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Life had gone back to normal for Class 1A.
Well as normal it could get at least. The war had ended, and they were all back together again. Classes at UA continued and 1A had become 2A.
The dorms seemed emptier, now that they were no longer mandatory. Many of their classmates had taken up the option of returning to live with their families. Now that the threat of the league was gone, the students weren’t in danger every time they left campus. They didn’t have to worry about being attacked by the group that were targeting them.
Even with the distance between them, class 2A still held tight to the bonds they shared. They alternated between living on campus together and at home with their families. They had class sleepovers and movie nights that were technically against the dorm rules, but it was obvious Aizawa-Sensei didn’t have the heart to stop them. Although he did warn them that they would have to be stopped if they interfered with their lessons.
The first rays of sunlight were peeking through the large glass windows of the 2A dorms. Even though the sun was up it was much too early a time for the students sprawled out across the floor to be up and about.
A sudden terror filled shriek split the air. All around the common room, students shot to their feet, quirks sparking as they prepared to fight whatever threat had invaded their proximity. The students that had been asleep were up within an instant of those who weren’t.
“It’s alright.” Todoroki said, calmly but loud enough to catch their attention. They all glance over to see him sitting next to the only member of the class still asleep.
Even in his sleep, Midoriya’s expression was contorted in a look of horror. The embers of his quirk flickered around him, like lightning dancing across his body.
“Deku?” Uraraka was quickly out of her half-asleep stupor as she clambered across the common room.
“Midoriya.” Todoroki gave his arm a small nudge in an attempt to wake him without startling him. “Midoriya.”
The greenette’s eyes shot open, and he launched up into a sitting position. He’d grabbed hold of Todoroki’s arm in his panic and looked almost ready to throw him across the room. His eyes seemed to lock onto the red and white hair of his friend. His eyes darted around the common room taking in the sight of the rest of his classmates. He visible relaxed as he stared at them dumbly before slumping into Todoroki’s side.
“You alright man?” Kirishima asked making sure not to crowd the greeneete as he voiced his question.
“I’m- I’m fine.” The greenette rasped.
“More nightmares?” Kaminari wondered aloud and quietly yelping as Jiro poked him with an earphone jack and shot him a look.
“Sorry…” Midoriya pulled away from Todoroki sending apologetic looks to his classmates. “I woke you all up.”
“…Mido, I woke you all up like, yesterday.” Ashido waved a flippant hand in his direction as she let out a yawn.
“Yeah, besides, we can all get an early start.” Yaoyorozu added glancing out the window at the rising sun.
“Everyone but blasty.” Kaminari shot a glance at Bakugo who glowered at him. The class was very strict about his rest reminding him that he had to take it easy after how seriously injured he was during the war.
“Everything alright in here?” The new voice startled the class, and their heads whipped towards the doorway.
“We’re all fine Aizawa-Sensei.” Iida informed their teacher with a chop of his arm.
As the class set about their morning routines Izuku found his thoughts lingering on the nightmare that had shot terror as cold as ice through his veins. It wasn’t as graphic as ones he’d had in the past where he saw Kacchan’s body lying flat on the UA island. No, compared to those ones, it had been completely mundane.
It had simply been him in a wide-open void of nothingness. All around him the black sky met the grey land he stood on. He’d been alone, at first, calling out to the void in confusion.
Then suddenly, in an instant he was face to face with a white haired, dry skinned man that had him recoiling away.
Shigaraki.
That had been all he’d seen, before he let out the shriek that must’ve awoken his classmates.
Shigaraki seemed to have been too confused to say anything, instead he was glancing around at the void.
And then, he woken up.
Now there was a dull throbbing in the back of his head as he stared blearily down at the bowl of cereal Sato had passed him.
“Deku?”
That dream had been so strange. Usually, any kind of dream involving the villain took place at the front line of the war. Dreams he had of their encounters at the USJ and shopping mall had dwindled out and seemed so mundane after the battle.
“Deku?”
Izuku jolted at the hand that reached out and gently nudged his own. “Huh?” He looked to the side at Uraraka’s wide brown eyes.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” She asked.
“Oh yeah.” Izuku flushed wondering how long he had been staring into space as he picked up his food and spooned the still crunchy cereal into his mouth.
“We don’t mind being awake, so you shouldn’t look so guilty.” Shoji stated. It was true, most of class 2A actually seemed to be thriving in the early morning. The only exception was Shinsou who was blinking tiredly at the coffee machine as it slowly steeped his beans, although he looked like that every morning, even at a decent time.
“Oh, no- I mean, I was just thinking about something.”
“You were thinking pretty hard there.” Jiro commented tossing a granola bar at him.
Things were completely fine, and by the time breakfast was over, Izuku had nearly forgotten about the strange dream. That was until the whispers started.
He was laser focused on listening for similes in the exert Ishiyama-Sensei was reading to them, when he heard a whisper, so quiet it was absolutely indistinguishable from the breaths of his classmates. It probably was just a breath, just an extra puff of air let out by Kacchan or Shinsou. But then he heard it again, and again.
He glanced around at his classmates wondering if they too could hear the little whispers that seemed to echo through the room. What were they?
“Yes Midoriya?”
Izuku glanced up at Ishiyama-Sensei and flushed, slapping a hand over his mouth as he realized he’d spoken aloud. He apologized as he flushed in embarrassment.
Ishiyama, well used to the boy’s mumbles returned to reading the exert, and Midoriya returned back to listening to the whispers.
All through first period, the whispers seemed to rise in volume, but even then, the words they uttered seemed to blend together in a mash of breathy notes not resembling words in the slightest.
His classmates seemed to notice how twitchy he was, and Todoroki had even inquired at why, but he had waved them off. They couldn’t hear it.
It wasn’t until third period, law and ethics, that it came to a head. The whispers were now loud as his classmates’ voices, yet still distorted. He glanced over to where Kaminari was trying to speed charge three phones at once in between periods while they waited for Aizawa-Sensei to arrive. Mina and Kirishima were silently cheering him on as they nervously waited for Kaminari to speed charge.
All phone charging was to be done between periods and were to be gone before the next teacher arrived. It was a rule Aizawa-Sensei had implemented after walking into them waiting around his desk one to many times.
The charging seemed to have been timed completely wrong though, as while he was halfway through, the door slid open, and in walked Aizawa. One look at the two students crowded around Kaminari’s desk and he shot the entire class a second long hair floating, quirked glare.
The moment his quirk was canceled, the whispers immediately fell silent.
Then, Aizawa dropped his glare.
A sharp pain shot through his head that had him squeezing shut his eyes, and dipping his head as he pressed his palms against the sides of his skull. His ears popped like he’d changed elevation, and suddenly, the room was filled with loud arguing familiar voices.
“Can’t we just… eject him or something?”
“If only I could disintegrate you here and now!”
“Midoriya.”
“What happens to the kid when he realizes that the person’s that tried to kill him, multiple times, is now a permanent fixture in his head?”
“He hasn’t even noticed he’s got the quirk back; we’ll figure out something before then.”
“It’s not like I can do anything from in here anyway.”
The dry, raspy voice that followed sent ice coursing through his veins. Izuku didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So, he did both, letting out an almost hysterical laugh as he felt tears forming behind his closed eyes.
“Midoriya?” He startled at the voice right next to him and his eyes shot open, looking directly into the dark eyes of his teacher. His eye was filled with concern as he crouched next to his chair. His classmates were sending glances his way worriedly.
“Sensei- Sensei, I…” He pressed his hands against his eyes trying to wipe away his tears. “I- I think my quirk came back.”
The voices in his head silenced, and suddenly, the entire class exploded.
“What?!”
“How?!”
“That’s great!”
“I thought it was gone!”
Bakugo’s quiet voice was the one that quieted them all thought. “It’s… It’s really back?” A glance at the ashen blonde showed the almost desperate look on his face.
A silent nod from Izuku was all he needed, and he spun around to face the front of the classroom, buried his face in his arms on his desk.
A hand landed on his curls and Izuku looked up in cross-eyed confusion at the strange gesture from his teacher. His teacher looked him up and down scrutinizing him before pulling his hand away.
“That mean’s float’s back?” Uraraka asked, almost bouncing out of her seat in excitement.
“Umm…” A little bit of concentration, and he found himself floating a few inches out of his seat. “Yeah.”
As the class erupted in celebration and amazement, Aizawa took the moment to really take in the thought. The kid’s quirk had returned. From what little he knew of One for All, it could be passed from user to user, and during the war, Midoriya had passed it to Shigaraki.
Now, somehow, the kid had it back. The class around him was loudly expressing their delight and he couldn’t tell whether or not Bakugo was currently crying.
Midoriya though, even while he was testing out gearshift by throwing a paper ball at Kaminari seemed lost in thought.
Eventually, after giving them a few minutes Aizawa pulled their attention back to the Law and Ethics lesson. Or at least attempted to.
They were distracted, and Midoriya was so lost in thought that he hadn’t written a single note.
“Midoriya.” The kid startled when Aizawa called his name, looking up at him in confusion, and then guilt. He gestured for the kid to join him in the hall and scrambled to follow after him.
“What aren’t you telling us Problem Child?” Aizawa asked stopping in the hall once they were far enough away that his classmates couldn’t overhear.
“Huh?” The kid blinked at him, clearly not expecting the question. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me.”
Aizawa raised an eyebrow leveling him with a unbelieving look. “Kid, anytime you say not to worry, there’s something big to worry about.”
“Shigaraki… passed the quirk back.” The kid mumbled looking away. “He’s a vestige in the quirk.”
“What?” The kid had lost him there. Midoriya looked up at him seemingly realizing he wouldn’t understand what he meant.
“He’s a past user, so he joined the ghosts in the quirk.”
“…Ghosts?”
“Of the past users.”
“That’s what Kaminari meant when he said your quirk was haunted?!” Aizawa asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He had heard the offhanded comment a couple of weeks prior but hadn’t taken any notice of it, assuming it was some sort of meme.
“Yeah, I was explaining how One for All worked. Quirks are part of a person, and in each quirk is a part of a person. Kinda like how Kacchan is explosive, and Todoroki is cool, with a fiery side. It’s part of an old theory about quirks affecting personalities.”
“So, the quirks turned into ghosts?” Aizawa interjected before Midoriya could dissolve into a tangent on the theory.
“Yeah, I didn’t really hear much from them until the first war though.”
Aizawa could feel his mind slowly unraveling. “You can hear Shigaraki?”
“As much as I wanted to save Tenko… Last night when I saw him, and even hearing his voice…” Midoriya trailed off scrubbing at his eyes.
Aizawa placed a hand atop his head sliding it down to his shoulder and pulled the teen into a tight hug. “We’ll figure this out kid.”
He didn’t know how yet. The only thing he could do was hold the kid tight and not let go.