have any living relatives. The foster system wasn’t going to be kind to him, so Mom and Dad talked to his case worker and managed to work something out. They’d be allowed to take in Izuku, but they needed a fostering licence before they could. That wasn’t really a problem, since Izuku would be in the hospital over the time the course would take place. They talked it out and The case worker said they’d be able to take Izuku in - though it was a close call. Mom and Dad are away all the time for work and that was factored into the fostering. We were already close, so it didn’t really matter if we adopted him or not. He was practically a brother to me already. Neito met Izuku when we were ten. Izuku’s one of the best violinists around and after an impromptu concert up on the roof of our house because Izuku was being an idiot, people started hiring Izuku for birthday parties and stuff. The Club Advisor for Neito’s school club hired him after begging and pleading for the drama club. We met there, then we met Hitoshi two years ago after Uncle Shou adopted him,” she explained.

“And this ‘Uncle Shou’ you keep talking about is Aizawa-sensei, the guy who threatened to expel us all on the first day and is utterly terrifying as a teacher?” Kota was incredulous.

“You must have a close relationship! How did you meet, anyway?” Inasa questioned her with puppy-like interest.

Kyouka grimaced a little.

Remembering her brother in his quirk-induced frenzy of pain was not a pleasant memory.

The others hesitated at Kyouka’s less-than-pleased expression, Neito and Hitoshi exchanging confused, concerned looks.

“So? What happened?” Kota burst, finally unable to hold himself back.

“Long story short, part of Izuku’s quirk made him super sensitive to literally everything and it was hurting him. Uncle Shouta, with his quirk-nullifying quirk, managed to reduce the pain Izuku felt for a little bit at the time. They held one conversation, then Aizawa’s friends couldn’t help themselves, then suddenly they were visiting all the time and then they were getting us to call them Aunt and Uncles,” she shrugged. “The pain Izuku went through was ridiculous and it only went away when he activated his quirk completely. It took a while because at the time we had no idea what his quirk was,” she sighed sadly. 

“So what is it? His quirk, I mean, what is it?” Touya couldn’t help himself.

“Find out yourself,” Kyouka, Hitoshi and Neito chorused together, snickering when the three of them pouted at them. She couldn’t tell them that much already.

“We’re not going to tell you, because then you’d want to meet him. That’s not going to happen for a while yet, because he’d start talking about you all the time and that would get annoying ,” Kyouka smiled apologetically. Kota regarded her with a ‘you can’t be serious’ deadpan.

“You’ll know what we mean when you guys do meet. We don’t need that happening so soon,” Hitoshi smirked knowingly.

They talked a little longer about Izuku and themselves, surprisingly enough. Kota, Touya and Inasa talked about themselves too as they ate, discussing things like favourite colours and favourite foods, what they liked and disliked about heroes and other professions.

They ended up discussing their parents, too, since Kyouka had talked a little about hers. Kota had said he found a little bit of kinship with Izuku, but his parents hadn’t died. His parents were the hero duo the Water Hose and almost died trying to fight Muscular and put him behind bars as a kid.

They were rescue heroes up against a murderous villain who’d killed many people - heroes and civilians and villains alike and came out victorious.

They had to undergo surgery afterwards and almost didn’t make it, but they had, the only catch being they had to retire from heroism.

They’d strained themselves and their quirks too much to use them regularly enough to be heroes, so they retired to raise him. He’d admired them a lot, they were good heroes and still were amazing people.

He wondered how different he’d be if they had ended up in body bags after the fight, as they were so close to doing so.

Touya had a bit of a similar story, except his story held a bit of abuse. Endeavour, the number two hero, was originally jealous beyond belief of All Might, wanting to claim that elusive Number 1 spot on the Hero Billboards, but always being pushed out by All Might infuriated him, until he realised he couldn’t ever beat All Might.

Once that happened, he bought their Mother in a quirk marriage - which they all grimaced at.

Their first son was everything he wanted - needed to surpass All Might and began to train him to surpass him as soon as his quirk came in, only Touya's older brother didn’t want that and resisted Endeavour at every turn.

Endeavour demanded Rei, his Mother, birth more children since Shouto was, in his words, defective.

His older siblings, Fuyumi and Natsuo only inherited their Mother’s Ice Quirk, then he came along, Touya Todoroki, born with a fire quirk with the potential to turn his flames blue and had, somehow, both heat and cold resistance.

Shouto was thrown to the side and he couldn’t stand that.

Everything came to a head when their Mother called Shouto a second Endeavour.

He lashed out at that, causing a fire to start in the kitchen. It almost burned down their mansion.

Shouto ran away, Rei and Touya almost died and Endeavour began to regret all of his actions and promised to make it up to his family for the rest of his life.

Things got much better after that and now they were a close, loving family.

The bell rang overhead and the six of them grinned at each other. Time to get back to work, if they ever wanted to be good heroes.

They’d talk more later and, eventually, they’d work out why the name ‘Izuku’ stirred a strange feeling from the bottom of their guts, a feeling that screamed ‘brother’, even if they weren’t quite aware of it yet.

They would be, soon enough.

Chapter Text

Izuku couldn’t help but glare at the knowing, annoying smirk on his sister’s face.

She absolutely knew something that would either destroy his being entirely or make his life a bigger crapshow than it already was - he’s probably talking to me.

“I thought you said breaking the fourth wall was expensive, and yet here you are doing it. Is this necessary for every chapter?” Izuku grunted under his breath.

The author rolled her eyes and ignored him as Neito bounced into the Jirous’ lounge and jumped onto him, pinning Izuku to the ground in a hug. Izuku couldn’t even find it in him to be mad at his boyfriend, picking both of them up off the ground.

Saturday had rolled around faster than Izuku thought possible.

His friends had nagged him to no end about his Code Crimson call every day on-call themselves, but now he realised this was probably only a distraction.

His sister, friend and Boyfriend barely talked about UA at all, which was suspicious enough.

Usually, Izuku was sure people bragged the life out of even just getting accepted to UA, much less the hero course, but they barely had a word to say about it. Izuku was sure something was up with them - with class or classmates, he really didn’t know, but it was fine, as much as Kyouka was a chaos gremlin, she never did anything harmful.

The two of them were more like a pair of prankster-loving kitsune spirits more than anything else and, when they were younger, actually argued about whose hero name that was going to be.

Izuku didn’t understand why Kyouka wanted the name so badly, when it had literally nothing to do with her talents, personality, mostly, or quirk, though Kyouka argued the same about Izuku.

They ended up compromising, agreeing that Kitsune would be the name of their hero agency and, since this was before they met Hitoshi and Neito, the two love interests didn’t get a say in it.

It was amusing, in a way, watching the Hitoshi react to their hero agency name, that first time they met.

They declared it to him just before they left and Izuku swore he could see Hitoshi’s brain trying not to break itself into pieces.

Aizawa merely sighed, glared and told Izuku not to break his kid’s mind when he needed it intact.

Izuku just said “No Promises”.

Well, Aizawa didn’t need to worry about that, much, did he? Hitoshi fit in with the three of them like glitter, glue, sparkles and a grumpy old man dumped in it - perfectly. He was funny and witty and always himself, after Izuku, Kyouka and Neito laughed quirk biases out of the house and down the damn street.

It helped a little more when Hitoshi found out their own quirks and experiences with people weren’t things people considered good for heroics.

They were going to eat their words, as Izuku told Neito the first time they met, when the four of them crashed the Underground heroics scene and got better results than all of the lime-light heroes put together.

Of course, that also made Hitoshi wonder what the crap he’d gotten himself into.

Izuku stuck close to Neito’s side as the taller boy pulled them both upright, the blonde snuggling Izuku into his side as they both slumped onto the couch. Izuku grumbled quietly for a minute, but made zero efforts to remove himself from the comfort of his Sunshine’s arms.

It absolutely was not his fault he fell for the loud, sunshine blonde, as he and Aizawa loved to say, they had no choice in the matter - and he really didn’t.

It wasn’t like anyone could control how they felt about people. You liked who you liked and that was it.

Sure, they’d come across a few people on their dates so far who made snide comments towards them and gay couples in general, but they always had at least one person in the crowd who’d tell the homophobes to go suck ass, as they’d put it.

In their opinion, and Neito’s, it wasn’t their relationship so they should butt out and mind their own business.

It wasn’t their place to make remarks or comments about someone else’s relationship and it would never be. Izuku sighed quietly and pressed himself further into Neito’s warm side, the blonde chuckling fondly.

“Are you alright, my Beloved?” he asked quietly. Izuku groaned in response. 

“It’s just - it’s just been a week, Sunshine, I don’t know how to deal. Did you know my classmates actually like me for a change? Except Mirano though, she’s a quirkist bigot as always, but did you know everyone else is so cool? And Kaguya-Sensei’s and Kisei-Sensei’s students are going to Ketusbutsu too? They’re in their third year, the hero course all of them. It’s crazy, because there are these two kids in the second year too. I’m avoiding all of them except Maya, Itsumi and Kamijo though. They’re a little scary,” Izuku mumbled tiredly, digging his head into Neito’s arms as Neito petted Izuku softly, a happy smile painted over his face.

“Blegh, you two, find a room,” Hitoshi’s bland voice peeled through the room, interrupting Izuku’s and Neito’s quiet moment together and, judging by the look on their friends’ face, he didn’t regret it one little bit.

Death would be delivered.

“Oh, but my dear Hito-chan, we have already found one, we are sitting in the living room , aren’t we?” Neito smirked satisfactorily as Hitoshi’s face soured, realising Neito was right.

Kyouka chuckled, appearing next to Hitoshi and slotting herself under his arm and into his side, the arm wrapping comfortably, protectively over her shoulders.

“You do realise all of us are dating one person in this room, right Toshi?” she grinned up and him and Hitoshi rolled his eyes, the pair moving to snuggle up on an armchair.

“That’s different, Ko-ko, we’re not the ones head over heels for each other and not afraid to show it. With how Zuku’s been raised, he’d probably embarrass both of them in front of both of our classes when we meet each other,” he complained playfully. 

“Yeah, he’s right Kyo-chan,” Izuku rolled his eyes, sitting up a little straighter and ignoring the little, loud voice inside of him telling him to melt into the warm sunshine that was his boyfriend.

“Anyway, let’s get on with it, how’s Ketsubutsu, Izu? You haven’t told us anything apart from Code Crimson!” Kyouka pouted, a shine of excitement in her eyes.

Izuku rolled his eyes, lips twitching in a fond smile.

His sister was always a bundle of energy whenever they were together and he doubted she was any more subdued when they were apart. It was curious to note that she took his call in the middle of classes, though really, what did he expect from the girl he called and thought of as his sister.

“Code Crimson aside, it’s been pretty good,” he said, “my classmates are fun - nowhere near as trouble-making as we are, but they understand enough about me to know why I’m such a trouble-maker. They don’t mind it at all, actually. I got voted in as class rep when I called you guys and apparently they followed me and my friends. They overheard the conversation, we talked and we’re all pretty tight now. My home room teacher is Rock Lock, he’s weird, if I’m being honest. He pushes us hard in practical classes and in core subjects, but he always grades us fairly. Classes are really fun, there are a lot of group projects and no matter who you get in your group, you’ll win out. We’re almost finished with basic self-defence and quirkless combat classes in Practical Heroics, so we’ll be learning how to incorporate our quirks into our own combat styles next. That’s an actual issue though, because not all of us have physical quirks that help us out in combat and some of my classmates are starting to develop some really weird fighting styles,” Izuku shrugged, taking a breath as Neito stroked his back soothingly.

“Izu, when Kyouka said ‘tell us about Ketsubutsu’, she didn’t mean it all in one breath,” Hitoshi snorted, ignoring the rude gesture Izuku made at him with a smirk.

“Seriously Zu-kun, slow down, would you? There’s plenty of time before you have to go home with Aunt Emi,” Kyouka giggled. Izuku pouted unhappily.

“I’m just doing what you told me to, this is your fault,” he said pointedly.

There was a brief pause, before all four of them burst into fits of laughter, giggling and chuckling with each other as if they hadn’t spent the last few weeks apart.

They had decided to focus on adapting to their respective schools before another meet-up so that they could learn and work properly on being the best heroes they could be.

The Code Crimson call was a one-off thing that Izuku didn’t think would ever happen again.

Kyouka, Hitoshi, Neito and Izuku had developed all sorts of colour codes that meant all sorts of things.

There were serious ones, like Code Tangerine, which meant a loon was attacking them and they needed help, and Code Tan, which meant they’d been arrested by the police for something they didn’t do, and then there were silly ones like Code Crimson, set up because none of them had never really experienced good classmates before and it was an actual concern at the time, and Code Rainbows - because whoever says Rainbow is not a colour would have to fight all four of them.

Code Rainbows was something exceptionally ridiculous and had absolutely nothing to do with rainbows, Izuku found that hilarious.

Code Rainbows meant ‘my long-dead father came back from the grave as a megalomaniac hell-bent on destroying hero society with a megalomaniac protege he picked up off the streets before faking his death and both of them are obsessed with me’, to all of their horror and no matter what the adults said or did, there was no way the teens were getting rid of it.

They also wanted to get rid of the colour codes, but again the teens refused.

The codes were colours because Izuku had no clue what colours were and his friends found it more amusing than they should, particularly when Izuku was so straight-faced about the entire thing.

It was a point of shared amusement for all of them at the simple things they absolutely couldn’t handle.

Clothes shopping with Izuku was a chore, Kyouka threatened every teacher she’d ever learned under as if it was her duty, Neito had no idea how to talk like he was a normal teen and not like some handsome lord from pre-quirk days and Hitoshi was a 3:00 am meme lord.

They all teased each other to no end about it, but it was all in fun and they all knew the others didn’t really mean half of the things they said. It was one of the reasons they wanted to be an Underground Hero team when they graduated.

Izuku thought of maybe becoming a teacher like their Uncles and his Mom and all of them wanted to be parents, when they got a little older.

They did have a choice in the matter, Izuku figured that out when Hitoshi first joined them and their trio became a quad.

They all had their flaws and cracks, they were all human and they all loved each other for those flaws and cracks.

Neito loved the way Izuku’s colour-blindness in the worst form meant he could pick and choose and dress his boyfriend and Izuku loved the way Neito didn’t hide himself just because other people thought he was weird. H

itoshi was an absolute crack-up if he couldn’t sleep and the two of them spent hours blowing up each other’s phones talking about stupid ideas and ridiculous theories that would have people lining up at a mental hospital if they had to think about them and Kyouka?

Kyouka was his sister.

She was his funny, charming, couldn’t sit still for the life of her and always defending Izuku from discriminatory teachers and classmates, never backing down from a challenge, sister.

Izuku had the quiet thought that maybe their little quad of friends and romance wasn’t exactly normal, but one look at everyone in his life had him smiling that thought away.

Maybe it wasn’t normal to other people, maybe this connection between them wasn’t how other people would classify ‘love’ or ‘friendship’, but who cared?

This wasn’t someone else’s story.

It was his.

It was Izuku’s and Hitoshi’s and Neito’s and Kyouka’s.

It was theirs and no-one was changing that, not if Izuku had anything to say about it.

He fixed his eyes on his friends, sitting there with him in the Jirous’ lounge and he smiled, listening to his sister ramble about their first few weeks.

Izuku closed his eyes, resting against his Sunshine and taking in everything Kyouka had to say…

Kyouka, Hitoshi and Neito met outside of UA the morning of their second week in the Hero Course, trading and receiving smiles and high-fives, all three of them grinning at each other and buzzing with excitement.

Even Hitoshi, who was the resident resting cat face meme lord insomniac had a smirk on his face as they strolled to their class ten minutes before home room began.

They were chatting animatedly amongst themselves - not a lot of the other kids in their class wanted to come near the trio of weirdos that infiltrated their class and they liked it that way.

None of them really ever experienced good classmates for themselves, so they had no idea what to judge themselves on other than ‘them’ and ‘us’.

There were three people who stood out to them, if not for the way they blatantly stared at them, then for the way they always huddled into their own trio and hissed about them.

It would have been something Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka knew nothing about, if it wasn’t for Inasa.

He was huge and just as loud as his build suggested. It didn’t matter what Kota and Touya said to him, yelling was just the whirlwind’s natural volume and that meant the three of them knew most of their discussions.

“Dad and Pops was saying something about Foundational Heroics last night, what do you think we’ll be doing?” Hitoshi asked his friends quietly as they settled into their seats.

Kyouka shrugged with an expression that bled ‘how should I know’.

Neito leaned on his desk, smirking.

“My dear Hito-chan, we are not my Beloved, so we shall never know what our educators are planning for our -”

“- if you say ‘planning for our education, I’m going to strangle you and Toshi won’t stop me,” Kyouka groaned, glaring at him as he laughed. Hitoshi took a long draught from the thermos in his hands and deadpanned at their loud blonde.

“She’s not joking Nei, so I’d suggest stopping,” he drawled, but Neito smirked smugly and went back to leaning on his desk and daydreaming.

Kyouka sat herself on Hitoshi’s desk.

“How much do you want to bet that he’s thinking about Izu-kun?” she whispered into his ear.

“No bet,” Hitoshi snorted, watching their classmates with a corner of his eye. The ones who were in class with them were shifting around and looking uneasy as they spoke, or whispering and hissing to each other if they were Inasa, Kota or Touya.

He turned his attention back to his gorgeous girlfriend and mimicked Neito’s smirk. “It’s Nei-chan, Kyo-chan, what did you think he’d be daydreaming about?

He’s been smitten with our little Green Bean since they met each other,” he smirked.

Neito ignored them and their snickers as he thought about Izuku in that stupid outfit he wore out on their date the last time they saw each other.

“My Beloved looks simply stunning in gender neutral apparel, does he not,” he sighed dreamily, unaware he’d spoken out loud instead of in his thoughts as he usually did. 

“Izuku has weird-ass taste and I blame Aunt Emi,” Hitoshi retorted, earning a confused glance back at him from his blonde friend.

“You spoke out loud, dumbass,” Kyouka sniggered at him.

“Those three are weird,” muttered one of the girls near them. Hitoshi put a blank expression on his face while Neito went back to smirking, while Kyouka glared at Uraraka and the classmates around her.

Hitoshi and Neito might not have been her brother like Izuku was, but they were her boyfriend and Izuku’s boyfriend and if the other kids wanted to insult them, they’d have to get through her to do it.

“If the next sentence out of your mouth isn’t about homework, Uraraka, you’ll have detention.” Aizawa huffed grumpily as the door to their classroom slid open.

The brunette and the girls around her quickly dispersed, Kyouka sliding into her own seat. She was still a little on edge when their Uncle took to the podium, but she knew how to contain herself, unlike some people she knew.

Their class was in their seats and at attention faster than she’d ever seen anyone move, but knowing just how scary Aizawa could be helped just a little, she guessed.

Aizawa scanned the classroom unobtrusively, less than half the class noting he did so and he sighed.

Situational awareness would need to be trained before they went further, as well as quirkless combat and quirk danger lectures.

Hopefully All Might hadn’t planned anything stupid for their first heroics lesson.

He’d gone over acceptable First year training plans and class exercises, so it wouldn’t be anything over their heads, at least and if it was, all three of his kids had his number and five different trackers and locators on them at all times.

“Morning class. Today you’ll have your first heroics lesson. Listen to your teacher and don’t kill each other.” Aizawa grumbled tiredly, hiding a yawn from his incredulous students. “Do whatever you want for the rest of Home room, don’t wake me up.” he pulled his sleeping bag up and lay down unseen behind the podium.

1-A blinked at the sudden disappearance of their teacher, probably still trying to decipher Aizawa’s strange behaviour, but Hitoshi, Neito and Kyouka didn’t bat an eye.

They were used to his antics and simply slid back into the positions they’d been occupying before Aizawa took over: Hitoshi slumped over his desk, Kyouka sitting on hers and Neito leaning on his arms, dreaming about what outfit he wanted to put Izuku into next.

“How much do you want to bet he’s not actually sleeping?” Kyouka smirked.

“Again, Kyo-chan? No bet, we all know he’s not actually fully asleep,” Hitoshi snorted, amused.

“He’s not?” whispered the black-haired, bulky-elbowed tape-user known as Sero.

“Obviously,” Neito sniffed. “Our Sensei is far too brilliant at his occupation to ever let such things as sleep deprivation deprise us of knowledge. He takes break times for that,” the blonde waved an arm around in the air, content in his knowledge.

“And how would you know?” the black-haired ponytail girl Kyouka thought was called Yaoyorozu spoke up, a hint of disdain in her voice.

“Because Uncle Shou raised us, smartass,” Kyouka sneered at her and Yaoyorozu leaned back in her seat, shocked at both the revelation and Kyouka’s language.

“Easy Kyo, don’t start a fight now, you were doing so well,” Hitoshi groaned.

“I’m going to start something if these morons keep insulting you guys,” she sneered, “I’m starting to see why Code Crimson was such a big deal for Izu-kun,” she grumbled under her breath. Kota eyed her curiously.

“Did that stupid colour or whatever really mean what you said?” he asked with a scowl.

“We wanted to be sure the others knew how we were doing if we were ever split up and Code Crimson seemed like a good idea at the time,” she shrugged.

“Yeah, ignore the fact Izu came up with that just because good classmates aren’t a thing for us,” Hitoshi muttered under his breath.

Touya choked on air. He stared at Hitoshi, eyes wide.

“Never?” the white-haired boy asked, shocked.

“Copy quirk, brainwashing, feral child with a blind brother,” Hitoshi deadpanned, pointing at Neito, Himself and Kyouka in that order and earning a slap on the arm from her for his troubles.

Touya grimaced unhappily, shaking his head.

“Well, Kota, Inasa and I won't be dicks to you, at least,” he offered.

“Thanks,” Kyouka snorted with a wry grin. They had no more time for talking before the bell rang loudly, the signal for real classes to start.

Aizawa was up and out of the room as Present Mic strolled in, grinning widely as if nothing was wrong.

“Morning Listeners! Who’s ready for some rocking English? YEAH!” he screamed, forcing the teens to cover their ears. Kyouka glared death at the man as she hunched over her desk and the blonde winced sheepishly. 

“Really, Sir? You know you have students with enhanced hearing,” Hitoshi pointed out like the good boyfriend he was, shooting Kyouka a concerned look. 

“Whoops, my bad kiddoes. Let’s get started shall we? Open your textbooks to page 48…” classes rolled on like that for the rest of the morning, heroes teaching them maths, English and the sciences, as well as a few extra classes like Hero Law and Ethics and Art History.

English with Mic wasn’t as boring as they expected, considering all three gremlins were fluent thanks to being practically raised by the man and Art history with Midnight was a lot more fun than they expected.

Law and Ethics was just about as boring as they’d anticipated, but as Aizawa said, the necessary subjects weren’t supposed to be interesting.

Kyouka had a fascination with laws that most of the class couldn’t really explain, but Hitoshi and Neito knew her mind, thanks to the years they’d spent playing with and getting to know her.

If she knew the laws, she could find loopholes and ways to, literally, get away with murder - or vigilantism at the least.

Aizawa was so very done by the time the lunch bell rang and it was a group of eager teenagers who flooded into the cafeteria for lunch.

Hitoshi, Kyouka and Neito sat together as they usually did, talking quietly with each other before Kota, Inasa and Touya plopped themselves down with them. Staring ensued, then Kyouka rolled her eyes and smirked.

“Joining the three freaks at lunch?” she stabbed her chopsticks into her lunch, smiling daggers at the three new kids at their table.

“Kyo, not everyone is out to destroy us,” Hitoshi sighed.

“No, no, by all means, This Act has only just begun,” Neito said cryptically, for once not smiling as he eyed the three powerful students.

Kota’s eyes narrowed.

“What’s your problem?”

“Trust issues.”

“Hyper energy.

“Inability to focus,” they chorused at the same time, earning flat looks from the boys.

“Izuku,” Kyouka sighed.

“Izu,” Hitoshi grumbled.

“My dear Beloved,” Neito crossed his arms.

“Alright, I know you guys told us about Jirou’s brother, but why is he your issue?” Touya crinkled his eyes into a frown.

“He’s my brother,” Kyouka scowled.

“He’s my blind gremlin friend and if you hurt him, you’re dead.” Hitoshi threatened.

“He’s my Beloved and his Story should be paved with all the best intentions.” Neito glared at Inasa, Touya and Kota, who just looked more confused than ever and Kyouka supposed that was only given, seeing as they hadn’t really told them anything.

The bell tolled and the six of them cleared their trays, hurrying back to class. The three powerhouses wanted answers, but they were too hyped up for their first heroics lesson to question them any further.

All of 1-A were, Hitoshi knew, but they were a little more subdued.

“We’ve had Uncle Shou, Uncle ‘Zashi and Aunt Emi training us since we met them, what are we going to learn here that they can’t teach us?” Kyouka whispered to Hitoshi, who merely shrugged in response.

He didn’t know either, but a booming laugh from outside the door had them stiffening with excitement and apprehension.

“I AM HERE! COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!” All Might, the number 1 hero, burst into the classroom in his iconic uniform and beaming smile.

Neito didn’t know how to feel, but knew to stifle a smile.

“The day a normal human walks through the door like that is the day I know humanity is doomed,” Hitoshi drawled loudly, making the Symbol of Peace himself stumble in his strutting to the teacher’s podium.

Ingenium’s brother shot to his feet, glaring.

“That is no way to treat the Symbol of Peace! Show some respect to your betters!” the boy snapped, hand chopping up and down. Kyouka stared at him in disdain.

“Why the hell would we listen to a robot?” Iida spluttered at the accusation.

“More than that,” Neito interjected, sorely disappointed in their teacher’s entrance, “hero practicals is a class in which fooling around is the last thing needed. If he shall not take this seriously, I want a new teacher.” he announced bravely, Hitoshi and Kyouka standing by their friend to the last breath.

All Might hesitated at the podium, before barrelling forwards.

“Welcome, young heroes, to Foundational Heroics, where you’ll learn all the basics of being a hero! For today’s lesson…” the Symbol of Peace flipped a card in his hands and a bad feeling crept into Neito’s spine.

“Battle trials…” he murmured uncomfortably. Kyouka raised a hand, face blank.

“Sir, this is our first lesson, shouldn’t we be checking out our uniforms to see if they’re practical and mobile?” she questioned him, hoping he wouldn’t brush this off.

All Might simply beamed and laughed his booming laugh and they traded wary, dread-filled glances.

“Nonsense, young Jirou! Your costumes were made by the best of the best support companies, they’ll work fine. Speaking of costumes, what good is a hero without one?” he pressed a button on a small remote and cases extended from the wall behind them. “Take your cases, change and meet me at Ground Beta!” with that, All Might zipped out of the classroom, leaving them all to grab their cases and change. 

“Call Uncle Shou now, Toshi, this is not going to end well and I want to live past my first practical class.” Kyouka stood from her seat, her face stony.

Neito and Hitoshi grabbed their cases with her, at the back of the group of overly excited students. They knew this wouldn’t end well, but no -one else did.

Twenty students marched out onto the field in front of the large fake city known as ground Beta, horror growing in their hearts.

“I hope this idiot isn’t starting us out with Urban combat, at least he’ll have the sense not to say quirks are allowed, right?” Kyouka stayed close to Hitoshi and Neito, who closed ranks grimly.

Not even their hero uniforms could take away the feeling of wrongness about this situation.

Kyouka aimed for a punk-rocker look with a navy blue leather jacket, a black tank top and long, slightly baggy but not enough to drag her down in a fight, army pants. The jacket also had a hood that, when pulled up, shadowed her face completely. All of it was padded and weaved with a strong, protective metal that was as light as it could get. The collar of her jacket, when zipped up, acted as a ventilator and a black choker, devoid of any ornaments, was able to turn into a voice changer and communicator.

Hitoshi’s uniform patterned Aizawa’s. A dark purple jumpsuit riddled with concrete grey and a touch of navy blue for the dark night sky. His included a hood that hid his face from his opponents without marring his vision and that could be pinned back if not in use. A voice changer sat around his neck and like Kyouka, it was also useful as a ventilator for gases and a communicator.

Neito went for a slightly outlandish look just like he was known for: a suit with short tailcoats and three waist clocks sat on his right hip. Everything was tight, but still allowed for fluid movement and protection. The fabric was infused with the same type of tough, light metal as Kyouka’s outfit and was element resistant. All of their outfits were, considering whose friend, sister and boyfriend they were.

Neito also wore a full facial mask coloured black and white as his outfit, with the same configurations as Kyouka’s choker and Hitoshi’s voice changer. Ventilator, voice changer and communicator. It wasn’t a simple black-white split, it was shaped in the yin-yang chinese symbol, black swirl with a white dot and white swirl with a black dot - there was light in darkness, good in evil, just like there was darkness in light, evil in good.

That was what balance meant and right now, balance was what they needed. 

“LOOKING GOOD!” All Might boomed, standing before them in all his glory. “A HERO NEEDS TO LOOK THE PART AND YOU KIDS… LOOK LIKE HEROES!” Kyouka closed her eyes and breathed deeply, looking for the balance to this buffoon.

“Sir! I’ve noticed we’re in one of the cities from the exams, will we be fighting robots again in urban combat?” Iida questioned loudly, stepping forward.

“TODAY WE SHALL BE TAKING IT A STEP FURTHER! YOU ALL SHALL BE TAKING PART IN INDOOR COMBAT IN PAIRS!”

“How will we be scored?”

“Will we be expelled if we lose?”

“How badly can I tear these losers apart?”

“Doesn’t this cape look fabulous?” a chorus of voices assaulted All Might and the hero faltered, trying to placate the anxious teenagers while Hitoshi was frantically dialling Aizawa.

He didn’t think the communicator would come in handy so soon.

“CALM DOWN, I HAVE SUPER STRENGTH, NOT SUPER HEARING! HERE ARE THE RULES: YOU WILL BE SPLIT INTO PAIRS, ONE VILLAIN AND ONE HERO. THE VILLAIN PAIR WILL BE PUT INTO A BUILDING WITH THE INTENTION OF GUARDING A NUCLEAR WEAPON - FAKE, OF COURSE. THE HERO PAIR WILL NEED TO EITHER WRAP THIS CAPTURE TAPE -” All Might held up a roll of white stickless tape “- OR TOUCH THE WEAPON TO RECAPTURE IT. TEAMS WILL BE DECIDED USING THESE!” he gestured towards two boxes and held up numbered balls, black and white.

Evil and Good.

Figured the idiot would take a sacred lesson and warp it into some training exercise.

There were a lot of questions even after it was all explained and Kyouka and Neito stalled for time as Hitoshi hissed the situation into his communicator to Aizawa, who was suitably pissed.

All Might was allowing quirked, indoor combat where almost anything could go wrong and as soon as they saw the pairings, they knew everything would.

Inasa and Bakugou, the human whirlwind and the human explosive were paired against Kota and Touya, the human tsunami and the human volcano.

Bakugou was snarling and popping mini explosions in his hands, hyping himself up, but the other three natural disasters looked apprehensive, as they should have considering the pairings.

As her eyes landed on the grinning teacher and the pairings, Kyouka couldn’t take it anymore. All Might was officially an imbecile if he thought this was okay and it wouldn’t stand with her.

“Are you kidding me?” she growled, the menacing tone in her voice freezing her classmates, Kota, Inasa and Touya whipping their heads around at her in shock as she stalked angrily towards the oblivious blonde symbol of peace.

“YOUNG JIROU, THAT IS NO WAY TO -”

“You’re no teacher if you think these battle trials are a good idea you stupid man.” Kyouka snarled nastily, giving him no room to make his argument. “You’re putting the four students with the most volatile quirks up against each other in a closed space with no instructions to limit themselves or even hold back because if the integrity of that structure fails, that building comes down on them and they’re dead.” she hissed, Bakugou, now slowing down to think, paled slightly as he realised she was right.

His Explosion quirk was strong, but so was Hydro Manipulation, Whirlwind and Cremating Flame. They could do a lot of damage if they weren’t careful.

He wanted to be the best, but not if it killed someone.

“Are you not even going to tell them not to use their quirks? This is step ‘I don’t even know’ on the list of steps to take when training a bunch of greenhorn hero hopefuls! No safety lecture or anything? Do you even have a teaching licence? What am I asking, of course not. No licensed teacher would plan this as a first year’s first lesson so tell me, what exactly were you thinking you big blonde buffoon of a man?” Kyouka yelled at him, face screwed up in anger.

All Might drew himself up to his full height, smile stretched into the most fake thing any of them had ever seen, eyes glittering with anger of his own.

“YOUNG JIROU, YOU MAY HAVE YOUR OPINIONS, BUT I AM THE TEACHER OF THIS CLASS AND YOU WILL GIVE ME THE RESPECT -”

“Respect, All Might?” Aizawa’s quietly menacing voice joined the fray, only this time it held more anger than they’d ever heard as he stormed onto Ground Beta, quirk flashing on and off and for a hero with impeccable control of both his emotions and quirk, it was terrifying.

Even All Might faltered, anger fading and fear taking over. Aizawa didn’t even give him a chance to defend himself as he ripped into the blonde hero for endangering the lives of his students and for deaf- ness and illiteracy.

This was not what they’d discussed for lesson plans.

This was a third year exercise Aizawa would only consider allowing at the end of their training with the safety and rules explained, not an exercise for inexperienced first years.

Overall, not the lesson they expected, but a normal day at UA.

Chapter Text

Hi everyone, I know I've been gone a while, but I've been dealing with a lot already this year, one of those things being study. I haven't been updating The ground We Walk On for a while, but I'm putting it on Hiatus for now until I get the time, motivation and energy to continue this Fic. However, all hope is not lost. I have been somehow able to craft a new fic in this hellish schedule of mine (it involves more all-nighters and coffee than is probably healthy) based on One Piece, Live action and anime, so if you're looking for something else to read while this one is down, please go read The Pirate, The Marine and The Bounty Hunter. I've put a lot of work and effort into it and it's better structured and written than this one is, considering it's my second fic. It's also been beta read by a close IRL friend, so you should enjoy it, even if you guys aren't One Piece fans. I won't leave you hanging for too long, I will finish this fic one day - but not today.
Thanks for being amazing readers, guys, love you all!!