Chapter Text
Katsuki Bakugou was having the time of her life. She'd gotten into UA with the highest score on the practical test. Best of all she hadn't seen Deku since the test. She hadn't gotten in, of course she hadn't. She was quirkless after all, no matter how much training she'd done in the past ten months there was no way she'd be getting in to UA. Today was going to be interesting though, or at least Aizawa sensei seemed to think they should be interested. They were talking to the support course today. While most of their costumes were being built by a professional company the support course was responsible for a lot of their equipment. It had taken a few weeks for them to get everything put together and today they would get to test it out.
Power Loader led them into a large room. It would have been set up like a gym if not for the metal walls sectioning off parts of the room. Most of them had open doors and tables laid out in front of them covered in various amounts of equipment. The last section was a clamor of noise. There wasn’t a lot of equipment on the last few tables, but there seemed to be a support course student at all but the last two tables.
“Alright hero course students, you’ll find your names attached to the tables with your equipment. One of the students from this support course has been assigned to build and maintain your equipment along with their other projects. Any adjustments need to be discussed with your support course student.” Power Loader instructed. “You’re going to be working together for the next three years I suggest you make friends with each other.”
Katsuki made her way down the line of tables and scoffed even as Kirishima and Kaminari broke off to their respective tables. Aoyama headed down the row, practically skipping down the line to the second to last section.
“Mon amie?” He called out peeking into the second to last cubical.
“Be out in a minute!” A voice called. Katsuki froze. She knew that voice. But she was distracted as an explosion rocked the final cubical. Smoke billowed and someone cackled like a maniac.
“Hatsume! What did we say about explosions when the other classes are here!” Power Loader shouted stomping his way to the final booth as two figures rushed out of it both coughing and covered in soot. Katsuki froze eyes gone wide. There was no way, no way at all. It wasn’t possible.
“I told you that was a bad idea! You know nitroglycerin is unstable to begin with!”
“But my baby can handle it!”
The two girls were arguing but Katsuki couldn’t pull her eyes off the girl with the green hair. It was shorter than it had been the last time she’d seen her, pushed back with a set of goggles that she’d clearly been wearing when the explosion was set off as the space where they had been around her eyes was the only clean part of her face.
“Mon amie are you alright?” Aoyama asked looking at the impossibility in front of them with concern.
“I’m fine, I’ve dealt with worse explosions. Your belt’s on the table…” She trailed off finally catching sight of Katsuki. She went white as a sheet under the ash covering her face then steeled her expression. “Kacchan.” She acknowledged before heading behind her table. Aoyama looked between them.
“You two know each other?” He asked raising an eyebrow.
“Doesn’t matter. I upgraded your belt Aoyama, I want to show you something.”
“How the hell did you get into UA Deku, you’re quirkless.”
“Bet your ass I am. And I am going to be a hero anyway. Mei’s got your equipment Kacchan. You should talk to her.” Izumi Midoriya shot her a cold smile before turning back to Aoyama ignoring her entirely. Aoyama glanced between them again.
“I did not know you were quirkless mon amie.”
“Does it matter?” There saw a bite to Izumi’s words, one that Katsuki knew was from years of being treated as second class for her lack of power.
“Non! It simply makes this more impressive!” Aoyama assured leaning on the table. Katsuki growled under her breath stomping up to final table in the room. She barely listened to the pink haired girl babble about her gauntlets, and couldn’t help but glance at the other table, catching snippets of Izumi, the useless Deku babbling about Aoyama’s new belt something he used to concentrate and focus his power.
It didn’t make sense. How had she managed this?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Izumi wouldn’t admit to taking a leaf out of Kacchan’s book to get into UA but she had. Printed on that particular leaf in bold fully capitalized letters was the word spite.
She’d encountered her hero, All Might, on the worst day of her life. He’d been a large reason it had been that way honestly. After learning that her hero, the symbol of peace and number one ranked hero was losing his powers he’d told her she couldn’t be a hero at all without a power. But after making a nuisance of herself trying to help save Kacchan from the slime villain she’d made a decision and instead of heading home after Kacchan demanded an answer for why she’d even tried she headed to the library and checked out as many books as she could on support heroes.
It wasn’t a facet of hero work she’d gone into much depth with before but it was the best shot she had without a quirk. So she trained, she took apart anything mechanical she could get her hands on and figured out how it worked. How to put it back together to make it work for her and what she needed. It had been easier than she’d thought it would be. She’d also trained physically any time she didn’t have a tool in her hand.
The test to get into UA had been the real turning point. She hadn’t been sure how she was going to do it, not until an arm of one of the giant robots landed in front of her. Hot wiring the thing had taken up most of her time but she’d managed it and saved the cute brunette girl with the gravity power. She hadn’t seen her since. But it had gotten her into the support class. She wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Yagi Toshinori had always counted himself an intelligent kind man. He likely wouldn’t have become a hero if that hadn’t been true. But he had issues admitting when he was wrong, something he had been resoundingly reminded of shortly after starting his tenure as a teacher at UA.
He was here to find a successor, someone to pass One for All along to. His power was unlike any other he’d ever encountered, a power that could be passed along to others. The caveat was that once passed on the person giving it away would slowly lose all power they’d ever had. It had gotten his mentor killed shortly after she’d passed along the quirk. But he didn’t have long and he knew it. The injury he’d sustained against All for One five years ago was taking its long term strain on him and even using his power was getting harder.
So difficult in fact that he’d lost the muscular form the world knew him for in front of a middle schooler. She’d asked him something that hit home.
‘Can I be a hero even without a power?’
It had been something similar to how he’d felt when he was a child, without a quirk, before Nana. He’d seen a lot of himself in her, even though they’d only met the once. He’d looked for her after the incident with the slime creature but hadn’t been able to find her. He also couldn’t exactly call in a favor from his contacts to find a kid, not without it being wildly out of character at least. It didn’t help that he’d never actually learned the kids name.
He frowned down at the roster in front of him. He was looking in on one of Power Loaders classes today. The faculty, or at least Nezu and the teacher were aware of his situation. A few had suggested students of their own who might be able to help him, to take on the power of they symbol of peace. They were all very eager to help him, but what he’d been unable to explain to them was that there were seven others he had to differ to about this. It had been harder than ever before, but the previous users of One for All were still part of the quirk, part of him.
As he entered the support department he heard humming. It was vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place it. Initially he brushed it aside but something pulled at the back of his mind. He knew the feeling, the gentle direction of one of the previous users. He could usually pinpoint which user it was, there was an aura to them, almost a color pressing at the back of his mind though he’d never been able to speak with them. This one was dimmer than the others, on older user then. It poked at him again as the whirring of some kind of device nearly drowned out what had turned into low singing.
“Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.” The tune was upbeat and the singer was currently under one of the massive bots that the school used to test students. Red sneakers were sticking out from under the machine. There was a clunk from under the machine and a muttering swear.
“Mei! Can you pass me the drip pan!”
Toshinori froze, he knew that voice. He picked up the pan and passed it under the machine.
“Thanks!”
“You are quite welcome!” He boomed. The swearing increased as the girl under the robot smacked her head on the machine before wheeling out from under it rubbing her forehead and glaring at All Might.
“Oh, great it’s you.” She muttered turning away from him. Before he could even say another word she stood and walked away. All Might let out a breath as he felt the tug on the back of his mind again. One for All wanted that one, and she wanted nothing to do with him. This was going to be interesting to say the least.