Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Momo dashes through a maze of memorized hallways, spilling out lubricant from the soles of her boots to skate across the smooth floors like MIna, heart thundering in her chest as she gets hunted.

It’s only been 15 minutes since the chase officially started and her muscles are burning, her body sore from creation. She’s been moving her legs as fast as they can carry her without pause, without slowing, all while budding off her body whatever traps she can think to sprout, leaving them behind like landmines; glue traps, wire traps, paint bombs, actual landmines. There is no magic bullet for fighting him off, so she simply uses everything. The hallways they’re running through are littered with her detritus, whose only purpose now is to be scooped up afterward and recycled. 

None of them do anything to actually stop the predator chasing her through these winding pathways, but every second they slow him down is another second she has to get to the finish line. 

She hears a deafening crash, then another, then Deku, Midoriya Izuku, bursts through a wall right beside her.

Flashing powder, metal spikes, powered dye all pour from her body, forced out with enough velocity to spray outward as she strains to skid and change direction. 

The goggles and respirator she created around her face protects her from the fog of flashes and color, and that along with the knives distract Midoriya enough that she’s able to get around a corner before a column of black tendrils slams down the hallway she just escaped from. Stragglers wriggle down other passageways, including one or two after her, and it’s still unclear to her if he can sense from them, so she throws more powder and dye into the air just in case before running deeper into the maze.

It’s one of the advantages she has in this exercise; she got a chance to learn the layout of the complex, and all she has to do is get to the end. Midoriya’s job is to stop her, however he can, until the timer hits zero. So, she does her best to lose him in the hallways, spawning a few simple drones with noisemakers and sending them off in other directions to have him chasing his tail.

She’s had a few close encounters already, and doesn’t know how many more she can endure. All it takes is one of those inky tendrils getting a good grasp on her and it’s over. She can make almost anything that’s physically possible to make, but nothing physical can cut through whatever makes up Blackwhip; she’s only ever seen it overpowered, and raw power isn’t her forte.

Luckily, she’s near the end. Unluckily, the number of alternate paths dwindles as she gets closer, giving her less options to hide. She begins to skate on lubricant once again, deciding the speed is worth leaving a trail, hoping that she’s gotten enough distance from him to make this last stretch more relaxed.

A buzzing black worm wriggles around a turn, and she completely abandons the notion.

She reflexively throws out a stun grenade that detonates instantly, hoping to give herself cover to squeeze past it without being grabbed, but before she knows it the hallway she was heading towards completely collapses as Midoriya breaks through another wall, blocking the way forward. The tentacle she attacked retreats, a feint, and a dozen more burst from him and crawl around her, cocooning her instantly, leaving only her mouth and eyes uncovered so she can see and breathe. 

Too tightly bound to make anything else, she summons up more smog that creeps through the gaps, but while it’s no doubt annoying for him, it’s trivial for him to keep his distance. “Sorry, Creati,” he says through his own breathing mask, wiping off dye from his face. “But I win this one.”

It isn’t a brag; he’s not the type. It’s just cold logic, something they both knew before the fight even started: once he gets a hold of her, there’s not much she can do to get out.

Unless she does something particularly dangerous.

All he has to do now is wait out the timer, and for a minute she uselessly strains at the whips wrapping around her like iron, hoping to lull him into something like complacency so she can maybe escape with a safer method. But he remains completely focused, on guard like a waiting viper, close enough to her that he can watch her movements but not so close that he can’t react fast enough to any weapons she might summon.

Time for dangerous, then.

“M-Midoriya,” she says, strained. “Can you loosen your hold around my torso? It’s hard to breathe.”

Not a lie, but it’s obvious to both of them she’s trying something. But he can’t not accommodate, especially when her safety is on the line. 

When his hold relaxes, she takes a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity.

Every inch of her skin has been smothered by whips. Except for the skin of her mouth, and inside her mouth. 

She uses her quirk to fill her mouth with liquid, then forces the air out of her lungs, spitting it forward.

Green flame erupts from her lips.

It catches him completely off guard. He instinctually cringes back to shield with his arm as the flame strikes his upper body, partially igniting the dye still on his clothes. His lapse in concentration leads to the whips around her suddenly unraveling, enough that she can move her arms to sling forward clouds of pepper spray right at his face. It causes another burst of flame from the fire on his suit and gets right in his eyes, temporarily putting him out of commission as he tries to pat out the small flames.

She sprints away, rinsing her mouth out with generated water to clean out any chemical residue. Triethylborane isn’t exactly safe, but as long as she doesn’t swallow it, the only lasting effects will be the heat-blisters on her lips. Hopefully. 

Midoriya himself might end up with a few burns, but it’s nothing Todoroki hasn’t done whenever they fight.

She’s in the home stretch. It’s not so labyrinthine that she can lose him in passageways anymore, so she moves as fast as she can, uncaring of trails and noise because at this point it’s all on how fast he recovers. Her lungs are on fire as she gulps down air, her respirator stuffy as her heavy breathing fills it with heat. The gait of her footfalls become erratic as excitement and dread builds the closer and closer she gets to the end.

She reaches the last chamber. A large, open space, with no room for subtlety or cleverness. 

She’s halfway into it when she hears heavy thuds behind her.

Another crash. The sound of another wall crumbling. 

This might be it for her. She has no recourse for avoiding him here, aside from whatever lingering blindness he might have making it harder for him to grab her. That she hasn’t been swarmed by tendrils indicates something is up, maybe he can’t easily navigate them without sight, but once he gets close enough he won’t need much direction. And she’s not getting another shot at escaping; he’s too smart for her trick to work again.

She hears a calamitous boom, the sound of him launching himself towards her, and she gets one last idea.

She pivots on her leg, faces back in his direction, and leaps right at him.

He’s in the air, missiling towards her, squinting through thin, red eyes, but when he sees her sudden shift he’s hit by panic. He expected her to keep running, and now he’s on high alert for some plan to stop him that she absolutely doesn’t have. And so, on instinct he swings his leg forward for a brutal kick, a burst of pressured air shooting forward to keep her away. 

Which is exactly what she wanted.

She started creating heavy shields on her arms as she pivoted and they finish just in time, right as the blast of air hits. The air pounds into the shield, denting into the metal and likely fracturing her arms, but then she flies backward at high speed, faster than she could have ever gone by herself. And as she’s flying, she can only plan for what happens when she reaches the goal, so she bubbles up cusion-y foam from every inch of skin, wrapping herself in a much safer kind of cocoon.

She hears Midoriya yell and jump after her, but he can’t outrun his own strength.

She lands, hard, past the designated goal line, rolls for a good few seconds across the ground, then passes out.

-

Later, after they’ve both been debriefed by Aizawa-sensei, Momo finds Midoriya nose-deep in his notebook.

It’s not an unusual sight. After every training exercise, whether he took part in it or not, he’s scrawling this or that into the pages, always some new observation at the tip of his pen. He is very dutiful about his note-taking, and, having seen his school notes, he’s quite excellent at it. Someone who, like her, actually enjoys the process.

Still. With his eyes puffy and red, with his costume torn and singed, with a few raw cuts and scratches and burns peeking through the holes, she’d think he could hold off until he got a few bandages slapped on him. 

She strides over to him, one of her arms in a temporary sling that she made for herself, and admits she’s not much better.

She sits down next to him, and by the way his pen doesn’t still for even a moment, he doesn’t even notice her. After the exercise, they were given a few minutes to decompress, so it’s just the two of them in a waiting room of the arena they just battled in. It’s odd, seeing him without his coterie; or failing that, without Bakugou nipping at his heels. 

And though she’s been his classmate for over two years, it only just occurs to her that she’s never actually seen what he’s written about her, and everyone else. He must have repeated bits of what he’s written verbally, but the original content remains a mystery to this day. 

It’s never been a secret, though. And Momo is a curious person.

She gives it a peek.

His handwriting is messier than usual and he occasionally flips back and forth between the pages so it’s not easy to parse, but the sheer amount he’s written is obvious - dozens and dozens of pages, with notes starting from their very first day, from the Quirk Apprehension Test. He’s already filled out a few new ones just from their earlier battle too, an impressive feat even if some of the space is taken up by a few drawn out diagrams. And while that doesn’t necessarily surprise her, since she showcased a few new tricks during the fight, what does is when he flips back to older notes and confirms some conjecture he made about her long before she knew how to do those tricks. 

That he has so many conjectures to be confirmed is more than a little bit flattering. 

She watches him flip through and write a while longer, catching a number of observations she herself has made over the years as the owner of said quirk, a number of postulations that she had tried and failed or is actively working towards in the background, separate from any schooling. And quite a bit of his work is secondary research; notes not about her quirk specifically, but about molecular bonds, material structure and design, fusion reactions and thermodynamics. He’s given an awful lot of thought to a quirk that is not his own.

He lingers on a particular page, and she’s surprised to see herself on it, in a very literal sense. There’s a rather splendid drawing of her in her hero suit that, based on the minor differences from her current one, is from their very first year. There are a number of small circles highlighting various aspects of the drawing, with lines leading out from each one to notes on the page across. Minor observations, mostly, the most recent of which is a hypothesis about the specific structure of her skin cells, with a rough drawing of a cross-section of epidermis connected to a random point on her arm.

It’s all very clever, but the thing that catches her eye the most is the rough, hesitant circle over her cleavage, leading to a section of notes that, among other things, has the words ‘sex appeal?’ written, then crossed out, with ‘maximize exposure??’ written just below.

Her hand goes to cover her mouth.

“Oh my.”

He flinches, violently, sending his notebook and pen soaring into the air. He grabs for them and misses multiple times, his random, cartoonish slapping only keeping them up in the air for longer. It takes a few bounces before he eventually gets a hold of both and squeezes them to his chest, hiding them behind his arms. The paper of the notebook wrinkles against him.

“Y-Y-Yaoyorozu!” he shouts, leaning away from her like she was a spider that spun its way down next to him. “I-I, I didn’t realize you were here!!”

She chuckles. “Yes, you were quite captivated with your work. I apologize for startling you.”

His aggressive lean straightens out a bit.

“N-no, that’s okay!” he says. “I should’ve paid more attention…” His eyes, previously wide but now calmer, linger on her sling. “Sorry again, for that…”

She shakes her head. “I think somehow you came out of it much worse than I,” she says, gesturing to the state of him. “And yet, here you are working, regardless.”

He gives her a faltering smile.

“W-well, I… had a lot of thoughts, and wanted to get them all down so I wouldn’t forget any…”

“A lot of thoughts indeed,” she says. “You’ve quite the extensive analysis of me.”

His eyes squeeze with, startlingly, a bit of fright.

“A-ah, how much… did you see?” he says. He waves a hand in surrender. “I’ll, I’ll stop if you want! Th-these are just, random speculations you know they don’t necessarily mean anything, just offhand thoughts and occasional dives into related info Ipromiseit’snotanythingweird-”

“Midoriya,” she says, stopping him, “I assure you, I don’t mind. Why would I? I take it as a compliment that you’re so interested.”

He sways back into place, no longer leaning, but with his notebook still clutched firmly to his chest.

“W-well… in my experience, not everyone feels that way…,” he says. 

“Really?” she says, genuinely confused. “You’ve commented on aspects of our quirks before, I don’t think anyone finds issue with it.”

“...A comment here or there is different then seeing it all written out…” he suggests, arms still rigidly holding onto his thoughts.

“...Well, I suppose if I don’t have the context, seeing a picture of myself with notes about my chest could easily be taken the wrong way.”

He curls more around his notebook.

“I, I’m sorry!!” he all but shouts. “I really don’t mean it like-”

“Midoriya, it’s fine,” she says. “It’s not like I haven’t had conversations about the nature of my costume and its utility with our teachers. I’ve gotten over the awkwardness.” She taps a finger on her chin, from the arm not in a sling. “Though, it seemed like something about it vexed you?”

“Ah, no, nothing like that, I promise!” he denies with a vicious shake of his head. “I-I, I’d never say anything critical about you like that!”

“But, there are criticisms to have?” she teases.

He sucks in his lips, refused to elaborate.

“Again, Midoriya, I really don’t mind,” she assures. “I’d actually love to hear your thoughts. You’ve obviously given my quirk a lot of consideration. I don’t see it as any different than any of our teachers doing the same.”

He continues to hesitate, some unknown bulwark holding him back from answering. 

“...Really?” he asks.

“Of course,” she answers.

He stays still for another few seconds, as if waiting for her to take it back, then relaxes a bit, smoothing out the pages of his notebook and laying it closed on his lap.

“Um, it’s… just something I never fully understood,” he says, voice wary. “About the design of your costume.”

“About how revealing it is?” she says. “I’m sure you’ve heard the reasons by now.”

“S-sure, but, I suppose they never made much sense to me…” He flicks through the edges of notebook pages without revealing anything inside. “I try to keep up with what the support classes are up to, and they’ve made lots of costumes that work with users’ quirks, so I wondered why you never…” 

“Ah, I see,” she says. “I’ve had a number of discussions about it, but there have always been… difficulties with creating something workable. You see, the skin where I’m creating an item becomes a kind of molecular matrix where atomic bonds can freely form, and the standard option of using a suit made out of my own biological material only means that material breaks down into the matrix as well. My skin can put itself back to normal, but a costume cannot. Then I’m right back where I started, being bare.”

“Oh, wow!” he says, and reflexively opens his notebook to some blank space. “That’s really interesting, I never thought you’d run into that kind of problem!” His pen goes to the page, then stops. “U-um, is it okay…?”

“Of course.”

He writes down a few notes. 

“There are more practical alternatives I’ve thought up,” she continues, “but I haven’t been satisfied with any of them. Things like strips of cloth, or layered clothing might work, but I was always concerned they could catch on my bigger creations and tear. I’d rather not worry about that kind of thing.”

“I can see why you’d wanna keep it simple,” he says, pen skittering across the page. 

“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “Which leads to what I have now. I don’t mind it being a bit exposing if I don’t have to worry about something like that.”

“Hm…,” he hums back, as if he isn’t quite convinced. “Then, how come you don’t expose more skin?”

Her eyes go wide.

“Midoriya?” she says, scandalized.

He seems to catch himself at her words.

“W-w-wait! I didn’t mean…!” He shakes his head viciously again. “Th-that came out wrong! I-I just mean, if you really need lots of skin to be exposed, why not go with something like… a tube top, so your midriff is out? Or something backless?” His eyes point down to his lap shyly. “The… surface area of your waist and back is probably a lot higher than your, um… chest and navel.”

“...Hm,” she says, “you know, that I’ve never considered, for some reason.” She rests her chin on her fingers as she ponders. “I suppose I had it in my head that my suit had to be a certain way…” She tugs at the edge of her leotard, examining it. “There could be issues with getting enough support, but it’s not like a leotard doesn’t have its own problems regarding that.”

“O-oh, i-is that so…,” he says, clearly embarrassed at the subject matter.

She smiles at his bashfulness, because half an hour ago he chased her through a building complex, breaking through ceilings and floors and walls, only for him to be so meek when the topic of her hero suit comes up.

“I’ll give it some consideration,” she says, before deciding to throw him a bone. “Do you have any other suggestions for how I handle my quirk?”

“O-oh, I would never tell you how to use your quirk…,” he says.

“Midoriya, I’m asking,” she says.

He hesitates for one last moment, then peels open the notebook onto a random page, examining the contents.

“…Well, I doubt I have anything too useful for you in here,” he says. “You’re so incredibly smart, Yaoyorozu, there’s no way you haven’t already thought of everything I could come up with!”

She blushes lightly at the praise, but shakes her head. “Thank you for the compliment, but we saw just moments ago that sometimes I miss the obvious. And even if there’s nothing novel, I’m interested in your thoughts regardless. I only glanced at it, but it seems you long ago theorized I could utilize aerosols.” She reminds herself of his puffy, red eyes. “And here I thought I caught you by surprise during our fight.”

He laughs. “Well, you did! I figured there was no mechanical reason you couldn’t generate those kinds of things, but you never did, so I assumed it was a control issue. Maybe focusing it wasn’t easy, or the possibility of blowback was too high. Though, generating a gas mask directly on your face definitely solved the latter issue!”

“It does,” she agrees proudly, “but you were also correct on the former.  Gases or particulates I made in the past just clouded around me, which can be useful, but often isn’t. It’s only recently, after lots of practice, that I’ve learned finer control over it.” She holds out her non-fractured arm. “It’s… almost like I found a new muscle, that lets me ‘squeeze’ my creations with more velocity in a focused direction.”

“You know, I’ve heard lots of people describe it that way when their quirk abilities grow!” he says, writing more notes in his book. “Something like a new muscle. And you’re already so proficient at it! That last powder you got me with was pretty targeted, whatever it was?”

“Capsaicin.”

“No wonder it burned so much!” he says, eyes still watery. “And speaking of burns, you totally breathed fire! I’m pretty sure you can’t create fire directly because it’s not matter exactly, but I suppose you could create some chemicals that react at room temperature to make it?”

“One chemical,” she answers. “Triethylborane. Ignites when in contact with air, even at freezing temperatures. Not the safest thing to have in your mouth, but projecting it with my lungs was the only thing I could think to do in the moment.” He updates some notes, and she decides to press further. “But see, this is what I mean, Midoriya! You hypothesized much of what I could do before you ever saw directly. You’re very analytical, and because of that I find it doubtful there isn’t a lot for me to learn in that notebook of yours.”

“I… I dunno,” he says, still reluctant. “I, guess I do have lots of ideas. But your quirk in particular is troublesome in regards to that.”

“Oh? How do you mean?”

“Well,” he says, “the problem is, you’re quirk is incredibly versatile! Almost too much so!” He taps the pen against his chin. “There are so many possibilities, an almost infinite amount, that the trouble is figuring out which ones are the best use of your time to explore!”

She smiles. “You’re not wrong. It’s only recently I’ve had the space to consider what I might potentially work towards. For most of my time at UA, I focused on what would most help me day to day, moment to moment. I wouldn’t be able to keep up, otherwise.”

“I suppose with us graduating this year, it would be time to think about that,” Midoriya says. “But I really don’t know what I can offer! You’re so smart and talented, and your quirk is so adaptable, that you could use it to do almost anything you wanted! It’s almost surprising you went with being a hero, when there are so many other paths you could’ve taken!”

She flinches slightly back as she’s hit by a flash of hurt.

“You… think my quirk is less suitable for hero work?”

His eyes shoot open in shock.

“W-wait, that's not...! Y-you’d be a GREAT hero, I mean, you ARE a great hero, and you will be…” He cringes, then shuts the notebook closed again and curls in on himself. “…That’s why I don’t like talking about this too much, it’s too easy to overstep… I’m sorry, Yaoyorozu.”

He shrinks so quickly that she forces herself to overcome her disappointment. It was she, after all, that prompted him for his thoughts. It would be cruel to get upset when he had only done what she asked of him. She takes a second to set aside her emotions, then speaks.

“…No, I apologize, Midoriya,” she said. “I got defensive too quickly, and didn’t even let you explain. Will you? I promise I’m merely curious.”

He’s silent for a long minute, his thumb fidgeting with the corner of his notebook cover, flicking it up and down. It’s so easy to forget how timid he can be, when her most prominent image of him is as he struggles and fights; powerful, heroic, unyielding. She may not be as close with him as many of her other classmates, but she does hope to be a person he doesn’t have to guard himself around.

So she’s thankful, when he takes a calming breath and opens back up.

“…You know, Yaoyorozu,” he says, “you could have used your quirk to help tons of people, without much effort. If you just sat in a room, creating rare minerals or something all day, you’d have a pretty big impact on the world.” He gives her a weak smile. “Not exactly glamorous, but it’s something you could have done.”

“True…,” she says. “But the thought of spending all my time simply generating valuable materials isn’t very appealing. And it’s not like I could match modern mining and manufacturing capabilities.”

“Maybe not…,” he says, “but, it was an option. There are lots of ways you could have used your quirk to be prominent, successful, all while at a distance…” Some of his shyness bleeds away, revealing a prouder smile. “But you chose to use your power to help people directly, instead. To help whoever needs it, as they need it. And I think that’s really admirable!”

A deeper blush warms her face. “Thank you, Midoriya,” she says. “And who’s to say I can’t eventually do elements of both? Once I become established as a hero, I want to help establish some laboratories for materials research and development. I can’t think of an endeavor I’m more suited for.”

“Yeah, that’s perfect for you!” he says back. “You could probably do some amazing things with pharmaceuticals too, if you wanted!”

“You mean, creating medicines?” she says, eyebrow raised. “I suppose I could, but again, I imagine a factory devoted to a specific substance will always be more efficient.”

“Not if you’re making medicines they haven’t figured out how to make, yet!” he supplies. “A lot of computing goes into figuring out theoretical molecules, that based on their shapes would have known effects. But even if researchers find good candidates for something, they have to figure out a process to synthesize it.” He points to her. “But, not if they have you! You can synthesize anything, as long as you know the molecular structure, even if no one’s ever made it before! You can’t out-perform a factory, but you could be something like… a spark, that helps the whole system get going in the first place!”

Now that is interesting. Creating theoretically possible molecules has always been Pandora’s Box for her - there’s no telling what might be inside. It could be something that revolutionizes the world, or something that becomes horrifically abused. In either case, however, hope lingers; hope that her power will be used responsibly, benevolently.

And she can’t think of a person who exemplifies those virtues more than the person before her.

“Midoriya,” she says. “Even with just this small conversation, you’ve given me so much to think about. Thank you, truly.”

His zeal suddenly softens, becoming shy again after being thanked. 

“N-no, it was nothing! I just… said a few ideas I had, you know…”

“And I’m thanking you for them,” she says resolutely. “And I intend to discuss my quirk with you more in the future. But for now I should probably head over to Recovery Girl. It’s only just occurred to me that I could have a concussion.”

“Y-Yaoyorozu!? I-I’ll walk you over!”

---

The next day, he shows her his notebooks proper.

Most of them. A couple seem to be off-limits - something not said outright, but implied by how they aren’t removed from the shelves. Even so, she’s thrilled with what she sees. It seems the one from after the fight was more of a staging ground for thoughts and ideas; he goes more in depth in others. He has an entire notebook just for her quirk, though, he admits, a lot of it is supplementary information about atomic physics, or computational chemistry, or even things like biology and virology, and the definition of what counts as ‘living.’ The implications of which are for another day.

In any case, they’re a veritable font of useful knowledge. One of the things that excites her most is his writings on to what extent she might be able to control the temperature of the substances she creates - after all, the molecular structure is the same regardless. Because it’s not just idle theorizing; he’s gone in depth into possible training methods, safety precautions, which substances might be easiest to test and work with. It’s already given her dozens of ideas of her own.

But it’s not just her he’s looked into. She has the highest volume of notes due to the complexity of her quirk, but he’s given similar thought to every other one of their classmates, as well as some of their teachers and students from other classes. This is where his effort becomes even more obvious; a lot of his notes overlap what she already knows about herself, but so much of what he’s written about everyone else is new ground for her. She simply has not considered her friends’ quirks as much as her own. Perhaps a failure on her part, but an understandable one. 

It’s clear that Midoriya has not been similarly narrow-minded.

She’d wonder where he finds the time, but for Midoriya, quirks are his hobby; he’d rather spend his alone time thinking about them then almost anything else. Though, curiously, it looks as though he’s really stepped it up recently. He’s rigorous about dating his notes, so she can easily tell that while his note-taking was relatively consistent their first two years – barring when they were quite busy with a war, and the subsequent recovery – he’s gone into overdrive right as their second year ended, with so much more content after their third year started that his school studies must be suffering as a result. 

“Midoriya,” she says as she flips through a section on Kyouka. “Is there anything in particular that has you more inspired, recently? You’ve almost doubled your notes in the past few months.”

“I mean, I’m always so inspired by you guys!” he says back.

Flattering, but oddly deflecting. She’s about to drop it when she realizes there’s a person he hasn’t been as comprehensive about recently.

Himself.

“Are you not so inspired by yourself?” she says gently. “You’ve written about yourself comparatively less than any of us, in the past few months.”

At this, he turns bittersweet.

“Ah, well…” He fiddles bashfully with his fingers. “More and more it’s… hard to see the point.”

“How could that be the case?” she says in disbelief.

He sighs, then holds out a hand and draws upon his quirk, flickers of green static dancing across his fingers. The motions are mesmerizing.

“I… can feel it going away, you know?” he sas. “Little by little. By the end of the year it’ll be fully…” He shrugs. “One-For-All did its job. Trying to figure out its possibilities just in time for it to leave would hurt more, I think.”

It would be silly, but true, to admit that she forgot about his situation. It's just one of those things that isn’t talked about aloud; at least, not by anyone other than Midoriya. But they all knew right after he defeated Shigaraki that he was on a timer; it’s only now that there’s a specific number. She had hoped, maybe, that it would last much longer - though, even ‘forever’ wouldn’t be enough for someone like Midoriya.

“Oh,” she says dumbly. “I’m… sorry to hear that, Midoriya.”

He gives her a soft, sad smile. 

“It’s alright, Yaoyorozu. I’ve known it was coming for a while. I’m… dealing with it. But this really helps with that!” He reaches over and taps at the notebook. “I don’t really know what the future looks like for me, but I KNOW what it looks like for all of you! And every time I think about that, I just get so excited, and I start writing…” He chuckles. “So yeah, I guess I have been more inspired!”

His enthusiasm is intoxicating, and devastating. Midoriya is a hero, with or without his power, but soon he will join the ranks of those like Ragdoll and Hawks; people who had great power, and lost it. But like them, he will never stop helping people. It just won’t be the way he does now: with a thunderous boom, with a weightless twirl through the air, with a million buzzing black lines of capability. It will be something altogether new. The thought of what this world is losing is as maddening as what it will gain is thrilling. 

She, like every one of them, wants to see what that world looks like.

“If that’s the case,” she says, spinning the notebook around so it faces him, “perhaps it’s time to start sharing your thoughts with us? After perusing through your work, I’m confident in saying that all of us could benefit from your analysis. And if it seems to help you deal with things as well…”

“O-oh, I don’t know about that!” he denies. “I… if people ask me I’ll give my thoughts, but bringing up all this…” He gestures to his work. “It’s kind of a lot, a-and I’m not the best at explaining myself…”

“Well, perhaps I can assist with the endeavor!” she offers. “After seeing your work, I see how lacking I was in supporting my fellow classmates! I should be making more of an effort into understanding their abilities, especially as their Vice President.”

“W-well, I don’t know about-”

“And I can help be a moderating force between you and the others! We can refine our thoughts together, then present them to whomever you think could benefit! That way it won’t come across as you ‘telling them how to use their quirk.’”

“I… suppose that sounds a lot better,” he admits. “And, it would definitely help to have another person backing me up…”

“Then it’s settled!”

At first he’s thrown by her declaration, and starts to back down. But he thinks on it for one last moment, and like a lightswitch has been flicked he turns instantly excited at the prospect, at the chance to see just what the limits of their quirks are.

“...Yeah. Yeah! Let’s do it!” he says, raising his fist in the air. The switch flicks off, and he reverts to shyness once again. “U-um, as long as people are okay with it…”

“I’ll ask beforehand, and we’ll only help if it’s asked of us, I promise,” she says. “But I think you’ll find our friends more obliging than you think.”

“Maybe…” he says.

“Definitely,” she says. “Thank you for going along with this, Midoriya. I’m excited to see what we learn.”

He shakes off his nerves, and nods. “Me too, Yaoyorozu!”

She chuckles.

“And who knows,maybe one day, being an expert in all of our quirks will provide some benefit to you as well!”

***

8 years later

Morphing Armor: Creati

Nanomaterial bubbles with potential on Izuku’s arm.

It moves like a swarm. Bunching and bulging and shifting as a thousand thousand tiny particles into a larger cohesive form. Independent, but collective, connected by a million million invisible strands in a vast, electromagnetic web. With a thought, he can mold them, microscopic swarm moving to form the shape in his mind. Nothing to the extent of its namesake Creati, who builds molecule by molecule, atom by atom, but even so, the utility of his gauntlet is unending. He has a lot to learn about his new suit - more than he’ll ever have time for in 20 lifetimes - but this piece in particular? He doubts he’ll ever master even a fraction of its true capability.

He thinks about circles, about the curve of a lens, and the swarm blossoms into a disk-shaped shield on his arm.

It’s rough around the edges - literally - but it’s enough to block the hail of rubber balls that collide into it. The mass of nanomachines depresses where the projectiles strike, softening the momentum, then channels the hail off to the side seamlessly, flying off behind him and dotting the ground with small craters. The shield bursts from the impact, into a rain of a million pieces, but nothing is broken; the individual particles curl back around his arm, reforming a gauntlet, ready to be shaped again.

Yaoyorozu reloads her launcher, and fires another shotgun burst of pellets.

This time he leaps to the side and slings the mass off his arm, thinking of squares, machines forming into multiple rectangular sheets and flying towards his opponent. 

A few of the synthetic sheets wrap around the scattershot, completely neutralizing it, while the others continue towards Yaoyorozu; if any of them land, they’ll be able to wrap her up, constrain her. She’d never make it that easy though, and in an instant has generated a cloud of dust in front of her, straight through the fabric of her suit - after years of materials research, she finally has something that’s quirk-permeable. And with a flick of liquid from her fingertips, a streak of green fire instantly sets it all aflame. 

While his suit and its pieces are fireproof, the force of the dust explosion tears his shapes apart. He watches her soar backwards and away, propelled by self-fueled hydrogen thrusters on her boots, and he summons back the pieces of his swarm, already thinking of the shape of pinpoint daggers. 

Yaoyorozu safely lands, summoning up more ammo for her arm and shoulder launchers, and they fire at each other at the same time, cloud of needles versus cloud of bullets.

Neither of them have much free time these days, and what little of it he has is spent training with the suit that his friends had so graciously gifted him. Yaoyorozu has even less than he does - busy between hero work, her materials labs, and her pharmaceuticals research - but as one of the primary funders is maybe even more curious than he is about its capabilities. So when they can, they spar. 

It’s impossible to really keep up with her - his abilities are still new to him, and she’s mastered her quirk a dozen different ways since childhood. But he’s been in a similar position before, starting at square one with others miles ahead. If anyone can catch up, it’s him; especially when he has such incredible examples to work from.

Their clouds of projectiles meet and cancel; Yaoyorozu’s back in the air, raining down new bullets. He disperses the machines into a thick particle fog and hides himself in its embrace. A few seconds later, concussive grenades land by his feet, and he shifts the swarm into a wall in between him and them. They go off, scattering his machines away, and in their absence Yaoyorozu dives towards him, attacking directly with a bo staff. He calls the swarm back and turns it into batons to meet her melee properly, but she’s got him on the backfoot now, strategically throwing out splats of acid and grease and smoke and light so that all his brainpower is focused on dodging instead of making new shapes. 

He’s not proficient enough at his new suit to fully recover, and soon she’s standing over him on the ground, bo staff pointed at his neck. One more victory, for the hero who can do Everything.

She smiles, and twirls her staff behind her.

"Now, Izuku,” Yaoyorozu says, offering him a hand to help him back up. “Let’s see what you can do with the REST of your suit.”

***

Chapter Text

Even losing half her quirk, Kyouka knows she got off easy.

She’s still alive, for one. Plenty of people can’t say the same. And plenty more have lost way more than her; Mirko, whose metal limbs outnumber her natural ones, Hawks, now permanently grounded, lacking his hundreds and hundreds of feathers, each almost like a limb of their own. What Kyouka lost hardly seems comparable.

Still. It’s hard to not always be aware of the empty space beside her head. The slight crick in her neck from the way her head tilts to compensate. The way everything on her left is slightly muted, like there’s too much wax build-up in the way. The awkward stillness when she goes to reach for something, and realizes what she’s trying to reach with no longer exists. 

But despite the loss, she can still hear. She can still play music, still use the ear she has to continue being a hero. As long as she remembers all that, the fact that her ability has been fully cut in half doesn’t sting so much.

At least, it doesn’t when she’s not eating complete shit from some lingering, two bit PLF member who never got the message. 

The woman moves like the cobras that make up her arms; in jerking, unpredictable movements that confuse Kyouka’s eyes. She’s fast too, faster than Kyouka by far, and every time Kyouka tries to get distance to better use her heartbeat blasts the snake woman has already closed the distance, attacking so quickly all Kyouka can do is defend. 

Shigaraki isn’t around to galvanize potential sympathizers anymore, but he’s still got a few followers here and there, hoping to finish the job he never got to finish. And while strongest have been subdued, that doesn’t mean the people left aren’t dangerous, and in the wake of half of hero society retiring, Class A still has plenty of work to do dealing with them. Or, not dealing with them, in her case. 

The encounter has lasted long enough that the snake-woman has figured out Kyouka’s weak-side, and has started focusing more and more attacks on Kyouka’s left. She’s not defenseless, but the snake-woman’s arms are increasingly harder to deal with, the coiled braid of vipers unraveling to bite with dozens of wicked strikes, and all Kyouka can think about is how much easier this would be to deal with if she had another limb to block, or strike unexpectedly, or plug into a speaker and blast along with the other. 

And if she could just not feel so off-balance all the time, maybe she’d be able to focus more on strengthening what’s left of her quirk, but a whole year later and her body still hasn’t adjusted in whole. Eternally tilted the slightest, imperceptible degree, just enough that nothing looks that wrong, yet everything, eventually, slips off regardless. 

The snake-woman lunges with one more devastating strike, and when Kyouka instinctually tries to redirect it with a quick jab of her earjack, absolutely nothing happens. Even when she’s paying the most attention, even when she most needs to not fuck up, a part of her still reaches to use something she no longer has. 

The woman’s strike connects, getting Kyouka right in the gut, and she gets sent to the ground, hoping that whatever breed those snakes are isn’t too venomous.

Her attacker looms over her, snakes up and rearing back for one last strike, her teeth bared in a sharp, fangy grin.

When a metal disc whizzes completely past her, landing on the ground by her feet.

The woman looks down at it.

“...Wha?” she says, before a bolt of lightning strikes her in the back. 

Kaminari and Yaomomo swoop in and quickly neutralize Kyouka’s lone attacker, stunning her with pinpoint bolts before wrapping her and all of her appendages up in soft, synthesized restraints. 

Once she’s contained, Yaomomo runs over to check over Kyouka’s injuries, and it’s the last thing Kyouka sees before she passes out.

-

Later, as she’s being treated for dozens and dozens of snake bites, anti-venom coursing in her veins, she reiterates her frustrations to her rescuers in the form of a long, profanity-filled rant - most of it directed at the shithead who filled her with poison, even if she isn’t the actual problem. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear you’re still struggling so much,” Yaomomo says. “I thought you were getting more acclimated…?”

Kyouka sighs.

“I dunno, sometimes it feels like I am. Other times…” She reaches up to her half-ear, running her fingers along what’s left, over the ridges of the upper cartilage, down the jagged scar that cuts off what would have been the rest, including her earlobe. She wonders if she should just slice off the remains; it’s not like it’s doing anything for her. “You know that phantom limb thing? I feel like I have the shittiest version of it, where it only comes up at the worst possible time. At least if I felt it all the time I could, I dunno, work around it.”

Yaomomo reaches out and rubs the back of Kyouka’s hand sympathetically.

“I’m sorry,” Yaomomo repeats. “I could look more into that thing I’ve mentioned…?”

“...Nah, it’s fine,” Kyouka says. “I’ll deal.” She glances over at Kaminari, who has a hard look on his face that really doesn’t fit him. “You’ve been weirdly quiet, Chargedolt. What’s with you?”

He stares at her for an extra second, then shakes himself out of his daze.

“Nothin’,” he says, before smirking. “Just wondering where my thank you was after saving your butt.”

“I’ll thank you when we’re both in hell,” she deadpans.

“Well when you end up there after me, you’ll have to come find me!” he says with a smile, before leaping up out of his chair. “Gonna go grab some snacks, want anything?”

Yaomomo shakes her head while Kyouka says “Only if I don’t have to thank you for some.” He laughs and heads out, already knowing her favorite things to eat. 

She takes in a breath, lets it out, and falls back into the shitty pillows of the nurses cot. “I dunno. Maybe I’m just too stuck in wanting things to be the same. Maybe I gotta let things go, change how I do stuff.”

Yaomomo only hums in response.

Kyouka closes her eyes and floats in the gentle numbness of the painkillers for a few minutes, the only sounds in the nurse’s room the soft breathing of the two of them.

“Kyouka,” Yaomomo says after a bit, “I’ve recently started up a… project, of sorts. We haven’t had too much time to get into it yet, but the idea is to dive deeper into all of our quirks, see if there are avenues yet to be explored. If you’re looking for a change… maybe we can assist?”

Kyouka’s brow furrows. 

“Who’s ‘we’ in this?”

“Midoriya and I.”

Kyouka pushes herself back up.

“...Since when are you and Midoriya hangin’ out?”

“As I said, it’s a fairly recent thing,” she says, “but it’s been both fun and enlightening discussing quirks with him. Enough so that I think the rest of us can benefit from his thoughts as well.”

Instantly, she doesn’t like this whole set-up. Yaomomo is already busy with a ton of other things, and now Kyouka’s gotta share her Yaomomo time with another person? Stay in your lane, Midoriya.

And scratch that, because Midoriya’s lane is quirks. He can get kind of intense about that stuff, and she doesn’t really want him getting up all in hers.

“I dunno…,” she says cautiously. “I mean, I guess I’m open to trying something different, but why does he need to be involved? You’re smarter than he is, so, transitive property, you could probably think up any idea he’d have about me.”

Yaomomo chuckles. “I don’t think it quite works like that. Besides, he’s the one who inspired the whole endeavor. He’s given a lot of thought to our quirks and how they could be used, yours included.”

“Has he now,” Kyouka says, unimpressed. “What kind of thoughts?”

“Nothing indelicate, I promise,” Yaomomo says. “At the very least, your quirk doesn’t necessitate notes on the ideal amount of skin exposure like mine does.”

Kyouka lurches towards Yaomomo protectively.

“What’s he makin’ notes about??”

Yaomomo shoos away the notion with a flippant wave of her hand.

“The point is,” she says, “that I think he could offer valuable input as well. But only if you’re comfortable with it, of course.”

Kyouka narrows her eyes.

“Yeah. Sure. Let me see this project you two have got going on.”

Yaomomo claps her hands together. 

“Wonderful!”

“...Uh huh.”

It’s probably nothing really nefarious - Midoriya doesn’t have anything like that in him - but it still seems like a weird situation. She’s always seen him take copious notes, whether in class or while training, but it never actually registered that she and all their friends would be in those notes. They must be something special, if he’s got Yaomomo all excited about it.

-

A day later, Yaomomo walks her over to a secluded corner in the library to meet with him. The boy in question is already there, set up at a long table with random clutter strewn about the tabletop. His notes, presumably, and though they haven’t even started he’s already adding more.

“Good afternoon, Midoriya,” Yaomomo says as they stride up.

“Hey Yaoyorozu, good to see you!” he says, looking up from his notes and then at Kyouka. “A-ah, and you too Jirou!”

“‘Sup, Midoriya,” she says. “I hear you’ve got thoughts about my quirk.”

His body clenches defensively. 

“O-oh, well, yeah…,” he says awkwardly. He looks to Yaoyorozu. “I… thought she was okay with it…?”

Before the other girl can speak, Kyouka continues. “We’ll see. I wanted to see what you have on Yaomomo first, see what kind of stuff I can expect.”

Yaomomo gives a small frown.

“Is that really necessary, Kyouka?” 

“What’s it hurt?” Kyouka says. “Can’t a girl be curious?”

“Oh?” Yaomomo raises an eyebrow. “It’s curiosity that prompted your request?”

“Sure,” Kyouka says. “So how ‘bout it, Midoriya?”

“Um… sure?” he says, confused at the whole interaction. “As long as it’s okay with Yaoyorozu…?”

After Yaomomo nods, the two of them join Midoriya at the table, and he hands over a stack of notebooks.

She flips through them by the spines. “Which one of these has notes on her in them?”

“...All of them?” he answers back, and Kyouka realizes she just might be in over her head here.

They’re not exclusively about Yaomomo, she finds out, but there are various sections about Creation in each of them, sprinkled between sections on other people and their quirks. Seems like when he has a thought about any quirk, he starts a new section to explore it, before eventually collating the important bits in a more dedicated section. And every page is well written, well-managed; she asked him to teach her how to take notes for a reason.

As for the actual subject matter… it’s far beyond her. Yaomomo’s quirk is easy to understand, but the practicalities are way more complicated, and it’s reflected in the notes, which bounce from atomic structure to thermodynamics to molecular physics to quantum dynamics. Kyouka does well enough in class, but she’s never been that interested in the science of things; she’s a musician, through and through.

She ends up finding the notes Yaomomo referenced earlier, and she supposes it’s not as bad as she thought. He does have comments on Yaomomo’s suit and how much skin it exposes, but it’s, if not dispassionate, distant and objective. Like a fashion designer critiquing a look. It’s even a pretty good drawing. Maybe if Kyouka asks, he’ll give her an unannotated one.

“Okay, well, I guess I can see why Yaomomo thought you could help me out. You’re pretty thorough.”

“O-oh, thank you for saying that,” he says with a small blush.

“Except for this part, you forgot to make any notes,” she says, turning the notebook around on a page exclusively taken up by a drawing of Uraraka, smiling gently and looking off to the side.

He quickly swipes the notebook back.

“U-uh, r-right!” he says. “F-forgot to make notes…”

Kyouka smirks. At least she doesn't have to worry about him pining after Yaomomo.

“Alright, so whatcha got for me?”

He quickly recovers from his embarrassment, and shuffles through the other books and papers he has, pulling out a few that, presumably, have notes on her.

“W-well, first I wanted to establish what we’re going for here…?” he says. “Yaoyorozu just said you were struggling with some things…”

She pulls at the cylinder of her jack, fiddling aimlessly with the tip. “Well, it’s no big secret that I’m still… adjusting to only having one earjack.”

“...R-right,” Midoriya says. “But, if it’s about that, I don’t think I can really help with anything…” He subconsciously reaches for his own ear, before catching himself and putting his hand back on the table. “I mean, I know some physical therapy techniques, but for managing reduced function, not… lost function. And Yaoyorozu said you didn’t seem too interested in possibly regrowing the tissue…”

Kyouka blinks.

“Wait,” she says. “That’s real?”

“Huh?” Midoriya says. “Oh, yeah it is, but she said-”

“Of course it’s real!” Yaomomo says, affronted. “I offered multiple times to look into it for you, did you think I was lying??”

“N-no, of course not!” Kyouka says. “I just, thought it was one of those rich people things, like freezing your brain or drinking young people blood. You know, stuff that doesn’t actually work.”

Yaomomo scoffs with true offense.

“That’s… well I never…” she says, and Kyouka must have really displeased her if she’s talking like that. “I can’t believe you’d think that of me!”

“Okay okay, I’m sorry, alright?” she says genuinely. “I am. I guess I just figured something like that was too good to be true, y’know? Sci-fi stuff.” Her face squeezes with concern. “Sorry, okay?”

Yaomomo clicks her tongue and crosses her arms. 

Well, shit.

“...If it is is real,” Kyouka says, trying to move past it. “Then how come I haven’t heard about it before Yaomomo brought it up?”

“Well, while the technology itself is old, it’s just not a very common procedure,” Midoriya says. “It’s usually only used for children who are born with underdeveloped ears; anyone else, they can usually get most of the function back with a prosthetic.” His eyes flick over to her dangling earjack. “Obviously, it’s different for you.”

She nods, fingers going to the scar tissue. 

“That being said, it’s not a sure thing that it can help you. They can construct a new ear out of rib cartilage, and biologically it’d be just like a regular ear, but whether or not it can regrow an earjack…” 

“Which is why I offered to look into it, to see if that obstacle could be surmounted,” Yaoyorozu says with a pout. “Perhaps with gene or stem cell therapies to provoke proper morphogenesis, or even through cybernetic support…”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Kyouka repeats uselessly.

“...Cybernetics could be interesting,” Midoriya says, slowly drifting off into thought. “She already has the nerve and neuron pathways that can decode the signals she gets from an earjack, there could be a way to attach a specialized audio plug to those pathways…”

“Right?” Yaomomo says, suddenly engaged. “Whether or not that’s easier than biological methods is unknown, but it’s theoretically possible! It’s been demonstrated in a few instances that those with technological quirks take to cybernetic devices far easier than others, because their biologies are already equipped to interact with non-biological forms! It’s really very-”

“Hey, can you guys nerd out over that later?” she says impatiently. “Is it possible to get my earjack back or not?”

Yaomomo’s lingering displeasure with her leaves, replaced by embarrassment. “...Sorry, Kyouka. And the reality is, we wouldn’t know without a lot of involved testing. Probably over years. And there’s… certainly no guarantee.”

Kyouka leans her head on her hand forlornly. “...I dunno. I think getting my hopes up only for it all to fall through might be worse than just, accepting my lot.”

“...I can understand that,” Yaomomo says. “I wish I could offer you something more concrete, but all I have is possibilities.” She places a hand on Kyouka’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Perhaps I can simply probe a few institutions on my own, see what the experts have to say about it, and report back if I find something more concrete?”

Kyouka places her hand on top of Yaomomo’s, squeezing back. “I guess. Not much of a downside in just checking. But I think I should put my efforts into changing things up, like I originally wanted.” She lets go, and turns her attention back to Midoriya. “I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. Just something different to try I guess, to get out of this rut I’m in. What do you think?”

Midoriya, who’d been giving her a soft look of sympathy, turns professional. “Well, I do have lots of ideas on what you can try. Obviously, I have no clue if any of them are worthwhile, but I can certainly talk about them, and if any of them sound interesting, we could give it a try!”

“Sure,” she agrees. “Where are we starting?”

“That’s hard to say…,” he says. “Can I ask a question or two first? To establish some things?” Kyouka nods for him to continue. “One thing I really wanted to know… You use the word ‘Heartbeat’ for your moves. How… literal is that?”

“Oh,” she says. “Very literal. As best as I can tell, my quirk channels my heartbeats.”

“So, you can’t voluntarily adjust the frequency of it, or anything like that?”

“Nah,” she says. “So, the heart itself makes the noise, like a lub-dub, lub-dub, y’know?” She squeezes her fist along with her sound effects. “Whatever tone that is, that’s what comes out, but amplified. And then my heart rate, how often the lub-dub happens, that’s how often I can use a Heartbeat pulse. I can’t directly control either aspect. Make sense?”

He nods, avidly writing new notes, and while he does, Kyouka catches Yaomomo staring at her with a soft expression.

“What?” she asks.

“...Nothing,” Yaomomo says. “I’ve just never heard you explain your quirk like that. Lub-dub.” She smiles. “It’s a rather cute expression.”

Kyouka blushes, and turns away.

“Not directly,” Midoriya says, oblivious to the interaction, “but I guess if your heart rate increases, you can use them more?”

“...Sure,” she says, shaking off the embarrassment. “And sometimes I rely on that when I have to fight. Heart rate automatically ups, makes me stronger.”

“Can you… conduct other body sounds?” he says hesitantly. “Like a stomach growl, maybe?”

“If I can, I never have,” she answers. 

“Got it. Your quirk is so interesting! And really strange, when you get right down to it!”

She narrows her eyes, and wraps her hand around her earjack, like she’s shielding it.

“What do you mean strange?” she says. 

His eyes go wide, and he shakes his head violently.

“N-no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I promise!” he says. “I-I meant, the physical properties of it are strange! W-wait, that also sounds bad, I-I mean, the specific physics of the phenomena your quirk emits-”

“You mean, sound?” she says, cutting him off before he keeps rambling. 

He freezes, resets, then nods his head.

“...And, isn’t that strange?” he says. “For your audio jack ears to be able to conduct sound?”

“Why would it be?” she asks.

“Because audio cables don’t conduct sound, they transmit electricity,” he says. “Which your quirk also does.”

She holds her own earjack up to herself like she’s examining it.

“...Huh.”

It seems obvious, now that he points it out. An audio cable transmits an audio signal, but an audio signal is bits and voltages. It takes a speaker to make it sound, to make it physical vibration. But her earjack can do both: create vibrations, and electrical signals. All her life, she’s collapsed these two separate functions into one, labeling it ‘sound,’ but really her quirk is more complicated than that.

She sends a small heartbeat pulse up through it, and an equally small shockwave puffs up into the air.

“Huh,” she repeats. “I mean, I guess I’ve always used it both ways, but I’ve never directly considered that.”

Midoriya chuckles. “Well, I think it’s easy to get caught up in having a specific idea of how a quirk works.”

“Like how it took you a few months to consider kicking instead of punching?” she says.

“W-wait, no, that wasn’t…!” He swings his hands wildly as he stutters. “I, I had a lot going on at the time!”

“What does that really mean for me though?” she says, moving on. “Does it change how I do things?”

“Possibly,” Yaomomo cuts in. “Not in a major way, but it could open up some options for you. I know Midoriya was really curious about signal conversion, and all the possibilities that could bring.”

Midoriya stops his stuttering, and Kyouka looks at him curiously.

“So, your quirk has two interactions; acoustic and electrical. And from what I can tell, they’re both bi-directional!”

“I’m definitely bi-directional,” she says.

“...Which, in this case, means you can transmit and receive,” he says, ignoring her. “You can produce sound, but also receive it, like when you can hear stuff after plugging into a wall. But you can also transmit and receive electrical signals; you wouldn’t be able to plug into your phone and use it otherwise.”

“Okay…,” she says, following along.

“So, there’s a lot of ways to take advantage of that with support equipment!” he says, pulling out a binder and opening it, revealing what looks like technical specifications of her equipment. “In fact, the support team has already incorporated that to an extent with how they designed your speakers!”

“How did you get that?” Kyouka says. “Isn’t that stuff confidential?”

“Hatsume isn’t much of a believer in confidentiality,” Yaomomo answers.

“Your speakers aren’t normal speakers that you can just plug any audio equipment in” Midoriya says, “They’re custom for your earjacks.”

“I mean, I know that,” Kyouka says. “They amplify my heartbeat pulses.”

“Right,” he says, “but they don’t work like typical amplifiers. You’re a musician, how do amplifiers work?”

“...They take a small electrical signal, like from electric guitar pickups, and boost it. Add more power to it. More power can drive a bigger speaker by shaking a magnet harder, basically.”

“Right,” Midoriya says. “But, these ones work a little differently. The boost of an amplifier comes from whatever power supply it’s connected to, but these don’t have a particularly big battery or anything. And that’s because you are the power supply!”

“...Excuse me?”

“It’s actually quite a complicated piece of technology,” Yaomomo says, pulling the binder towards her and Kyouka and displaying it to her. “It both focuses and redirects the acoustic-kinetic force of your earjacks, much like a horn or brass instrument would, but also uses the electrical power your jacks produce to add to it, in the way you’ve just explained - by driving a speaker. Perfectly tuned so that the two effects are additive, to very pronounced results.”

Kyouka scrunches her nose with confusion. “...Hold up. Now that I think about it, amps need lots of power. Like, thousands of watts. You’re saying I’m driving that?”

“Yes!” Yaomomo exclaims. “Apparently, you’re quite capable of producing a high power electrical signal. I suppose you’ve got some kinship with Kaminari in that regard!”

Kyouka hides her warm face behind her hand. How is she supposed to feel, exactly, when one crush says she’s similar to another?

She clears her throat. “...Okay, that’s cool, but that’s not how it was explained to me by the people who built it,” she says. “They just said it boosts my pulses.”

“They didn’t put anything about it in the accompanying manuals?” Yaomomo asks.

“...People read those?”

“Probably not most people,” Midoriya agrees. “I think a lot of heroes don’t necessarily understand the specifics of how their equipment works. That’s usually the support team’s job. Ideally there’d be some back and forth, but the support students at UA have too many people to focus on to give more dedicated support. In fact, based on their notes, I don’t think they even know how much amplification you’re capable of doing. They just over-designed and gave your speak-amps a huge power tolerance.”

“Huh,” she says, for a third time. “So, that’s what you meant by ‘signal conversion.’ If I’m producing a power signal, I can power stuff with it.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Midoriya says. “There’s no reason you can’t use it for any number of effects, given that. Something like a stun gun could be useful for close combat, but something like a portable power saw too, for rescue work. You could have a whole host of things!”

“I… see,” she says.

“I’ve also been curious whether you could use all of the kinetic force you can produce for propelling yourself, in some way,” she says. “It might be tough to come up with something that’s stable, but I see no reason why it’s not theoretically possible.”

“Oh, like Kacchan with his explosions!” Midoriya says.

“Precisely!” Yaomomo says.

“I… guess that could be cool,” Kyouka says.

“If you’d like, we can ask Hatsume to whip up something to test! Nothing too refined, just something to see if any of this is even possible.”

“...Can’t see why not.”

“Fantastic!” Yaomomo says. “Midoriya, how likely is it, do you think, that Kyouka could use something like thrusters?”

“Hard to say!” he says. “From the sounds of it she can’t produce a perfectly continuous force, so sustained propulsion seems tough, but maybe something more limited could work…”

And as the two of the continue discussing it, both of them overwhelmed by excitement, Kyouka wonders why she can’t summon the same enthusiasm.

-

A week later, Yaomomo and Midoriya take her to an empty section of the training grounds, her speaker equipment in tow along with a few bits and bobs that Midoriya got out of Hatsume. It’s a mostly empty area, where presumably her quirk can’t cause too much trouble; it’s not the strongest quirk out there, but she can cause her share of destruction when she needs to. There’s a few structures a bit farther off if they need to test that fact, or if Midoriya does something that really annoys her.

“So, we’ve got a couple of things to try,” he says, pulling out some mechanical devices from a big luggage bag. He hands her what kind of looks like tiny chainsaw; a flat, rounded bar with serrated teeth along the edge, attached to a long hilt that has a slot for the chain to rotate through.

“Whoa, intense. I’ve always thought I needed a way to gore people,” she says sarcastically.

Yaomomo tisks. “It would be for carefully cutting through obstacles during rescue missions.”

“Right, I hear you.” She stabs it into the air. “Wink,” she says out loud.

“Kyouka!” 

“You can plug your earjack into the base,” Midoriya cuts in. “Go ahead and try to power it. Hold on tight, and send out a pulse like you would through your speaker, sound and power both!”

She turns it over, sees the audio port, and snakes her jack over to plug itself in. She holds it out with both hands, like a knight posing with her sword. She takes a breath, then sends a heartbeat pulse through her earjack.

The tiny chainsaw shakes violently in her hand as it roars to life with a frightening whir. Even with just a single pulse, the momentum keeps it spinning for a few seconds, but it quickly dies down until it’s still once again.

“It worked!” Yaomomo shouts.

“Seems hard to hold onto,” Kyouka says.

“It doesn’t have much in the way of stabilization, for now,” Midoriya says. “It was just a proof of concept. But ideally you’d be able to hold onto it while sending out pulses, keeping the blade going for as long as you need it!”

“...Cool. I guess depending on the situation I can’t always just blast my way through.”

“Right. Now, try this!”

Midoriya hands her a sinister, cattle prod looking thing. She raises an eyebrow.

“No joke about that one?” Yaomomo teases.

“...Not one I can make in polite company,” she responds, getting a tiny blush back.

“This one can’t utilize vibrations,” Midoriya says, “so try only using an electrical signal.”

“Not sure I can just separate it out like that?”

“But you can!” Midoriya says. “If you plug into and control your phone without it exploding from sound energy, then that means you’re only using electrical! So, try doing it like that, but… harder?”

Kyouka frowns, but plugs into the audio plug at the base regardless.

The logic makes sense, but she’s not sure how applicable the comparison is. She’s always been able to hear from her phone the moment she first plugged in, but controlling it in any way? That took years, years of learning what weird, nebulous sensations she can send on her part to make the phone do the things she wants. She understands now why it was so difficult; she was basically brute forcing her way into mimicking headphone signals by feel alone. By now, she can do ‘em all: pause/play, next song, previous song, even volume control. 

That’s about where her control ends, though. But, that might just be because that’s all anyone can do through a phone audio port. Maybe with something designed for her, there would be fewer limitations. 

She tries to imitate that nebulous feeling; like a hum she can send through her ears instead of her throat. It’s something she can’t really properly describe to anyone else in the world - even her mom, from whom she inherited the quirk, never figured out how to use it the same way.

She grasps the feeling, the sensation, and shoves it through, screaming it through her earjack.

And a jolt of lightning sparks between the two prods.

“It worked!” Yaomomo exclaims.

“Awesome!” Midoriya says back. “Let’s try the next one!”

They hand her a few more objects to try - some kind of projectile launcher, a power drill, a modified space heater - before they strap a pair of chunky metal boots on her feet, even bigger than her old speaker boots, with tubes and wires all over the surface in haphazard lines. There’s a thick cable connecting them at the heels, and above where it connects to the right boot, there’s a port for her to plug into.

They give their warnings, she plugs herself in, then fires off a heartbeat pulse.

And shoots up twenty feet into the air. 

Even knowing it was gonna happen, she still panics as she’s thrown up, her body twisting in weird ways because these boots were made in less than a week and also have no proper stabilizing tech. But Midoriya floats up and gently catches her, before setting her back down safely next to an in-awe Yaomomo.

“That opens up so many possibilities!” she says, to the air more than to Kyouka herself. “We still need to figure out a better way to transmit your earjack signal to multiple devices, but with properly engineered boots and some hand stabilizers, you might be capable of limited flight!”

“...Uh-huh,” she says, kicking off the bulky boots.

“...Kyouka?”

In all their excitement, the two of them had simply placed the equipment she’d already tried on the floor, and now it’s all strewn about. Bits and pieces of a dozen different ideas, any one of which could give her the change she’d been looking for. A dozen different ways to make herself whole again.

She doesn’t want any of it.

“...Jirou?” Midoriya says, adding his own concern. “Are you okay?”

“...Yeah,” she says. “Just overwhelmed by all this-” junk “-stuff. Lot to think about. Just, give me a second, alright?”

She walks away before they can argue.

And keeps walking. She has no specific destination so she simply lets herself aimlessly wander through the building-like structures of the training grounds. She’s familiar with the place enough that she won’t get lost, but she almost regrets the fact. 

After fifteen minutes of wandering, she hears Midoriya set down a few feet behind her. It can only be him; he’s the one here who can fly.

“Jirou,” he says, confirming it. “Can I talk to you?”

She shrugs, continues walking, but doesn’t turn him down.

He strides up next to her and walks along with her.

“Surprised it’s you and not Momo who showed up,” she says.

“...I know you’d probably rather talk to her than me,” he says. “But since this whole thing is my fault, I wanted to be the one to apologize.”

That stops her in her tracks.

“...Huh?”

His momentum carries him a step past her, and he pivots to face her. 

“I’m sorry Jirou,” he says. “I… I went overboard, like I knew I would. It’s why I hesitated even doing this whole thing with Yaoyorozu…” He scratches at the scars on his forearm. “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable with all of my attention.”

“Oh. No, that’s not…” She shakes her head. “You guys did come on a little strong, but I kinda expected that. That’s not what’s bothering me.”

“...Then, can I ask what is?” he says.

And isn’t that the million dollar question?

She grumbles, then leans her back against a nearby wall, the stonework damaged by some training exercise from long ago. He keeps his distance from her, standing a few feet away.

“I dunno. I was thinking about what it’d be like as a hero. Just carrying around all that stuff, using thirty different things to do my job, or whatever.”

“...There are probably ways we can combine functions, make everything more compact…”

“That’s not what I’m getting at. It’s just…” 

She clenches her fingers, looking for the right words, before sighing and releasing the tension.

“I’m the Hearing Hero. Earphone Jack, y’know? All about sound, and music. And all of that,” she waves in the direction they came from. Probably. “Is just… not that.”

A beat of silence.

“I dunno. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. I should be grateful for all of your effort. I am grateful. But I just…” 

She grabs her jack and extends it, holding the end to her chest. She taps at the tip with her thumb, making tinny feedback sounds in her head.

“I just wish it was like it was. My quirk.”

That’s all it comes down to. She misses it. Her missing piece. There is no gear, no matter how hi-tech, how complementary, that will remedy that. No new way to use her quirk that will make it easier to see the emptiness on the side of her head whenever she looks into a mirror. No real way to fix the fact that she looks just a bit less like her Mom now. Not unless she wants to put all her hope into some experimental thing she doesn’t even understand that she’s already been told might not even work.

Midoriya settles against the wall next to her, standing straight against it compared to her leg-forward lean.

“I’m sorry, Jirou,” he says. “I had it in my head that helping you find a new technique would, I don’t know. Make up for what you lost. Like it’s zero sum. That was thoughtless of me, I wasn’t really thinking about what it meant for you to lose a part of yourself like that.”

She frowns. 

He makes her sound so noble, so tragic. Like she’s dealing with some incredible, unique burden, when plenty of other people out there are dealing with the same thing, and better than her. Even Midoriya himself; no one’s said how soon it’s happening, but he’s going to lose his quirk, and all of it. And now they all know he never started with it; does that make losing it easier? Does it make it harder? She’s too much of a coward to ask.

“Not something you need to apologize for, dude,” she says. “You were just trying to help. I’m just, I dunno, being a brat about it. Not like you see Mirko or Hawks moaning about all the things they lost.”

“...I think if they were, we wouldn’t exactly be the ones to know about it,” he says with a dry laugh. “They probably have their own support systems for that.”

She smiles. “That what you are, then? Part of my support system?”

“W-well, if you’d like…,” he says shyly. “I mean, we’re f-friends, right?”

She lets go of her jack, maneuvers it over to his head, and nudges him on the temple.

“Duh.”

He gives her a bright, toothy smile, like he just got incredible news. 

She lifts herself off the wall, looks around the area to orient herself, then stares back towards where Yaomomo must be.

“...All that stuff you guys brought,” she says. “Do you… think it’ll make me a better hero?”

Midoriya considers it.

“Maybe. The right support equipment lets a hero be their best. But it has to be the right equipment. If you think it’s not, then it’s not.” He shrugs. “Did any of it feel right?”

She runs back through her experiences, trying to push back the negativity she was feeling.

“I dunno. The launching boots seemed pretty fun, assuming I don’t eat shit every time I use them.” 

She remembers an old hobby, and has an idea. 

“...Any chance it could work as a skateboard?”

***

8 years later

Soundwave Vibration: Earphone Jack

A modified longboard barrels down the road, zipping past the sparse bits of traffic. The foot at the front shifts, and the board shifts with it, expertly piloted. Every few seconds, pure kinetic force blasts out the back, maintaining its breakneck speed. When there’s no time to properly maneuver, another blast, this time from the drivers facing down. The board flies into the air, sailing straight over the fencing and through a thin alleyway, until it lands perfectly on the other side, where a different road continues. It zooms on, towards unknown danger.

Jirou, Earphone Jack, navigates the SoundBoard towards the emergency call, while Izuku hangs desperately on, arms firmly but chastely around her waist.

“I cannot believe you can fly and I still have to carry you around like this!” she screams over the wind, struggling to make sure her legs don’t get tangled with his.

“The suit can only fly for a little while!” he screams back. “This is way more energy efficient!”

“For you, maybe!”

It’s definitely not ideal, but long gone are the days of easy travel on Izuku’s part. Now he has to consider the logistics every time he needs to get somewhere fast. That ends up being the number one problem for most heroes: figuring out how to get around. Who would’ve guessed?

He sure misses One-For-All, no matter how cool and awesome his new suit is.

They follow the road out of the city and into the forested, mountain area just past the borders. After a couple of miles they swerve off the main road and onto a dusty trail usually meant for something more heavy duty than longboard wheels; Earphone Jack powers through regardless. Within minutes they arrive at a burning outpost-slash-laboratory, thick black smoke billowing from the upper floors. 

They skid to a stop next to a group of people congregating just outside, debating whether or not they can safely run back in to help whoever got trapped. With a quick reassurance that he and Earphone Jack can handle it, they get ready to head in, affixing gas masks to their faces.

He sparks up the thrusters of his suit, and shoots himself into the top floor, smashing through a third story window.

“Oh, now you can fly!” he hears Earphone Jack yell after him, before, presumably, heading in herself.

They didn’t get any info on where the fire started, but by now it’s all over, crawling along sections of the walls while choking the hallways with smoke, making it impossible to see anything. Their only goal here is to make sure everyone gets out alive, and he needs to do it as fast as possible since he doesn’t know how bad the structural integrity of the building has gotten. So, he boots up the speaker-amps on his arms and chest, ones based on the equipment Earphone Jack uses to this day.

He points them all at the smoggy hallway, and shoots out a shockwave of raw vibration. 

The initial blast of wind and the resulting vacuum afterward disrupt the flame, not enough to stop it completely but enough to see better, and he heads deeper in. Faintly, he can hear corresponding blasts two floors down.

He listens as best as he can for screams and shouts, but he can’t be sure there’s not someone unconscious somewhere, so he checks every room he passes, smashing through the doors and scanning the area as quickly and carefully as he can before moving on to the next. He keeps the creeping smoke and flames away from him with periodic blasts of vibration as he moves through the floor, finding a few people trapped by superheated doors or enflamed obstacles and helping them out the window he came into the building through, before continuing off where he was.

His suit has minor temperature control, but it doesn’t do much against the sweltering heat baking itself into the air. There was a brief moment in time where it wouldn’t have affected him much, when One-For-All pumped through his veins, made him superhuman. But he doesn’t need to be superhuman to push through the heat, to move his legs forward deeper into the fire.

He clears out the third floor and heads down to the second, and after finding another few people and helping them out, he hears a vicious, mechanical roar just as he turns a corner, and finds Earphone Jack cutting her way through a wall into a room with a rescue saw powered by her earjack, the door itself collapsed under the weight of a piece of the floor above. A few flickers of power and she’s got any opening, squeezing herself into it before he can even make himself noticed.

He crawls in after her, into a room crushed beneath even more of the floor above. He doesn’t see anyone initially, but Earphone jack starts shifting away some of the debris with a few strategic, low power Heartbeat pulses, revealing an unconscious form. Someone who might have been missed, without Earphone Jack’s keen ear.

He quickly dashes in to help, using his hands as well as the mechanical limbs of his suit to pull away huge clumps of rubble off the helpless person, before enough of it is off that Earphone Jack pulls him out and over her shoulders. He points to his own shoulders, gesturing that he’d be more than happy to carry them for her; she rolls her eyes, and runs off.

While she carries him out he finishes clearing out the second floor, and after clarifying with the evacuated workers that they’ve gotten everyone, they shuffle everyone farther away from the building as they wait for firefighters to show up. He and Earphone Jack can get people out, but they’re not necessarily equipped to manage the fire itself. The best they can do is clear out a bit of the nearby brush around the building so the fire doesn’t spread beyond it, doing so until they hear the telltale signs of sirens and ambulances coming up the dusty road.

-

Afterwards, the two of them break away to take a breather underneath the shade of a tall tree, both of them gulping down water to replenish what they sweated out. When they’re done, Jirou gets his attention, points at his arm and lifts hers up, like she’s about to give an oath. He mimics her, confused.

She swings her hand forward, hi-fiving him. He smiles, wide and happy.

They relax against a chunk of stone jutting out of the ground in a comfortable silence, recovering their energy. She slides her headphones off and leaves them hanging around her neck. A single earjack extends out and shakes, like it was stretching its muscles. With her fingers, she squeezes and flexes the remains of her other ear to get the blood flowing; too long under headphone cups can cause some discomfort, he’s been told.

He takes out a small bottle of moisturizer and offers it to her. In his experience, scar tissue can never use enough moisturizer. 

“Thanks,” Jirou says. “Momo keeps telling me to carry some around myself, but I always forget.”

“That’s Yaoyorozu for you,” he says. “She runs a dozen laboratories in between her hero work, and still has time to give you skincare tips.”

“And more,” she says with a snicker. “Every few years she floats by another offer to look into the whole ear regrowth thing. Like I’ve forgotten about it, and needed a reminder.”

“Oh?” he says. “I’m sure she’d stop, if you asked her.”

“Nah, it’s not a big deal. It’s mostly teasing on her part; she calls it ‘that rich people thing.’” Jirou grins at the memory. “Though, I bet if I actually said yes she’d have a whole research team geared up within the hour.”

“...Would you?” Izuku says curiously. “Ever say yes?”

She considers it.

“In another world, maybe,” she says. “But I’m cool with where I’m at in this one.” She turns to him. “What about you? If some scientist or genie or whatever showed up and said you could have your quirk back, would you do it?” 

He holds up an arm, eyeing the gleaming metal of his suit. After losing One-For-All, he had found a different way to help others in the form of teaching; guiding young kids with hard-to-handle quirks into being their best selves satisfied him in a way he’d always hoped being a hero would. But, after receiving this amazing gift from Kacchan and all his friends, a gift that gives him the power to help even more people, he has to admit; he loves doing it this way, too. 

Would he accept even more, if it was offered?

“...In a heartbeat,” he says honestly.

He can’t lie to himself. He’d feel exactly the same way he did that day it was first offered to him 10 years ago, because it would mean he could do even more.

Jirou smirks. “You’re exactly like Momo, y’know? Gotta do everything. You wanna be a teacher, and a Pro-Hero, and have a cutting edge super suit, and have the strongest quirk in the world.”

He scratches the back of his head.

“I… guess that makes me sound kinda greedy,” he says.

She shrugs.

“If there’s a person in this world who deserves to have it all,” she says, nudging him gently on the arm, “It’s you, Izuku.”

And with that, the two of them head back into the city.

-

On Jirou’s longboard.

“Can’t you fuckin’, swing around like Sero or something??” she chastises as he scoots in behind her.

“I’m out of practice!”

***

Chapter Text

The more Denki ramps up the voltage, the more it feels like he’s flying.

Electricity spins up inside him, raising him higher and higher. Like the heated anticipation of a roller coaster ratcheting upward, the addictive vertigo as it starts to fall; but sustained, without ever hitting the bottom. When electric potential sparks through every cell of his body, when it zaps and arcs in brilliant yellow brambles around him, Denki knows he can do anything.

Because he is powerful. It took him a while to really get that. He’s always known his quirk was dangerous - too many exploded electronics in his youth to think otherwise - but it took his training at UA to turn it into something useful. And that’s what makes the difference between danger and power, when you get right down to it. 

It’s a lesson he learned from so many of his classmates. Bakugou, who pops and sparks and explodes but never leaves a mark he doesn’t mean to; Mina, who can dissolve anything with a flick of her finger but hasn’t caused an accidental burn since he’s known her; Tokoyami, who has even more trouble controlling his quirk than Denki does but is still more powerful than all of them, and also he can use it to literally fly, how fuckin’ cool is that. 

His best example isn’t them, though. It’s Todoroki. Denki’s nowhere nearly as strong as that guy, but he’s definitely in the same weight class. He wouldn’t have said so in the first year, but now? He’s sure of it. The two of them, their quirks are like… primal, or somethin’. Base elementals. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning; people with powers like that are always heavy hitters, because they control the stuff that people have been scared of since people were even a thing.

So yeah, he still doesn’t have the best grades, he’s still not the best at strategizing, at figuring shit out. But he is powerful, and he is useful, for way more than just charging phones and tablets. 

His voltage hits one million, and Denki swears his feet lift off the ground. It hits two million, and he’s so high up he gets light-headed. 

He unleashes it in a furious, electrical blast all around him, stunning most of the pack of noumu and seriously damaging the rest. 

The result of some lingering, aborted back-up plan on All-For-One’s part that was still on a timer. Nothing too dangerous, but they're sturdy, and there’s a lot of them. It’s exactly what Denki’s best at dealing with. 

He zips around the paralyzed mound of noumus and focuses on the ones still moving. Lightning crawls around his arms in forking spirals, firing out as jagged bolts that strike like vipers. Yellow tendrils reach out from his body, forming bright circuits as excess energy can’t help but bleed out. The air crackles with static, smelling like ozone.

By the time his friends show up, he’s neutralized most of his enemies completely. He didn’t even have to use his disks this time; there wasn’t much need for precision here. The only ones left standing have some kind of rubbery electrical resistance to their bodies, but they’re quickly overpowered by Mina and Kirishima’s teamwork. Just as well though; as the battle finishes, the lightheadedness fully takes him over as his brain short-circuits from all his quirk use, and he falls into his well-known stupor.

Maybe one day he’ll finally figure out how to avoid it.

-

“It does seem odd it still affects you so much,” Yaomomo says, after Denki finishes complaining about it. “You would think all the training we do would raise your tolerance.”

“Right?!” he grouses. “I feel like I have a better handle on my quirk than ever before, but I still short-circuit at the same voltage. My body can go higher for sure, but it’s like my brain can’t keep up!”

“Seems par for the course for your brain, Jammingwhey,” Jirou teases.

“Ah shut up, you!” he says back. 

“Anyways, it is really so weird electricity borks up his brain?” Jirou says. “The two don’t really mix.”

“Well, technically, brains are electricity, in a sense,” Yaomomo says. “But the contradiction is more in that it only affects his mind, rather than the rest of his body. Any electrical imbalance it would cause in his neural cells should theoretically also reflect in his muscles fibers and nerves. And if those are resistant to excess electrical potential, why not his brain?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Denki says. “Like, think about Todoroki. When he overuses his ice, his whole body gets frosty. For me it’s like, if he only got brain-freeze, but the rest of him was fine!”

“Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is actually caused by-”

“Speno-whatawha?”

“Brain-freeze is actually pain caused by blood vessels in the brain expanding to increase blood flow for warmth, rather than from the cold itself,” Yaomomo states. “Perhaps there’s a similar mechanism here, a secondary response caused by an initial stimulus…” She puts her index fingers to either temple, recalling something with a deep focus. 

“Kaminari, correct me if I’m wrong,” she continues. “The way your quirk works, the energy you create is generated and moderated by your heart. Your arteries maintain a high voltage potential which can carry that energy to every point in your body, while your veins act as return paths, creating a number of ‘complete circuits’ through your body.”

Denki blinks.

“Uh, I think that’s how it was explained to me…” he says. “But, how do you know that?”

“Apparently the support class just gives out whatever to anyone who wants it these days…,” Jirou gripes. “But, that’s real? Your quirk is heart-based?”

“S’what they told me!” he says. He makes a heart with two hands in front of his chest and winks at her. “Heart twins!”

“Sh-shut up!” she says with a tiny blush.

“It’s not the only similarity you two share,” she says. “It turns out that-”

“Y-you were in the middle of saying something else, Yaomomo?” Jirou redirects.

“Oh, right,” Yaomomo says. “So, his electricity works through his circulatory system. It’s why you can touch a charger to any part of him and have it work. Technically, as long as he’s using his quirk, current is flowing through him, though at his natural homeostasis, his resistance is high so that current is small. When he’s actively discharging, however, the current will naturally raise to accommodate the load that’s been connected. Maybe at high enough currents, your blood vessels expand to transport it better? And it’s that that your brain is sensitive to, much like a brain-freeze?” 

“Damn, it only took you 5 minutes to figure it out??” he says.

She laughs. “It’s just a hypothesis, and a preliminary one at that. I have others too; perhaps your high voltage doesn’t affect neurons directly, but specific brain neurotransmitters instead, which would interfere with brain function but not nerve function. Seems unlikely, but you never know.” She taps her chin. “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to bring this to Midoriya, and ask for his input.”

“Midoriya?” Denki says, leaning back in his chair until it balances on its back legs. “Why him?”

“I’ve recently learned that he’s given all of our quirks lots of thought,” she answers. “He might have some insight on how to tackle this problem of yours.”

Denki raises an eyebrow.

“If he did, why wouldn’t he have mentioned it before?”

“I find that he can be a bit… cautious about how he talks about our quirks,” she says. “Though in this case, I doubt he already has an answer for you. But if you’ll allow it, maybe he and I could figure something out.”

“You and him, huh?” he says, eyebrow going even higher. He sure doesn’t remember Midoriya and Yaomomo being particularly close.

“Put that eyebrow down, it’s not like that,” Jirou says defensively. “It’s this thing they’ve started doing recently. Like, quirk studying or whatever.”

“Indeed,” Yaomomo says. “I hoped that we could perhaps provide one last bit of advice and guidance for anyone who’d like it before we all graduate.”

“Why’s this the first I’m hearing about it then?” he says.

“We’re still consolidating all of our thoughts,” she answers. “Though, we did discuss a few things with Jirou after I offered.”

He looks to Jirou, who gets a bit shy. 

“It was actually pretty helpful,” she says. “Gave me a few ideas I could work towards.”

He thinks on it, swaying back and forth on his chair.

He shrugs.

“Sure, why not?” he answers. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

-

Three days later, Midoriya scrambles down the stairs of their dorm looking like he just ran a marathon, yelling out to Denki in the common room.

“K-Kaminari!” he all but shouts. “I, I th-think you have to stop using your quirk!!”

–

He’s sequestered into one of the testing chambers on campus. Not the first time he’s been here - they use it to test how high his voltage can go - but there’s different machines set up than before, measuring something other than volts and amps. He’s not smart enough to tell what, though. 

A few students from the support class mess with the machines before walking out of the chamber. They run him through a battery (lol) of tests, first to calibrate all the stuff that’s measuring other stuff, then to do the actual measuring. He’s done it all before, but he’s in the dark as to what they’re looking for this time.

‘I don’t wanna worry you in case I’m wrong,’ Midoriya had said. Like he hadn’t already sent Denki on edge with his panicked warning.

He’s just about finished with the tests he’s familiar with when one of the testers walks in with a fucking gas mask on, and hands a similar mask to Denki to wear for one last burst of power, and he has to wonder what the hell that’s supposed to protect them from.

He lets off his 2.5 million volts, immediately feeling lightheaded as lightning strikes in thick bolts at various rods around the chamber, but he’s asked to stop before it gets any worse. 

When he walks back out he sees the testers talking to Aizawa-sensei, Midoriya, and Yaomomo about whatever the heck they’re measuring, leaving him to his own devices for a bit. He plants himself on a nearby chair and waits, throwing Midoriya a questioning glance whenever the other boy guiltily looks his way. 

Midoriya gives him nothing.

He’s starting to regret this whole thing. This can only be about his short-circuits, because that’s the thing everyone always worries about, but he’s been managing it fine these past few years. Yeah they still happen, and yeah it sucks, but he’s much more careful about them now, making sure they only hit when the fight’s done, or when he’s got backup to take over. He doesn’t let himself get in the way anymore, or be a burden in the fight; isn’t that what’s important?

It takes an agonizing thirty minutes before Aizawa-sensei walks over with Midoriya; though, Yaomomo stays behind to continue chatting with the testers.

“Kaminari,” Aizawa says in his gruff voice. “I apologize for the lack of communication here. We wanted to get some information before we jumped the gun on anything.”

“We, huh?” Kaminari says, looking at Midoriya, whose eyes are firmly pointed at the ground. “Whatever, it’s fine. Can you tell me what this is about now?”

“Yes,” Aizawa says. “After the tests we ran based on Midoriya’s hypothesis, we may have determined an alternate cause to your ‘short-circuits.’” He nods to Midoriya. “He insisted on being the one to explain it.”

Kaminari purses his lips.

“Guessing it’s not any of what Yaomomo thought,” he says. Otherwise, why all the panic? “You’re not gonna say I’m not properly grounded or something, are you? People have suggested that before, but you can’t just ground something high voltage. It’d just suck all the energy out, and probably melt something in the process.”

Midoriya shakes his head, then fiddles with his fingers for a second. 

“U-um, K-Kaminari,” he stutters, “do you… know that electricity doesn’t actually look like anything?”

Kaminari’s face scrunches. He holds up a hand, then lets sparks form between his fingers.

Midoriya nods again.

“R-right, that’s what I mean,” he says. “When most people think about electricity, they think of that. Arcs, and lightning bolts. But, that isn’t actually electricity.” His face pinches. “W-well, or maybe it still is, I guess that’s a semantic thing. But when electricity goes through a wire, it just looks like a wire. When things like sparks happen, when it jumps out and goes through the air, that only happens when a high enough voltage causes a specific thing to happen.”

“Which is…?”

“When it ionizes the air,” Midoriya answers. “A high enough voltage will polarize air molecules, force electrons off to other molecules, creating a conductive path through the air for the energy to flow through. That’s what causes all the light we associate with electricity, and lightning.”

Denki clicks his tongue.

“Okay, so what does any of that matter?” he says frustratedly. 

Midoriya looks at him sadly, then sighs.

“Because, when oxygen and nitrogen in the air gets ionized, they form new molecules,” Midoriya answers. “Different combinations of nitrogen and oxygen. Pretty much all of which can, um…” His head bounces from side to side as he tries to find the right words. “...Cause really bad side effects, if inhaled? Usually respiratory issues, but, possibly… cognitive ones, too.”

Midoriya lets his answer linger silently in the air, and after a bit the implication hits Denki like a lightning bolt.

“Wait,” he says, “are you saying my short-circuiting is actually happening because I’m, like, breathing in toxic gas??”

“...Maybe. We definitely detected larger concentrations of nitrogen oxides just now,” Midoriya says. “Another possibility is that all this ionizing lowers the breathable oxygen concentration near you, which can cause disorientation and confusion…”

“We’ll have to come up with some safe tests to definitively confirm it,” Aizawa cuts in. “But because it’s a possibility, from here on out you’re prohibited from using your quirk to create large discharges.”

“What?!” Denki shouts. “That’s bullshit!”

“Kaminari,” Aizawa warns.

“Well, it is!” he says. “What the hell else am i supposed to do, that’s my whole thing!”

“We can come up with some alternatives that will allow you to safely utilize your quirk,” Aizawa offers. “Lower voltage techniques, or maybe something with wires to conduct your electricity through. Like stun guns.”

“Oh, so I just have to completely relearn my quirk, in a way that’s just worse!” he says. “I don’t even get why it’s that big of an issue, it’s not like it’s more dangerous than it was yesterday! We always knew it messed with my head, what does it matter how it does it?!”

“It matters because previously we thought it was the natural result of quirk overuse,” Aizawa says. “Your version of Mineta’s head bleeding after plucking too many balls, or Ashido losing skin pigment after excessive acid use. Something to avoid, but something your body is equipped to handle because of your quirk. But this,” he waves a packet of papers he has, test results, probably, “is a secondary, unintended effect that your body might not have natural resistance to. And until we can confirm whether or not you do, it’s safest that you don’t use your quirk in that way.”

“But, that’s… that’s not…,” Denki flounders, at a loss for any comeback. He’s… he’s supposed to be powerful, isn’t he? Something primal, elemental. He’s supposed to feel like he’s flying, not like all the walls are closing around him, shutting him off from the heights that make him strong. What the hell else is he supposed to do, if he can’t let his lightning flow out wild and indiscriminate and free?

A lightbulb goes off. “W-wait, they tested me with a gas mask, right? This is why, right? Can’t I just stick one of those on and use my quirk the same??”

Midoriya, who’d been silent for a bit, considers the notion.

“Maybe…,” he offers.

“Um, sorry to disappoint,” Yaomomo says, walking up and joining the conversation. “But that’s what I was talking to them about just now.” She flicks through her own stack of papers, looking at some diagram or another. “I thought maybe we could come up with some kind of breathing apparatus that can withstand his high voltages, but that wouldn’t actually fix the problem. His high voltage happens at every point on his body, including around his mouth. Even if he wore a gas mask, or oxygen mask, the air trapped inside would be ionized as well.” She gives him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. Maybe there’s something else…”

Right. Something else. Something more grounded.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Yaomomo offered to help him, not neuter him. Though from the sound of it, all of this was Midoriya’s doing. The one who had the hypothesis, the one who realized what his quirk was doing, the one who initiated all this testing.

Denki glares at him.

“What the hell, Midoriya?!” he growls. “If I knew all this was gonna happen, I would’ve told you and Yaomomo to stay out of my business!”

“...I’m sorry, Kaminari,” he says timidly.

“If you’re so sorry, then back me up!” Denki says. “So what if it’s dangerous, that’s just part of being a hero!”

Midoriya’s passive hunch straightens out into something more determined.

“...Sorry, Kaminari,” he repeats, “but I agree with Aizawa. You’re quirk could be hurting you, and if that’s the case we should come up with a way where it won’t!”

“Oh, are you really one to talk?” Denki bites back. “Or did I imagine all times your quirk fucked up your arms and legs??”

“Th-that’s, that’s exactly why I wanna help you! I had people help me use my quirk without hurting myself, we could do the same for you!”

“Yeah, sure, that’s why,” Denki seethes. “Or maybe it’s ‘cuz you’re losing your quirk soon so you’re taking it out on someone else!”

Midoriya flinches back, his eyes squeezing with hurt.

“Kaminari!” Yaomomo chastises. 

“Enough,” Aizawa states. “For your sake, we’re gonna write that off as you responding badly to having received unfortunate news. Or are we gonna have to have a talk about it?”

Denki sucks at his teeth.

“Whatever. No.” He crosses his arms. “Sorry.”

Aizawa stares down at him.

“I’m sure you are,” he says. “Go cool off, Kaminari, but keep in mind that this is just step one. We’re not just gonna leave things here, I promise. We’ll come up with something that lets you continue to use your quirk safely.”

“Fine,” Denki says. “Whatever.” 

He gives one last scathing look to Midoriya, who, instead of shying away, meets it head on with resolve.

Denki turns around and leaves.

Stupid Aizawa, trying to keep him safe at the cost of his usefulness. Stupid Yaomomo, offering to help him in the first place. Stupid Midoriya, always sticking his nose into people’s business. Stupid Denki, always shoving his foot firmly in his mouth.

It’s like none of them get it. How many of them are half of what they used to be? Aizawa, who hasn’t been able to properly use his quirk since he lost his eye; Jirou, who he knows is still struggling to adapt to one earjack; Bakugou, whose arm is still stiff and inflexible, hampering his once unbeatable mobility; all the heroes who’ve quit, or retired, or had their quirks outright stolen; and of course, Midoriya, who will be quirkless again in the near future. 

The hero world has lost so much, so the rest of them need to be 110% of what they are to fill in the empty spaces. It’s pointless to worry about anything else, given that.

Whatever. It’s only prohibited if Aizawa is there to watch him. He can work around that. And when graduation day comes and he becomes an official Pro-Hero, how dangerous his quirk may or may not be to himself will be unimportant compared to all the good he’ll be able to do. 

It’s that thought, more than anything else, that keeps him from completely unraveling. 

*

Izuku watches Kaminari storm off and wonders, not for the first time, why every time he tries to help someone it only seems to make them angry.

Whether it’s offering a hand to Kacchan to help him up, or trying to get Todoroki to accept his own power, or trying to understand why Kouta hates heroes, or even Shigaraki in those last moments… He has a terrible track record when it comes to people actually wanting his help. He sends out a silent ‘thank you’ to Uraraka and Eri for breaking the trend. 

It probably wouldn’t bother him so much, if other people had the same issues. But Kaminari didn’t exactly accuse Yaoyorozu of secretly sabotaging him. Just Izuku.

He sighs.

“Should… I have just kept this all to myself?” he asks no one in particular.

“Is that something you’re physically capable of doing?” Aizawa asks.

“...No,” Izuku says.

“Good,” Aizawa says. “You were right to bring this up to me, Midoriya. You know better than most the costs of using a quirk that hurts you.”

“I suppose…”

“I admit, I’m a bit confused as to how this hasn’t come up before,” Yaoyorozu says. “I don’t say this to undermine your research efforts, but it didn’t take you very long to learn about air ionization and its dangers.”

“Y-yeah, it’s… not exactly esoteric information,” Izuku agrees. “We did have to spend some time to confirm it, but it sounded like Kaminari had never even heard of the possibility.”

“Correct,” Aizawa says, “this was a failure on my part as your teacher. I’ll apologize to the class tomorrow.”

“W-wait, that’s not-!”

“I didn’t mean to imply-!”

“A failure is a failure,” Aizawa states. “And one that, unfortunately, will repeat itself many times over, and to a lot more people than just Kaminari.”

Izuku looks at his teacher curiously.

“Aizawa-sensei…?”

“A question for you two,” Aizawa says, pointing at them with two split fingers. “How many different quirks are there in the world?”

They briefly look at each other.

“Well, most people have quirks,” Yaoyorozu answers first, “but a small number are quirkless, and others inherited the exact same quirk from their parents…”

“...Which still probably means there are billions,” Izuku finishes. 

Aizawa nods. “Billions of abilities, each with their own rules, conditions, and vulnerabilities. Most people in the world won’t ever know all there is to know about their quirks. Even at UA, where we have the time, resources, and talent to help you explore your capabilities, we’ll only be able to scratch the surface before you all leave. It’s exceptionally hard to cover every possible strength and weakness.”

“I… suppose that makes sense,” Yaoyorozu says. “But surely there must have been some investigation on the school’s end when we were accepted? Some consulting with quirk counselors and researchers?”

Aizawa stares cooly at her.

“There was. But those fields of study are relatively new to the world, the number of people actually qualified to give good advice is small, and their efforts are split between all the hero schools and hero agencies. That’s why internships and work studies are so important; it’s usually the first time a student gets to connect with experts whose quirks might be similar enough to their own to get some proper guidance.”

Yaoyorozu frowns.

“I thought most schools had something like a quirk counselor?”

“In title. Usually someone who’s had a few courses of wholly inadequate training. But there’s not much of an alternative. Most people aren’t interested in studying other people’s quirks, and even if they were, how could a single person have the knowledge base broad enough to help a hundred or more kids a year, each with completely unique abilities?” He shakes his head. “How many experts in how many disciplines would it take to accurately cover just one of your quirks? And how valuable would that even be, when there’s no guarantee your quirks follow the standard logic of the world?”

He looks back to Midoriya. 

“When you were researching, did you find that any of this was a common risk when dealing with high voltages?”

Izuku thinks back on his admittedly preliminary research.

“Well… for most people, if they’re close enough that the specific concentrations of gas are a problem, they’ve probably already been electrocuted…”

Aizawa nods. “If we brought in an expert of high voltage systems, I imagine all their advice and warnings would be about how to deal with that danger, and none of it would apply to Kaminari due to his inherent electrical resistance.”

“I see…,” Izuku says, putting the pieces together. “In a weird way, it’s only a real danger to him. No one else can be close enough to a high voltage system to have either the ionized gases or the lack of oxygen be more dangerous than the electricity. But Kaminari is the high voltage system, so he’s right where it’s the worst.”

“And whether or not it is a danger is unconfirmed,” Aizawa adds. “You said yourself that something like this should normally cause respiratory issues, but we haven’t seen anything like that in him. Maybe they haven’t presented yet, but maybe his body has natural resistance to this too, and the short-circuit happens for a different reason entirely.”

Izuku hunches into himself. “So, you think I’m wrong…?”

“It’s a possibility. Either way, it’s something that we need to explore, because being right means Kaminari unintentionally hurting himself every time he uses his quirk. It can only be a good thing that this was brought up.” Aizawa waves the stack of papers he’s holding again for emphasis. “So, why is it that it’s only come up now? The answer is logical. Because he has something now that he was missing before.”

Izuku's eyes scrunch in confusion before Yaoyorozu answers for their teacher.

“You, Izuku,” she says, and there’s… an intimidating amount of pride on her as she says it. “Someone who already knows his abilities very well, has given lots of thought to them over years, and has the drive and curiosity to delve deeper, making connections that no one has made before.”

He can feel his face go immediately red. “N-no, y-you’re talking me up too much! I-I mean, it was your idea to actively work with the others, a-and you’ve already obsoleted a ton of my random thoughts and helped me turn them into more actionable things andIstillmightnotevenberightaboutanything-”

“Izuku,” Aizawa states, and all his babbling cuts off instinctually. He swallows the rest of his words.

“Izuku,” Aizawa repeats. “There aren’t a lot of people that have someone in their life willing to give them this kind of in-depth attention. Kaminari may not understand it now, but one day he’ll appreciate it, I promise. You, and Yaoyorozu as well, are doing something that the world desperately needs more of. Do not take your own efforts for granted.”

His teacher’s words settle heavily onto Izuku. There’s a weight of expectation that he’s heard before, from Aizawa, from others, and it was back when he was the only person who had the raw power to stand against Shiragari’s overwhelming strength. He’d never thought he’d hear it again. He’s not sure what he could possibly do to meet it anymore, with his quirk slowly fizzling away.

Especially when the look of absolute betrayal on Kaminari’s face is still so fresh in Izuku’s mind. Like something vital was taken from him. And hadn’t it been? However nice Yaoyorozu and Aizawa-sensei’s words are, all that really happened is that Kaminari now isn’t allowed to use something he’s been relying on all his life. 

The three of them walk back to the student testers and continue going over the results, but the whole time his mind lingers on Kaminari, and how Izuku doubts he’d actually heed any of their warnings. 

In the same position, Izuku wouldn't either.

*

It’s only been two days since Denki’s discharge ban and he already can’t count the number of pitying looks he’s gotten. 

They spend most of their time at school training, so of course Aizawa had to break the news to his friends and teachers so they know why he isn’t doing the thing he’s been doing every day for years. So their eyes squeeze with concern, or they give him a sad frown, or they pat him on the back sympathetically. The worst of it comes from Jirou, who suddenly backs off on her usual jabs and remarks; that’s how he knows he’s become truly pathetic. 

Denki hasn’t bothered looking towards Yaoyorozu’s way. Midoriya hasn’t bothered looking his. Midoriya’s nose is back in his notebook, onto the next concern.

Only two days, and he’s gotten a rotten peek at how miserable the next year of his life will be. There is no way he’s leaving things like this.

That’s why, when it’s deep into the night and everyone’s either in bed or out on some patrol, he sneaks out to one of the empty training grounds. Because while Aizawa keeps talking about other possibilities, it’s all theoretical; why bother with theory, when he’s got all the power he needs with him already? He just needs to figure out his own way to deal with it.

And he’s already got a great idea how.

All this doomsaying over breathing in toxic gas, over not having enough oxygen, and he can just… take a deep breath and hold it. Even a dummy like him can figure that one out.

He finds a nice, open spot to stand in, deep into the grounds just in case, surrounded by tall buildings that are chock full of metal bits for his electricity to spark to. He cracks his knuckles, shakes his body to stretch out his muscles, takes a wide stance for stability.

Then, he starts ramping up.

The engine inside him hums and growls. He’s learned enough about electricity to know how it’s usually made, by something spinning and spinning and spinning, and he can’t help but visualize it every time he uses his quirk. A massive, building energy that twirls inside him like a tornado, getting faster and faster, voltage rising. He starts taking deep breaths to prep his lungs, before the air around him can start to crackle and ionize. 

At 30,000 volts, small sparks zip up and down his body. Past 100,000, it begins to jump off his legs onto pebbles on the ground. Past 500,000 and wild branches of electricity start to reach into the air directly, and he figures he’s at the point where he’s ionizing enough air that it’ll start being a problem. Time to test his theory.

He takes one last gulp of air, and spins himself up fully. 

A million volts, and the electricity lashes out to nearby surfaces with loud, violent cracks. 1.5 million, and all he can see is sparking yellow, whipping and darting into the empty space around him. 2 million, and the air feels hot against him as molecules rip and burn.

He clenches his core, forcefully holding in his breath as everything inside him desperately tries to break out.

He stays in that limbo for an excruciating 10 seconds, and while it’s hard to tell through the storm he’s creating… it does feel like he’s holding off the short-circuit. Usually it hits him like a ball being thrown up in the air; sometimes the ball goes higher, sometimes it doesn’t, but either way it falls back down, imminent and unavoidable, and once it thuds onto his head the stupor hits. Game over. It took him a while to even get to that point, where he can keep an eye on it as it plummets, plan the last uses of his power before it lands. 

But it feels different, this time. Farther away, like it’s floating in the air above him weightlessly. Like it’s flying. Like he’s flying. So high up in the air it’s making him lightheaded.

…Wait. Shit.

He cuts off the power, and everything goes dark.

It’s only now he realizes his lungs are burning. He coughs from the strain, taking in rasping breaths as he fills back up with oxygen, wondering for the first time if that lightness he’s always associated with his quirk is really just the early stages of his short-circuit.

Tch. So much for being primal.

“Fuck,” he exasperates after the coughing fit stops. He kicks at the ground uselessly, scattering some of the rocks. “This fucking sucks. Why didn’t that work!?”

He stares at the scalded ground around his feet. A realization hits.

“Wait,” he says to no one, “if that didn’t work, then Midoriya was wrong! It has nothing to do with gases or ionizing or anything!”

“Not necessarily.”

“AAH!” 

He spins around to face the new voice, hands raised dramatically to defend himself, and finds Midoriya standing 10 feet away. The other boy has his chin in hand, held up by his other arm, appraising the whole scene. He must’ve been here the whole time.

Denki’s arms flop down limply.

“Oh, it’s you.”

There’s a quick wince on Midoriya, and Denki almost regrets it enough to take it back. Almost.

“...It’s me.”

Denki clicks his tongue, then registers what Midoriya had said.

“Whadya mean, ‘not necessarily?’”

Midoriya kneels down, examining some of the electricity burns on bits of the gravel ground. 

“Even if you hold your breath, the air that’s already inside your lungs or nostrils could ionize,” he says, to the ground more than to Denki directly. “It’s not really avoidable. Besides, most emitter quirks need lots of oxygen flow in their users’ systems due to how much energy it takes. Something about their metabolism. Holding your breath will restrict you more than help you.”

Denki sneers.

“Well, at least I’m trying something,” he says. “Instead of just waiting for someone else to come up with some other, theoretical way that might not even exist.”

Midoriya sighs deeply, then stands back up and focuses intently on Denki.

“...You’re right.”

It’s the last thing Denki expected to hear.

“Huh?”

“I messed up,” Midoriya says. “I panicked, and went about this whole thing all wrong. I’m sorry, Kaminari.”

Denki narrows his eyes, not quite believing Midoriya’s words.

“If you’re sorry, does that mean you’ll back me up?” Denki says. “Tell Aizawa this whole ‘discharge ban’ is dumb so I can use my powers again?” 

“...Even if I did, I doubt Aizawa would change his mind,” Midoriya says. “But I still agree with him, you should hold off on using high voltages until we figure some stuff out.”

“Then you’re not sorry at all!”

“I am,” Midoriya says firmly. “But not for bringing it up to Aizawa. What I do regret is knowing you might lose something, and not doing more to help you replace it.”

He steps forward, swinging the large backpack off his back. He hunches back down and digs through the pack, taking out some notebooks, a big stack of textbooks, and a bunch of small, unfamiliar devices, laying them all out on the ground. He crosses his legs and sits in front of them, unbothered by the gravel floor.

“I’ve got lots of ideas for things you could try,” he starts, opening up some of the books. “I don’t know how many of them are good, things are always easier on page than in practice, but I’ll help you test whatever sounds good to you.

“Aizawa-sensei brought up wires, and it’s something I’ve thought about before, especially after Uraraka implemented grappling hooks into her suit.” He grabs one of the pieces of gear, a spool of wire that he pulls on to extend, then lets go of to let it retract on its own. “No AOE, and you’d have to train your aim, but it would be a more efficient version of your sharpshooter gear. You wouldn’t have to waste all that energy creating a plasma channel through the air.” He opens up one of the textbooks too, what seems to be a catalog of already existing support gear, and stops it on a page for Aizawa’s scarf. “I even asked about possibly using the capture scarf instead of regular lines, but the material they use isn’t very conductive, so someone would have to come up with a whole new design, and it’s supposed to be incredibly hard to learn how to use properly. But it’s an option!”

He grabs another textbook, flips it to page with some technical diagrams on generators or something that goes way above Denki’s head, and pairs it with a page of his own notebook, with rough drawings of Denki with notes around his arms and legs.

“But if that really doesn’t appeal to you, there might be a way to safely use your discharges!” He points to the torso of the drawing. “I’ve seen you discharge from your arms plenty of times, but when you go to your highest voltages, it happens all over your body. But if you can learn to focus all of it into a limb, to isolate the ‘circuit’ in your arms, then it’s possible we can use protective gear like gas masks!” He pulls over another notebook of his, with notes on his own quirk, specifically his Full Cowl technique. “It’s basically the reverse of what I had to learn! Putting full power into your individual limbs, instead of your whole body. It’d be a serious strain on your arms for sure, but it’s something we can explore!”

He grabs another piece of gear, what looks like a gauntlet made up of thin copper wire that would encircle the arm, with some kind of controlling mechanism on the back of the palm “I asked Hatsume what we can do to support that, and she whipped this up, it’d act as an electromagnet that itself acts as an inductor that’d help you regulate high voltages better, and you’d be able to create controllable magnetic fields, and maybe with a properly insulated hero suit you could-”

“Hold it hold it hold it!” Denki finally says.

Midoriya’s jaw clenches shut.

At first, Denki hadn’t been interested in what Midoriya had to say; why take advice from the guy who got his quirk banned, after all? But it didn’t take long until he’d become awestruck at Midoriya’s sheer momentum. Like he’d only just gotten started, like he could keep going for hours. He probably could; he’s opened up more books about Denki’s power in the past few minutes than Denki has his entire life (0). 

Denki squats down on the other side of all the shit Midoriya brought, looking over it all as if any of it meant anything to him. 

“You’ve just, been doin’ all this thinking about my quirk over the years?” he says, nodding down.

“Well, s-sort of,” Midoriya says hesitantly. “Since we’re trying to figure out other methods for your quirk most of this is new, just what I’ve been looking at the past few days, with a bit more time I’ll-”

“A few days?!” Denki exclaims. It’s only then that he notices the heavy bags under Midoriya’s eyes.

“Y-yeah, I know it’s not much,” Midoriya says, completely misreading Denki’s shock.

“That isn’t what…” Denki decides it’s not worth the argument, and grabs the gauntlet from Midoriya. “You got this ready in a few days?”

“Well, Hatsume did!” he corrects. “It’s just a proto-proto-prototype that she made in a few hours, more a proof of concept than anything. But I wanted something to show you. Something to make it real.”

Denki blinks.

“So, all this,” he sweeps the gauntlet over everything for emphasis, the metal clattering at the wrist as it pivots and flops from the motion, “because you were, what, feeling guilty?”

Midoriya frowns in disagreement.

“Kaminari, I…” he starts, but flounders for the next words. He looks back down at his luggage, then swipes up one of his hero notebooks. He looks at it fondly.

“I… think I know how I want to help people once I lose One-For-All,” he says. “You know, quirks are just… the coolest. These amazing, inexplicable abilities that almost everyone has. And no two are quite alike! Something that belongs to its owner, and no one else.

“But, that also sounds kind of… lonely, sometimes. How many people will never fully realize their potential, because their quirks are too strange or complicated to understand?” He glances back at Denki. “How many of them have hidden dangers that aren’t that easy to see? Too many, probably. I… I want to help people find them. To help people learn as much as they can about themselves, and their power.” 

He holds up a fist, clenched with determination.

“And I can’t think of a better place to start, than you, and all of my friends!” he says with a smile. “I’m sorry for putting you in this situation, but… I think I can help you find another way. Will you please let me help you?”

Denki stares at Midoriya for a long 10 seconds.

He gives a heavy, defeated sigh.

“Damnit Midoriya, you really know how to make someone else the bad guy, ya know?” Midoriya’s brow wrinkles with confusion, but Denki moves on. “...Fine. Show me how to use the magnet glove, or whatever.”

Midoriya instantly brightens up.

“Thanks, Kaminari!” he says, like Denki’s the one doing him a favor. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find something that works for you!”

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” Kaminari says dismissively, even as he puts on the gauntlet. “I still say you’re all making too big a deal outta this.”

Midoriya grabs one of the extendable lines of wire and stands up.

“Well, I hope I am wrong about everything,” he says. “But until we know for sure, there’s no harm in trying out other stuff, right?”

“I guess,” Denki says. “But I find it hard to believe any of this could really be that useful.”

***

8 years later

Rampant Lightning: Chargebolt

“Can’t you put more power into it?!” Izuku asks desperately. “We need to go faster!”

“I put any more juice into this it’ll probably explode!” Kaminari says back. “And I’m not gonna be the one who pisses off the lovely but terrifying ladies who designed it!”

Izuku whines uselessly. It was a rhetorical question, but he’s still frustrated at the answer.

The thrusters of his suit, inspired by Uravity and Ingenium both, are already at 110%, blasting the both of them through the city; Izuku at the helm, flying high over buildings, and Kaminari holding onto his back, overclocking Izuku’s suit. It’s really not meant to go at these speeds for longer than a minute or two given the huge drain on the battery, but that’s less of a concern with his present company.

Because an emergency is an emergency, and they’ve got no time to lose. Any person being in danger always gets Izuku’s blood pumping, ready to jump in and help, but when it’s a panicked phone call from one of his own students? It has him vibrating with concern, every inch of him feeling like the small bits of lightning that zip and arc off of his passenger.

Luckily, they didn’t start off so far away for the trip to be agonizing. Unluckily, when they get to their destination, things are already out of control.

A heavy, voluminous storm-cloud hangs overhead. A hundred feet overhead, black clouds hugging the windows of nearby skyscrapers and bulging up a story or two high, while thick bolts of lightning lash out with deafening booms to nearby streetlights, poles, anything that’s reaching up off the ground. All this, it’s something Izuku had theorized Hayase could do, but he was saving actually attempting it for her third year.

He lands himself and Kaminari on a nearby roof, a bit below the heavy storm but high enough to scan the streets underneath. The area is mostly evacuated already, and the few stragglers are being escorted out by other civilians and a hero or two, so he decides to deal with the storm itself. If the wind picks up, who knows how far this storm can go.

“So, what’s the plan, chief?” Kaminari asks.

Izuku only gives it a moment's thought.

“Hayase’s body is clouds,” he says, “so all of that is part of her, but it normally condenses around a core. We have to find that part of her.” He gets ready to blast back off. “I’m going in.”

He’s just about to leap when he gets tugged off balance.

“Hold it, Mr. Looks-Before-He-Leaps,” Kaminari says. He lets Izuku go, then holds up the gauntlet on his arm. It’s a newer, more condensed version of his usual equipment; multiple independent lines of wire wrapped tightly around his forearm, acting as an electromagnet by default but each line capable of being fired off as an extendable tether to conduct electricity. He fires off a line and it soars straight into the dark, roiling cloud. 

As soon as it breaches, lightning strikes down the cable and into Kaminari.

It hits so hard Izuku feels a shockwave in the air, but as the cable falls slack, Kaminari just shakes his hand like he just touched a slightly hot stove. An energy sink as much as he is a generator. 

“I’m guessin’ your suit can’t handle that,” he says as his cable whips back into place. “C’mon Midoriya, you gotta cool off a bit, I can’t be the smart one out of the two of us!”

Izuku frowns, but takes a quick breath to reset, shaking off some of his overwhelming concern.

“...Okay,” he says. “If I fly us both in, can you… draw in all the excess charge so none of it hits me?”

Kaminari shrugs. 

“Probably. Never been inside a storm before though so I can’t say for sure.” He pulls out a compact gas mask and fits it over his nose and mouth. Izuku can see him smiling through his eyes. “You good to go?”

Izuku puts his own mask in place. 

“Let’s do it!”

Kaminari jumps back on, and Izuku blasts them into the cloud. 

Bright arcs of lightning explode towards them the moment they enter, but Kaminari does something that Izuku can feel tugging at his suit even with the storm around them, and at the last moment every splintering branch shifts towards Kaminari instead. They strike against his upheld arm, crackling at the gauntlet over and over, never stopping, energy endlessly flowing towards him in persistent streams of lightning, jolting around like a garden hose turned on and set loose. 

Chargebolt sucks in every last drop of wayward charge. Izuku’s suit does have some shielding against sudden surges, but the electrical gradient in a storm is too inconsistent to rely on it - too easy for random potential differentials to shock either him or one of his fragile suit components. At the same time, Kaminari’s other gauntlet thuds into Izuku’s back, stuck to him more surely than if they were welded down. Electromagnet activated, to keep him from flying off while his other arm is busy.

Without having to worry about the surrounding danger, he finds Hayase’s core quickly; a thicker mass of fog that's roughly the shape of a teenage girl, though blended into the storm like a paint smear. Her hazy limbs twitch and jerk in ways that are incredibly difficult for Izuku to handle seeing, and so much energy is sparking from within the denser cloud that he’s sure it’s not long before it comes bursting out.

“She’s completely overloaded!” Izuku yells through the storm to his friend. “If we can bleed it all out of her somehow, I think she’ll collapse back into herself!”

“I can’t absorb all of that,” Kaminari yells back, “And I only know of one other way to get rid of that much electrical energy quickly!” Kaminari yells back.

Izuku nods, and with Kaminari busy keeping both of them safe, Izuku’s the one who will have to do it.

“Right, time for Chargebolt!”

“Time for me to do what?”

“N-no, I’m talking about my suit component!”

“Can’t you call it something different when I’m literally here too?!”

“No!”

Izuku swoops low enough for a better view outside the cloud, and spots a few good anchor points. He’s got his own conductive tethers, inspired by Blackwhip, Chargebolt, Cellophane, Uravity all, and with one arm he fires off three lines, one into the ground, two into the metal framework of nearby buildings. He sends out a low voltage to test the connections, then zips back to his student, ready to complete the circuit.

“Ready?” he shouts.

“Ready!” Kaminari shouts back.

Izuku raises his other arm, and fires three corresponding lines at Hayase.

Once they connect, it’s instantaneous once again, but this time he’s the conduit. Electricity fires down the wires, through the suit but set to skip past all the electrical components, before continuing down the wires of his other arm. Ten million volts coursing down with a thousand amps lasting for less than a second, but that’s still gigawatts of power that sinks itself into the ends of the lines. Within moments, the sections of building and the ground itself start to melt as all that power turns into heat. That’s what happens, after all, when you ground a high voltage system.

But hey, better that stuff melts than his student.

With the greatest source of charge gone, the rest of the electrical storm starts to dissipate. The edges of the cloud fizzle away while the rest of it slowly sucks itself back into Hayase’s main body, until before long she’s back in one distinct piece.

She immediately starts to fall, and Izuku dashes forward to catch her.

-

The three of them settle onto another roof closeby, away from the people slowly filtering back into the area. There’s no need for her to deal with the attention she’d get; he can talk to her himself.

“Hayase,” he says, after detaching his long scarf and draping it over her. Her cloudy body doesn’t exactly need the warmth, but she grips it securely anyways. “What happened?”

Her ‘throat’ makes a disgruntled sound, like far off thunder. 

“I… I was just practicing,” she says with a raspy voice. “On the roof of my apartment complex, way high up so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I was trying to make myself a storm, like you theorized I could.” Two brilliant yellow eyes poking through the smog of her face stare up at him with glee. “And I did it, I went full storm-cloud! I got all my molecules moving so fast the friction started making lightning, and I expanded out to make even more…” She sighs. “But then I couldn’t pull it all back in. At least I got a call out before I fully lost control…”

Izuku frowns. 

There’s an old, outdated theory, that hypothesizes that quirks will one day get so powerful, so complicated, that their users won’t be able to control them. It’s not hard to see why someone would come up with that, when even just the next generation down have quirks far more powerful than any of his friends. Maybe as a species, they’ll never truly be able to keep up with their ever advancing genome.

But it isn’t something he worries about, really. Because no matter how complicated things get, his approach will always be the same; reach out to whoever needs it, help them even when they push back, and hope that they’ll one day understand.

“Hayase,” he says, “I’m glad you’re okay, and no one got hurt, but this can’t happen again, alright? So for now, we’re gonna stick with the body expansion part of your quirk. No more electricity.”

Her glowing eyes shrink to points.

“What?! But, but that’s not fair! I almost had it, I did! How am I supposed to learn to control it if I’m not allowed to use it?!”

“By mastering all your other capabilities first,” Izuku says. “You need a better grasp of your less volatile powers, and once you have that, the rest will come much easier. So for now, no more electricity.”

“But, but…!” she stutters. “That’s the part of my quirk that’s actually strong, how am I supposed to keep up with everyone without it?!” A harsh brow forms in the white mist above her eyes. “Why should I stop just because you worry about everything??”

“Hey you!” Kaminari jumps in. “Don’t be a brat, listen to your teacher!”

Hayase finally takes notice of their other companion and turns her glare towards him, eyes flickering - her version of rolling them. “Who even are you?”

Kaminari gasps, acting scandalized. He points a thumb at himself at smirks. “I’m friggin’ Chargebolt, that’s who!”

Hayase scoffs. “That hero who sells shoes?”

“I have a very successful shoe line, yes,” he says back. “But I’m also someone who knows how dangerous electricity is, and I’m tellin’ you to listen to this guy here!” He pats Izuku on the back. 

Hayasa crosses her vaporous arms and pouts. “Yeah sure, whatever. I’ll totally do that.”

“You better!” Kaminari says. “Otherwise, how am I gonna take you on as an intern next year? I only bring on students who listen to their teacher, ya know?”

That has her shocked, her yellow eyes going wide.

“...Are you serious?” she says.

“Ain’t a better person than me to show you how to use lightning safely,” Kaminari says confidently. “But only once Midoriya-sensei says you’re ready!”

Hayase slumps petulantly against the wall behind her.

“...Fine. Whatever.” She sinks further, in that way only teenagers can manage. “...Thanks,” she mumbles, almost imperceptibly. 

Izuku smiles at his student. A tempest, no matter how compact she is.

“We’ll get you there one day, Hayase, I promise,” he says.

Hayase shrugs, and the two of them escort her back to her home.

-

“Tch, kids these days, y’know?” Kaminari says after they drop Hayase off. “Never wanna listen to people who know better.”

Izuku holds back a grin. “...Yeah. Good thing she has someone like you to be a good example.”

“You know it!” Kaminari says. “Now let’s go grab somethin’ to eat, I’m famished!”

Izuku nods, then starts initializing the thrusters of his suit.

…Which immediately begin to sputter, before going completely silent.

He checks the diagnostics, and finds that while every other component is fine, Hayase’s lightning somehow shorted through the main battery of his suit. It’s completely fried.

Kaminari looks at the info Izuku pulled up, and whistles.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to tell Melissa you broke her suit, Izuku.”

Izuku shudders.

Chapter Text

Fumikage is the holder of the most powerful quirk in Class 3A.

It is no brag, no vainglorious bluster; it is reality, pure and simple. Set him in the black of night, and Dark Shadow will dominate, unyielding. Like a spark in a dead forest, it will spread and grow, consuming all, become colossal. He has only unleashed the full might of Dark Shadow twice; once, to defeat a foe too powerful for their class to handle, and once to hold off an overwhelming force for the mere seconds he could. In either case, it was a feat few could rise up to. Perhaps the grand power of One-For-All could have, once.

No longer.

And now, the forces that necessitated such strength are defeated, their most prominent generals, vanquished. But the strength itself persists; his forever companion, waiting in every cast shadow, yearning to burst forth whenever the sun dips behind the horizon. It may lead one to wonder: what is there left to wield it against?

But there will always be obstacles that require unthinkable strength.

Cleaning up the vast ruin of Jaku City will take years. Perhaps a decade, or more, even with the breadth of quirks at their disposal. A million tons of wreckage from a thousand buildings, glass and metal poisoning the fractured earth below, an inhospitable wasteland of decay for miles and miles. A year after the cleanup officially started, he struggles to see the progress. 

And yet, it is work that must continue.

Work that, for now, only a select few contribute to. Cementoss, with vast control over concrete; Thirteen, devouring with her Black Hole; Kamui Woods and Vine, summoning hundreds of prehensile branches. Those with quirks mighty enough move mountains at a distance. He is proud to be included in such prestigious company.

He makes his contributions after the sun sets, when night overtakes. There, underneath the pale light of the moon, he unleashes his quirk, gargantuan and mighty, to scoop up entire buildings in massive black claws and move them where they need to go. He clears in hours what would take others months, the lumbering beast of Dark Shadow indifferent to the sharpness of shattered glass, the corrosion of fractured steel, the thick, particulate-choked air. 

And as Dark Shadow works, Fumikage struggles to hold on.

It remains a challenge, keeping Dark Shadow tame when the darkness is so surrounding, so absolute. Left to his own devices, Dark Shadow would simply add to the destruction, run rampant across the field of decay smashing everything in his wake. It is all Fumikage can do to corral the wild whims of his quirk into productivity; and even so, he cannot be fully entrusted with this task. He works in solitude, so that Dark Shadow is not aggravated by company, but there is always someone nearby who knows where Fumikage is, with a quirk that, if necessary, can shine light on a feral Dark Shadow. It would be foolish to do otherwise.

That he needs to be so chaperoned is something he remains ashamed of.

Even after years of studious training, he has yet to reach an accord with his quirk on this matter. His relationship with Dark Shadow is good, has only ever been good, but the shadowy form loses something of himself when darkness overtakes, and seemingly no amount of diplomacy can help him regain it. Only once the light shines onto him does he find himself restored, and diminished. Perhaps that is simply the cost of wanting to use such a power. 

And though he has a tenuous hold on it for now, whenever the sky darkens overhead, Fumikage wonders if there will come a time when he will not be able to hold Dark Shadow back any longer.

-

“Tokoyami,” Yaoyorozu says one day, “may I speak with you about a private matter?”

He nods, and she pulls him away to an isolated corner of the dormitory.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the project Midoriya and I have recently started?”

“I’ve heard whispers,” he elucidates. “And observed what I assume are the results. Jirou and Kaminari, with new weapons in their armory.”

“Y-yes, indeed,” she says, a bit shyly. “It… wasn’t the smoothest venture, but we managed to offer them some new avenues regarding their abilities. So, I was wondering if we could talk to you about yours?”

The feathers on his head flick in a quick cascade.

“You believe I am in need of ‘new avenues?’”

“I believe any one of us could benefit from hearing the thoughts of others,” she says diplomatically. “But I don’t think you need it, particularly. In fact, my reasons for approaching you are a bit more… selfish?”

He raises a feathery brow.

“I’ve always found your quirk rather intriguing,” she continues. “I suppose it left quite the impression on me all those years ago, when you soundly defeated me in the Sports Festival. But since then, I’ve come to think of Dark Shadow as something of an… opposite of mine.”

A strange admission. When he ponders what the antithesis of creation could be, it would obviously be destruction. Something Dark Shadow is more than capable of, but, hopefully, not defined by.

“I would think the Black Hole of Thirteen would be more appropriate. Consuming, endlessly.”

“Oh, thematically, sure! But that’s not how I meant.”

She closes her eyes and holds up a finger; a common pose, during her tutoring sessions. He often attends.

“There have been many attempts to further categorize quirks beyond the insufficient Emitter, ‘Mutant’, Transformation paradigm,” she says. “None of them have quite taken hold the same way, but they’re still prevalent in different Quirk Research circles. One I find interesting qualifies quirks based on degree of abstraction. To wit: how fuzzy are the rules by which it operates?”

Dark shadow crawls out from beneath Fumikage’s cape, and wraps himself around Fumikage’s shoulders.

“Well I’m pretty fuzzy!” Dark Shadow says, the edges of his form pure, shifting darkness.

“Indeed you are,” Yaoyorozu says. “But I mean it metaphorically, too. My quirk operates on an ironclad rule: I can create, as long as I know its atomic structure. It allows for quite a lot of complexity and versatility, but it is still a single, fundamental rule. Not so for Dark Shadow!

“There is no singular rule, or even set of rules, that define his nature. Many other ‘companion’ quirks take the shape of animals wholly, but Dark Shadow is not modeled after any current existence, and merely resembles a bird, while having few direct features of one. This is exemplified in the way he grants you flight: he doesn’t fly like a bird would, he is just capable of floating.

“And how he is typically utilized by you is equally ethereal. He has taken on all sorts of forms and shapes, all at the behest of your imagination with seemingly few restrictions. He isn’t exactly energy, and yet he has no concrete mass or volume, no clear indication of where the force he applies comes from. He is analogous to darkness itself, but darkness is defined as the lack of something, and he is made of it fully. A not quite living, not quite breathing contradiction.”

She drops her arm, done with her small lecture. 

“You can correct me if I’m wrong, but Dark Shadow does not easily fit into a set of rules. He simply is.”

Fumikage’s eyes are wide with surprise. He doesn’t know how to respond.

“Damn,” Dark Shadow says, “you make me sound kinda awesome!”

“...Indeed,” Fumikage says, glad that Dark Shadow can speak when he himself is speechless. “You’ve given my companion quite a bit of consideration.”

“I have, though Midoriya was also very helpful in reasoning out a few things.”

A condensed analysis, and yet a thorough one. Befitting of ones so scientifically minded. Though, he is not sure he fully agrees with it. Dark Shadow is an enigma to be sure, but one bound by an unshakeable premise: the darker it is, the more dangerous he is. A rule stricter than iron.

“And it is those qualities that draw your interest,” he concludes.

“Yes,” she says. “So if you’d allow us the opportunity, both Midoriya and I would love to learn more about your quirk. Perhaps see if there is some underlying maxim to him.  And if you’d like any of our thoughts on it, we’d be happy to provide those as well!”

A reasonable, though admittedly intimate request. The class has had many discussions on each other’s quirks, but it’s rare for an individual to be so singularly focused on.

“If Dark Shadow is so abstract”, he says, “would not the efforts to further define him be futile? Perhaps, outright counterproductive?”

“Well, we would hope it’s not the latter,” she says. “But I’ve always been of the opinion that no time spent trying to understand something is wasted. You always come away with something, even if it isn’t what you were expecting.”

A wonderful sentiment. He hopes it is true.

“...Very well. I submit myself to your study,” he says. “But only if I am allowed to set a priority for what information we seek.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

He flicks his eyes to Dark Shadow, set upon his shoulder like a cat clinging to a tree branch.

“Help me find a way to keep Dark Shadow’s faculties,” he says, “even in the pitchest of black.”

–

They assemble in a wide, open arena - one bare of features and obstacles. He is the last to arrive, Yaoyorozu and Midoriya already set up at one end of the facility, on a bench against the wall. They spot him as he strides up, waving to him genially.

“Hey Tokoyami!” Midoriya says. “How are you?”

“Akin to a darkened sky as iridescence froths up from the horizon.”

Midoriya blinks.

“I am well,” Fumikage says, “though anxious. I’m not sure what to expect for this endeavor.”

“W-well, there’s no specific plan or process or anything…,” Midoriya says. “But Yaoyorozu told me you already have a goal in mind! That makes things a lot easier, since we can just focus on that.”

“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Yaoyorozu says. “To start things off?”

“If there is an answer, I will provide.”

“Cool!” Midoriya says. “I’ve really wanted to know about Dark Shadow for a while! You know, some people define quirks based on level of abstraction and he-”

“I believe Yaoyorozu already gave me the primer on that.”

“...Oh,” he says morosely.

They spend a few minutes outlining various aspects of Fumikage’s quirk, ones that perhaps can’t be gleaned by direct observation: how big can Dark Shadow truly get (“300 feet tall, though if I truly let him loose there’s no telling how large he can grow); Is he affected by all light, or only that of the visible spectrum (“Ultraviolet, pronounced effect, infrared, marginal effect, light beyond that, seemingly no effect”); is there a limit to the shape he can take (“He is quite moldable, like clay, though he prefers to have a head and two limbs whenever possible”). He quickly notes, however, that the two of them show a particular interest in the nature of Dark Shadow’s sapience, though for different reasons.

“It’s something I’m both fascinated by, and a bit envious of, if I’m being honest,” Yaoyorozu says. “Creation is wonderful, but it is simply something I use. Not a… partner that I may speak to, communicate with. Maybe if I could, I would be able to use it in a whole different way.”

Interesting. He had never considered Dark Shadow’s intelligence to be something specifically desired. It is simply just how his quirk is; he has no other context. He can say, however, that the inverse is not true - he has no desire for a quirk that cannot talk back.

“Yeah, quirks with their own personalities are exceedingly rare!” Midoriya adds. “And it asks some complicated questions about the nature of life and consciousness, for sure. Though, some people believe there is no true separation at all.” He taps a pen against his chin. “I have a friend whose quirk is a little bird, that can act independently but reflected his true feelings. Does that count as a distinct personality? I dunno!”

Fumikage looks to his dark passenger. “While we are capable of mental communication, Dark Shadow’s thoughts have always seemed to be separate from mine.”

“That does look to be the case,” Yaoyorozu says. “But that doesn’t necessarily imply a distinct existence. The human brain is capable of hosting alternate personalities; like, say, certain hallucinations caused by schizophrenia, or the alters of a System - someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Some have postulated that any ‘will’ a quirk might have could be the result of such phenomena;  an aspect of one’s own brain that expresses itself through their quirk.”

Fumikage once again looks to his passenger, confused this time. “You… believe Dark Shadow to be an alternate personality of me?”

“Oh, no of course not!” Yaoyorozu says. “I have absolutely no idea what Dark Shadow is!”

Fumikage grunts. Not very reassuring.

“Yeah, no way that’s the case!” Dark Shadow says. A floppy arm pats Fumikage’s shoulders. “I’m not just a different piece of this guy, I’m my own man!”

Midoriya chuckles. “Well, whether you are or aren’t, I dunno how it’d even be possible to prove, or what it would change for you two. Maybe if there’s ever any kind of mental burden on you, it’s something to look into, but nothing like that seems to be the case?”

Fumikage shakes his head, then gives Dark Shadow a few scratches on the top of his blurry head. Dark Shadow shakes his head against the friction, reveling in it. 

“Then, it’s probably not something that needs to be established. Either way, you two are something special!”

Fumikage takes the compliment gracefully. Dark Shadow does not.

“DUH! Of course we are!” he says, giggling.

“I will say, this is something I can kind of relate to, just a little bit,” Midoriya says. “We know now that quirks can retain some of the will of its holder, but that only becomes evident when it’s transferred to someone else. I’ve got firsthand experience with that from One-For-All.”

“...I have heard that being mentioned,” Yaoyorozu says. “But it’s not something you talk about much.”

Midoriya goes shy. “It’s… kinda awkward to bring up, you know?” He shakes out of it. “In that case, they were separate entities of people who existed in the past. Echoes of their memories. And in order to use their abilities, they basically had to approve of me.” He points to Dark Shadow. “That’s nothing like how it works with you guys though, right?”

“...Sometimes Dark Shadow will not do as I ask, I suppose,” he says. “When he’s frustrated with me.”

“Like when he’s being no fun at all!” Dark Shadow says.

“So, his abilities aren’t something you can use even if he doesn’t want you to?” Yaoyorozu asks.

Fumikage shifts uneasily.

“Such a thing is not… something I tend to desire,” he says.

“Oh, well that’s probably a good thing!” Midoriya says. “But, this whole thing is about figuring out how to keep Dark Shadow calm, so I was just wondering to what extent you ‘control’ him.”

Dark Shadow, himself completely unconcerned by the topic of conversation, speaks up. “I can tell when Fumi wants me to do something! If it’s simple he doesn’t even have to ask, I can just figure it out! But if it’s something complicated he needs to tell me what to do.”

“So under normal circumstances, you have complete control over everything you can do?” Yaoyorozu asks.

Dark Shadow hums uncertainly. “I dunno! Sometimes if he needs something right away, it happens, without me thinking about it!”

“...Perhaps a sort of shared subconscious?” Yaoyorozu mumbles towards Midoriya. 

“Maybe…,” he answers, before addressing Fumikage once more. “And when he’s ‘out of control,’ does it feel like Dark Shadow is… ignoring you? Or can’t hear you?”

They all look to him for his answer, including his own quirk.

“I don’t know precisely. Dark Shadow is no animal, but when he gets in that state, it often feels like I am wrangling one. Does a wild animal ignore you? Or does it simply not understand what you want out of it? Not care?”

Midoriya acknowledges him with a nod. “Dark Shadow, what do you think? Do you remember the periods of time when you… lose yourself? Does it feel like you can hear Tokoyami when he asks you to do stuff?”

Dark Shadow’s ethereal features scrunch with a juvenile perplexion.

“I don’t know?” he says. “It’s… kinda hard to explain. It’s kinda like… I just do what I want, I guess?”

“You… want to cause destruction?” Yaoyorozu asks uncertainly.

“I guess??” he says with a bit of frustration. 

“Do you… have any desires or impulses to destroy stuff normally?” Izuku asks hesitantly. “That you feel more free to do when you’re like that?”

“I don’t think I like breaking stuff in particular…” he says, before shrugging his non-existent shoulders with a cackle. “But maybe I’m just a bad guy like that!”

None of them, Fumikage included, seem to find the idea satisfying. Dark Shadow’s nature is mischievous to be certain, but in his more docile state he has never been prone to violence or violent attitudes. Perhaps that simply does not hold, when he is brimming with strength. There is an oft repeated phrase about the effects of absolute power for a reason.

“It does seem like there is a bit of disconnect there, if Dark Shadow can’t articulate his feelings from when he’s in that state,” Yaoyorozu says. “If we want to learn more about it, we’ll probably have to ask you to release Dark Shadow fully, in as dark a setting as we can manage. Is that going to be okay?”

Fumikage ruffles uneasily.

“I expected that would be necessary. But we must use proper precautions.”

“Already ahead of you!” Yaoyorozu states, pulling forward a heavy duffle bag. “I brought some extra bright emergency flashlights and used Creation to synthesize a substantial amount of flash grenades. Midoriya will be up close to help you manage Dark Shadow directly, but if things get too out of hand, I’ll be off to the side ready to ‘light things up,’ as it were.”

“Right!” Midoriya says. “I’ve even got a few ideas we can try to calm him down that aren’t related to light. We’ll see if any of it works! But whatever we do, I want you both to specifically try and focus on your link with each other. At the very least, I think if we can establish what Dark Shadow’s mindset is while he’s like that, we can figure out how to work with it better!”

Fumikage takes a deep breath.

“Very well. Let us proceed.”

-

Within minutes, half of the arena has collapsed.

The pulsing, gargantuan form of Dark Shadow wreaks his havoc. Buzzing darkness surrounds Fumikage completely, twisting around his body and limbs, nearly constricting him, as vast, hulking tendrils crash into the walls, the floor, the remains of the half-existent ceiling above. They had begun in pitch black, and now Dark Shadow is slightly diminished by the dimmest starlight above; but it is nowhere near enough to soothe this savage beast.

“Midoriya, I’m going to set off the grenades!” Fumikage hears Yaoyorozu scream. 

“No, not yet!” he cries back, trying to lasso and corral Dark Shadow with his own black tendrils. “We only just got started!”

“And we are already in over our heads!”

“Just, wait!” Midoriya says, his eyes keeping careful watch on Fumikage through infrared goggles. “Tokoyami, can you communicate with him??”

“I… am trying!” he says through gritted teeth. “Dark Shadow, please! Re… restrain yourself!”

Fumikage sends out thoughts to Dark Shadow in addition to words, but it is much like screaming into an echoless void. Perhaps there is something listening in the abyss; perhaps not. 

The mass of Dark Shadow starts to clamber over the wall of the arena, seeking to escape the confines, and Fumikage does his best to pull his body back inside; however large Dark Shadow is, he will always be tethered in some way to Fumikage. It’s not enough to move him, but something about the effort, along with Midoriya’s superpowered tug of war, stalls Dark Shadow’s efforts.

“D-Dark Shadow!” Midoriya calls out. “It’s me, Izuku! Can… can you tell it’s me??”

More writhing, more smashing; he no longer even needs to climb over the wall, because he has torn it down.

“Are… are you frightened? Are you angry??” Midoriya shouts, words falling on deaf ears. “I-is there any part of you that can hear me?”

Dark Shadow slowly shifts his bulk past the boundary of the building.

“Midoriya, I’m turning on the lights!” Yaoyorozu says.

“N-not yet! I… I have an idea!” he says. “If I can just… make him realize we’re trying to help him!”

Midoriya unleashes his own phenomenal strength and makes one last effort to pull Dark Shadow back in, dragging the colossus back inside with a few heaving steps.

Before kicking off the ground and slingshotting right at a section of Dark Shadow.

His body slaps right into the trunk of one of the large, shadowy appendages, arms outstretched, holding onto it like a koala. 

“What… are you doing, Midoriya?!” Fumikage strains to ask.

“...Trying to calm him down with a hug?” the other boy says.

Fumikage’s eyes go wide with a terrified disbelief.

And yet, for a moment… Dark Shadow does stop. Every writhing limb, every surging appendage ceases its movement. Four bodies freeze in place at Midoriya’s haphazard attempt at soothing, as if paused by remote control; a floundering, gobsmacked stasis.

Two huge, glowing eyes tilt down to watch the small being hanging on to shadow.

Then, in one smooth motion, Dark Shadow peels Midoriya off of his body and slams him into the ground with a sickening crunch.

-

“A broken arm!” Fumikage yells as he stomps back and forth through the corridor. “Three cracked ribs! A concussion! And who knows what other damage you may have caused?!”

Dark Shadow winces, but with a slight, pleased grin.

“Yeeahh, I messed him up a bit, didn’t I!” he says, before cackling. “But what a terrible plan!”

Fumikage growls. “This is not a laughing matter, Dark Shadow! You have severely harmed one of my friends! One of our friends!” His fingers tug frustratedly at the feathers on the back of his head. “I try to be diplomatic with you when you’re in that state, to not force my will upon you, but no matter how many pleas I make you run rampant regardless!”

Dark Shadow crosses his arms petulantly.

“I dunno what you want from me, Fumi! He’s the one who wanted to learn more about me or whatever!” He gives a sharp, toothy smile. “Guess he got what he wanted!”

Fumikage pinches at his beak, like one would pinch at the bridge of their nose. 

“Can’t you at least be sorry for the harm you’ve caused??” he says, before sighing. “Not for the first time, I wonder why I must be burdened with a quirk as tempestuous as you!”

Fumikage feels it instantly; a quick tug of hurt at the mental connection he shares with Dark Shadow.

His quirk grows in size, placid features turning feral.

“Y-yeah, well, I don’t know why I gotta be stuck to a birdbrain like you!” he says. 

Fumikage rolls his eyes, then plops down onto a nearby chair, hands rubbing tiredly over his face.

“And yet, here we are,” he says. 

Dark Shadow pulls at Fumikage’s body with his own, trying to yank him back up from where they connect at his abdomen to get his attention, but his strength is lesser, under the bright fluorescent lights above. Fumikage ignores his efforts.

“...If, if I’m such a burden, then maybe I’ll just leave forever!” Dark Shadow states. “Let’s see you be a hero without me!” 

And from one moment to the next, Dark Shadow is gone.

Fumikage scoffs.

Toothless. 

He’s known it since the moment Dark Shadow burgeoned from his core; the two of them are forever entwined. There is no separation, no meaningful solitude. Even now, he can feel Dark Shadow’s consciousness hovering at the edge of his perception, silently hoping for some kind of reaction out of Fumikage. A blessing and a curse both, that he can never be truly alone. 

Fumikage continues to ignore his companion.

A minute of silence passes under the hum of fluorescence, and the whisper of aggrievance he sensed from his quirk slowly bleeds into something more worried. More pained.

A small worm of darkness snakes out from his body, curving back to look at Fumikage directly.

“...Do you really think I’m a burden, Fumi?” Dark Shadow says in a small, quiet voice.

Fumikage takes in a deep breath and exhales, clearing out the frustration.

“…No. Of course not. I’m sorry for suggesting so, Dark Shadow.”

However disappointed he is at his quirk, he can say it easily, because it is true. He knows it is true with a clarity much of his life does not have. Because he remembers, when the monster who nearly destroyed them all stood over him, slavering over Fumikage’s quirk with the full ability to take it away, just how scared he was that Dark Shadow might be lost forever. The soul-rending ache of just potentially losing him.

Fumikage continues. “I’m… simply upset over what happened. We have hurt a dear friend of ours, and I wish that hadn’t been the case.  But it is not truly your fault; we knew how dangerous you are, yet did not take the risks seriously enough. It won’t happen again.”

He has described Dark Shadow as dangerous many times; it is the truth, the reality. But for the first time, he senses something different from his quirk as he says it. Almost like… embarrassment.

“Fumi…,” Dark Shadow starts. “Are you… scared of me?”

“...Yes,” Fumikage says. “I love you, and I fear you, Dark Shadow. You are capable of causing great harm, and I simply wish it was something I could prevent. But it seems I cannot.”

Dark Shadow whines unhappily.

“I really do try to listen to you, you know,” he says. “But it’s really hard! Everything’s so… far away when I get like that.”

Fumikage sits up straight.

“Oh? You… sound as if you are more aware of your mindset in that state than you were earlier.”

His companion nods.

“Yeah, I really tried hard to pay attention like Midoriya asked!”

“Do you think you can explain, then? How it feels, when the darkness overwhelms.”

Dark Shadow takes a moment to think on it; he is certainly clever, but perhaps not the best at articulating his thoughts. 

But after a bit, insight hits, and he snaps two claw-like fingers.

“Fumi, remember when we were kids? And we would build little cities out of building blocks?”  His limbs shift into the silhouette of a skyline, like shadow puppetry, though controlling the shadows directly. “And then we’d pretend to be big monsters, swooping and stomping and knocking ‘em all down?”

“...Yes?”

“It’s like that!” Dark Shadow states. “When there’s nothing but darkness, and I drink it all in and get so big and strong and free… Everything kind of feels like building blocks, and the funnest thing I can do is knock them all down!”

“…But they are not, Dark Shadow. The things you break are real.”

“I know, Fumi!” he says. “But I don’t know when I’m like that. And every time you ask me to do something, it just feels like part of the game to not listen. Because it doesn’t matter how much you tell a monster to stop stomping, it’s a monster’s job to stomp!”

“Oh, that’s interesting!”

Fumikage lurches up, feathers standing on end at the sudden interruption. Dark shadow mirrors him, his fuzzy edges turning sharp like a cat’s fur at a threat.

Midoriya stands before them, looking awful. He’s in a pair of scrubs, a cast on one arm and bandages peeking out from the sleeve of the other, face covered in bruises, one side of his body leaning on a crutch, the other slightly held up by a clearly disconcerted Yaoyorozu.

“It sounds like you’re in a kind of a state of derealization when you get big!” the boy continues. “It makes sense why it’s so hard to reason with you then!”

Fumikage looks to Yaoyorozu for clarity.

She shrugs helplessly.

“...He said he’d crawl out of the nurse’s bed by himself if I didn’t assist him,” she says. “And Recovery Girl had to step away so there’s no one around for him to be scared of…”

“I’ll be fine!” Midoriya says, clearly not fine. He hobbles a bit closer. “I came over to apologize to you two for letting things get out of hand, but now I’m interested in Dark Shadow’s viewpoint here!”

“Apologize?” Fumikage says skeptically. “Midoriya, we are the ones who-”

“Apology accepted!” Dark Shadow states, carefree and unaffected by the prior mood.

Fumikage grunts, and decides to just let it be. Both Dark Shadow and Midoriya are unstoppable forces; there is no point in trying.

“So, that’s what it feels like, when you’re big?” Midoriya asks. “Like everything is just… toys?”

“Kinda, yeah!” Dark Shadow says. “And it’s not like I wanna break anything, it’s more like… no matter what I do, nothing is really gonna break! So I can just do whatever I want!”

“Is… that how it feels every time?” Yaoyorozu asks, curious about the conversation despite herself. “Because there have been moments when you’ve seemed a bit more… panicked. Usually when there’s a real danger around.”

“Oh!” he says. “Well, I can tell when Fumi is scared. Like, really scared. And when I feel that, then I think, ‘Something out there’s makin’ Fumi upset!’ and I do wanna smash stuff until it stops. But that’s only ever happened a couple times.”

“Oh, then that does show one important thing!” Midoriya says. “No matter how small anything is to you, no matter how superficial the world might seem… Tokoyami is always real to you!”

“Well yeah!” Dark Shadow says merrily. “‘Cuz he’s my buddy!”

Fumikage reaches over to ruffle the black fuzz of Dark Shadow’s head.

“...And you are mine, Dark Shadow.”

Midoriya watches the interaction with something past a scholarly interest.

“...You know, sometimes I wonder if you guys are the future of quirks,” he says. “Quirks seem to get more and more complicated as the generations go on, and maybe you’re the natural result of that kind of thing. Maybe one day, every quirk will have a will of its own, separate from its holder. Kind of daunting to think about, isn’t it?”

Fumikage raises a brow.

“...And yet, even as you describe it as daunting, I cannot help but feel your excitement at the idea.”

Midoriya tries to scratch the back of his head shyly, but bonks his cast against it instead. He puts his arm back down.

“You got me there. Because, maybe that’ll solve a lot of problems people can have with their quirks! Right now, most people just have to kind of… figure out their abilities themselves. Or, if they’re lucky, go to a school like ours that’ll help them. But if quirks had their own sapience, they’d probably understand themselves better than we ever could! And maybe the quirks themselves would be able to handle any of the complexities that are increasingly more common, and just be able to tell you how to use them properly!” His eyes shine with an intimidating fervor. “Imagine how much easier that would be!”

Fumikage and Yaoyorozu both glance at the ephemeral Dark Shadow, who’s nodding along with Midoriya despite clearly not paying that much attention.

“...I mean no offense to Dark Shadow, but I would not describe our situation as easier.”

“I think if anything, it merely assigns you a completely different set of problems,” Yaoyorozu says civilly. “But I cannot deny that I’d love to have even one conversation with Creation if I could.” She puts a knuckle to her chin. “Though, perhaps she would find herself derealized in the same manner as Dark Shadow. Ethereal in a physical world, that she can not only see the fundamental structure of, but has control over. Limitless creation at her command.”

“Maybe…” Midoriya says. “But if so, it would just mean we need to reach out a bit more! Try to understand them at their level. Quirks aren’t humans, and don’t need to think like us!” He focuses back on Dark Shadow. “So, you used to build cities with Tokoyami?”

“Yeah!” Dark Shadow says. “Did you ever make cities just to smash ‘em??”

MIdoriya smiles bashfully.

“I made cities… then ‘saved’ them from my mom,” he says. “I never did the smashing.”

“Aw, lame!” Dark Shadow says. “Smashing’s the best part!”

“I bet it is! But, let me ask you this,” Midoriya says. “Imagine you built up a city for smashing.”

“Done!” 

“And then imagine someone else came in, not you or Tokoyami, and smashed it instead.”

“What!” Dark Shadow says, offended. “They can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Midoriya prompts. “I mean, it was for smashing, right?”

“Because it’s supposed to be for me and Fumi! That’s our game, someone else can’t just come in and do it!”

Izuku snaps his fingers, pointing at Dark Shadow. 

“Then, it’s like that!” he says. “Maybe everything seems like a toy when you’re big, but just because they're toys doesn’t mean someone’s not gonna be sad if you knock them over!”

Fumikage questions the logic - he’s not sure believing the world to be artificial is something that should be encouraged in the first place - and yet, after a moment something does dawn on Dark Shadow, whose eyes widen and thrum with understanding.

“Oh! That kinda makes sense!” he says.

“...It does?” Fumikage asks.

“Mm-hmm!”

“That might be something to keep in mind if you can, next time you get big,” Midoriya continues. “It’ll probably be something you’ll have to practice at, like a kind of mental training. And maybe the next time we try this, you’ll be able to hear us better!”

Yaoyorozu’s face fills with terror.

“You want to try this again?!!” she cries. “You can’t even walk on your own yet!”

“I-I didn’t mean right now!” he says. “Maybe in a couple of days!”

“A couple of-”

“Excuse me?!” an old, crotchety voice yells from further down the corridor. “What are you doing out of bed??”

And with more fear in him than when he stood before a colossal Dark Shadow, Midoriya makes one token effort to run away, before Fumikage has Dark Shadow wrap around him like a blanket, carrying him back to the nurse’s room as Recovery Girl scolds him.

***

8 years later

Abyssal Guardian: Tsukuyomi

Izuku stands on the precipice of a skyscraper, 800 feet up in the air.

It is alone, in rising so high. The cluster of buildings surrounding it only goes half as tall, leaving 40 stories of empty space between Izuku and the next piece of solid ground. 40 stories below that there are empty roads, occasionally dotted by one or two pedestrians out past midnight.

He peeks over the side, straight down to the open patio at the base of the building. A slight breeze is in the air, and the cold nips at the exposed skin of his face.

He swallows.

“Is it… too late to take it back?” he asks.

Tokoyami shakes his head.

“It is never too late to wind back the clock,” he answers. “But would I prefer if a single attempt is tried before abandoning the whole notion. The time to do things like this does not come easily these days.”

“...Right,” Izuku says resignedly.

He flicks his shoulders, and his long black cape, Tsukuyomi, flutters at the motion.

Izuku’s suit is versatile; almost impossibly so. It has so many functions, so many components, that he simply can’t have all of them on him at the same time. This cape in particular, he’s struggled to make good day-to-day use of. It tends to interfere with his back and leg thrusters, Uravity and Ingenium, and while the material it’s made of can stop bullets in their tracks… he doesn’t get shot at much these days. But after talking things over with Melissa and Hatsume, they came up with some modifications: now, it’s something that will catch the wind when he’s in the air, flare out of the way of the propulsion stream, and be strong enough to glide on if he were to turn his thrusters off - half wing-suit, half parachute. Ideal case scenario, he’ll be able to really extend out the range of his suit’s flight capabilities, maybe as high as ten times!

But, he’s gotta do some testing first. Thus, the reason he’s out here now, wondering just how bad an 800 foot fall will be for his now OFA-absent body.

“M…maybe we should do this further down…,” he says hesitantly.

“I believe it was you who suggested this very building,” Tokoyami says. “‘Lots of empty space to practice maneuverability,’ was the reason you gave. Worries over immediately crashing into a nearby building were we to start lower.”

“Yeah, well, maybe the realities of just how high this is only hit me a few minutes ago!”

The corner of Tokoyami’s mouth, right where his beak meets his face, twitches the slightest bit. Izuku can’t tell if it’s annoyance or humor. Maybe both.

“Surely the winds have taken you to such meager heights as this before,” he says.

“When I could literally fly!”

“Something still within your realm of ability, thanks to your suit,” he suggests.

“It’s different with a physical suit! In order to keep everything compact, the ratings on everything mean I only get a few minutes of max thrust in the first place, and I have to keep in mind momentum and velocity in ways I never had to with Float…” Izuku shakes his head. “You guys with quirks that let you fly, you just don’t get it…”

“You will be fine,” Tokoyami says. “That is the reason I am here, is it not? To catch you if you were to fall. Do you believe me to be incapable of this?”

“N-no, of course not!” Izuku says. “But, anything can happen! What if while I’m falling, someone shines a spotlight on us and it messes with your quirk?? And then you don’t catch me, and I can’t correct myself in time and I’m falling too fast to grapple onto the buildings and then I-” 

“Midoriya,” Tokoyami says. “You are truly ridiculous. No one will shine a spotlight upon us. So, let us go ahead with this training exercise. And do hurry, because believe me when I say: I am not above pushing you off this rooftop myself.”

Izuku groans. Someone’s a little testy just because Izuku begged him to come out past midnight for an indeterminate amount of time to do a thing Izuku doesn’t want to do anymore.

Izuku takes a deep breath, then backs away from the lip of the building. He loops his hands through the handgrips on the rim of his cape and gives it a cursory flap, causing it to puff out behind him before it slowly drifts back against him.

One more breath. He’s still terrified over what’s about to happen, but there is something stronger in him than the fear: the absolute certainty that Tokoyami will catch him if anything goes wrong.

He runs forward and, with a burst from his thrusters he leaps off the skyscraper.

He sustains the propulsion for just a few seconds before cutting off his jets. He flicks his hands out to the side and the relative wind flares out his cape, hitting him so hard it feels like something collided with his chest. There’s a bit of framework in the cape to handle the stresses but even so his arms are immediately strained, and for a few tense seconds he’s worried  they’ll buckle from the effort. 

But then the turbulence stabilizes, and his arms can relax the slightest bit, and he’s just in the air now, gliding on the winds around him. 

He looks down, at the slowly passing lights of the city below, and laughs, terrified, exhilarated. 

“The skies gain a new guardian tonight, it seems.”

Tokoyami, Tsukuyomi, swoops by, spiraling around Izuku until he settles in place just above, looking down with a smile on his beak. The gray-tipped feathers on his head puff and flitter out, and his long cloak billows back wildly, painting a dark, foreboding streak into the sky as he flies. A menacing silhouette to see in the moonlit darkness, for those unaware of the kindness that resides within it. 

Curiously, it seems as if nothing in particular is holding him aloft. 

Tokoyami stays close as Izuku gently maneuvers around with tiny motions, too frightened to do anything more. The slightest angles to the side, curving around the skyscraper center in a miles-wide arc as he slowly descends. Before he gets anywhere near the other rooftops he tests his thrusters again, boosting up his vertical distance 20 feet, 50 feet, 200 feet, all the way back up, before cutting them off and starting the whole process over again. 

Tokoyami shifts to be right in front of Izuku, perfectly matching Izuku’s speed and flying backwards to face him.

“Perhaps it is time for something bolder, Midoriya?” Tokoyami says, voice loud to be heard over the noisy winds. Now that he’s up close, Izuku can see a playful twinkle in his eyes.

Izuku grimaces. 

“S-since when were you so mischievous??” 

“You forget who taught me to fly,” he says, and Izuku wonders if it’s too late to do this whole thing with Hadou instead.

Tokoyami gives him a crash course on air maneuvering: how to shift his arms and tilt his body to hit wider turns, how to pitch himself forward to start a dive without losing control, how to catch a burst of wind back up to regain the altitude. Tokoyami doesn’t technically need to care about any of this to fly, but as he explained it; ‘No matter how someone stays up in the air, they must invariably deal with the fickle winds they occupy.’ Something that completely escaped Izuku when he had One-For-All, given his brute force method of punching his way around with Float active. 

After a long lesson, his arms start to ache, and he decides it’s time to feel something solid under his feet again, and the two of them pitch down for a rooftop landing. 

As they approach, a wayward zephyr bounces off the buildings below. It slaps into one side of his cape, completely throwing off his already amateurish efforts to stay in the air. It spins him around and makes the cape twist around his body before he can do anything to correct himself, tangling him in it and wrapping him up tight. Instinctively he sparks up his thrusters, but the safety mechanisms immediately shut them off due to thick fabric blocking the outputs, and he yells out as he falls into the streets below like a brick.

He’s only in free-fall for a second, limbs flailing and smothered by his cape, before he starts to slow.

Something catches his weight, and untangles his cape and frees his limbs, and he sinks down the rest of the way like he was in water. He is set gently and safely onto a paved road, and Tokoyami lands next to him with far more grace.

“As you see,” he says, “there was never anything to worry about.”

Then, the air begins to shift.

A massive form fades into existence; one that was always there, but only now chooses to reveal itself. It blooms out from the empty space, the darkness in the air itself, in such a way it almost seems like an illusion. Like Izuku’s eyes had been looking past it the whole time, and only just now noticed it.

It’s impossible to tell how much space it truly takes up. It is large, and hulking, it’s amorphous body filling up the streets and alleyways of every nearby building as well as the air above them. It curls around every corner, slots itself into every hidden shadow, stretching both far and deep in dimensions Izuku will never fully understand. Like the dark of night itself is coming alive.

And as this creature takes shape, a singular, massive head appears next to the two of them, shaped like a crow’s, with two dazzling yellow eyes that are larger than boulders. 

He smiles, and his vast body vibrates with silent laughter.

“Thanks, Dark Shadow!” Izuku says.

The gargantuan, once wild beast brings forth a massive clawed hand, and raises a sharp thumb-up.

He’s come a long way. Even now, Dark Shadow still loses something of himself when he is completely unleashed and set free into abundant darkness, still can’t verbalize while he is vast and full. But after years of practice, years of mental training, he began to internalize the gentleness that was asked of him; and now, even when he could crumble the world around him with ease, he is serene, and patient. So very careful with all the toys around him.

And then, Tokoyami slurps Dark Shadow’s entirety back in like one long noodle, until Dark Shadow is but a small sliver of darkness.

The quirk gives a devious grin.

“Woulda been pretty funny if I just, didn’t catch you, huh!” he says. “Like, ‘ahh help me,’ SPLAT!” Dark Shadow cackles. 

“Dark Shadow!” Tokoyami chastises. 

“...Nah, you’d never let that happen, would you?” Izuku says. “You’d catch me every time.”

“You know it!” Dark Shadow says.

He gives Izuku a fist bump, and Tokoyami rolls his eyes.

“I cannot but get the impression that you trust in my quirk more than myself, Izuku.”

Izuku holds out a fist to Tokoyami too in compromise. Tokoyami raps his knuckles against Izuku’s with a smile.

“Now, let us try it again,” Tokoyami says. “But without the hand-holding this time.”

Izuku yanks his hand back, and mentally retracts the fist bump. Tokoyami doesn’t deserve it.

***

Chapter Text

There is a truth that Mezou has known his entire life: 

To help others is to sacrifice the body.

Everyone understands it when the scale is big enough. When a firefighter rushes into a burning building. When a lifeguard struggles to keep a drowning person above the water as they fight and kick. When a defender stands in the way of an attacker hoping to harm another. When life is on the line.

People understand it less when it’s smaller. When you strain your muscles to help a friend move a heavy load. When you burn your hand on a pan as you cook your neighbor a homemade meal. When you prick your finger stitching up a family member’s fraying clothes. When you hold a cat to give it medicine and it scratches you, not understanding you’re trying to make it better.

He decided long ago that he was willing to make these sacrifices. He has offered up his body to whoever needed it since he was a child, and he has never once regretted it.

But there is one kind of sacrifice he has never been able to commit to.

-

A year after the defeat of All-For-One, reconstruction efforts are still underway. Too much had been broken for easier fixes. It is another truth of this world, that it is so much easier to break things down than it is to build them back up.

He’s no construction worker, but he volunteers his time when he can to assist, especially at the more rural fringes of the prefecture. Sometimes, all he does is carry things for hours and hours, in as many arms as he can sprout. But it is yet another truth he’s learned: most work is simply moving things from one place to another. There is no shame in the mundanity. It is hero work all the same, and all who participate are, likewise, heroes.

Today, he is moving rice, in a small borough a bit out from Tokyo. 

He’s being driven around by a local. An elderly man, fingers stiff from age and labor; for decades, he has contributed his body to his town. They drive to pick up dozens of bags of freshly milled rice, loading them into the back of the wagon as the miller supervises and coughs; his lungs irritated by the years of threshing rice. They drive to the recently constructed food storehouse and Mezou unloads it all, occasionally assisted by the storehouse attendant, who limps in one bag at a time to Mezou’s ten; her leg has never been the same, after all, after a stack of crates collapsed on her as she managed the town’s food. Sacrifices, all.

When he’s unloading the last of the bags, he spots a commotion happening at the edge of the small town. Loud voices, yelling; he can’t tell over what.

He hesitates.

Tensions rile up easier these days. People are still recovering, still unsatisfied; there is no solution to that that doesn’t take years. He tries to de-escalate when he can, but he also knows that sticking his nose into people’s business when he doesn’t know all the details can be more harmful than not doing anything. A lesson that hasn’t always stuck, for a few specific members of his class. And in any case, people can solve their own issues most of the time.

The yelling increases in volume, and he decides that this isn’t one of those moments.

He swings the bags he’s carrying to the floor and sprints over, growing a few extra muscles in his legs to shave off seconds. He comes across a small crowd of townsfolk, maybe six or seven, all of them directing varying amounts of ire at three others who look to have just arrived by foot into town. Immediately, he hopes it’s not because of the obvious.

The newcomers are heteromorphs, and all of them with significant divergence. A figure made of bulbous, jellylike orbs in roughly the shape of a humanoid; a figure with wings and horns sprouting randomly and haphazardly from points on their body in useless or outright harmful ways; an inky, crimson red figure with long, wide limbs, with breaks across their body like camera glitches, zigzagged and staticky. 

And they are being told by the crowd to leave. 

Attitudes don’t change in an instant, but he expected more of the lovely people in this town.

“Excuse me,” Mezou says as he steps up, crowd on one side of him, newcomers on the other. At his presence, the crowd silences, momentarily. “What’s going on here? There’s no need for this kind of welcome.”

“These three aren’t welcome here!” one of the townsfolk exclaims, a portly, middle aged man.

He stares at the man coolly. “And why is that?”

“Because they were part of that raid on the hospital a year ago!” a different person shouts.

Mezou turns to the newcomers. That’s certainly unexpected.

“...We were,” the jelly person says, with a deep, gurgling voice. “A wave of people like us, coming together, advocating for themselves, pushing for change… How could we not join?” Thick bubbles slowly crawling up his throat and escape as wet coughs. “We didn’t… we didn’t know we were being used.”

“What change comes from attacking a hospital?!” a townsperson shouts.

“My mother was in that hospital when it was stormed!” a middle aged woman says. “She nearly died from all the stress!”

The jelly person and the winged person both wince, but the third does not, their jagged eyes focused firmly on the ground.

“...Which is why we’re here now,” the wing-horned person says, in the knobby voice of an older woman. “We are trying to assist with the reconstruction efforts. To contribute, like everyone else.” She looks to Mezou, pointing at him with a stiff, well-worn finger. “You were there, weren’t you? I remember your words. We are here because we were inspired by them.”

“Contribute somewhere else!” a third townsperson cries, and the rest of the group starts to rile up again with agreement.

“I understand your anger, but please,” Mezou says, before they really gear up. “These folks are trying to help. To reach out. It was a hard-won lesson, the value of that, was it not? Something we’re all still learning, day by day.”

He says it to the whole crowd, but a bit more directed at the woman affronted on her mother’s behalf. He’s aware of her struggles, of having to care for a mother who is in and out of a hospital too far away to easily visit. It’s hard, to move past the personal; a family member in danger speaks more to most people than a hundred unknown casualties. 

But there is one more truth he knows, that every person in this town is also familiar with.

“Besides,” Mezou continues, “Given all the work that needs to be done, can you afford to turn them down?” 

An unyielding truth. So many grievances, fortunately or unfortunately, fall away in the face of things that need to get done. Not always, and not universally, but often.

With that, the flame of the crowd sputters and dies. They’re still disgruntled, still distrusting, but, frankly; they don’t have the time to stand around being angry any longer. 

The quietest of the townsfolk group finally speaks up, a man in his 60’s.

“You know anything about animals?” he says to the woman with wings and horns.

The woman bristles at the possibly pointed question, but says anyways, “A bit.”

“Some of our ranchers got sick, fell behind on a few things,” the man continues. “Chicken coops could use some cleaning, cows need their hooves trimmed, things like that. We’d appreciate any assistance. Can give you some eggs and milk in return.”

A few of the angrier people tisk, but don’t argue any longer; that would only cause more work. The small crowd dissipates, getting back to what they were doing, as the old man begins to guide the jelly person and wing-woman towards the coops and stables.

The third person lingers with Mezou, giving him a dour look.

“Tch,” they say in a young, slightly buzzing voice, one that’s only a few years older than Mezou himself. “Stupid.”

“Me?” Mezou offers. 

“Everything. All of you. Them.” They gesture to the two heteromorphs they arrived with. “Stupid to have mentioned being in the raid. Stupid to have even come here in the first place.” His numerous eyes, freely floating in his face like they’re in water, all focus on Mezou. “They’ll never really accept us, you know.”

Mezou considers their words.

Is that really true? Does it mean anything if it is? Mezou has always thought ‘acceptance’ to be a worthy goal, but the same is not true for many others like him, for whom ‘acceptance’ is nebulous, indistinct. Insufficient. And how would they even know when they’ve reached it? When no heteromorph suffers? Is there a group in the world that has managed to achieve that?

He doesn’t know what this perfect, accepting world looks like. What he knows, are his truths.

“I can’t control whether or not anyone accepts me,” Mezou says. “But I can offer up my help regardless. I find value in that.”

“Yeah, well,” the glitch person says, “as long as we’re useful…”

The person heads off after their companions with an awkward, lumbering gait, their jagged legs unable to move perfectly straight. Making a sacrifice, despite their reluctance.

Mezou stares after them as they leave.

He wonders what they were to each other. A family, perhaps? Their apparent ages would imply a few missing pieces, if so. A found family, maybe, bonded when thousands came together a year ago. Maybe something else entirely.

Maybe he’ll find out. Maybe he’ll never see them again.

He hopes he does.

-

Mezou catches him just after a communal dinner.

“Midoriya,” he says, “can I speak to you about something?” He points a thumb at the ceiling, to his room a few floors up. “In private.”

The boy in question gives him that wide, doe-eyed stare he gives whenever he’s directly addressed. “Oh! Uh, sure?” 

He waves goodbye to his friends, and follows Mezou to his room, with the agitated tension of someone who always assumes that whenever another person wants to talk to him alone, it’s because he’s in trouble.

Mezou unrolls his futon for them to sit on in his nearly empty room, and they both sit themselves on it.

“Midoriya,” he starts. “I hear you’ve recently been helping out some of our classmates with their quirks?”

“Oh,” he says. “Oh! Y-yeah, I guess you could say that…”

“Then, perhaps you can give me some advice on mine.”

A few emotions flicker in his eyes, torn between disbelief, hesitance, and excitement; it takes a few seconds for the last one to overtake.

“...Yeah. Yeah, okay! S-sorry, I’m not used to someone actually asking for…” He shakes it off. “Alright! But, if that’s the case you should have let me know before we came, I don’t have my notebooks! And Yaoyorozu should be here too, she has really valuable insight to-”

“No offense to Yaoyorozu, but she might not… understand where I’m coming from, with the issue I have,” he says. “And if you have anything related to what we’re going to talk about in your notebooks, I’d ask that you remove it.”

That puts him on edge.

“Shouji…?”

He holds out one of his dupli-arms. Skin shifts and ripples, forming a hand, a mouth, an eye. 

“There’s a potentiality to my quirk that I’ve always been… hesitant, to discuss. Like Pandora’s Box, once the possibility is on the table, it will be impossible to put back.” He sucks back in his extra features. “Do you have an idea of what I might be talking about?”

Midoriya shifts uncomfortably.

“I’m… sure I don’t know anything like that about your quirk…”

“Is that so?” Mezou says.  “If you truly have considered our quirks as much as I’ve heard, then I find it hard to believe you haven’t logicked your way into what I’m talking about. Something that my quirk can possibly do, that I’d be reluctant to talk about.”

Midoriya swallows.

“W-well, there’s… one thing I can think of, maybe,” he says. Mezou nods for him to continue. “You… have such a versatile quirk! That you can use it to grow so many things…” He points to his own arm. “Even if all you could do was grow arms, that’d be enough to do amazing things! But you can also grow things like eyeballs! And eardrums! Those are… complicated organs.” He hesitates, fiddles with knobby fingers. “And so, I guess the next logical question is…

“What other organs can you grow?”

Mezou gives a dry laugh.

“The next logical question indeed.”

Midoriya frowns.

“...Quirks tend to follow a certain logic, but I can’t think of any set of rules that would include eyeballs and hands as parts of you that can be duplicated, but not things like kidneys and lungs. Maybe externality, they’re on the outside, but in order for them to work, your body has to make the muscles and nerves they need inside you, anyways.” He scratches at the futon, at a loss for what to do with his hands in the moment. “...The idea is a bit macabre, though, so I can understand why you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“How morbid the concept is isn’t my concern.”

“...Then what is?” Midoriya asks. “Because if that’s something you can do, I think it would be incredible! It’s probably not directly helpful for hero work, maybe you can grow multiple lungs to increase oxygen intake or something, but you could still do so much good with it! I mean, just think about all the people you could save by-”

“By donating?” Mezou finishes.

“Y-yeah, exactly!” Midoriya says. “Obviously it’d only work for people with the same blood type, but if you could grow a completely extraneous organ, it could be removed safely by surgeons and transplanted into someone else, an infinite number of times!”

“And what do you suppose would happen,” Mezou says darkly, “if the wrong person found out I could? Perhaps the same as what happened when the wrong one found Eri.”

The air fills with noxious implications.

“...O-oh,” Midoriya says, shoulders slumping from the weight of realization.

There is a grim, alternate path his life could have taken. Where this ability is discovered and fostered, and instantly abused. Where he’s bound to some dingy cot in an unknown basement, or to some thin mattress in a sterile facility, and forced open, by knife or by scalpel. Where he lays there, drugged or anesthetized, as parts of him are plundered, utterly and endlessly, like Prometheus being gorged upon by an eagle. An eternal punishment, for having the hubris to think he could help the world.

“I… guessed a long time ago that you might be able to grow other organs,” Midoriya says. “And that that kind of ability would be in high demand, but I never… reasoned it all the way out.” A thought hits him. “Wait, so, does that mean you can do it? You’re talking like it’s a definite thing.”

Mezou raises an eyebrow.

“W-wait, no, I shouldn’t have asked that! Don’t tell me, don’t tell me!” He throws his arms over his head like he’s being pelted with rocks. “I don’t wanna know, I can try to forget this whole conversation even happened! A-and I’ll get rid of all the speculations in my notes that I’ve never shown anyone, not even Yaoyorozu-”

Mezou slaps the back of his palm against Midoriya’s knee.

“Midoriya, it’s fine,” he says. “I trust you.”

He takes a deep breath, the mask around his mouth puffing in and out as he does.

“When I was a child, maybe 5 or 6, I had a… difficult moment. I’ve long forgotten what caused it, but whatever had me so upset, it caused my quirk to activate accidentally. I grew some extra heart tissue without meaning to, in a bulb just under my armpit. It interfered with my regular heart function, pumping blood in the wrong direction, and it was nearly fatal.

“There weren’t any regular doctors nearby in my small village, much less a surgeon. But, I can heal what most people can’t. My father knew this, or perhaps merely assumed as much, and so, when he connected the new growth to my episode, he grabbed a kitchen knife and cut out the pseudo-heart himself.”

Midoriya winces.

“I… guess it worked?” he says.

Mezou nods.

“Enough. I survived, anyhow.” Mezou puts his hands on his knees, lets the extensions on his arms stretch as he dips back into old memories. “The event is hazy, but I remember how scared I was. Remember the screaming, the blood. And the warnings. Even then, my parents had figured out the ramifications. It was obviously accidental, but they warned me never to do it again, or else others might…”

“Wow, Shouji,” Midoriya says. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine…”

“Oh? You can’t imagine?” Shouji reaches over and taps on the scars of Midoriya’s arms with a thick finger.

Midoriya covers the spot with his hand.

“That’s a pretty different thing…”

Mezou shrugs. “To have a body is to have trauma. I see no reason to make up arbitrary divides about it. In any case, after that event, I never had another accident, and I never attempted to do it purposefully. And when I got into UA, I told the school and all of our teachers that it is something my quirk simply could not do. So that it wouldn’t be a concern at all during my education.

“But the thing is,” Mezou says. “I probably could. With my current capabilities, I believe I could grow extra any piece of myself, and do it without much risk. Or at the very least, I’m sure I’m capable of learning. Which brings me to the reason I asked you here for your advice. To the real question I have for you.

“Should I? Develop this skill, and accept all the consequences it brings? Is it my duty, to offer up parts of myself as freely as I can make them? I need to know, from the person who was willing to give up all of his power to save everyone he could…”

Mezou stares at Midoriya with pleading eyes.

“How much of myself should I be willing to sacrifice?”

A long unanswered question. A truth he wishes he had.

Midoriya is stoic in response. Not because he is ignoring the question, but because he is considering it ferociously. How could he do otherwise, when Mezou so desperately needs saving?

The silence extends for minutes. There is nothing to look at but each other. For the first time, Mezou wishes he had a clock, so its ticking would soften the tension.

Then, Midoriya gets frustrated for a moment, before deflating completely.

“...I’m sorry Shouji, I really don’t know what to say,” he says. “Maybe I’m not the right person to ask about this. I never… I don’t really think of anything I do as giving anything up? I just, do what I need to do. What feels right. And sometimes I get hurt really badly in the process, and a lot of people get mad at me for it.”

Mezou blinks. Then laughs, in a full throated way he rarely does.

Midoriya is the most intimidating person Mezou knows. More so than All-For-One or Shigaraki ever were- still are, their absence looming over the world even as it puts itself back together. The former did everything he could to own the world, the latter everything to destroy it. But Midoriya would do anything to save it, even if it meant giving himself away, piece by piece - and he would do it thinking he never lost a thing. 

That is the difference between the two of them. Shouji willingly makes his sacrifices, but he has always understood them for what they are: sacrifices. The same cannot be said for Midoriya, who gives himself away without consideration. Lucky, that he has so many people to get mad at him.

“Then, in this moment, be that kind of person for me,” Mezou says. “What would you think, if I were to travel to the nearest hospital and offer myself up for harvesting?”

Midoirya gives it one more pained consideration.

“...I think if that’s what it feels like you’re doing,” he finally says, “then no matter how many people you help, you’ll only be miserable. And I don’t want one of my friends to be miserable.”

Mezou lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. A relief, and thus a disappointment; he wishes he had the fortitude to make the decision himself. 

He wonders if that choice would have been easier, if he looked like Midoriya, or All Might. If that meant he wouldn’t have to worry about being taken advantage of in the same way. Though, given their collective number of injuries, perhaps he’d have a different host of concerns.

“...You know, I’m reminded of something,” Midoriya continues.  “I’ve been looking into lots of different things, and one thing I came across are these… organizations. Healer’s organizations, made up of people with healing quirks, like Recovery Girl’s. And most of them aren’t even Pro-Heroes! Some are people in the medical field, but a lot of them are just, regular people with these specific kinds of quirks.

“I found out about them because of Eri, I was trying to see how I can make sure she can use her quirk on her own terms as she grows up. They offer some support and protections against this exact kind of thing. I didn’t think of it right away because… well, your quirk isn't necessarily a healing quirk, but in this specific context I think the label applies!”

Mezou furrows his brow.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“They’re pretty new!” Midoriya says. “Like, within the last year new. There’s been things like them throughout the years, but after the war a couple of big ones with specific purposes formed to make use of all the civilians that wanted to contribute to the recovery efforts.

“I really don’t know much about them right now, so I can’t say more than that. But, maybe it’s a place to start! I bet anyone in there is asking themselves the same questions, and they can probably give you better advice than I could!” His eyes grow wider, and he lifts himself up off the futon. “We can go check one out together if you’d like! Right now if you need to!”

Mezou smiles, wide enough it tugs at the fabric of his mask. He gets up along with Midoriya, and though he towers over the smaller boy, Midoriya seems to stand taller.

“Kind of late in the day for that, don’t you think?”

Midoriya catches himself, then looks out the window into a dark night.

“Right. Tomorrow then!”

“...I’d like that.”

“And, whether you decide to go through with it or not, I’ll back you up, 100 percent!”

“...Thank you, Midoriya.”

This small boy before him, packed with scars and fractures, smiles bright.

***

8 years later

Grasping Limbs: Tentacole

In his arms, Izuku carries a treasure more valuable than gold. More valuable than diamonds. More valuable than even… an unopened Limited Run Classic Era Suit All Might Figure made with fabric from the original suit!

He holds it close. A small, unassuming box, the contents of which couldn’t weigh more than a few pounds but still sit heavily against his chest. Precious, irreplaceable cargo.

Or, well. In this case, it is replaceable, but they’re on a tight time limit. After all, while Tentacole can grow a new heart relatively quickly, the procedure to remove it takes a while, and a little boy needs this one within the hour.

“Deku,” the man in question shouts, cradled against Izuku’s back in the mechanical tail inspired by Tailman. “Something coming up on your eight.”

Izuku spares a glance in that direction, but can’t see clearly through the heavy rain.

A once in a lifetime storm, they called it. An exaggeration for sure, but it’s severe regardless: power systems all over the city are having issues, trains are crowded, running behind, traffic backed up for miles.  It’s the reason he has to hand deliver this - all the usual avenues for transportation aren’t available. Just Izuku, and his suit.

“I can’t see anything!” he says, most of his focus on the city in front of him as he clumsily swings through it on Blackwhip and Cellophane inspired lines. Once, he was proficient at it; but after years of non-usage the motions are unfamiliar, a struggle. It takes all his effort to not slam into the side of a building. 

“I can’t tell who they are,” Tentacole says, “but they’re coming in fast.”

“They?”

There’s a flash of light in the darkness, and a blast of sickly green energy shoots towards them.

He tugs hard on the line they’re swinging on, forcing them up and over the blast as it streaks by. It hits a nearby window, fizzing and bubbling as it strikes, before solidifying into a thick, tough-looking crust. Something perfect for trapping others. 

They end up sailing through the air without support, and he’s not confident he can correct with another line, so he uses a different part of the suit to catch them. 

Four mechanical arms extend out from his back, snaking their way out from between his and Shouji’s bodies and launching themselves at a section of building.

They dent into the framework, gripping with metal claws and suction pads both. They crawl along the building to catch Izuku’s momentum, softening it with every step until they’ve stopped, giving him a chance to analyze the quickly incoming threat.

“Can you be more gentle!” his other passenger cries, muffled by the protective sling of one of Tentacole’s Dupli-Arms. “I’m not anywhere near young enough to handle this kind of excitement!”

Another piece of precious cargo; a veteran heart surgeon, who also had no other way to get to where she needs to go. 

“Sorry!” Izuku replies. “Something’s come up!”

More blasts of green energy, targeting the three of them, and the grasping arms of Tentacole, his suit component, shift and clamber along the building to dodge. 

Their aggressors quickly close in as they fire off a hail of new projectiles; a figure shooting them out of biological nozzles in her arms, creating slick roads of slimy green with her legs in the air to slide on, and a second figure that’s flying with jerking movements, like a bumblebee that can’t keep still, using an unclear form of locomotion. The flying man immediately darts in close as he tries to grab at Izuku and Tentacole, reaching for something unknown. He hopes it’s not the box; no one other than the three of them here should know what’s in it.

Izuku commands his Tentacole arms to move away while Tentacole himself defends them with a flurry of multi-arm punches. 

“Leave us alone!” Izuku shouts as he leaps from one building to the next on four carbon-steel limbs. “We’re on an important mission!” 

“No!” the flying man yells back petulantly as he continues to harass them, zipping to and fro to dodge Tentacole’s punches while globs of green energy splat around them.

“Who are these people?” Tentacole says in between strikes.

“Do we really have time for this??” Watabe, the heart surgeon, screeches.

“It’s not exactly our choice!” Izuku says. If it was, he’d stop to confront the two attackers directly; but they’ve got important places to be. They’ll just… have to deal with them on the way.

He does his best to keep moving, shifting between crawling on mechanical limbs and swinging on extending lines, but it’s hard to do that when they aren’t being chased, much less in the darkness of storm clouds and power outages. It means the glowing capture energy of the woman sliding after them is easy to spot, but he’s not sure how hard it would be to escape if they’re hit even once. And even so, his dodging is sluggish and slow; Tentacole is a heavy guy, holding another person of his own. His suit is powerful, but certainly not in the boundless way One-For-All once was.

He swings and crawls as best as he can forward. A line improperly anchors on a building due to the rain and he slips, letting the slime woman get a good shot at their bulk. He flicks his mechanical tail Tailman forward, sending Tentacole and Watabe flying as he blasts away the energy with Earphone Jack. The flying man dashes towards him and not Tentacole, meaning he is likely after the box, and nearly gets a hold of Izuku before Tentacle falls back down, punching hard at the man with a blossom of arms, sending him careening down into the streets below while Izuku catches him back with his tail.

“Are you heroes or a theme park ride?!” Watabe shouts. “Stop throwing me around!”

“Sorry!” Izuku repeats as he sees the slime woman catch her partner, then sling him back up with a ramp of hardened goop.

They’re hardier than expected. He wished he had the time to stop and talk to them, see why they need a heart so bad that they’d attack like this, work out how to get them one. But there is a child desperately waiting for them to arrive; he’ll deal with them afterwards.

Lightning strikes. The world is illuminated for a split second - enough that the light smothers out a glowing streak of energy aimed squarely at one of Izuku’s mechanical arms.

It hits, completely throwing off his balance. He tries to recover, but all of his practice has been with four arms, and with one disabled he can’t quite right himself. And in this moment of weakness, the flying man collides with the three of them, grabbing a firm hold onto Izuku.

“Gotcha now!” he shouts, and before they can shove him off, another blast of energy hits the three of them, melding them together under hardening green foam. 

He shifts back to swinging, but with even more weight he has little control. They wildly swing through the buildings while the flying man paws at Izuku, like he isn’t quite sure what he’s reaching for.

“Listen!” Izuku pleas. “If you really need a heart that badly, we can help you get one! But someone else really needs this one!”

The flying man sneers.

“What are you even talking about?”

“...Is that not what you’re after?” Tentacle says, a hand squishing up against the flying man’s face.

“No!” the flying man says. “We want the suit!”

There’s a beat of silence so intense it almost seems to calm the rain.

“You’re after my suit?!”

“Who wouldn’t be?!” the man says. “It’s worth a lot of money!” He grabs at Izuku’s chest piece uselessly. “Now… give it up!”

Izuku frowns.

This is truly ridiculous. 

He’s dealt with these types before. Once he unveiled his suit to the world, the world quickly had an epiphany: only one person in history could ever steal a quirk, but anyone could steal a suit. A lot of time, resources, and research went into its creation; it’d be worth an awful lot to a number of people. It was not only a gift to him, but something he was entrusted with - something to care for, and hold onto.

And he is not letting go of it anytime soon.

They’re in a bad spot right now, but Izuku still has a free arm, and their two assailants clearly hadn’t thought this far ahead, so things are nowhere near over. Now that he doesn’t have to worry so hard about the heart being stolen, he can focus more on getting to their destination, and let Tentacole deal with the man stuck to them.

Which he quickly does, trapping the man in an awkward but firm grapple.

“Is it unkind of me,” Tentacole says, muffling the man’s yells beneath a swell of hands, “that I'm glad they’re after a piece of you and not a piece of me?”

The woman follows after them on slime-green trails, firing more bright projectiles, but now that he knows what they’re after he’s not as concerned; it’s much harder to disable him completely than it is to snatch and run away with the treasure he’s holding. His movements through the city are still sloppy, still impaired, but all he needs to do is get everyone to Point B; he’d find a way to do that with half an arm if he needed to.

After another few minutes of dodging green blasts underneath the dark canopy of clouds, the no-longer-flying man futilely kicking and punching at Tentacole’s bulk, they finally see their destination; an 8-story hospital, lights on from a running generator, with a small boy on the 7th floor too sick to be moved. He fires off a few blasts of low dose Pinky acid to distract the slime woman for just a few seconds while he sets himself up for the last stretch of distance. 

He swings himself at the hospital building, cushioning the collision with his Tentacole arms, acting like shock absorbers. He gallops up the side with the crooked, stilted movements of 3 working mechanical arms and 1 disabled one, like an injured spider crawling up a water spout. He reaches the 7th floor, and silently apologizes for what he is about to do.

He slams the three of them through a window.

They land clumsily inside a waiting area, a family or two taken aback as his mech-arms walk them over the glass. Tentacole unwraps his passenger, his cape of arms having shielded them from being trapped by goop. 

Izuku holds out the small cooler.

“We’re here!” he shouts to the room.

A handful of doctors and nurses look at him with shock.

“Prepare the operating room!” Watabe shouts as she shakes herself off. At the order, the medical staff gets moving, grabbing the cooler and heading off. “I’ll be ready in five minutes once I shower off this rain water!”

She strides off, with the confidence of decades of experience.

Izuku breathes a sigh of relief. The other people in the waiting room keep staring, completely confused by what just happened.

“Ah HA!” a voice shouts from the broken window. “I’ve got… you… now?”

The slime woman, on a ramp of green crust, stands just outside the hospital, pelted by the rain. She looks around the room and, seeing nurses moving around in scrubs, finally registers where they’re at, and realizes how much trouble she could get into causing havoc here. She spots her partner, hanging uselessly against Izuku and Tentacole, all still fused together. They turn to her, ready to fight her directly now that they’ve dropped off their cargo. Ready to not hold back.

She senses the shifting tides, and raises her arms up.

“I surrender?”

-

A day later, a young boy wakes up, a new, healthy heart beating in his chest.

They couldn’t be around during the procedure itself. Too much to do. After dealing with their aggressors - two complete amateurs, looking for a big score to pay off a number of debts; since they hadn’t caused any actual harm, they were let off with a warning, after telling Izuku how to remove the goop - the two of them headed back out into the city to help whoever needed it while the storm raged on. But the next day, clouds sparsely scattered in the sky, dripping down only sprinkles of rain, they were finally able to check on things.

It had been touch and go for a while, they were told. Even with a competent surgeon, the restrictions of being on a generator while the hospital was unusually crowded from accidents caused by the storm made the whole procedure that much harder. But the boy managed to fight his way through, and is now set up to live a long, healthy life.

Before they leave, an inky, crimson looking figure hobbles over on jagged legs.

“...Thank you,” they say with a voice strained from worry. “For saving our son.”

Shouji nods. 

“And… if you know who the donor was,” the figure continues, a suspicious look on their half-a-dozen eyes, “please give their friends and family my thanks as well.”

“...We’ll make sure to do that,” Shouji says.

An anonymous donation, they had been told, by Helping Hand; a society of non-professional, mostly heteromorph healers, formed to protect the identity of those with powerful healing quirks from people that might seek to abuse them. A place where they can use their abilities safely under the guidance of others like them. A place where Shouji can give away pieces of himself, without worrying about being torn apart. Something he’s done time and time again over the past 8 years.

Though, given Shouji’s history with this person - and their husband, whom they met in the small village they live in just outside of Tokyo - maybe it’s not so anonymous this time.

They bid their goodbyes, and head off.

-

“Are you sure you don’t wanna take a break?” Izuku says as he crawls Shouji back to Helping Hand. “I know growing new hearts takes a lot out of you, and we’ve basically been working since you did it…”

“I’ll be alright,” Shouji says, “but thank you for your concern. I want to check in on a new girl the organization was told about.”

“Oh?”

“It seems like she can regenerate brain matter in others,” he says. “A powerful ability, and a dangerous one. She accidentally caused a brain tumor in her mother. Benign, luckily, but it has significantly traumatized her. I want to help her if I can.”

“...Oh, wow,” Izuku says, mind running. “Do you want me to help too…?”

Shouji chuckles.

“Perhaps there are some problems you can leave to others, Midoriya. You don’t have to solve them all.”

“...Right,” Izuku says shyly.

It took a long time for Izuku to truly appreciate having a friend like Shouji. Someone who can see the world in a grounded, pragmatic way. Who understands the risks of putting his body on the line more than anyone, and leaps into action anyway. It has never been a choice for Izuku - he can’t help but do it - but for Shouji, it is; one he makes every hour of every day.

Shouji is a true hero. That is one of the many, many truths that Izuku knows.

–

“...Huh,” Izuku says suddenly, thoughts still bouncing around his mind.

“Hm?” Shouji says.

“That brain matter girl got me thinking,” Izuku says. “You can grow extras of basically every single body part. Could you just… grow a double of basically your entire body? And then, grow a brain on top of that? Then it’s like there are two of you, and then you could split yourselves, and then each Shouji could grow another one until-”

“Hey, Izuku?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe some questions aren’t worth answering.”

***

Chapter Text

Explosions thunder from the floors above. There are violent pops and ear-splitting cracks, booms and blasts of all sorts. Something heavy collides with something else, a thousand tons of something creaks and shatters. The very walls of the building shake from a wild, pitched battle, all the way down to the sub-basements below.

And absolutely none of it is Tooru’s problem.

Your Dynamights and Shoutos do the big damage, your Red Riots and Sugarmans take the big damage, your Cellophanes and Grape Rushes do support, your Froppies and Pinkies do everything in between. But this right here? Sneaking down below while all the villains are kept busy to find the actual important stuff that everyone’s here for in the first place? That’s all Tooru, baby!

Once that whole ruckus had started upstairs, she’d been able to easily slip past the cell of PLF members to get all the way down here without being noticed. The big worry she and her friends had was being too late, that the whole building would’ve been completely ransacked of everything important by the time they arrived, but their adversaries only got just enough time to set up some quick fortifications by the entrance. They haven’t had time to look for anything yet, and luckily, they don’t know exactly where what they’re looking for is.

Neither does she, of course. Things are never that easy!

The battle upstairs has drawn pretty much everyone up there, but there are one or two stragglers down here no doubt doing exactly what she’s doing. But it’s trivial to avoid them; even if she wasn’t already impossible to see in the unlit rooms and hallways, she’s long since learned how to move silently. She just needs to find it now, before any of them do.

She rifles through a series of old, musty rooms, making sure the dust doesn’t settle too thickly on her invisible body to give it away, bending what little light there is into a focused, flashlight-like beam to see. Cabinets and drawers slide open quickly, silently, before they swing back closed, just as quiet, so carefully not even fingerprints get left behind. She makes sure not to linger or second-guess herself; she doesn’t know exactly what it’s gonna look like, but she’ll know it when she sees it, and she’s on a tight time limit.

She leaves one room and spots the two people she noticed down here on the same route as her, but a few minutes behind. Good, in that it means they haven’t found anything either, but bad in that it’s gonna be annoying to get past them once she needs to leave. She turns a corner and finds a locked door; she can’t afford not to check inside, so she presses herself as close against it as she can and pulls a small pair of lockpicks out of her mouth. They’re awfully uncomfortable to keep in there, but when she’s full-invisible, it’s about the only way she can carry anything around without having it look like it’s floating. 

Picking locks is easy, but doing it without making any noise while two lackeys are griping at each other just around the corner isn’t. They’re complaining about having to be down here loud enough she can set all the pins, but she waits on turning the tension bar to open the door fully. Once click that’s just a bit too loud and everything goes to heck. 

She waits there, utterly still in an agonizing limbo, for what seems like hours, arms rigid with tension, until she hears a loud thud from whatever her two new friends are doing. She twists at the same time, gets the door officially open, then pushes it open so slowly the old, creaky door doesn’t make a noise. 

It takes her a full minute just to get it open enough to slip inside, another minute to get it closed. She’s proud of herself for the caution; she’s not the most patient gal around, and it took a lot of work to learn how to take things slow.

She ends up in a room that looks more like a storage closet than all the other storage-closet-esque rooms, so she’s got high hopes for it. It’s small, but it’s crammed full of filing cabinets, old boxes with papers spilling out of it, even an old computer set on a tiny desk covered with even more papers. Everything’s coated in a thick layer of dust, and she holds a hand over her nose and mouth to keep from breathing it in as she carefully shuffles through everything. 

And finally, in a cardboard box jammed into a corner and tucked under three others, she finds it.

She pulls out a small framework of metal, a box with multiple shelves about the size of a toaster. A rack of harddrives. She pulls one out, checks the serial number, and it matches one of the ones she memorized. 

Score!

An old cache of Dr. Garaki’s research. On All-For-One, on quirk duplication, quirk transfers, noumus. Most of his research got destroyed or seized when Shigaraki messed up Jaku City, so unless he has even more secret caches out in the world - and let’s be honest, he probably does - this might be all that’s left out in the world. The data in here is stuff that could be really bad if this exact group of Villains manage to get their hands on it, start up all the same experiments that ended when Garaki was taken in. 

She picks it up. It’s even got a nice little handle on top for easy carrying. 

The door clicks open behind her. 

She spins in place and goes still, hiding the rack behind her. 

The two men from earlier rush into the room with flashlights, in a hurry more because of the battle upstairs than anything else; a tall, sharp-looking one and a shorter, thinner one with a huge, wide nose.

They both narrow their eyes.

“Why is that metal thing floating??” Sharp Man says.

Dang it .

“Hey, someone’s in here!” Wide Nose yells.

“No there isn’t!” she says, picking up and throwing an old stapler at Sharp Man.

It hits him right in the temple and he rears back, and she tries to rush forward to move past them. But before she take two steps, Wide Nose presses a thumb against one nostril and snorts something out of the other.

She raises an arm to block, and a thick, purple glob splats onto it, bits of which splash onto her face. 

She lowers her arm. She stares at the gunk for an endless second.

“....EEEWWW! EW EW EW EW EW!” She vigorously flaps her hand to get it off, but it’s stuck on her better than glue and all she manages to do is flick specks of it onto other parts of her oh god oh god.

She flings the harddrive rack at Wide Nose.

It hits him hard, and he stumbles back and trips, falling to the ground, and he’s so surprised he doesn’t have the wherewithal to hold onto it. The other guy is just as surprised, and using that she dashes past them, scooping the rack back up by the handle as she sprints down the corridor she came through earlier. 

They recover and chase after her, and between the floating rack and the gloop of snot on her ew ew ew they can see her easily so she doesn’t bother with stealth. She hears the noise of hocking and snorting behind her and feels more fear than she’s ever felt before, and she haphazardly darts from side to side as more purple snot rockets fly past her. If even one more drop of that gunk touches her her whole life is over. 

She scrambles back up to the first floor, dodging loogies all the while. The battle is still going on up here, members of her class in a smear of amorphous fights with a number of others, and she runs past, ignoring it all. No one fighting pays her any mind, but her two pursuers stay on her, trying and failing to rally others to go after her too. 

She gets outside, bright sunlight shining down on her, and she stops running, setting the rack down by her feet.

Her two followers stop with her, Wide Nose cocked and ready with a finger on his nostril, the other with arms full of newly grown razor-like ridges. 

Tooru does good work in the darkness, when what little evidence she leaves behind in the world is even harder to see; but it’s not when her quirk is at its best. It’s here, under the bright white light of the sun, that she truly shines. 

Before Wide-Nose can shoot another glob, before Sharp-Man can step forward, she bends the ample sunlight forward in a blinding flash.

They cringe back from the flash, and it’s basically over after that. She’s not the best martial artist in the class - that honor goes to her boy Ojiro - but she’s got more than enough tricks to deal with these guys. She attacks them between periodic flashes to keep them stunned, making sure to keep careful around Sharp-Man’s sharp arms, and soon she’s got both of them groaning on the ground.

“Package secured!” she shouts, hoping one of their super hearers catches it. 

The sounds of battle amp up. She stares back towards the building, and pushes back a puff of hair that was tickling at her eyelashes.

And then notices something on her arm. 

She holds it out in front of her.

In between a stretch of thin purple, something pokes up through. A very small bump.

A mole. She never realized she had one there.

She presses a finger into it, jostles it slightly. It makes a small squelch from the goop.

Which reminds her of just where all the stuff came from, and she retches into a nearby bush.

-

Tooru goes after Yaomomo just as she heads to her room. 

‘Stalks’ might be a more appropriate word; it’s hard for Tooru to avoid the impulse. She strides after her friend unnoticed until Yaomomo gets to her door, then taps the other girl on the shoulder to get her attention.

Yaomomo jumps, and spins around in shock.

“Oh! Hagakure, you frightened me!”

“Gotta keep you on your toes, Yaomomo!” Tooru says happily.

Yaomomo gives a small laugh.

“Did you need something?” she asks.

“Yeah!” she says. “I hear you’ve been helping people out with their quirks! That true?”

Yaomomo’s face scrunches with a strange frustration. 

“...Yes, I suppose it is,” she says. “But admittedly, I’ve run into a number of difficulties regarding that.” She finds where Hagakure’s eyes would be; or, her best approximation, anyways. “You… have an issue with your quirk?”

“I guess you could say that,” Tooru says. “There’s a couple things I wanna figure out, and since you’re in the business of helping out now, I thought I’d ask!”

A bit of hesitance flickers through her, which is weird because as far as Tooru knows this whole thing was Yaomomo’s idea in the first place. But she moves past it with a small nod.

“...Very well. I’ll do my best to help you, Hagakure,” she says, heart not all the way in it. “If you’ve got some free time tomorrow, Midoriya and I could meet with you, see what we can-”

“Hold up on that!” Tooru says, arms in an X in front of her. Not that Yaomomo can tell. “I’m just asking you, not Midoriya!”

“...Why?” Yaomomo says. “I assure you, his thoughts are worthwhile. Often more so than my own…”

“Because I want a specific thing, and he can’t be there!” Tooru says, and Yaomomo looks at her curiously. “Look, by now I’ve got a couple of pictures of my face. Before Aoyama left, we spent a couple of days blasting me with lasers and taking a bunch. But I only realized recently that… that I don’t know much about the rest of me. And I wanna know. I wanna see what all of me looks like!” She puts her hands on her hips. “So yeah, I don’t want Midoriya or any boy around for that!”

“Oh! I see,” Yaomomo says. 

“Right!” Tooru says. “So I figure, maybe we can blast me with similar kinds of lasers? Overload me, put me in front of a mirror or camera or whatever? I dunno what’s best!” She exaggerates a pose to point at Yaomomo. “S’why I’m asking you!”

“I suppose we could try something like that…,” Yaomomo says. “I would still suggest we talk a few things through with Midoriya, however. The actual testing we can do without him, but I truly believe we would benefit from brainstorming with him.”

“Ugh, fine,” Tooru says. “He’s not gonna be weird about any of this, is he?”

Yaomomo stares at her seriously.

“Define weird.”

-

They all exchange greetings as Midoriya joins them at the table, setting down a stack of books and notebooks in front of himself. They join the stack that Yaomomo brought, and altogether it’s far too many books to be involved in all this. She’s here to get things done, not to study anything!

“So, Yaoyorozu said you needed help with something specific, but she didn’t say what,” Midoriya says.

“The subject in question is a little… sensitive, let’s say,” Yaomomo says.

“O-oh,” Midoriya says awkwardly. “Is it… about your suit?”

“My suit?” Tooru asks.

“Y-yeah,” he says, face red and eyes firmly pointed away from her. “I know that’s a big problem you have, your lack of… protection.”

“Oh! I guess that’s kind of an issue,” she admits. “The support team says they’re working on it, but they’ve been saying that for three years now! You don’t know how many skin samples they’ve gotten from me by now…”

“They haven’t made any progress?”

“Don’t think so!” Tooru says. “Something about how ‘making and designing something with invisible material is incredibly hard.’ Excuses!” She shakes her head. “But no, not what I needed help with!”

“I see…,” Midoriya says. “Then, what do you need?”

“Hagakure is interested in… getting a firmer look at herself,” Yaomomo says, keeping it just cryptic enough. “So the hope is we can come up with something that can do that.”

“Gotcha,” Midoriya says. “If I’m not mistaken, the only times you’ve been able to ‘show’ yourself was after bending a laser quirk. I remember when you blocked Aoyama’s laser from hitting me, after…” He doesn’t continue the thought, but she remembers the event clearly enough.

“Y-yeah,” she says, embarrassed from realizing that Midoriya was one of the first people to know what she looked like. “Aoyama helped me out a few times after that, but since he left I haven’t really been able to replicate the effect. Regular light doesn’t overload me like that!”

“A lot of ‘laser’ quirks do seem to work differently than a standard laser,” he says. “Aoyama’s laser is light, but it’s also a beam of concussive force, and we don’t have a solid understanding of how that functions yet…”

“You know,” Yaomomo says, “I’ve read some interesting theories that postulate a whole new set of elementary particles and fields that mediate the force interactions for exactly such phenomena. It’s all hypothetical, and currently there’s no way to prove it, but perhaps one day there will be! Much like how the Higgs Field was theorized long before it’s corresponding particle ever-”

“So, does that mean we gotta find someone else who can shoot lasers?” Tooru interrupts. If they wanna talk about sciencey stuff, they can do that later! “Do we know anyone who can do that?”

“Not off the top of my head,” Midoriya says. “I suppose we can ask the other classes, see if anyone fits the bill…”

“Well, there might be other ways to trigger the destabilization,” Yaomomo says. “The technology for replicating concussive laser force is still rudimentary, but I can’t see why a powerful enough standard laser, or perhaps many of them in a large array, can’t also overload her through sheer brute force light energy.”

“Maybe…,” Midoriya says. “It could depend on exactly how her invisibility works.” He turns to address Tooru. “Do you know how it works?”

“Whatcha mean?”

“Well, by now we know it’s a heteromorph quirk, right?” Midoriya says. “Because Aizawa-sensei could never cancel it with Erasure. 

“Sure,” she answers. 

“So, we know it’s an inherent property of your biology, and not some quirk emission. Something that’s true about your cells even when they die, otherwise you’d just be covered in a thin, visible film of dead skin all the time.”

“Ew.”

“But it also can’t just be simple transparency,” he continues, “because that would look pretty different from what you look like now.”

“‘Cuz you can’t see when I eat food, right?” she says with a suffering but amused tone. “Everyone’s aaalways confused about that. Why do people wanna see a girl digest so bad??”

His cheeks brighten with a pop of red.

“I, I don’t want to see anything!” he says. “It’s just a natural conclusion to make!”

“Uh huh…”

“It does imply some other effect,” Yaomomo says. “Once something has entered your body, it becomes equally as transparent, even before it’s been broken down by any digestive process. That suggests a kind of holistic process that allows light to pass through not just the cells of your body, but all of its… internals.”

Tooru turns warm and shakes her head. “See, people are always so interested in my internals…” she mumbles.

“What if all of Tooru’s cells,” Yaomomo proposes, “or even just those of her skin, have an adjustable electromagnetic permittivity and permeability, that by default lets the visible spectrum of light through. And maybe her body involuntarily adjusts that permittivity so that light bends around her interior, until it comes out the other end in the same shape it came in. That might cause the effects we see.”

“I dunno, to have that work from any angle you look at her, no matter how she positions herself?” Midoriya says. “And that would still leave an issue with her eyes.”

“My eyes?” Tooru says.

“Your eyes still work, and that requires light to be changed in some way that would be noticeable. The lenses of your eyes still need to bend incoming light - and to an observer, it’d look kind of like two floating contact lenses hanging in the air - and there’d be a dim, partial sphere behind that as your retina absorbs some light. Since that doesn’t happen, something else is going on!” Midoriya rubs at his chin. “I always figured there was some complicated absorption-reemission process. Like, maybe you absorb all light that hits you, including at your eyes, then perfectly emit it in exactly the same phase and configuration on the opposite side…” He sighs. “But I think that violates a bunch of principles of quantum electrodynamics…”

“Ah, but you’re assuming her eyes work exactly the same as ours!” Yaoyorozu counters. “If the cells of her eyes had the same adjustable refraction effect I described before, she could replicate the function of lens cortices in a much subtler way. Not only that, the retina only absorbs a small fraction of the light that passes through it in the first place; if Hagakure’s were efficient enough, perhaps she absorbs so little light that it wouldn’t be noticeable by normal human perception.”

“Oh wow, that’s such a cool theory!” Midoriya says. “And if it does work like that, since light can hit her retina from all directions, maybe with enough training she might be able to see and focus in any direction she wants-”

“Uh, guys?” Tooru interrupts again. “I’m glad you’re interested, and I’m sorry that I definitely don’t know if any of that is true, but does any of that change if you can shoot a bunch of lasers at me?”

“...Ah, apologies,” Yaomomo says. “Honestly, it’s hard to know for sure. If your quirk has a absorption-reemission element, bombarding you with as much concentrated light energy as possible could ‘strain’ that, given that it has to fluctuate so wildly between energy levels. Otherwise, you’d have to strain yourself more with voluntary refraction, and it might not be enough without a concussive effect causing that extra energy interaction.”

“So, we’re back to looking for somebody?”

“...Do you need to do any of that?” Midoriya says hesitantly. “I mean, maybe I misunderstand exactly what you want, but if you just wanna know what you look like, your… shape I guess, you can do lots of things to see that. I mean, you could cover yourself up with paint, or makeup, or something like that…”

Tooru clicks her tongue. “I’ve tried that before! It’s not… it isn’t the same, okay?”

“...Well, what about something like ultrasound? Or even MRI imaging? Those technologies don’t use light to capture images, so they’d be able to ‘see’ you, and with a pretty high level of precision!”

“It’s not about precision!” she says. “I just wanna look in a mirror and go, ‘hey that’s me!’ Is that so much to ask?”

He shrinks back.

“Ah… sorry, Hagakure. I didn’t mean to shut you down or anything…”

She purses her lips, then sighs.

“It’s fine, Midoriya. It’s just, I’ve done all that! But getting messed up by Aoyama’s laser was the first time I got a real peek at myself, and I wanna keep going with that, y’know?”

He clearly has something to say, but he puts it aside and nods.

“...How about this,” Yaomomo says diplomatically. “Tooru and I will go ahead with the laser array. I think that might be easier for us to find at UA than a specific kind of quirk, given what I’ve seen in the support labs. And in the meantime, if Midoriya is willing, perhaps he can ask around to see if someone has a laser-like quirk that could work for us?”

“Sounds good to me!” Tooru says.

“...Okay,” Midoriya says. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is!” she says. “Let’s do this!”

-

Turns out the support classes have not one, but two high-powered 3-dimensional laser arrays! ‘Yeah you can use ‘em, they’ve just been sitting there!’ one of the upperclassmen said. 

They only need the one, and Yaomomo gets it all set up for an hour of testing late in the day. She leads Tooru to a large workroom where an ominous set of machinery stands in the middle. There are 6 large, square panels, arranged in something like a cube; 4 of them connected as a floor, a ceiling, and two adjacent walls, with the last two walls separate and further out, opening up the cube. The ceiling and two joined walls are all made of dark silver and black metal, ridged with dozens of shelves of what look like tiny lenses, while the panels on the opposite, corresponding sides are pure obsidian, so dark it’s almost unsettling. Like, a billion wires are coming out the back of everything.

“All you need to do,” Yaomomo says, wiping her hands on a towel, “is stand in the center.” She points to the deep black floor panel. “I’ll turn on all the lasers, and they’ll fire across to the absorbing panels.” She points to the separated walls. “Going through you on their way. It’s possible that the light by itself may be enough, but if it isn’t you can start refracting to ‘strain’ your quirk. You can point the resulting beam at any of the absorbing panels, though the one you’ll be standing on might be the easiest to focus on.”

“Got it,” Tooru says, taking off her clothes and moving to stand in the center. It’s only then she sees the two mirrors, diagonally to the left and right, out of the way of the lasers’ paths.

She makes a point of refracting a bit of fluorescent light at the mirror, bouncing a beam off of it. 

Yaomomo takes notice.

“I… also have some cameras set up, if you’d like pictures? Given your nudity, I know it’s an embarrassing thought, but…”

“I probably should…,” Tooru says, however bashful the notion makes her. “They’re not gonna be uploaded anywhere are they??”

“No, the storage is all local.”

Tooru nods, and shakes her shoulders, kicks out her legs, stretching out her muscles.

She sees Yaomomo grab some kind of remote switch, then put on a pair of thick, shaded goggles.

“What’s with those?” she says.

“The power of those lasers can quite easily cause blindness.” She taps at the rims. “Safety first!”

Hm. Maybe Tooru should’ve asked more questions about all this.

Well. She supposes none of the lasers are technically pointed at her eyes. They’re coming from above, from behind, and from her right side instead; that means it’s safe, right? Though, if a blinding laser goes through her head and hits her eyes from behind, how does that-

“Let’s begin!” Yaoyorozu says, and clicks a button.

The machine boots up with a menacing hum. The hum gets louder, and louder, then stalls, and at the thirty second mark all the lasers flick on with a buzz.

She tenses, eyes squeezed shut as hundreds of lasers bombard her.

She stays like that for a few seconds, as if waiting for a physical reaction, but feels nothing. She peeks one eye open, glancing down.

A dense latticework of hazy green beams criss-cross around her body; though, weirdly enough, none of them seem to go through her. Cutting off as they enter, continuing on on the other side of her. She moves her arms up and down, intercepting new lines of light, slicing the beams in two where they travel through her. And while there is no overloading, it does give her a kind of reverse form of visibility, her shape more noticeable from the negative space. It’s not exactly what she wanted, though.

“How come I can’t see the lasers inside of me?” she asks.

“The beam of a standard laser is only visible when it hits particulates in the air,” Yaoyorozu answers, “scattering the light in different directions. Once you start refracting them, they’ll probably be more visible as stray photons bounce around.”

“...Gotcha,” Tooru says. “Guess I better start.”

She takes a deep breath, and focuses.

She’d never be able to explain the way it feels to someone else. The closest she can manage is something like… threads. When light is all focused in a laser, and it hits her, she can tug on it, move it through her body like a line of thread. It’s not painful in any way, but it’s certainly not comfortable; like having a stitch, that she can move through herself.. Sunlight, she likes better; so much light coming from every direction that it’s more like a whole blanket falling on her, that she can throw around however she wants. 

So, she grabs at all the lasers like they were hundreds of strung up lines of yarn, tangling them all up so she can start moving them down.

It’s harder than it looks. She has to flex all kinds of muscles she’s not even sure she has, her hands braced against the core of her stomach to act as a pivot for everything. She doesn’t actually need her hands to do it, but it feels right to focus around them, and as she does, the lasers start to flicker in her body, then bend. 

Instead of coming out the other side of her, they twist around her core, as if reflecting off of mirrors. Each individual beam rotates, almost kaleidoscopically, like a light show at a rave, until they all neatly converge into a single, bright line pointed directly between her feet. 

And she strains to hold it all in place, every muscle in her body rigid.

“Good job, Hagakure!” Yaomomo says. “Keep at it!”

Tooru manages a nod, even if her companion can’t see it. 

She holds the beams downward, for a minute, for two. She’s done light refraction training before, but it’s always been quick, and intermittent. This is the first time she’s had to sustain it for any length of time. And even though these lasers don’t hit like Aoyama’s, the longer she bends them, the hotter she starts to feel; like someone turned a space heater on and is blasting it right toward her.

But after another minute or two, her body itself starts to flicker.

“Hagakure! Your body’s reacting!”

She clenches harder. Her eyes are focused on where the beams converge, down at her stomach, and suddenly a rainbow shimmer reveals an outline, like looking at a glass sculpture. She keeps at it for more agonizing minutes, and she does, her body slowly starts to gain opacity.

Until, after who knows how long, the light in her stomach starts to blur. Like something is blocking it. 

She flicks her eyes towards a mirror.

And sees a ghost. 

It’s her. It’s her, but slightly see through, like a hologram. But it’s undoubtedly her, in a way she never gets to see herself day-to-day. Pale-pink skin, shimmering, yellow-green hair in a cascade of feather-like curls, thick lashes over teal-gold eyes. 

And though she’s happy to see it, none of that is new to her. Not anymore. 

But before she can keep looking, the image falters, body fading away as her concentration shifts.

“Dang it!” she says, before focusing back on the beam. 

It takes another intense minute of bending until she gets more solid, and she gazes back at the mirror, trying to scan for new details. It’s a bit tough to see through the shine of the lasers, but she does her best; moves down the slope of her neck to her arms, memorizing the almost imperceptible details on her skin. The mole from before, the gooseflesh on her arms, the contour of her muscles as they flex. The image fades again, and with an irritated grunt she shifts back to the beam, focusing on it until she solidifies once more.

The pattern repeats. She glances up at the mirror, takes in the curve of her chest, the pink pigmentation of her nipples, the dotted flesh around them; all the stuff people obsess over but that she’s never gotten to see on herself. The image fades, and she returns to the laser.

Her rigid abdomen, a few hard lines poking up through the bit of softness she has in her belly. Laser.

She turns to see the harsh protrusion of her shoulder blades, the curve of her spine. Laser.

She scans over the curve of her hips, the meat of her butt. Laser.

Her muscled thighs, laser.

The fuzz on her legs, laser.

The fuzz in between, laser.

The wrinkles of her knees, laser. Her ankles, laser. Her toes, laser. Laser, laser, laser laser laser LASER.

She’s getting sick of having to hold it. Of seeing herself in two second glances. Straining so hard, sweat dripping off her body from the exertion and patting onto the soft flooring, for something so temporary. Maybe she just needs to go at it harder. Really destabilize her quirk, for longer than just a moment.

She bends the light even more, compressing it, the thick, layered beam turning thin, like it’s been shoved through a funnel.

“Um, Hagakure?” she hears. “Maybe we should take a break?”

Tooru ignores her. Keeps the beam down. Every inch of her body feels blazing hot, like she’s been placed in a sauna, but all that means is it’s working, right? After all, the whole point of this is to overload her body. 

More peeks, more glances. The angle of her jaw, the ridges of her ears. The nub of her bellybutton, the creases where her legs meet her torso. The lines of her palms, the edges of her toenails. The dimples on her thighs, the heels of her feet. Assembling a picture of herself in her mind, one piece at a time.

Vaguely, she thinks she hears something from Yaoyorozu, but she pays it no mind. She shifts back and forth, mirror to laser, mirror to laser, as her skin gets hotter and hotter. The lights of the room flicker suddenly. Or, is that her vision?

She needs to focus more. Squeeze the beam, make herself more and more solid until nothing left is see-through-

The lasers shut off all at once.

She flinches from the change. Like all the threads got suddenly yanked out of her. The haze of her body lingers for a few seconds longer, before fading back to invisibility.

Tooru turns angrily to Yaomomo, who has rushed up close. 

“Why did you stop it?!” she cries. “I didn’t tell you to stop it!”

“Hagakure, you were shaking!” Yaomomo says, nearly in a panic.

Tooru looks down at her hands.

And sees nothing. As always.

But now that Yaomomo’s pointed it out, she feels it. Her hands shivering like she’s in blistering cold, even though she feels like she’s melting from heat. She follows the tremors up her arms, through her torso, all the way down her legs, her entire body vibrating from her efforts.

Yaomomo reaches out, finds Tooru’s shoulders, and squeezes them gently to comfort her.

“That… that doesn’t matter!” Tooru says, her voice shaky too. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t done…”

“...Okay, but let’s take a breather, why don’t we?” Yaomomo suggests. “Rest for a bit, then we can-”

“I don’t want to rest!” Tooru shouts. “What I want is to not have to use a big dumb machine to see myself! To be able to put on cute makeup and not have it look like a floating clown face! To have people know what I’m feeling without having to tell them!” She shoves Yaomomo’s hands off her shoulders. “To not have to bother with any of this!!”

She pushes past Yaomomo, who flounders to stop her, hands grasping in the air.

Tooru storms off to a corner of the workroom and huffily sits against the wall, curling into herself. Legs up, arms wrapped around them, head tucked against her knees. Yaomomo spins around the room, looking distraught as she tries and fails to find where Tooru went. Something Tooru can clearly see, even though her arms and legs are in front of her eyes. She closes them, thankful that however her quirk works, her eyelids still do their job.

It takes a couple of minutes until Yaomomo properly heads her way. Footsteps move closer, stopping a few feet away, and when Tooru looks back up Yaomomo has a different pair of goggles on, with lenses that poke out, like those ones that can see in the dark. Whatever they are, they let her know exactly where Tooru is, and she leans against the wall and slides down next to Tooru.

“I’m sorry, Hagakure,” she says quietly. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize your invisibility weighed on you so much.”

Tooru clenches her fists, curls her toes.

“...It didn’t used to,” she says with a sniff. “When I was little, it bugged my parents way more than me. They’re the ones who tried everything, covering me in paint, getting scans and all that… I never cared. It was just how I was, I never knew anything else.

“But now I do,” she says with a warble. “I know there’s something to see now! That I’ve got colors and patterns and textures and everything! They’ve just always been there, and I never got to see them my whole life, and I can only see them now by doing a whole bunch of work and it’s just…”

She hugs her legs closer.

“I wish I had never even seen myself in the first place.”

It’s been haunting her, ever since it happened. Images of her face in the corner of her vision, whenever she passes by mirrors, windows, stretches of shiny metal. Like if she turned her head fast enough, she could catch her reflection, where it’s been waiting for her all this time. Like it should be there in the first place. It’s an expectation she never used to have, before.

It had been easier when she had no other choice. The same way a shorter person will have to stretch to get something, or find a stool to step on, or outright ask for help, being invisible required extra work: she had to make herself brighter, louder, more emphasized. It was the only option she had, and so, she did it.

But now her phantom hovers at her periphery; a possibility she can’t quite grasp. Most days, she can keep it from bothering her too much, but this is the closest she’s ever come to grabbing onto it. She feels all the worse for it.

“I’m so sorry, Hagakure,” Yaomomo says again. “I… I wish I knew what to say. It’s becoming increasingly clear this whole endeavor may not be for me. All I ever seem to do is upset my friends, then lack the words to properly comfort them. First Kyouka, then Kaminari, then that whole disaster with Tokoyami, and now you…” She pulls her goggles off and tosses them off to the side. “It’s why I thought it best to bring Midoriya into this in the first place. He has a knack for assuaging others that I simply lack.”

Yaomomo goes to rub her eyes, but catches herself, pulling her hand away when she notices she’s got something on her fingers. Some kind of residue.

Now that she’s looking, Tooru notices bits of it all over. Splotches on her arms, specks of it all over her work clothes, a smear or two on her face. Ponytail in disarray, a light sheen of sweat on her skin, the start of blisters on her fingertips.

Tooru glances back at the machine.

It only just occurs to her she never saw the ‘before’ of it. The support classes built all the parts, but that doesn’t mean it’s just been waiting here all ready to go. There’s an awful lot of wires and cables after all, and Tooru doubts it’d all work just fine if they weren’t exactly right. And they did start pretty late in the day; maybe Yaomomo, unlike Tooru, was actually doing something with that time.

She reaches over, pulls Yaomomo’s hand into hers. A physical tether for her to feel. 

“...It’s okay, Yaomomo. Thank you for setting this all up. I really do appreciate it. It’s just… hard. That I have to do so much just to see myself the same way everyone gets to.”

Yaomomo squeezes her hand. 

They linger like that, hand in hand, the silence comfortable enough to soothe them both. Even if neither of them have the right words, they do have this.

After a bit, though, Yaomomo finds something to say.

“...You know, in a sense, no one can see themselves,” she starts. “When we look into a mirror, the image is flipped. Not from left to right like most people think, but from front to back; either way, the image we see inside is not what others see when they look at us.

“Even cameras are insufficient. Planes of chemicals or semiconductors that react to a section of light, recording it through chemical or electrical reactions. Processed through even more substances, algorithms, filters, in an endless pursuit of approximation. Because our eyes cannot point towards ourselves, our view of ourselves will never match another’s.”

She sighs.

“But that’s all academic. I doubt there is any true empathy to be gained from such sophistry. You have a problem I cannot relate to, and yet, I wish I could. Then I would know better what to say.”

Tooru turns her head to look at Yaomomo, cheek against her knees, and sends her an unseen smile.

It’s actually kinda refreshing, for someone to just come out and say they can’t really understand. To hear someone say they want to understand.

Maybe no one else ever will. Her parents aren’t fully invisible like her, and there’s no guarantee any kids she has will be either. There is no other Invisible Girl in the world; at least, not that she knows of. But, there is also no other Yaomomo in the world, and Tooru is more glad than ever that she gets to know her.

“...What if you just did like, two mirrors?” Tooru says. “One in front and one behind, and you just look through both.”

There’s a beat of silence as Yaomomo parses her words.

She snorts.

“Very clever. In that configuration, no, but if you put two mirrors at a 90 degree angle and look towards the center, I believe the planes would line up to show you a ‘true’ reflection.” She turns her head to mirror Tooru’s. “Well done Tooru, you’ve solved the philosophical quandary.”

She hoots and raises her hand in triumph, bringing up Yaomomo’s with her.

“This philosophy junk is easy!

Yaomomo laughs, then turns contemplative.

“Reflections of reflections, best approximations…” she mumbles offhandedly. She chews on her thoughts for a long while.

“You know, Hagakure,” she eventually says, “you’re already more than capable of casually refracting ambient light. Perhaps with enough practice, you can bend it to shine from the contours of your skin; thus, giving yourself a visible shape.”

“...Really?”

“I can’t see why not,” Yaomomo says. “I don’t think you’d look like what we see when your quirk is specifically overloaded, this… ‘real’ self that is hidden away. Not unless you can bend light to perfectly mimic the look of skin and hair pigments. Instead I imagine you would appear as… a light-up version of yourself. A rough approximation. Maybe that’s not exactly what you’re looking for, and you’d have to be always focusing on it, but…” She pats at the bag of Tooru’s palm with her free hand. “It would let others see you. Your joy, your frustration, your sadness. Does... that sound like something worthwhile to work towards?”

Tooru tries to imagine it. Walking around like a human christmas tree, brightly lit up, all her features visible but slightly blurred by the shining light. 

“I dunno…,” she says. “That sounds… better than now, but I wish I could just show everyone the real me, whenever I wanted.”

“...Well, we can absolutely keep searching for a way to do that too,” Yaomomo says. “But I will say, there’s no reason that version of you has to be the only real one. Whether you are invisible, slightly visible, or fully visible… they are each as real as any other.” She lets go of Tooru’s hand and pokes at Tooru’s nose. A really good guess, or she’s been keeping track of how Tooru’s been sitting somehow. “All different faces of you, my wonderful friend.”

Tooru bursts into tears.

“Yaomomooo you’re a wonderful friend too I love you so much!” she says, launching into her friend with a big hug.

Yaomomo scrambles to adjust to the sudden change, taking a few seconds to find the right spots to put her hands, but then pulls her in fully, squeezing hard.

“I love you too, Tooru.”

***

8 Years Later

Lightwave Dispersion - Invisible Girl

As more and more years pass, Momo spends less and less time out in the field.

She thought she would mind that more.

She’s always had a more reasonable expectation for hero work than most of her friends, but even so; fantasies of rushing into burning buildings, of standing against dastardly villains, were a part of her childhood as much as any other hero hopeful. 

But any danger or disaster that someone has to rush to implies a failure that happened long before. It is always, always better to address those failures first, before it ever culminates into catastrophe. So as Ochako spends more time at her counseling centers, as Midoriya spends most of his day enlightening his students, Momo spends most of hers in laboratories, assisting her many teams in helping out thousands, if not millions. 

Or, occasionally, doing something much less grandiose: a favor for a friend.

Bakugou was the driver of the project, Melissa and Hatsume the designers and engineers, but Momo financed a significant portion of Midoriya’s suit and oversaw much of its development. It entailed quite a bit of research from every one of their quirks, often at a cellular level - the atomic matrix of her quirk’s generative processes leading directly towards the structurable nanomachines named after it - but there is one component she had a direct hand in creating.

Invisible Girl, Izuku decided to call it, to its namesake’s chagrin. 

A resin designed to shield him from sources of heat, whether it be from combustion, thermal radiation, or any quirk that resembles the two. Not much of a facsimile of what it’s named after, but there is no technology that can replicate all that Hagakure can do. Midoriya must live with rough approximations. 

With this new version of the resin, however - Invisible Girl Mk. 2 - perhaps he’ll have a couple of similar tricks.

It does require her to remove the old resin to apply this new one. For now, she’s only doing it to the array of nanomachines, designated Creati, a process which takes quite a bit of time and requires a lot of specialized machines that-

She hears a noise, and she looks up from her work.

She sees nothing. She’s alone in her workstation.

…Right?

“UGH, I can't believe these boys I have to work with sometimes!”

Momo jolts only slightly from the sudden words; a bit better on her toes than she once was.

“...Hagakure?” she says, more rhetorical than not.

“Who else would it be?” Momo hears, as a chair pulls out from a desk to point towards her. “So, there we were: me, Dynamight, Jack Mantis. We go into this compound, a guy and his friends started up this pyramid scheme cult or whatever, but one of them quirk-brainwashed a bunch of randoms to get it all going-”

She can’t quite tell, but Momo gets the impression Hagakure is moving her arms a lot, so she speaks up. “Hagakure, if you mean to be gesturing to me, I can’t see it.”

“Oh, right!” Momo hears Hagakure clap her hands together. “Visible Girl, activate!”

And Hagakure appears.

She pops in all at once, like a lightbulb. A pale, mellow glow follows the contour of her body, with a haze to it like frosted glass; semi-transparent, and carefully tuned to be comfortable to look at, to not overwhelm. She’s learned to shift ambient light into any color, but replicating natural skin-tones proved to be too complicated. Instead, she lets her mood dictate the shade. In her natural state, she defaults to a beautiful, softened chartreuse - to match with her wavy hair.

The light sculpts her face, revealing the lines of her brow, the shape of her lips, the curve of her cheeks, the bud of her nose. Her eyes, however, withhold just a bit of mystique: solid, monocolor, without noticeable irises or pupils. Something that is only enhanced by the separate contours of purple glow around them - a kind of makeup designed exclusively for Hagakure, clear when she is, visible when she is, refracting to a complimentary color.

But the mystery of her eyes does not hinder the intended effect: her many and endless expressions, finally, on display.

“So those two loudmouths are up front, being annoying and distracting, as they do, and I’m sneaking through the mass of people.” She mimics walking with two glowing fingers. “They’re gearing up for a fight, but they can’t tell who’s brainwashed and who’s in on it, so they gotta wait for me to find the brainwasher and give him the ol’-” She punches twice in the air “-one two. Fight breaks out almost instantly anyways, and I’m just over here keeping an eye out in all directions so I don’t get hit by stray beams or whatever,” she shifts side to side like she’s dodging.

“But I find the guy fast enough, he’s too focused on controlling everyone to notice someone invisible, and I subdue him like that.” She snaps her fingers. “Fight keeps going outside, they still gotta deal with the true-believers, but as I’m dragging Brainwasher out, there’s this big explosion, and before I know what’s going on,” she hits her hands together hard. “Jack Mantic friggin crashes right into me! While he’s all knifed up!”

“Oh! Are you okay?” Momo asks.

“Yeah, I got patched up or whatever, but that’s not the problem!”

She stands up and turns, revealing her side. 

“Look what that did to my suit!!”

She’s wearing it now - all this must have just happened. It took years of work and a dedicated team to finally get it done, but, in no small part due to the materials laboratories Momo set up, Hagakure finally has something wearable. A simple body suit that covers her torso and legs, with a thin pair of boots and gloves to match. As transparent as Hagakure herself - though, when she lights up, the suit lights up too.

And there’s a series of tears and gashes right at her waist. A bit hard to see just how damaged it is, due to the suit blending in with her body, but even a single rip could lead to a much wider unravelling.

“I warned them a bunch of times to be careful, but do they listen?!” Her color changes as she speaks, gaining red undertones as her frustration mounts. “I get that he’s made out of swords or whatever, but c’mon! It’s really expensive to fix!”

Momo sighs. “Don’t I know it…” She shakes her head. “I can put a rush job on your back-up suit. Get it out in a couple of days so we can take this one in.”

“I’d really appreciate that, Yaomomo!” she says, with a bit of pink shyness. “Just make sure you send them the bill!”

“Will do,” Momo laughs.

Hagakure sits back down with a grunt, her light pulsing just the slightest with lingering irritation.

“Sounds like you’re in need of a mood booster?”

Hagakure raises a glowing brow.

“What did you have in mind?”

“I’m just about done here with this,” she nods back to her work. “But it still needs some testing. So…”

She picks up a device off the floor, holding it to Hagakure.

“How would you like to shoot Midoriya with a bunch of lasers?”

Hagakure’s lips pull back into a wide, visible smile.

“Heck yeah!”

-

Midoriya, all suited up, examines his newly coated swarm of nanomachines, which in turn coat his gauntlets. 

He glances back at the two of them; Hagakure with a gleaming silver pack over her shoulders that has a glowing lens pointed at her back, Momo with a pack made of metal more brutalistic, with a hose leading to a firing device.

He frowns.

“...Does this really need to be live testing?”

Hagakure clicks on her laser pack.

“Yup!” she says.

A sparkling concussive laser fires directly into Hagakure’s back, and with a casual ease she bends it through her body and down her arms. Twin bursts fire out of her palms, directly at a clearly surprised Midoriya, who startles back.

But he remains, as always, a professional.

He reacts instantly, reflexively, sending out mental commands to his nanomachine swarm, Creati. They shift, forming mirror-like shields on his arms, and he blocks with them as the lasers impact. His forearms recede the slightest bit from the force, but the lasers themselves reflect off in random directions, pounding into the walls of the testing chamber. 

He stares at one of the resulting singe-marks.

“It worked!” he says gleefully, before another laser strikes him directly in the chest while he’s distracted.

It knocks him down to the ground, onto his butt. He looks up in a daze.

“Stay on your toes, Deku!” Hagakure shouts, winding up another blast. 

He kicks up just as Hagakure sends out a hail of laser blasts, all powered by the specially developed pack she’s wearing. The nanomachines detach completely, forming a floating sheet that he maneuvers like a drone, shifting around his body to block each and every strike, redirecting them safely off to the side. He quickly finds a groove to his reflections, so Hagakure shifts her own strategy, shifting the laser through other parts of her body; her legs, her stomach, her face. The unpredictability gives him a harder time, the limited surface area of this batch of resin-coated nanobots being unable to shield him fully.

Hagakure lands a few blows at his edges; his shoulders, his calves, his elbows. He grits his teeth, eyes examining Hagakure like a hawk, looking for a better approach; and he has always been a quick thinker.

The sheet of nanomachines turns concave. The next time he blocks a laser, it fires directly back at Hagakure, with a level of precision that is, frankly, impressive for someone who isn’t controlling the light directly like his opponent. Momo initially questions the move - Hagakure can simply let it pass completely through her, rendering it useless -  but Hagakure stops her assault to take the time to intercept it, bend through her body and off to the side. She flickers red at Midoriya, who looks at her with a determined grin.

Momo catches his intent; he was aiming to damage the laser pack, straight through Hagakure’s body. Very clever.

Momo takes advantage of the brief standstill, and aims her flame cannon at him. No use in making things easy for him, is there?

She squeezes the trigger, and fires off a wicked bolt of flame.

He catches the glow of ignition out of the corner of his eye and turns with fright. The swarm of nanomachines scatter for a fraction of a second before coming back together in another shield just as the ball of fire hits. It fizzles away as it strikes, departing its heat to the air and not the resin-coated machines, leaving him safe and cool.

The sheet lowers, and he stares at Momo with wide eyes.

“Oh good!” she says. “The flame suppression works too!”

“W-were you not sure it would?!”

“Sometimes theory does not hold up to practical testing,” she says, aiming another shot. Hagakure’s laser pack hums ominously with another readied burst. “So, let us continue testing.”

-

They relax at her workstation afterwards, treating each other for the host of first-degree burns they ended up with. Hagakure flickers with opacity, her quirk overloaded from the lasers she’d been redirecting.

“...Are you okay, Hagakure?” Midoriya says, as the girl in question helps apply some burn cream to his arm.

She rolls her eyes with a bit of humor.

“You always get so worried when I overload,” she says. “Even back at UA. I remember you were real put off by the whole laser testing idea!”

He shrugs.

“It’s… rarely a good thing to overload your quirk,” he says. “It means you’re stressing your body to a breaking point. If you’re specifically training or exercising, that’s one thing, but I was worried that if you started to depend on it to see yourself, it’d become a habit…”

Hagakure’s eyes squeeze with affection.

“Aww. Well, thank you for worrying about me.”

“...Not that I had to,” Midoriya says. “You ended up finding a whole new way to show yourself instead!”

“All thanks to Momo!” 

Momo chuckles. “I’m glad to have helped.”

Hagakure finishes up, and Midoriya’s fingers drift to the container of nanobots in his lap. They glide through the swarm, particles shifting more smoothly than sand, the resin coating giving them a glossy, silky feeling. 

“It’s a rather pleasant sensation, isn’t it?” Momo says to him.

“Yeah!” he says. “Creati and Invisible Girl feel really nice on my fingers!”

She and Hagakure turn bright pink, Hagakure in the most literal sense.

“Ugh, can you please call them something else, Izuku??”

***

Chapter Text

If there’s one thing Rikidou has figured out over the years, it’s this:

No one can turn down a sweet treat.

It has to be the right one, of course. Not everyone has a sweet tooth. But there’s always something out there that gets a person excited, gets them salivating. Most people love chewy, melt-in-your-mouth cookies, moist, luxurious cakes, fluffy, sugar-glazed pastries; but if sweetness is too cloying, pair sugar with bitter dark chocolate and people start to bite. If sweets and chocolates are too heavy, combine sweetness with sour vinegar or soy for a tangy sauce that’s perfect on any protein. Health concerns are an issue? Sometimes all you need is a light touch of sugar anyways, but if that’s not acceptable, there’s lots of sugar substitutes, which are… almost as pleasing on the tongue. So much work has been done to search for even halfway decent approximations of sugar.

The desire for sweetness is unavoidable. It’s the very basis of life, the backbone of human biology; the turning of sugar into energy. There’s not a lot out there that’s better at spreading good will than a plate of delectable chocolate-chip cookies.

A lot of his time these days is spent doing just that. Making cookies and cakes, pies and pastries, breads and brownies - all of them meant to be shared. When possible, he likes to deliver things himself. When Shouji heads out to some rural town with a hundred people in it, Rikidou goes along with baskets of sweet breads and salted chocolates. When Sero and Mineta are out with other heroes helping with construction efforts, he’ll drop by with boxes and boxes of filling, savory pies and enervating red-bean taiyaki. When Kouda and Yaoyorozu drop by a hospital after some accident, he’ll head off with them carrying stacks and stacks of mini-cakes and mochi balls to clear the patients’ palates of hospital food.

And when he can’t do that, he sends it off. Midoriya, Todoroki, and Uraraka have hand delivered a number of treats to the detained League members they check in on every now and again. ‘Everyone deserves a full belly of good food,’ his mom had always told him, and he finds satisfaction in every belly he fills. It’s hard work, but for him, it’s easy to keep at it.

His only complaint? Maaaybe he wishes that contributing in other ways was just as easy.

They’re getting closer and closer to graduation, to becoming full-time Pro-Heroes, and he hasn’t quite found his niche. There’s a lot of body augmentation quirks out there like his, and many of them aren’t as conditional; it was with both hard work and plenty of luck that he managed to carve out his spot in UA. But now that he’s here, he’s not sure where it leads him. 

He knows what he’s good at. He can do close combat, can do one-on-one encounters or one-on-a-few if he needs to. Something that’s still in demand these days - the leaders of the League of Villains are gone, but not every member was taken in. They still pop up every now and again to cause trouble, to try and recruit others, and when they do, he and his friends rush in to stop them, deescalate the whole situation. Lots of people are still so dissatisfied, but it says a lot that they aren’t out here fighting to the death anymore. There’s any number of reasons why, but in Rikidou’s mind, it’s because even they have a spark of hope inside for where the world is going.

The optimist inside him hopes that the fights themselves will become less and less necessary as time goes on. As, hopefully, that spark grows into a flame.

If that’s the case though, he might struggle to find a place in his professional life. He can do great things with Sugar Rush, but it doesn’t quite have the utility some of his friends’ quirks have. It makes him strong, but not ‘lift-buildings-like-Midoriya’ strong. He can do the work of ten men, but that’s a far-cry from one-man-army Tokoyami. He can take a pretty big hit, but Kirishima can take any hit, and still be standing afterward.

With all that, what’s a Sugarman to do? He hasn’t quite figured that out yet.

But he’s also not one to linger on it. He does what he can, and that’s always been enough for him, for his family. He views it like this: when it comes to baking, every ingredient is important, no matter how much of it is in there. A pinch of salt, a flick of egg-white, half a tablespoon of butter, can make all the difference.

But hey; like baking, sometimes it’s worth trying out new ideas. He just needs a couple to start with.

-

He sets one oven to 220C. He checks the cookies baking in the second and the cheesecakes in the third; they’re nearly done. He turns down the heat on a few pots that have just started bubbling, keeping them at a simmer. He goes back to mixing some of his dough while other sets of dough sit and rest in a number of bowls nearby. Open packs of wheat flour, rice flour, butter, sugar, are scattered across the countertops in between spatulas and utensils and mixers. Bits of vanilla, chocolate, and matcha stick to every surface, flavoring the air itself.

It’s bulk-bake day today, and he’s making good progress. Just another hour or so and he’ll be halfway done!

It’s right as he takes the dough he’s been lightly cooking off the stove that Midoriya and Yaoyorozu walk into the kitchen. The small chatter between the two stops as they take in his mess.

“Oh!” Yaoyorozu says. “I forgot you reserved the kitchen for today, Satou.”

He smiles at them. “Yup! Did you guys need something?”

“N-no, that’s okay!” Midoriya says. “We just came down for some snacks, but I don’t want to get in the way or anything…”

“If you want snacks, I got snacks!” he says as he pours the hot dough into a bowl with a paddle mixer. He reaches over to grab a few foil covered plates with a thumb and pinky, sliding them to the other end of the counter-top towards his guests. “Feel free to take some sesame cookies or dorayaki or whatever!”

“Are you sure?” Yaoyorozu says, stepping closer despite her hesitation. “I know these are usually allocated for others…”

“There’s always enough for sharing!” he says.

“If you’re sure…,” Yaoyorozu says, her hands already peeling off the foil. She grabs a few cookies and offers some to Midoriya, who takes them.

“Still,” Midoriya says, “maybe we can help you out with something in return?”

He chuckles. “No offense, but with all these spinning plates, it’s easier to just do things myself.”

“I cam relate,” Yaoyorozu says with a full mouth. A rare bit of boorishness from her; it means his cooking must be worth it. Her fingers are still, of course, politely covering her lips. “When you’ve got everything covered, sometimes it’s more effort having to direct someone.”

“Exactly,” he says as starts up the mixer. It flips and folds the dough at medium speed, squeezing out the steam to cool it down. “But I appreciate the offer. If you guys aren’t busy though, I definitely don’t mind the company!”

“A little busy,” Yaoyorozu says. “But just in discussing some quirk-related issues. Nothing we can’t do here.”

“Oh, yeah I’ve been hearing about that,” Rikidou says. There’s a bowl of eggs nearby and he grabs one, cracking it with one hand into the dough. The mixer folds it all gently together, starting off tacky but slowly becoming more incorporated. “Heard you guys got a talking-to after the whole Tokoyami thing.” He glances at Midoriya. “How’s your arm doing, by the way?”

Midoriya gives a guilty smile. “Ah, it’s good now…” He rotates it by the shoulder. “Y-yeah, that wasn’t the smoothest attempt at helping… But I think everything turned out fine in the end!”

Yaoyorozu clears her throat.

“I cannot help but think someone didn’t quite learn his lesson from that whole escapade.”

“B-but I did!” Midoriya says. “Don’t hug Dark Shadow when he’s big!”

Yaoyorozu scoffs. “I believe there were much broader lessons to learn than that!”

She fusses over him for a bit, and Rikidou raises an eyebrow. They’ve certainly gotten a bit closer since the start of the year.

“You discussing anything in particular?” he cuts in as he cracks another egg into the bowl, waiting for it to mix all together again.

“This and that,” Yaoyorozu answers. “We were talking about quirk metabolism and how certain quirks benefit from specific diets, and what that would imply.”

“What would it imply?” he asks, with one more egg into the bowl

Her eyes shine with excitement as she gears up to explain. “Why, quite a lot! I think it’s best to use an example. Testsutetsu and his iron requirements might be easiest to understand, and Iida and Sero have specific dietary requirements for their heteromorph quirks, but in this case I think a better person to look at might be Bakugou. Did you know he takes supplements to increase his body’s production of nitric oxide?”

“Not at all!” he says. Another egg.

“I didn’t either before Midoriya informed me of it-”

“Don’t tell him I told you!”

“-and he does it because his quirk utilizes that extra nitric oxide in the production of his nitroglycerin. He doesn’t require it, but there are noticeable benefits when he uses them, being able to produce more easily.” She leans forward, bracing herself on the countertop. “But what that means is that his body is more capable than the average person’s at making use of these substances! His very cellular biology, down to his digestive system, has to be different in order to be able to do something like this! And if that’s the case: how is that different from any given heteromorph, whose body is ‘different’ than some arbitrary average?”

“And… that’s a big deal?” Rikidou asks, with another cracked egg.

“I sure think so!” Yaoyorozu states. “The delineation of quirks into ‘heteromorph,’ ‘emitter,’ and ‘transformation’ has always felt so insufficient, so blurred. Quite a number of so-called emitter and transformation quirks necessitate biologies to support them. Kaminari’s resistance to electricity and Todoroki’s ability to withstand temperature extremes also imply some physical aspect to their bodies separate from the specific effects of their quirks!”

“I think you would kind of apply too, Yaoyorozu,” Midoriya adds. “I mean, you convert the lipids in your body into other matter. I’d find it hard to believe that it doesn't reflect somewhere in your biology!”

“That definitely makes sense to me!” Rikidou says, adding another egg. “I’ve always figured that Yaoyorozu had something going on.”

“Oh?” she says. 

“Well, it’s like this,” Rikidou says as he keeps an eye on the consistency of his dough. “You eat way more than me, and yet, it seems like we get different results!” He pats at his large belly.

She instantly turns blazing red, from the tip of her nose to her ears.

“S-Satou!” Midoriya says. “I, I don’t think you’re supposed to say stuff like that to a girl…” He sneaks off a few side glances, obviously curious about the subject despite himself.

Rikidou laughs. “Sorry if it’s rude! My family has never been shy about that kinda stuff. We love food, and we accept the consequences of that!”

“N…no, it’s okay,” she says, crossing her arms for security. “It would be hypocritical of me to be sensitive to that after theorizing about others with the same rigor. And in fact, you are both correct.” A finger taps nervously on her arm. “You see, when I’m… stocked up, as it were, my figure may look fuller, but I weigh significantly more than what the visible change implies. My body’s adipocytes, the cells that store fat, are capable of storing more fat in denser cells than an average persons’. It would be obvious if I were to be…,” she clears her throat, “lifted.”

“Wait, really?” Midoriya says, suddenly intrigued. “Can I try-”

She gives him a harsh look, and his words fizzle into the air.

“And what about my quirk?” Rikidou suggests, adding in more eggs one at a time as they talk.

“Yours?” Yaoyorozu says. “I suppose it depends on whether you specifically metabolize the sugar or if some other process is at work…”

“You wanna know? I can just tell you.”

“Oh,” she says, “I didn’t think you’d have an answer already. Have you done some blood sugar testing, or anything of that sort?” 

“A bit!” he says as he continues working. “But I’ve had to make some guesses too. Like, question for you two. How long does the body usually take to process sugar?”

They look to each other, and silently but mutually begin to think.

Yaoyorozu, the bigger bookworm of the two, answers first. “Digestion is a complicated process, so there’s not exactly a single right answer. It would depend on a few factors. But I believe for simple table sugar it could take something like twenty to thirty minutes for it to be broken down and start entering the bloodstream.”

“Something like that, yeah,” Rikidou says. “If we’re talking raw sucrose, the stomach doesn’t even do anything. It goes right to the intestines, and it’s broken down there. Takes half an hour to a couple hours depending on if you’ve eaten anything else with it.” He shifts to hold a large bowl with one arm so he can point a thumb at himself. “But me? When I use my quirk, I get that energy right away, as soon as I swallow it!”

“Oh, that’s true!” Midoriya says. “So that must mean your body doesn’t have to metabolize it!”

“No, it does!” Rikidou says with a smile. “Blood sugar goes up like if I eat sugar normally!” Midoriya’s face scrunches at his lack of understanding. “So, this is where the guesswork comes in, but technically, digestion of sucrose starts with saliva, it just doesn’t break down very much of it. But maybe mine does! And then my body can absorb it straight from my mouth and throat.”

“Wow, that would be really cool if so! And it implies a minor amount of heteromorphism too!” Midoriya says, pulling a small notepad from his shorts pocket and writing down some notes. “I imagine there’s a specific enzyme that can break down sucrose-”

“Sucrase,” Yaoyorozu answers immediately.

“-and Satou probably has some in his saliva! Either all of the time, or excreted specifically when he uses his quirk factor!”

“That’s what I was thinking too!” Yaoyorozu says. “When he uses Sugar Rush, he has to process the sugar very quickly, and afterwards he experiences mild hypoglycemia, low-blood-sugar.  If his body processed sugar at those speeds all of the time, he’d have those symptoms whenever he ate anything sweet. Which certainly isn’t the case!”

“Makes sense to me!” Rikidou says. He checks his dough; it’s slightly too dry, so he quickly breaks open another egg, but only lets a flick of egg-white out of the crack. The rest of it ends up in a small ramekin, which he beats with a fork for a few seconds. “Sounds like you already figured some stuff about me, huh? You think you guys could do something with that?”

“...What do you mean?” Midoriya says. 

Rikidou shrugs. “You’ve been helping out others, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask for help myself.”

The two of them look at each other uncomfortably. 

“I… suppose we could give it some thought,” Yaoyorozu says, “but…”

“But?”

She purses her lips in thought, then exhales a sigh.

“Satou, I’ll be honest,” she continues, “we’ve talked over most of our classmates' quirks, but there are some we struggle to expand upon in any way, even conceptually…”

Ah, well, he figured as much.

“Nah, I get it,” he says. His dough is thick and shiny now, the perfect consistency, and he begins to scoop balls of it onto a few prepared pans. “I know, my quirk’s kinda boring. No worries.”

“N-no, I don’t think your quirk is boring!” Midoriya cuts in. “I don’t think any quirks are boring! It’s just that, some of them, their boundaries are so straightforward, you know?” He reaches over and grabs an open pack of sugar, holding it in front of him on the table. “Your quirk relies on the specific principle of using sugar to fuel your strength, and it’s tough to expand out on that. Obviously there are different kinds of sugars, but I think you’ve already looked into that?”

“Here and there, yeah,” he says. A few timers beep, and he quickly rushes over to pull out his cookies and cakes from the ovens. Immediately he’s hit by a burst of bubbling warm chocolate, and he has to hold himself back from scooping one of the salted dark-chocolate cookies straight off the pan. When he sets them nearby to cool, he sees his companions eyeing them with the same fervor. “Give it a few minutes then feel free! But yeah, I’ve tried other stuff. Like fruits. They technically work, but it’s tougher to get the energy out. Hard to explain.”

“Fruits… usually have varying amounts of sucrose and fructose,” Yaoyorozu says. Her eyes flick to the cooling cookies, and then back. “And sucrose itself is just a molecule of glucose and fructose. Sounds like it comes down to the glucose.”

“S’what it seems like,” he says. “Lactose technically has glucose in it, but my body can’t process it well, so that’s a no go.”

“Most Japanese people can’t…” Midoriya says distractedly. He takes a deep breath as if in thought, but it’s through his nostrils. He licks his lips involuntarily. “If it’s about that, what about using straight liquid glucose? Might be more efficient…”

“I actually do keep a vial in my hero suit! But it’s for emergencies. It’s kinda like hyperdrive for me, it burns really hard all at once and is gone in a minute. Good ol’ table sugar just seems to work best for me!”

“...The pairing of one glucose to one fructose must hit the right balance for your body…,” Yaoyorozu mumbles, her attention slowly shifting away from him.

“Mm,” Midoriya agrees with a mumble, his attention on the exact same thing.

Rikidou shakes his head good-naturedly, and pushes the pan closer to them.

“Don’t blame me if you burn your tongues.”

Instantly a handful of fresh cookies disappears. The mouths of his two friends are full. Quite the mystery he has on his hands.

Yaoyorozu’s eyes roll back as she lets out a contented moan.

“Shoo good,” she says, not even bothering to cover her mouth this time as she chews and swallows. “Your confections are always so wonderful, Satou, and these are another step above. I do so love dark chocolate!”

He flashes her a toothy smile. “Thanks! My quirk might be pretty plain, but I guess I make up for it with all my baking!”

The two of them keep chowing down while he finishes scooping balls of dough, brushing them with the leftover egg. He sticks them into the first oven and fills the others with other pans of raw goodies, managing a few things on the stove, getting some filling and coatings ready in more piping bags. And as he does, he catches a few odd looks from Midoriya; like he’s trying to work something out, and isn’t quite getting there.

Right as he sets up a pot of sugar and water on a hot plate, Midoriya speaks up again.

“...You know, Satou, I do have a few ideas,” he says, “but I think they probably won’t be too impactful. For different reasons.”

“Oh? Whatcha got?”

“Well… the first one isn’t actually directly related to you,” he says. He turns to his research partner. “It involves Yaoyorozu.”

“Me?” she says through a mouth full of dorayaki. 

“Yeah,” Midoriya says. “Depends on the answer to a question I’ve had but haven’t asked yet.” 

She leans in, curious.

“...Can your quirk create something edible?” he says. He seems uneasy at the question, though Rikidou can’t tell exactly why.

Yaoyorozu stops chewing, then swallows heavily. “That’s… certainly a big question to ask.”

“It is?” Rikidou says. 

“There… might be some pretty far-reaching consequences if she could,” Midoriya says. “Her one limitation is she can’t create ‘living’ material, but most of the food we eat doesn’t count as living when we consume it. It’s dead, or processed into specific, non-living substances. Like sucrose.” His brow wrinkles as he ponders the idea. “...And if she can make that, then why not fats and oils, which she can then consume to fuel herself, then make more oils from that fuel to fuel even more in an infinite loop of-”

“Let me stop you right there, Midoriya,” she says with an amiable calmness that suggests she’s had to keep him from spiralling before. “Yes, I can theoretically make food. But my body rejects any creation I consume, making me quite sick in ways which… do not allow me to extract energy from it. A story for another time as to how I know that.” She points her half-eaten pancake-sweet at Rikidou. “And while that may not be true for others, unless it’s an emergency situation, it’s not a feature of my quirk I plan to utilize. Too easy to accidentally create a biohazard and make someone very sick.”

“I… guess that makes sense…” Midoriya says.

“Besides, even if I can make sucrose, what does it add over him carrying his own supply?”

“Well… I thought maybe you could come up with some new kind of super sugar or something…” he says. “That maybe works even better for Satou.”

She chuckles. “I think inventing entirely new substances isn’t so easy, Midoriya.”

Midoriya shrugs. “I pretty much assume you can do anything, Yaoyorozu!”

She rolls her eyes and slaps her hand at him, in an “oh, you,” type of of way, and Rikidou raises another eyebrow. More than a bit closer, for sure.

“...And the other ideas?” Rikidou says, while he prepares a few things for later in the day.

“Oh!” Midoriya says, catching himself. “Well, it’s not much, but… one thing I’ve noticed is that when you use Sugar Rush, it’s always ‘fully active.’ The same amount of strength increase, though, you’ve made that higher with training. But I’ve never seen you, say, use 50% of your strength, and keep that going for twice as long.”

“Huh. I guess that’s true. But I don’t even know how I would do that. I can’t really… turn it down, you know?”

“That’s what I figured, but there might be a way to simulate that!” Midoriya says. “Think of an LED light. If you want to lower the brightness, you don’t actually have to change the voltage! What you do instead is cut off bits of the power you’re sending it, multiple times a second. Because of the way our eyes work, an LED that turns off and on fast enough won’t look like it’s flickering, it’ll look less bright. Maybe you can do something like that?”

“Like… flick Sugar Rush on and off a bunch?”

“Yeah!” Midoriya says.

“Hmm… You know, I think I get it,” Rikidou says. “You say an LED, but I’m thinking microwave. Most microwaves only do one power setting, and when you set it lower, it just cuts out for whatever percentage you set every so often. It’s like that.”

“Yes, that analogy works too,” Yaoyorozu says, “though, you’d have to do it fast enough that your muscles don’t fail during the ‘off’ times. Faster than a microwave certainly, but hopefully not as fast as an LED.”

“Well, it’s definitely no super sugar,” Rikidou says with a laugh. “But hey, it’s something to try out!”

He expects the advice to stop there, but Midoriya and Yaoyorozu immediately go into the practicalities of testing it out; safe exercises to start out with, visualization techniques to focus better, timing methods to get the right ‘rhythm’ to the flicker. It’s off-the-cuff brainstorming, but Rikidou does his best to take in the information.

They go on long enough that the puff pastries he’d been working on finish (after a quick temperature reduction halfway through), and he has to excuse himself to take them out. They resume as he grabs his prepared bag of pastry cream, getting into a methodical groove as he fills them one by one. The sugar/water mixture starts to bubble as he does, tinging the air with sweet caramel.

Right as he finishes filling the profiteroles with vanilla cream, he gets a plate and some tongs ready, turning off the heat to the caramel so it doesn’t burn. That’s also when his two companions suddenly quiet down, and when he looks back they’re eyeing him intently.

“You guys can keep going, I promise I’m listening!”

“...I admit, I’m far more interested in watching you work right now,” Yaoyorozu says.

“Well, lucky for you we’re just getting to the good part!” 

The filled pastries are a fine dessert on their own, but so much of what makes food fun is presentation. It’s the reason sushi is prepared with such neat cuts, the reason a nicely charred steak looks good before you even smell it, the reason a stir fry tastes better with multi-colored veggies instead of monocolor, the reason why sweets and candy are bright and fruity, reminding you of the flavors they mimic. It draws the eye, builds anticipation before the food ever touches your lips. Every confectioner knows the value of presentation.

He grabs a puff and dips it into the caramel, coating one side, then places it on the plate sticky side up. Then he repeats, with careful motions and precision. He forms a circle of pastries on the plate, then starts a second row on top, the circle just a bit smaller. He continues, flicking the hot plate on and off to keep the caramel hot but not too hot, dipping new puffs and forming new rows of circles, stacking up higher and higher. The caramel on the puffs quickly cool, hardening just enough to hold the shape of a slowly forming hollow cone, until he finally reaches the last pastry, placing it on top like a christmas star.

He turns the hot plate fully off, and with the last dregs of heat still keeping the caramel pliable, he scoops out some with a spoon and drizzles it over the cone of stacked pastries. It hardens in thin strings as it pours, forming lines of caramel that seemingly float just away from the desert they encircle, giving it a touch of fantasy.

And with one last flick of caramel, his croquembouche finished. He loves Japanese sweets more than anything, but he has to admit; French desserts have an appeal all their own.

“That… looks delectable, Satou,” Yaoyorozu says with an almost embarrassed intensity.

“It really does…” Midoriya says. “I bet Eri would love that, she loves caramel!”

Rikidou taps the plate with a finger. “Who do you think it’s for?”

And Midoriya’s smile blooms, at the mere thought of someone else doing something for his kid.

“Though, since you guys are already here,” Rikidou continues, “do you want a piece?”

“Not if it’s for Eri!” Midoriya says, nearly scandalized.

Rikidou shakes his head. 

“There is always enough for sharing!”

Their hesitation lasts only a moment. They each reach for a pastry, crackling through the hardened caramel strings. They each grab one and tug at it, breaking it off with a drip of sticky caramel. They plop them into their mouths, perfectly bite-sized, and chew on them with a soft, flaky crunch.

And the noises they both make as they eat would make any person blush, but as someone who’s made thousands of sweets by now… he’s more than used to it.

Eri drops by 10 minutes later, visiting like Rikidou knew she would, escorted by Mirio, Nejiri, and Amajiki. His tower of croquembouche quickly starts to disappear; though, every person there makes sure their eternal guest-of-honor gets as many as she desires.

He continues to enjoy the company, but unlike these layabouts, he still has work to do, and gets back to it, becoming a more passive presence as they chat. But Midoriya’s eyes occasionally linger on Rikidou, until, during a calmer moment, he steps away from everyone else and closer to Rikidou.

“Hey, Satou?” Midoriya says.

“What’s up?”

“...Will you teach me how to make that?” He nods back to the croquembouche, now down to its last layer. 

Rikidou chuckles.

“I suppose I could, but… those kinds of pastries are difficult to get right if you don’t have some baking experience. A lot of bakers consider it one of the harder things to make correctly, because the dough is so finicky.”

Midoriya’s eyes widen slightly.

“And, you made it while we were all talking together? While distracted?”

Rikidou shrugs. “I’ve done it enough times by now. I’ve got a feel for it.”

The other boy suddenly turns intense, like he’s back to solving a problem. He eyes Rikidou for a moment longer.

“...I don’t think you’re plain, Satou,” Midoriya finally says.

“Hm?”

“You called yourself, your quirk, plain a bit earlier. I don’t think you are.”

Rikidou is taken back a bit by the sincerity, and laughs it off.

“It’s fine, Midoriya, it’s just the truth! My quirk’s not big and flashy, but it doesn’t need to be! I’m happy with it.”

“...But, that’s what I mean, Satou,” Midoriya says. “I think even being able to have that attitude makes you anything but plain.”

He continues. “You have a straightforward quirk, yeah. But you have a solid understanding of how to use it, and use it well. You became a great hero with it just like all of us, and you’ll keep being a great hero once we graduate, without any so-called ‘flashiness.’ You just… did it, with hard work and persistence.

“And outside of hero stuff, you have something you love to do, something that makes people happy. Happier than any amount of hero work could ever do! And you can do it easily, because you’ve put in the same hard work and dedication to that as you did to being a hero.

“Maybe there’s not a whole lot for you to figure out,” Midoriya says, “because you’ve got it all figured out already!” He laughs, with something dour in his voice. “I wish I could say the same…”

Rikudou stills.

He has never been bullied in his life, not really, but he’s had his fair share of envy towards others. Of thinner bodies, of more interesting quirks, of people more handsome and suave than him. He started baking for his quirk, but it quickly became an outlet for all that; a way to express, to come into himself. He is satisfied now, with his lot in life, and it only just occurs to him that others could envy him because of that. Maybe that’s something he took for granted.

“...Worried about the future, Midoriya?” he says, because out of everyone here, it’s Midoriya’s whose is hazy, unformed. Open, endless.

“...A bit,” Midoriya admits. “I know I want to help people with their quirks, but I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet…” He sighs. 

Rikidou reaches over to pat his shoulder, and says the truest thing he has ever known.

“You’ll figure it out, Midoriya,” he says. “I know you will.” Midoriya gives him a smile; a small, uncertain kind, but one that wants to believe in that as much as Rikidou does. “How ‘bout this. I’m too busy today, but what if I taught you some easier recipes another time? To start out with. Then if you take to it, we can work our way up to the French stuff.”

The smile grows brighter, and Midoriya nods. “Let’s do it!” he says. “Oh, but can we start with something with caramel? I wanna be able to make it for Eri!”

Rikidou laughs. “Sure. Just for Eri though? No one else?”

“Like who?”

Rikidou shrugs. “Uraraka?” He glances back at their other company still in the kitchen. “...Yaoyorozu?”

Midoriya thinks hard on it.

“I guess I could make stuff for them too! I have a lot to thank them for, for sure!” he says.

Rikidou gives him a dead stare.

“You really have a lot to figure out, don’t you, Midoriya?” Rikidou says, and gets only bewilderment back.

***

8 years later

Burst Expenditure - Sugarman

Just when Izuku thinks he’s got the world mostly figured out, something has to go and upturn it.

“Deku, watch out!” Sugarman shouts. “One of the gingerbread golems has a gun!”

Izuku turns just as something impacts him hard in the side.

It knocks the breath out of his lungs and throws him to the ground, and he rolls across the asphalt of the road. When he stops, he orients himself to look back at the source of the projectile, and sees a 10 foot tall gingerbread creature in the shape of the platonic ideal of a cowboy: ten-gallon hat, boots with spurs, chaps, bandanna around its neck. It blows at the tip of a peppermint revolver, before flicking the drum out and loading more gumdrop bullets. An equally large gingerbread archer stands next to it, knocking back a licorice arrow on a candy-cane bow by candy-floss string.

Izuku stares at them, dead, dispassionately, as they each aim another shot.

Twin projectiles fire, and it’s only then he shakes it off. With a quick blast of Earphone Jack from his arm he scatters the shots, pushing himself back up afterwards. He clutches at his sore side, feeling almost like he got shot with something metal instead, and he finds a gooey lump that he pulls off and chucks to the ground. He hears Sugarman roaring behind him, in melee with his own group of gingerbread avatars.

When his foes start to ready more shots, he shoots forward with a momentary burst of Ingenium, swinging his black cape Tsukuyomi forward to block them; it was engineered to handle far more than candy. As he closes the distance the golems turn intense, firing faster with precise, robotic-like movements. Each projectile crashes into the cape, straining the arm bracing it, but right as the sixth gumdrop bullet is fired, right as a licorice arrow leaves the bow and the archer grasps for another, Izuku leaps up and forward, propelled by heavy leg thrusters.

But at the peak of his leap, he engages the smaller, pinpoint thruster on his ankle. 

Izuku will never again be able to punch away the weather, to kick so hard it starts a windstorm; but there’s not much of a need for that anymore. A part of him does miss it though - that feeling of superpower, that juvenile satisfaction of being able punch away a problem if he needed to. Out of all his suit components, it’s Sugarman that lets him grasp that feeling again, however fleeting it is. 

An instantaneous burst of power, that makes his punches and kicks superhuman, for just a fraction of a second. A strength that requires careful, metered precision, compared to the boundlessness of One-For-All. 

It’s more than enough. He’s learned that lesson plenty of times from the man it’s named after.

“Sugarman!” he declares, as a narrow jet of fire shoots his leg forward in a devastating kick. 

His foot collides right into the archer’s head, crumbling the gingerbread, and lets the momentum of the kick spin him around, landing him right behind and facing the gunman, who finishes reloading and twirls around in a panic. Izuku bolts forward, towards the cowboy’s legs, and rears back a fist. He engages another pinpoint thruster on his elbow and it rockets his fist forward, punching into and straight through the knee of the golem. It pitches over to one side, other knee shattering at the strain, until its whole form collapses into a pile of slightly-moving cowboy. 

The peppermint revolver hits the ground and spins a bit away. Gingerbread Cowboy spots where it lands, and starts crawling the remains of its body towards it like a legless soldier. It reaches for it, cookie fingers scraping on the pavement as it tries to claw the gun back into its hand. 

Izuku stomps into its head. Its body goes completely still. He wonders if he’s gonna have lingering mental issues over this.

“Hey!” Sugarman says. “Were you calling for me?”

Sugarman walks over with a squirming gingerbread knight held above his head,  limbs unable to find purchase, its peanut brittle platemail cracked and crumbling.

“Huh?” Izuku says. “Oh, no! I was calling out my suit component, Sugarman!” He points his elbow forward, then taps at the nozzle.

Sugarman swings the knight forward, into his knee, cracking it in half at the back. The two pieces fall to the ground, inanimate.

“Oh. You know how confusing that is, right?”

Izuku grumbles. “Why does it bother everyone so much…” When All Might had had a suit named after their class, everyone just seemed flattered.

They hear a shout. A chant, a cadence. They turn to face the noise, and see a platoon of gingerbread soldiers marching down the road towards them, readying peppermint rifles. 

Izuku groans. “Really??” 

“Looks like we’re in for a long day!” Sugarman says as he pulls out a few chocolates. “Want one?”

Izuku grabs one and plops it into his mouth as Sugarman swallows the others, and Izuku mentally prepares himself for the candy massacre they’re about to commit.

-

Chunks of gingerbread fill the streets. Fragments of pink and white peppermint, of light and dark chocolate, of rainbow-colors of hard candy, litter every inch of every road. The air smells sickly sweet, the sugar atomized and crowding out the oxygen. He tastes it on his tongue, down his throat, all the way into his lungs.

Sugarman surveys the scene, then pats at his belly.

“Man, that sure made me hungry!” he says. “Good thing it’s just about dinnertime. You wanna come join me and Sakura for dinner?”

Izuku sets everything aside. 

“Sure!” he says. They already had a talk with the boys who started all this - a group of delinquents who combined their quirks, Candy Alchemy, Toy Animation, and Size Projection, to create a commotion while they stole a bunch of manga - and Izuku let them know just how disappointed he was in them for causing all this trouble (they immediately started crying, and promised to never do it again). And Thirteen showed up just as the fighting ended and is now shuffling down the roads sucking up all the detritus, leaving only clean streets, so they’re pretty much done here.

“You sure you don’t wanna keep… any of this though? Use it for anything?” Izuku kicks at a lump of gingerbread at his feet.

Satou furrows his brow.

“...This is not good quality gingerbread, Midoriya.”

Satou takes Izuku to his home above the small confectioner’s shop he owns and runs with his wife - the only one of their class to have a job completely separate from their hero work. Sakura greets them with cheek kisses and labored hugs, her very pregnant belly making them a bit harder, and Satou quickly joins his wife in the kitchen to prepare a quick meal for all of them. Izuku offers to help, and is soundly rejected.

Before long the dinner table is set with steaming rice, crunchy fried pork cutlets, and spicy bean sprout salads. Satou and Izuku allow themselves to crack open some beers due to the horrors they experienced earlier, while his wife sips at a sweet tea. Sakura, a lovely, portly woman whom Satou met after stopping a car from crashing into her with his bare hands, is possibly the only person in the world with a sweeter tooth than him. And, if she were to be asked, the only other person better at baking than him.

Izuku has a wonderful time with them, chatting about their plans and expectations for when the baby comes as they eat, and when they’re all done he manages to convince them, after a lot of insisting, to let him help with the dishes. He gets started while Satou helps his wife get settled - she’s starting to spend more and more of her time resting, to her chagrin - then joins Izuku at the sink.

“One of these days,” Satou says with a chuckle, “I’ll get you to leave my house without having done some physical labor.”

“I really don’t mind!” Izuku says, cleaning off a plate. 

“Yeah well, maybe I do,” Satou says with a genial shove. “You stickin’ around after? We can hang out if you want.”

“Ah, I wish I could…” Izuku says, “but I’ve got to get some grading done, and I have to wake up pretty early tomorrow.”

“It’s not a school day though?”

“No, but I’ve still got a busy morning!” Izuku says while he scrubs. “First I’m meeting with Yaoyorozu to go over some stuff about my suit, and after that I’m meeting up with Uraraka about a lesson I’ve got planned for my students…”

“Oh? You been spending more time with them?” Satou says with a bit of interest.

“I’ve been spending more time with everyone now that I’m more involved in hero work!” Izuku says. “But yeah, them in particular! Yaoyorozu ‘cuz of the suit, Uraraka ‘cuz of her or my kids…”

“Uh huh,” Satou says with a bit of humor. “And, that’s all?”

“...Yeah?”

Satou laughs. “Still working out a few things, eh Midoriya?”

Izuku questions him with a glance, but Satou simply shakes his head.

After they finish, Satou walks him out and down to the street, and just as they wave their goodbyes, Satou suddenly tells him to wait, then dashes back inside the shop. He returns a moment later, and hands Izuku a couple of flashcards. On each one, is a simple recipe for chocolates.

“Been a while since I taught you anything, so I figured you might want a refresher,” Satou says. “In case you feel the need to give some to anybody.”

“Oh! Uh, thanks, Satou!”

“No problem,” Satou says with a wide smile. “See ya around, Izuku.”

Izuku heads off with one last wave, and wonders if he’ll ever figure out whatever it is that Satou has.

***

Chapter Text

“Hey Midoriya, wanna help me figure out how I can use my balls better?”

“Maybe some other time!”

***

“H-hey, hold on! That can’t be the whole chapter!”

Minoru grabs the narrative and fixes it back into place.

He scoffs to himself. Always the butt of the joke.

He’s more than that, though. He’s not just something to laugh at, something to find ridiculous. He’s a hero, who helped save the world just like all his friends! He’s got big dreams; to become famous, to be loved the world over, to be a person that everyone takes seriously - and hey, he sure wouldn’t turn down a bunch of smokin’ hot girlfriends.

But no one ever does. Take him seriously.

It’s been true his whole life, and in his lower moments, he can’t help but think it’ll be true for the rest of it. He used to believe it was due to his quirk; he likes it, but lots of people think it’s silly or weird that he has to yank bits of his head off. He used to believe it was due to his height; being the only shorty around got him his fair share of teasing, of mockery. But now that he’s older, now that he’s basically a full-fledged hero, he understands better what the real reason is.

He’s the only person who’s ever willing to point out the obvious.

Sometimes he feels like the only sane person in a crazy world. That he’s somehow the only one who isn’t inured to the wild stuff that happens every day. Back when they had homicidal villains running around everywhere, he was the only one to point out how likely they all were to die. ‘Hey, isn’t it insanely scary these people are trying to murder us??’ he’d say, and it only seemed to frustrate people.

Or like, when Tokoyami and Dark Shadow completely demolish a building, Minoru would say, ‘Dang Tokoyami, you could totally kill a bunch of people super easily if you wanted!” and it just makes the other boy roll his eyes and turn away. But it’s true, isn’t it? And it’s not like he thinks Tokoyami would, but isn’t it crazy that he could? Why is that so weird to bring up?

Even the minor things. When he has a real good dump, a big one that just cleans you out, makes you feel like a burden’s been lifted, he’ll bring it up, and everyone crinkles their nose in disgust. But isn’t that relatable? Hasn’t everyone had that exact kind of feeling before? It’s just that people are so embarrassed to talk about it.

That’s what it all comes down to, really. He’s willing to point out the obvious, and other people aren’t.

His class has a bunch of hotties in it. The obvious that he points out the most. How could he not? It’s the most obvious thing in his entire life. All the girls - well, most of them - are complete bombshells; the kind you put in calendars, hang up on your walls. Whether he’s talking about Uraraka, the down-to-earth cutie who’s got curves in all the right places, or Yaoyorozu, the intelligent beauty who’s stacked up top and oh so climeable, or Ashido, who’s got abs that can grate cheese and thighs that can crush watermelons, or Tsuyu, who’s the perfect contrast of quirky and awkward and petite, fit hottie, or Hagakure, who gets his engine’s revving just from the sheer mystery of it all. 

And Jirou is fine too, he guesses.

But any time he says any of that, it just gets people annoyed. Especially the subjects in question. Even though it’s nothing but complimentary! They’re all good things he’s saying, so why does that make them so upset?

Why is saying the obvious so bad? The answer to that is obvious to everyone but him.

-

A handful of their class are in the training grounds one day, practicing new techniques together; Yaoyorozu and Hagakure looking at some kind of laser thing in one corner, Tokoyami and Midoriya talking with Dark Shadow in another, and Kaminari and him in a third. Kaminari got his hands on some new grappling hook gadget that he’s trying to come up with some special moves for, and Minoru is here to assist.

Kaminari is awful at it. Keeps trying to do weird trick shots, gets all tangled up in the cable, and Minoru quickly finds out he can barely even aim it properly without all the extra fanfare. Ridiculous. Minoru makes sure to tell him this many times, but Kaminari keeps trying anyways, wasting Minoru’s time.

He glances over to one of the other corners, and thinks maybe it’s not such a waste.

Yaoyorozu and Hagakure must have figured something out, because the two of them are hugging. He can tell because of the way Yaoyorozu’s arms are positioned, encircling something just in front of her, a bit off balance as if the other girl surprised her with it. 

And there’s the slightest squish to her chest, another pair of invisible somethings pressing against it.

“Heh,” Minoru says to his companion. “Check it out.” He nods over to the two girls. “Wouldn’t mind bein’ in the middle of that, huh?”

Kaminari glances over. His mouth tugs to the side, and he turns back around.

“Hey man, chill out with that, alright?” 

…Huh?

A lot of people don’t like the stuff he points out, but Kaminari was always the exception. The only other person in their class who seemed to notice all the beauties in the class and say it out loud. What, now it’s suddenly off-limits for him, too?

“Since when are you so sensitive about this stuff, Kaminari?” Minoru says. “We’ve talked about girls before!”

Kaminari scratches the back of his head, almost bashfully. “Yeah, I know, but there’s a time and place,” he says. “I’m trying to watch myself more. We’re all here to work on hero stuff, so let’s just focus on that, alright?”

Minoru’s face scrunches, like he just smelled something rank. 

“What does any of that matter? How is it any different than before??”

“I dunno man,” Kaminari says, “we’re in the end game here. Not that long before we’re adults, full-on professional heroes.” He flashes a grin. “Time to act like it!”

Minoru rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue. Ever since his whole had-to-change-his-electricity debacle, Kaminari’s been in a mood. Though, it’s obvious what the real reason for his hesitation is.

“This is just ‘cuz you figured out you’re into Jirou, huh?” he says. “How can you be whipped before you’re even together!”

Kaminari’s grin collapses as his face turns red.

“D-dude, shut up!” he says. “I’m not… it’s more complicated than that!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Minoru says. “If you wanna focus all your attention on one girl, that’s on you! I’m gonna say what I want.” He shrugs. “If it helps, I won’t say anything about Jirou to you. She’s too flat for my tastes anyways so you can-”

“Seriously, stop,” Kaminari says, with a sharp anger in his eyes that has Minoru reeling back. It fizzles away almost immediately, replaced by something kinder, but still firm. “Look, just, find them attractive, or not attractive, all you want. But don’t make it everyone else’s problem, alright? Especially theirs.” He nods back to the girls, who have gotten back to whatever they were doing. “You’re a good guy, Mineta, but you need to stop making people feel uncomfortable.”

He says it with enough finality that Minoru doesn’t argue back. He’s not sure he’d be able to anyways, because Kaminari is clearly being ridiculous. You can’t argue against something that just doesn’t make any sense.

Maybe he can frustrate people from time to time, but Minoru doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable.

…Right?

-

He catches Yaoyorozu just before she heads to her room for the night, to do whatever girls do in there. Sexy stuff, probably.

“Hey Yaoyorozu,” he says, tugging at her sleeve.

The easy smile on her face falls the slightest bit. He hasn’t even said anything yet; does he really deserve that?

She plucks her arm out of his grip. “Yes?” she says. “Did you need something, Mineta?”

“...Do I make you uncomfortable?”

She tenses the slightest bit, for a fraction of a second, before letting it go.

She furrows her brow.

“...Can I ask what prompted this question?”

He shrugs. “Iunno. Just somethin’ Kaminari said…” He trails off. “Is it true?”

Yaoyorozu stares down at him for an intense few seconds.

“...Yes,” she finally says. “Sometimes. Is that really a surprise?”

“...Oh,” he says. 

It’s the only word that he can manage to say, and the resulting awkwardness quickly chokes the air with silence. He thought there’d be a denial, thought he’d be able to play it off, make some joke about how Kaminari is overthinking things. He… didn’t expect such a firm ‘yes.’

It takes two seconds for the heavy silence to become unbearable. It’s the quiet he hates more than anything, so he says something to fill it.

“B-but, I mean,” he starts, “I don’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable! I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad or anything!” 

Yaoyorozu cheek dimples the slightest bit, like she’s chewing on it from the inside.

“I’m… sure you don’t, Mineta. But that doesn’t make it not true.”

“...Oh,” he repeats dumbly. His throat feels dry, like someone rubbed sandpaper down it. “W-well… um, sorry, I guess.”

This time he can’t see her reaction; he’s too busy looking at the floor.

“...Okay,” she says. “Is that all?”

He feels a flicker of annoyance. Is that all?? He apologized, didn’t he? Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? But the awkwardness smothers out any other response he can give, so he simply shrugs.

“...Okay,” Yaoyorozu says. “Have a good night, Mineta.”

She heads up to her room, and for once, he’s glad to walk in the other direction.

-

“Ugh, it isn’t fair,” Minoru says, laying his cheek against the table. “Why am I the only one who gets in trouble for stuff everyone else gets to do??”

Midoriya, from whom Minoru sat across at the table, continues working on his notes, completely oblivious.

“I’m askin’ you a question, Midoriya!”

He jerks up, startled.

“Oh! Hey Mineta!” he says. “...What were you asking?”

“I’m asking, how come when Kaminari suddenly asks out Uraraka or Shiozaki, it’s fine, but when I give out any compliments, it’s somehow worse?”

“...Kaminari asked Uraraka out?”

“Or how come Ashido can go on and on theorizing about who likes who, which couples would be the cutest, but when I say I think it’d be hot if two girls made out, everyone tells me to stop!”

“When did that happen? Did… did she say yes??”

“Back in first year, and no!” Minoru says. “I feel like you aren’t listening to me!”

“Er, well-”

“And speaking of you, how come you get to make goo-goo eyes at Uraraka all day and everyone just thinks it’s cute-”

“I-I don’t do that!” Midoriya cuts in.

“-But any attention I give is like poison!” Minoru finishes. “Like you’re not thinkin’ about the same things as me anyways!”

“I’m not really sure-”

“Like, you can’t tell me you don’t think she has a nice ass, right?”

Midoriya tenses the slightest bit; almost exactly like Yaoyorozu did, the other day.

He swallows.

“…Mineta, please don’t talk about Uraraka like that, okay?”

“What!” Minoru says. “Is it the word choice? If I said she has a nice butt, is that better?”

“That’s… the same thing,” Midoriya says.

“Then what’s the problem??” Minoru says, desperately tugging at the balls of his head without popping them fully off. “I’m really tryin’ to understand here! I’m not the only person in the world to find girls sexy, so why is it such a big deal to point it out??”

Midoriya’s mouth pulls to the side; almost exactly like Kaminari’s did, the other day.

But even though he’s clearly frustrated, Midoriya considers it anyway, chewing on it harder than taffy, and after a long few minutes he finally says something.

“Do you… ever have anything else to say about the girls in our class?” he says. “Besides what their bodies look like?”

Minoru blinks.

“Uh, well.” There’s a weird static in his brain, something buzzing and disjointed that prevents him from getting from point A to point B. “I-I mean… that’s the most noticeable thing about them, isn’t it?”

Midoriya frowns.

“...Do you really think that, Mineta?”

The pure disappointment in Midoriya’s voice stabs Minoru in the chest. Like, out of all the things Minoru has said, it’s that that finally lowered the Golden Boy’s opinion of him. It has Minoru shaken more than any of the scorn he’s gotten from the girls he’s bugged; he wonders what that says about him.

He tries to deny it, but only manages to stutter out half-words that don’t add up to anything.

Midoriya sighs. 

“Mineta, I think sometimes you can be a little… too much like your quirk,” he says. “You stick yourself to one point of something, and don’t let go, no matter how much someone tries to pull. Our friends are, um, very pretty,” his freckled cheeks tint with a bit of red, “but… there’s more to them than that, you know?” He looks at Minoru with something more determined. “And, more to you than that, too. Don’t let yourself be too stuck to things.”

Minoru shrivels into himself. Midoriya, so clearly disappointed, yet still offering words of encouragement.

He tosses and turns all that night. Argues against the Midoriya in his head, coming up with retorts he couldn't vocalize in the moment. But even if he feels they’re true when the words drift through his mind, they clatter uselessly against the phantom Midoriya and what he’d said that finally struck a nerve.

More than that. More than the obvious.

What do people see when they look at Minoru? The obvious? The shortness, the goofiness, the brashness, the rudeness. Of course he’s much more than that. He’s a hero, isn’t it? He’s worked hard to save people, he’s got big thoughts, big dreams. It’s everyone else’s fault, if they don’t see beyond the obvious.

So, wouldn’t that be true for him, too?

More to them than that.

What does he know about the girls in their class, besides the physical? He knows the obvious. Yaoyorozu is smart, Uraraka is kind, Tsuyu is blunt, Hagakure is bubbly, Mina is mischievous, Jirou is sarcastic. But… does he know anything beyond that? The stuff that isn’t obvious. The stuff they’d hate for others not to notice, over what’s easier to see.

He thinks about until the sun comes up, and comes up with too little.

-

He finds himself in the kitchen just past the break of dawn, baggy, bloodshot eyes hovering on the station of coffeemakers. He never drinks the stuff - ‘Coffee will stunt your growth!’ he’d been told, though now he’s pretty sure that’s a lie - but he’s debating whether it’s finally time to take the plunge. Maybe if he drinks enough of it, he won't have the worst day ever.

It’s while he’s staring daggers at a big jar of coffee beans that Yaoyorozu walks in. 

“Oh,” she says, slightly startled. “Good morning, Mineta.”

“Um. Hey, Yaoyorozu” he says awkwardly.

Unlike him still in his PJs, she seems to be dressed for the day, in a simple skirt and sweater, and the absolute first thought he has is how snugly it fits around her chest. He shoves it down; maybe for once, he can try to see something besides the obvious.

She decides the interaction is over and shifts her attention to the kitchen, where she starts preparing something or other. He watches as she flits back and forth between the fridge, the cupboards, the stove. She’s usually the first one up, but this is pretty early to be up up. He’d think she’d be still in pajamas or something, like him, but she’s looking like she’s all ready to go. She’s even got makeup on, he thinks; he’s not the best at telling. She doesn’t wear it normally, and doesn’t that stuff take a while to put on? 

“You got like a date or somethin’ today?” his mouth says, before he can stop it.

She stops what she’s doing, surprised at being addressed.

“Hm?”

“Um,” he says, not totally realizing he’s begun a conversation. He forces himself to continue. “You’re like, dressed for goin’ out. What kind of date happens at 5 in the morning?”

She narrows her eyes, a bit suspiciously. Like she’s trying to find some hidden meaning.

“...No kind?” she suggests. “I have quite a lot of people I need to meet with today for various things, and I want to get started early.”

“Who you meeting with?”

She hesitates for a second, still looking for some kinda turn. “...A few different people. I’m in the early stages of a number of undertakings that will come to fruition once we graduate.”

His eyes go wide. “Like, an agency?? You’re already thinkin’ about that kind of stuff?”

“That is one of my endeavors, yes,” she answers. “You’re… not thinking about that kind of stuff?”

He winces. “I… figured I’d just join whatever Kaminari or Sero join…”

She shrugs. “Whatever works, I suppose,” she says. “But yes, full day, though I wanted to make myself a quick breakfast beforehand.” 

“Oh,” he says stupidly.

She waits a second for him to say anything else, but when nothing comes, gets back to what she was doing. She lays out a few things across the counter -  pan, eggs, whisk - then stops once again.

She has some internal fight with herself, then sighs.

“Would you like some too?” she offers.

“...Huh?” he says, truly caught off guard. “You’d really make me something?”

“I’d feel guilty making food just for myself when you’re right here.”

Right, of course. 

But whatever state he’s in, whatever epiphanies he does or doesn’t have, there’s a principle he will always follow: If a beautiful girl offers to do something for you, shut up and let her!

“S-sure!” he says, and Yaoyorozu looks only a little disappointed that he said yes.

Ten minutes later, she brings over two plates of truly terrible-looking scrambled eggs; dryer than sand, crumbly like chalk, crispy brown bits all throughout.

“Whoa,” Mineta says. “You’re awful at cooking.”

“W-well… it’s not something that’s been required of me much in my life…” she says, with a flash of red in her cheeks. 

“Ohh right, ‘cuz you’re a rich girl,” he says. “I bet you had butlers and chefs n’ stuff.”

Yaoyorozu clicks her tongue.

“And you’re, what, a master chef yourself?” she says a bit frustratedly.

“I can make scrambled eggs,” he says. “It looks like you made them with the stove on full blast!”

Her brows furrow. “...Doesn’t that cook them faster?”

He snorts. “If that counts as cooking,” he says to the plates.

She huffs. 

“If you don’t want it, then-”

“No I’ll eat it!”

It’s just as terrible going down as it is to look at, but based on the way her nose crinkles with disgust with every mouthful, she’s as aware of it as he is. No need to point out the obvious.

“No offense Yaoyorozu, but isn’t cooking basically chemistry?” he says. “You’re supposed to be good at that stuff, aren’t ya?”

She grimaces, more at the eggs on her tongue than at him. Probably.

“I’m very aware of the scientific principles involved in cooking,” she says defensively. “There are simply a few… practicalities that I’m unfamiliar with. I’m sure with some proper studying, I could become quite competent.”

“Pretty sure for cooking you gotta just keep trying,” he says, downing the last of his home-cooked meal prepared by a beautiful girl. “You can’t study your way outta this.”

“Yes, well,” she waves her fork dismissively, “I’ll take that under advisement.”

He laughs internally. He’s so used to Yaoyorozu being crazy good at everything that he never considered she could be bad at something, too.

“...What makes you suggest I would be particularly competent in chemistry?” she continues.

“Huh? I mean, that’s your quirk, isn’t it?” he says. “You chemistry up whatever you want.”

Her mouth thins with disagreement. “I mean, I consider my quirk closer to molecular physics than chemistry.”

He blinks.

“I gotta be honest, I dunno what the difference is.”

“I imagine most people don’t…” she says wearily. “Not that there isn’t plenty of overlap anyways. There are related fields named both Physical Chemistry and Chemical Physics in addition to Chemistry, and I suppose I draw on all of these disciplines to learn more about my quirk.” She takes a sip of the mug of coffee she prepared for herself, then grimaces again. She sets it aside. 

“That’s pretty intense,” he says. “D’you really need all that just to use your quirk?”

“I suppose not,” she admits. “But I find it all interesting regardless. And it’ll serve me well when I start taking university classes, and then later when I start up the research laboratories I wish to establish.”

“You’re gonna become a scientist instead of a hero??”

She chuckles. “Who says I can't do it all? It may take me longer, but it's something I’ve always dreamed of doing.”

Damn. She’s really got some big dreams, huh?

“And you?” she continues. “You’ve never been more inspired to find out how your quirk works?”

“Huh? I mean, I know how it works,” he says.

“I mean, beyond the basics of it sticking and bouncing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean, I already know that,” he says. He pokes at one of the spheres on his head. “My head forms these big globs of monomers, which naturally combine into a rubber-like polymer. All their properties kinda extend out from that.”

Her eyes widen.

“Oh. That’s… rather interesting!” she says. “I’m surprised you know that about yourself.”

He points a thumb at himself. “I don’t care that much about science, but when it comes to my quirk and being a hero, I take it seriously!”

“I… suppose that is true,” she says. “I’ve noticed you’re actually quite dutiful about schoolwork.”

“Well yeah!” Because girls love it! he keeps himself from saying. “Anyways, I’m not a super smart scientist like you, but the way I understand it, the monomer stuff pretty quickly polymerizes, and the resulting polymer is like, crazy elastic. It’s why they’re so bouncy! On the inside, anyways. On the outside, the monomers haven’t polymerized yet. Once I take them off my head, they start bonding with each other, and anything they touch, sticking to it. So it’s the same process overall, it’s just delayed at the surface.”

“Oh, that makes sense!” she says. “Though, why does the surface stay as a sheet of monomers?”

“My body also produces a solvent for them,” he says. “So the surface is dissolved in that, and once I pluck ‘em off, the solvent evaporates, and they start bonding.” And his current theory; it’s in his sweat. Not that he’s gonna tell a girl that. Shit’s nasty to think about. He shivers when he remembers Bakugou’s sopping wet towels in the locker room after a fight. “That’s also why they don’t stick to me, because if they touch me the outside just dissolves again.”

“Amazing!” Yoayorozu says, and it might be with the most excitement he’s ever seen her point towards him. “Have you isolated and identified the specific substances involved? Or done any chemicals and properties testing??”

“Uh, no?” he says. “I think I annoyed the support classes too much with all my requests for a ball-bazooka.”

“Well, perhaps your head spheres can be one of my laboratory's first projects!” she says with a glimmer in her eye.

Something swells in his chest. “You… wanna study me?”

“I want to study everything!” she says instantly. “The world we live in is admittedly imperfect, and yet, there are so many fascinating things in it to explore!” She looks off dreamily. “It is my greatest hope that I spend the rest of my life learning these things, and use what I learn to help the world in turn.” She looks back to him. “I think that would be wonderful, don’t you?”

He grips hard at his fork, and stares down at his empty plate.

“Y-yeah, totally!” he says, forcing a laugh.

Yaoyorozu has always been way taller than him. Something he very much appreciated, due to the view he got whenever he looked up at her. But it’s only now he truly feels it, how much higher she stands than him. What is his big dream? To become super popular, get a bunch of girlfriends? And here Yaoyorozu is, having half a dozen real big dreams, and wishing for more. Dreams he never knew about, because he never even thought to ask.

Something occurs to her, and she checks the small watch on her wrist.

“Oh! Sorry, I need to head out,” she says. “Perhaps we can finish this discussion later.”

He rears back; it’s the first time a girl has offered to spend time with. “You… wanna keep talking with me?”

“Of course,” she says easily. “Perhaps we can get together with Midoriya and do some full on theorizing and brainstorming on your quirk.” 

Ah, of course. With Midoriya. That makes more sense. But he’d be stupid to turn it down. 

“Y-yeah, sure! Th-that sounds cool!”

“Alright. Goodbye, Mineta.” She hesitates, then sighs, saying the next words to herself more than him. “Hopefully everything goes smoothly today…” 

“...What do you have to be worried about?” he asks genuinely. “Who’s gonna tell you ‘no’ once you tell them all the awesome stuff you wanna do?”

She shakes her head. “It’s the fact that I’ll be on trains for so much of the day that has me frustrated.”

“Why? Trains make you motion-sick?”

“No, it’s the people on board that concern me most,” she says. “Some of them can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.”

Something hits him hard, like lightning, making his whole body rigid.

“...O-Oh? That’s…” He swallows. “You… really gotta deal with stuff like that?”

She thinks on it, then frowns.

“I can’t imagine there’s a woman out there who doesn’t,” she says simply.

“A-ah,” he says, his tongue sandpaper dry. “P… probably kids being stupid, I guess…”

“Sometimes,” she admits. “But usually it’s much older men.”

“...B-but, you’re pretty much a full hero now, right?” he offers. “So, even if they do anything, you can just kick their asses!”

“I suppose,” she says, with little emotion. “But I’d simply prefer if it wasn’t a concern in the first place. I’ve had to deal with it since I was ten, and it doesn’t get any less tiring.”

Ten? Ten?!

That’s just a kid! People were trying to grope her when she was a kid? That’s so young, like, that’s how old Eri is-

I can’t wait to see how you look in ten years!

His stomach twists, and he slaps his hand over his mouth to keep himself from gagging.

Yaoyorozu misses his reaction, just waves behind her as she leaves. “Have a good day, Mineta.”

He can’t even make himself nod in response.

Those were the words he said when he first met Eri. Before he knew anything about her, before she became so special to their class. He’d forgotten all about it, until right this moment. The first, most obvious thought in his head when he saw that little girl.

He hadn’t even meant anything by it. Not really. At least… he doesn’t think so. It was just a dumb joke, right? But why did he need to say it? Does she remember that he did? Did she understand it when he said it? If she didn’t, will it hit her when she’s older, memory striking her like it did to him just now? Will ‘I didn’t really mean it’ cut it, if she were to bring it up?

He thinks about those creepy old guys on the train. Maybe they don’t mean it either. Maybe it’s all just a big game to them - to see how much they can get away with. 

Is that what he’s on his way towards? Bein’ some skeevy old man, hiding himself in packed train cars, harassing strangers, harassing kids, just for some weird thrill? Because those people, those girls, are just bodies to touch, and not people with big dreams all their own? Something more than that.

His gut gurgles and roils from an enormous weight that sits inside. He wants to blame the eggs, but he knows the truth, the obvious. What he really can’t bear to swallow.

The realization that maybe, just maybe, he isn’t a very good person.

-

Turns out, even after having startling, life-changing revelations about yourself, the world keeps on going.

He still has his work studies, he still has classes - though at this point, none of their teachers cares much if they skip ‘em for the former. Things go on as they always do, and no one pays any mind to the fact that his whole view of himself has been blown wide open. Why would they? They’ve all got more important things to think about.

He’s not sure what he expected. That something would change, he guesses. That realizing stuff about himself would do something other than make him feel awful. Looks like he’s outta luck.

Ugh. The lesson here is that he’s probably gotta be the one to do the changing. Lame. Why can’t realizing it just be enough? Why’s he gotta work for it? He can’t even complain about not knowing what to do next, because he knows what. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

He glances around the common room.

Ashido’s over with her boys, Kirishima and Bakugou, chatting with one and annoying the other. Uraraka is with her boys, Midoriya and Iida, going over some kind of papers in front of them. Hagakure is leaning hard against Ojiro, still somehow believing they aren’t into each other while they talk to Sero, Tsuyu is over with Tokoyami having a serious discussion, and Jirou is with Kaminari, the both of them working on some device they keep passing between them. Yaoyorozu, he assumes, is out making big things happen.

He whines to himself, then droops his head. He’s really not looking forward to it.

It takes him a couple days to build up the courage to talk to them. It helps that he’s never been shy about recklessly approaching a group of women, but, well, maybe that’s also part of the problem. He hopes it averages out to good in this instance.

The group of girls excuse themselves to have their weekly sleepover thing - where now he’s pretty sure nothing sexy happens (probably (a man can dream (as long as he keeps it to himself))) - and he decides that if this isn’t the moment, then it’s not happening.

He slaps himself on his cheeks to rally himself, then dashes after them.

“W-wait, hold on a sec!” he says, catching them in the stairwell before they go up. “I, I wanted to talk to you guys about something!”

The group of girls turn to him, and suddenly, when faced with all of them, every ounce of determination he had leaves him.

“Er,” he flounders.

Jirou rolls her eyes. “No, you can’t come with us,” she says. “Stop asking.”

The accusation jump starts his brain. “N-no, that’s not what I wanted! I just, need to tell you guys something!”

“Yeah yeah, tell us in our rooms, I bet,” Hagakure says. “Stop trying to get into our rooms!”

He winces. He… didn’t think there’d be so much pushback to just talking to him.

“W-we don’t need to go in any rooms!” he says. “It can be in the hallway! I just…” He swallows. “It’s just, really personal…”

“I’m sure,” Jirou says, deadpan.

He purses his lips.

It’s Yaoyorozu, with a sigh, who says, “It won’t take long, will it?” He vigorously shakes his head. “Fine. Behave yourself, Mineta.”

The rest of the girls are hesitant, but when Vice President Queen Bee Girl Boss Yaoyorozu says something, they usually listen. They like, respect and admire her, or whatever. The boys don’t really have a similar relationship with Iida. 

They walk him up a flight of stairs and stand in the hallway outside of their rooms, waiting for him to say his piece. He starts to sweat. His arms are more rigid than steel against his sides. His eyelids are peeled open from the tension.

Uraraka rolls her eyes. He’s probably gonna get a lot of that. “What’s this about, Mineta?”

He swallows. Time to rip the bandaid off.

He pitches his upper body forward, going as low as he can without falling over.

“S-sorry!”

There’s an unbearable silence afterwards. Seconds tick by, and he holds himself in place, too scared to look up at their reactions. 

“...For what?” Hagakure finally says, a confused lilt to her voice. 

Right. He probably needs to actually say.

“Er, f-for… all the things I’ve said to everyone,” he says to the floor. “All the p…pervy comments, n’ stuff.”

Another beat of silence.

“Uh huh,” Jirou says, “sure you are.”

He flicks his head up.

“I, I am! I p-promise!”

Ashido rolls her eyes. “What’re you playin’ at, Mineta? What kind of scheme-” she wiggles her hands mockingly, “-are you pulling to like, steal our underwear or whatever?”

“N-no, it’s not…!” he cries, his voice shaking. Is… is he really so far gone they can’t even imagine him apologizing? “It’s n-not a trick or anything, I swear!”

Hagakure spins her gloved hands, index fingers going in circles. A visible indicator to let everyone know she’s rolling her eyes. “Sure thing, Mineta, we totally believe you. Can we go now?”

“W-wait, please!” he says, bow collapsing as he takes a step forward. “I… I mean it, I do!”

A few of them rear back a bit at his step, and his already crumbling face falls even more. 

He never thought it’d be this bad. That every word he says, every movement he does, is just something for them to watch out for, be careful of. What… what can he do to make them believe him? Is there anything??

He sees the last bit of patience they have leave them, and decides he only has one option.

He falls to his knees. He lurches down, bracing his forearms on the floor, and grinds his forehead against the carpeted floor.

“I’m sorry, okay?!” he says, voice muffled by the carpet fibers. “I.. I’ve been really gross to you guys, I know, b-but I don’t wanna be that anymore!”

He hears one of them click their tongue, and it feels like something gets scooped out of his chest.

“Mineta, that’s a serious thing to do,” Tsuyu, out of all of them, says. “Don’t get on the floor like that if you’re just playing around.” 

“I… I’m not playing around!” he says, his eyes watering. Even this isn’t enough? To just believe he’s serious?? He’s not askin’ for them to say everything’s okay, everything’s fine! Just, for them to think he’s not lying, not trying to get one over on them. 

He’s completely screwed up his whole relationship with them over the years without even caring, and now he’s staring down the possibility that it’s completely unfixable. He doesn’t know what more he can do to convince them, doesn’t know how much farther into the ground he can go. “I… I mean it, I do!” His voice starts to crack, and he stammers and stumbles over further denials. “I’m not… not a trick, it isn’t…” The carpet against his face starts to moisten, feeling cold against his skin.

He hears one of them walk over. She squats down, and taps at his shoulder. He peeks over his hands with stuttery movements and sees Tsuyu in front of him, sitting like a frog, arms pressing her skirt down between her legs. He looks up at her.

“You’re sorry?” she says skeptically.

He swallows hard, trying to clear out the mucus in his nose and throat. “Y-yes! I… I am!”

“For all your comments towards us?” He nods as best he can in the position. “And, that’s it?”

He looks at her, confused.

“Words are one thing, but you haven’t always kept your hands to yourself either.”

Every part of him shrinks inward like a crumpled piece of paper.

“Wha… no, that isn’t…!”

Tsuyu rolls her eyes.

He stops himself, painfully swallows down his denials.

No wonder they don’t believe him. Even now, he still wants to run away from the stuff he did.

It was never fully intended. Not a decision he specifically made, then acted on. But there have been times when, during moments of struggle, he let himself grab onto his classmates, and not care too hard about where his hands landed. But is that any different? Maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s the same excuse people use in packed trains, letting their hands drift to women, to girls. 

He sucks up the snot in his nose, and puts his face back down.

“...I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “For all the stuff I said. For tryin’ to peek at you. For… for touching you.” He presses his head down as much as he can. “I’m sorry for bein’ an awful person to all of you.”

Another unbearable silence. He hears Tsuyu stand back up, and walk over to the others, can hear half-muttered words between them.

“Mineta,” Yaoyorozu says, after having been quiet this whole time. “Please stand up.”

She says it in that instructive tone she has when she’s directing a class project: straightforward, nearly emotionless, making him unable to glean her mood.

He shimmies back so he can push himself up, and stands, eyes firmly on the ground the whole way. Is this the part where she shoos him off? A final declaration of wanting nothing to do with him? He tries to hold back his tears, to not seem completely pathetic in front of them, but fails completely. He doesn’t know what the perfect apology looks like, but it probably doesn’t include crying like a baby. He wipes his face off with his sleeve.

“Can I ask what brought this on?” she says, though her voice is still instructive, not curious.

He sniffs.

“‘Cuz… ‘cuz of you,” he says honestly. “I liked talking with you th’ other day. It was… fun.”

He hears her exhale, with a bit of frustration.

“So, you’re just trying to get closer to me?” she asks.

“Y-yeah…” he says, before realizing what that sounds like. “W-wait, no not like that! I, I do wanna get closer, but as friends! I wanna be friends with all of you guys! A real friend, like everyone else is! I wanna know stuff about you that friends are s’posed to know! I want-” His voice squeaks, and he clears his throat. “I wanna be a person you guys don’t hate to be around anymore! I want to be a person girls don’t have to worry about! I want… I want…”

And with the last of his determination, he looks them straight on and says the truest thing he can say.

“I want to never be an old guy on a train!!”

Four of them scrunch their noses, completely bewildered.

“...What?” Hagakure says, joining their ranks.

The only one who isn’t confused, eyes him appraisingly.

Yaoyorozu walks a few steps closer, gives him one last consideration.

“...Thank you,” she says. “For saying that.” The girls behind her look to each other for answers, and come up with nothing. “I believe your sincerity, Mineta, but I very much hope it isn’t short-lived. It will be all the worse if it is.”

He shakes his head vigorously. “It… it won’t be.”

“...I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?” she says. “I think you should take your leave, for now. I don’t mean to speak for everyone else, but I imagine they’ll need time to digest your words.”

“Yeah no kidding,” Jirou says.

“I… guess he seems serious?” Uraraka says.

The rest of them shrug.

“...Y-yeah, I’ll leave,” he says. “Th… thanks. For listening to me.”

He heads out of their section of the building and towards the boys side, to his room. He wipes at his face again as he walks, wishing that any of that had him feel better. That apologizing had taken a weight off, instead of making everything seem heavier.

His thoughts linger on the looks of confusion and uncertainty on each of their faces, even after Yaoyorozu said she believed him.

The rest probably don’t. Or if they do, they probably don’t think he’ll mean it for long. Maybe they shouldn’t. It’s not supposed to be easy, is it? Making things right.

But he’s gonna do it. Make things right. He’ll prove it to each of them. He’ll keep trying to become a better person, over and over, every day, for as long as it takes, until it’s obvious to everyone that it’s sticking.

***

8 years later

Binding Rounds - Grape Juice

Izuku nervously tugs at his sleeves, smoothing them out. He swipes his hand down the front, making sure his buttons are secure. He adjusts his jacket by the lapels, shifting how it sits on his shoulders the slightest bit. He wiggles the imperfect knot of his tie, because while he technically knows how to tie it now, he usually relies on tightening and untightening ones he’s already set up. This one he had to do off of his vague memory.

Besides the tie, it all fits perfectly. It better, given how expensive it was to rent it. 

He’s not good with these fancy parties. It’s no full-on gala, but there’s still a slightly tense, slightly professional atmosphere among the partygoers, who are here for both work and pleasure. A formal gathering, but for making professional and personal connections in service of establishing some of Yaoyorozu’s research endeavors. It’s a lot of scientists, he thinks, but also a lot of investors, so even as the researchers talk shop, they’ve all got to be on their best behavior. 

It would almost be easier if he was here as Deku, the pro-hero. At least he’d know how to operate. Instead he’s here as Izuku, as a show of support for Yaoyorozu along with a few of their other friends, so he hasn’t been involving himself with many of the other attendants. Mostly he’s just been palling along with Mineta.

“I don’t get why you’re so scared to talk to people,” Mineta says, looking far more secure in his own suit than Izuku in his. “You’re like, the fourth smartest person I know, I bet you could keep up with all these Einsteins.”

“O-oh, I dunno,” Izuku says, “I’m just a high school teacher, y’know…”

Mineta looks at him with exaggerated disgust.

“You know, there’s such a thing as too humble.”

It’s then that the host of this whole soiree breaks away from a few guests she’d been tending to and heads their way.

“Midoriya! Mineta!” Yaoyorozu greets. “Thank you so much for coming. I hope you’re enjoying yourselves?”

“I sure am!” Mineta says, holding up his second glass of wine. “That’s a really beautiful dress, by the way. You look great!” 

“Oh, thank you for saying so,” she says.

Mineta elbows Izuku gently.

“Don’t you think, Midoriya?”

Izuku nearly jumps from the gesture, and takes a look.

And Mineta certainly isn’t wrong. 

Yaoyorozu’s wearing a shimmering, emerald green midi dress that ends a bit above her ankles, with a modest split on the left side that reveals more of her leg whenever she walks. The neckline is low, but she has a brighter green, sheer shawl wrapped around her shoulders that knots at her front and is pinned with some kind of viridian rose decoration. She has matching jewelry that dangles heavily from her ears and around her neck, and her hair is pulled back, not in her casual ponytail but in a braided bun. She’s… elegant, in a way he simply doesn’t have the words to describe. 

“A-ah, yeah, of course!” he says. “V-very pretty! You… you look lovely, Yaoyorozu!”

A light blush hits her cheeks. “Thank you, Midoriya.”

“You need anything from us?” Mineta offers. “Or are we free to schmooze?”

“Nothing for now,” she says, “but I might call on you at the end of the night for some assistance cleaning things up.”

“Sure thing! Hope you take all these investors for everything they’re worth, Yaomomo!”

She sucks in her lips, half annoyed, half amused.

“...Thank you, Mineta.”

“I’m gonna go find some ladies to talk to,” he says, before turning away. “See you guys later!”

“Ah, wait-” Izuku says, but he’s gone before he can say anything else. He asks Yaoyorozu, “...He gonna be okay?” 

She chuckles. “He’ll be fine.” She nods at where Mineta went; towards a sharp-looking woman who, based on the size of the gems on her neck and fingers, is perhaps a bit out of his league.

“Hey there!” Mineta says easily. “Mind if I paid you a compliment?”

The woman looks down on him, literally and metaphorically.

“no thanks,” she says, not even deigning to say it in uppercase.

Mineta snaps his fingers into finger guns. “Got it! Hope you have a nice night!” 

And he moves on. Rejected, but bouncing back immediately. 

Izuku watches, engrossed, as Mineta bombs with one more woman, than another, before heading over to the small bar against the wall, where a bored, slightly older woman spins a straw through her cocktail, dressed in slacks and a blazer; the epitome of ‘working woman who doesn’t wanna be here.’ 

“Hey there!” Mineta says, saddling up. “Can I pay you a compliment?:

The woman barely spares him a glance, but even so, says, “...Sure.”

“That’s a smart-lookin’ suit!” he says. “Lemme guess: scientist forced to come here instead of doing actual work?”

The woman rolls her eyes, but chuckles sourly at the same time. “More or less. That obvious?”

“Pretty much!” he says. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to know more about you! Figure out what isn’t so obvious. You seem like an interesting person!”

She raises an eyebrow, then sighs.

“You know what? Fine. Go ahead.”

He jumps backwards, onto the stool behind him, and the momentum spins him all the way around until he settles facing towards her, leaning his elbow on the bartop and his head against his hand.

“So tell me, what’s your big dream?” he says. “The thing you’d rather be doing right now? I wanna know!”

And after his whole set-up, the woman looks, dare Izuku say… intrigued. 

The two of them start talking.

“...Huh,” Izuku says. He’s heard about Mineta’s particular… method of approaching women these days, but it’s the first time he’s seen it in person.

“Apparently, he can be quite the charmer when he wants to be,” Yaoyorozu says. 

“Wow,” Izuku says, really feeling the word.

“And, from personal experience, quite the attentive and selfless lover.”

Izuku’s eyes go painfully wide.

The world suddenly becomes foreign. Down is up, up is down, left is north and south is yes. The base fundamentals of reality fall apart and he’s flung into some strange new existence that he doesn’t know how to fit into anymore, that he’s not sure it’s possible to fit into anymore.

He creaks his neck towards Yaoyorozu, completely aghast.

And finds her holding back laughter, hand daintily over her mouth.

“You should see your face right now,” she says. “It must truly be the first time that particular look has graced it.”

The world collapses back into its familiar shape.

“Whoa,” he says with a relieved laugh. “Kinda had me questioning my whole sense of self there, Yaoyorozu!” He raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you make those kinds of jokes?”

She shrugs. “Perhaps Mineta isn’t the only one to partake in the many inebriants we’ve laid out.” She glances down at his neck. “I would suggest that’s what resulted in your tie, but I think I know better the real cause.”

He turns shy, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I do know how to do it, I just… forget, sometimes,” he says.

She shakes her head good-naturedly, then steps in close.

She reaches for it. 

If he was younger, he would’ve stopped her, too embarrassed to let her fix it for him. But there is one piece of advice Mineta gave him a long time ago that, after years, finally stuck.

If a beautiful girl offers to do something for you, shut up and let her!

With skillful grace and nimble fingers, she quickly unties the mess and knots it into something much cleaner, and faster than he could ever do it himself.

With a thwip, she pulls it tight against his collar. One hand lingers at the knot against his neck, the other at the tail, holding it for just a second longer. He can feel the knuckle of her finger against the hollow of his throat, even through his button-up. He stares up at her - always up, even without her heels - into her warm, onyx eyes. She smiles, eyes squeezing.

There’s a sudden crash at the entrance to the hall. A man comes barreling through the wait staff, the trays of hors d'oeuvres and some of the tables, wailing unintelligible words as a few security guards try to stop him. He sprints in vaguely their direction, and Izuku readies the only part of his hero suit he’s got on him - the swarm of Creati, and all their related functions, the endless utility they bring. They normally sit flat against his skin, hiding under his clothes, but they crawl up to his hands as the man gets closer.

Then the man shifts direction slightly, towards the bar area, where he comes to a stop and falls to his knees.

In front of the woman Mineta is with.

“Baby, please!!” he shouts, hands clasped together. “Take me back!”

The woman, bright red with embarrassment, tries to hide her face from the people now gathering around them.

“...Are you serious??” she says. “Go away!”

“Not until-” The man spots Mineta. “You’ve already moved on? How could you?!”

“This isn’t… We broke up ten months ago! You need to move on!”

“How can I?? It was only ten months ago!!”

Mineta’s nose wrinkles with displeasure.

“Dude, learn to let go,” he says.

“Oh shut up, you pipsqueak!”

Mineta rolls his eyes, then hops off his stool and walks towards the man.

“C’mon buddy, I’m gonna walk you outta here before you embarrass yourself some more.”

The man growls. “I’d like to see you try!”

His two fists morph into the heads of hammers and he throws them backwards, arms stretching out unnaturally. He swings them up and around, aiming squarely for Mineta in two huge arcs. But Mineta’s eyes turn sharp, and with a blinding speed he plucks off a few balls from his head. 

It all happens very fast. Two sticky spheres get launched towards the hammerheads before they hit, and Mineta dodges to the side, letting hammers hit the bare floor. They crumple a bit of the tile, but instantly Hammer-man’s arms are stuck to the floor, and he uselessly tries to pull them away. But as he does, Mineta piles on more spheres, covering every inch of him, until the man is completely restrained and immovable, looking like a human sized cluster of grapes. 

People tend to underestimate him, even when they know he’s a hero, but the thing about Mineta, AKA Grape Juice, is: that the absolute best of them at neutralizing an individual. His spheres hold better than Sero’s tape, are safer to be constrained by than Todoroki’s ice, keep their stickiness in most conditions, and he can use them on someone in the air knowing that if they fall, the elasticity will protect them. And, while he doesn’t have it with him now, his Grape Bazooka gives him plenty of range as well.

“You almost ruined the night, pal,” Mineta says to Hammer Man. “You’re lucky I was here to stop you!” He turns back to the business woman. “He got family in town?”

“Erm, his parents?” she answers.

“Cool, I’ll take him to them, let them deal with him.”

Fear flashes in the man’s eyes. “N-no, wait, please don’t! You can’t-”

By now, Izuku and Yaoyorozu have gotten closer.

“Mineta, please, we can get someone to take him, you don’t have to do it yourself,” Yaoyorozu offers.

“Nah it’s okay, I’ll take care of it!” He grabs a nearby food cart and rolls the balled-up man onto the top, sticking him there. He pulls out a slip of paper, writes something on it, then hands it to the woman. “Here, text me where to drop him off.” He winks. “Or, for any other reason.”

The woman’s eyes flash wide for just a second.

She tucks her hair shyly behind her ear, and smiles.

“Not sure how long it’ll take, so see you guys later! Bye Yaomomo, bye Izuku!”

They wave Mineta off as he carts away the man, and the party quickly  goes back to normal. People are used to that kind of nonsense by now.

Izuku watches as Mineta leaves. Looks… like everything got handled. And Izuku didn’t even need to do anything.

He frowns.

“...Something wrong, Midoriya?” Yaoyorozu says.

He looks to his hand, where Creati has formed itself into a ball that would, if thrown, stick to a target and explode out, trapping them in a net of nanoscopic machines.

In theory, anyways.

“I just… haven’t gotten to use this function yet…”

She snickers.

“You’ll get your chance, I’m sure,” she says. She taps at the ball and the sphere collapses, machines crawling back up his sleeve. “Now come, I want to introduce you to a few researchers. I think they’ll be very interested to hear your thoughts on Quirk Inheritance.”

She loops her arm through his and maneuvers him through the party; and if there’s a reason Yaoyorozu wants to spend her time with him out of all the interesting people here, it’s certainly not obvious to him.

***

Chapter Text

Mashirao has always been a hard worker.

He values that about himself. Done his best to embody the notion. When other people called him plain, or boring, or dull, he could always point to that facet of himself and say, No, THIS is what I have. And he’s been that way since he was a child: whenever he’d been tasked with a chore, he finished it right then and there, exactly as asked and with extra shine on top, whenever he’d been assigned homework, he did it the moment he got home, no matter how many distractions threatened his attention. He got stuff done, whether it was a priority or not, because doing the work is important.

A lesson instilled by his father, year after year after year. “Hard work will get you far, son,” he’d say, after every long day. And Mashirao would look around at their cozy, well-loved house, at their full fridge and cupboards, at himself and his siblings who didn’t get everything they wanted but always got enough, at his mother who worked just as hard tying it all together, and he’d understand the truth of them, his father’s words.

But it’s only recently that Mashirao realized they’re wrong. Or maybe just incomplete. Hard work will get him far, but it won’t get him across the finish line. Especially when he doesn’t even know where the finish line is.

They’re all gonna be heroes soon. Official, full time, professional heroes, with all the weight and responsibility that brings. It’s pretty much a given at this point, and what few stumbling blocks might be in the way he’s sure they’ll all overcome. They’re gonna graduate, and what he’s always thought of as the finish is just another start, for a marathon he has no idea how to run.

Once he’s a hero, what comes next? He’s always admired what being a hero meant, the work it takes to do good every day, but when he looks at his friends he understands that there is more. When Iida talks of life after UA, it’s not just about hero work, but about a legacy - something important he wants to carry, and grow. For Bakugou, it is, as always, about achieving the highest heights, endlessly, eternally, with an unyielding ferocity. For Todoroki, about making up for past wrongs, whether he’s responsible for them or not. And for Yaoyorozu, there is seemingly no end to the races she wants to run.

Even his friends with less clear goals have something extra they’re building towards. Hagakure, working hard to present herself in a whole new way; Kaminari and Tokoyami, trying hard to figure out new ways to work with their quirks; Mineta, reinventing himself entirely to make up for his mistakes.

And then there’s Uraraka. Midoriya. Looking for something all their own, and utterly dissatisfied that they can’t seem to find it. It hadn’t even occurred to Mashirao to be dissatisfied. That he could want something more.

It’s something that no amount of hard work will ever give him: a goal to work hard towards.

-

Mashirao feels the most in tune with himself when he’s out on patrol.

It’s less of a priority these days, hero patrols, with most pros focused on specific projects and emergency calls. The hero world is too short-handed at the moment to cover all their bases, but they do what they can. Maybe that will change as more of the world gets fixed, as fewer emergencies bloom out of the slowly repairing cracks. Maybe it won’t. Their society is in the middle of a cultural shift, and it’s unclear which way things are heading. 

As more and more civilians step up to help their own communities, maybe many of those communities won’t want heroes walking around. Won’t need them. Not for keeping the everyday peace, anyways. In the same way heroes want the people they protect to trust them, they need to have trust in the people they protect, to trust them to ask for help when required, without being a looming, unwanted presence.

But maybe there will be space for it again in the future. Of walking these communities, and being welcome, familiar. 

He sure hopes that’s the case. He likes it too much. What others might see as an everyday grind, he sees as a steady effort, building up a relationship between him and a neighborhood brick by brick. Something he hasn’t gotten to do yet, with patrols randomly handed out to whoever can take them, whenever they can. He’s got a handful of bricks in a dozen different communities, and none of them quite build into anything yet. Maybe one day.

He’s not the most commanding presence around, but he knows how to be friendly enough. As he walks, he waves to those who wave first, nods to those who seem a bit more closed off, leaves the ones who look away alone. Doing his best to let everyone know he’s there if they need him, without trying to butt into anyone’s business. Offering help directly to anyone with an obvious problem; something needs lifting, someone needs calming down, a lost kid needs help finding family. In a perfect world, that’s all hero work would be - helping with the everyday.

There’s a sudden scream a block away, because there will never be a perfect world.

He slams his tail against the ground to boost him towards the sound, falling into a sprint as he lands. It only takes him a minute to find the source, a woman on the 6th floor of an apartment complex screaming from her balcony. She’s leaning over the rail looking over at the next building, squished up against the complex, and when Mashirao follows her line of sight he sees what she’s screaming at.

A fuzzy little girl, walking along a parapet on the other building a floor or two higher, three twirling monkey tails wagging behind her with every step.

The woman yells at the girl to ‘come back, you’re gonna fall,’ and there’s a neighbor or two looking at the same little girl, beckoning with their arms to come to them, one of them even stepping over their own railing as if to climb after her. But the girl completely ignores them all, too engrossed in taking big steps on the thin ledge she’s on.

He gets there just in time, because right as he gets to the base of the buildings, the girl’s tails flick in an awkward way, tangling up one of her legs, tilting her off the side towards the streets below.

He slams his tail into the ground again, shooting him up three stories, and he grabs onto a window frame. With more tail pounds he leapfrogs up the building during the girl’s slow, weightless tip over.

He doesn’t get to the top in time. He’s on level with the mother when the girl fully goes over, so he quickly aims himself just below her and springs himself off the building one last time. He collides with her in the air, as softly as he can manage, scooping her into his arms. He feels a bunch of limbs clutch onto him as they fall, arms, legs, tails all, and he holds her tight. The jump has them too far away from the building to catch on to anything, but the next building over has a traffic sign in front jutting out into the street, and as they fall towards it he prepares one last maneuver.

They fly just over the sign, and he darts his thick tail down, wrapping around the metal.

His stomach goes tight as they spin around the sign, once, twice, but on the third he lets go, throwing them up and cancelling out most of their speed. They fall to the street below, now just two floors down, and he cushions the landing with a thwack of his extra limb.

He breathes out a sigh of relief. Safe.

“Sayuri!” he hears from behind. 

He sees the woman, the little girl’s mom, running over, and he pries Sayuri off of him and puts her down. Sayuri looks more confused than anything, not quite old enough to understand exactly how much danger she was just in.

“Oh Sayuri, you’re okay!” the woman says, scooping up her daughter herself. The little girl instantly clutches tight - probably some involuntary instinct of hers, since she clearly doesn’t understand why her mom is so upset.

Sayuri’s mom rocks her back and forth a few times, petting at Sayuri’s head, before pulling away just enough to address her daughter. “I told you not to be climbing things like that, Saru!”

Sayuri’s face wrinkles. “But I wanna climb, mama!”

The mother sighs. “I know you do, sweetie…” She shifts Sayuri so that she’s against one side of her, both of them looking at Mashirao. “Thank you for saving my daughter!”

“No problem! I’m just glad I was right around the corner.” He looks at Sayuri. “You should listen to your mom, Sayuri, it’s dangerous to be that high up.”

But she’s lost in her own world again, this time staring at his tail as it flits back and forth.

Her face wrinkles again. 

“Why is your tail naked?”

“Sayuri!” her mother chastises, but he simply laughs.

“It’s not,” he counters. “See?” He shifts it forward, pointing the tip of it just near her face, so that the poof of fur there is within arms reach. She grabs her nearest hand onto it, tugging at the fuzz, before pulling it entirely towards her, clutching it with one arm while the other stays around her mom. 

“...Sorry about her,” her mother says. “She has these… urges, and she’s not old enough to hold herself back yet.”

“That’s quite alright,” he says with a smile. “But it certainly sounds like she’s a handful.”

“More than one…” the woman vents. She eyes Mashirao’s tail, with a different kind of intensity than her daughter. “Did you… ever have to deal with things like that as a child? Is that okay to ask?”

“I don’t mind,” he says, “but sorry, no. My grandparents had the strongest quirk instincts, their animal heteromorph traits were more prominent, but they only passed a fraction of them to my father.” He playfully tugs his tail, like he’s trying to take it back, and Sayuri clutches harder at it. “For me, it’s just the tail.”

“I see…,” she says, a bit down. “I’m at a loss for how to properly handle them. It’s her father that she got her quirk from, who could’ve taught her how to deal with them, but he’s no longer in our lives…”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mashirao says sincerely.

“...Thank you. And I do what I can on my own, our apartment is full of stuff for her to climb, but she insists on getting as high as possible…” She shakes her head. “It’d be one thing if she were good at climbing, but she can’t control her tails very well, so she’s always tripping over herself…” 

“Ah, now that I’ve got experience with,” Mashirao says. “And a way to deal with it!” The woman's eyes widen, desperate for the answer. He grabs at the fabric of his gi, tugging it in display. “I’ve been doing martial arts since I was around her age, and it definitely helped me control myself.”

Sayuri’s mother furrows her brow. “...Really? Aren’t martial arts a lot of kicking and punching? How would that help with her tails?”

“Well, it probably wouldn’t directly,” he admits. “But getting a better sense of the rest of my body really helped me with my tail. Maybe it’ll help with hers?”

“...Well, at this point, I’m willing to try whatever I can,” she says, with a bit of resignation. She works to unclench her daughter’s arm off of Mashirao’s tail, and loops it around herself. “Thank you so much for your help…” She tries to remember something, and fails. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name?”

Mashirao chuckles, and waves his tail one last time in front of Sayuri before tucking it against his back.

“Would you believe it’s Tailman?”

She smiles. “Thank you, Tailman. Say thank you, Sayuri!”

“Thank you, Mr. Naked Tail.”

He waves them off and they head back home; though, just before they step inside he can see Sayuri’s tails twitch a bit erratically, swiping at both her and her mother’s heads. Her mother bunches them up in her hand to keep them still, carries her daughter inside.

And something about that, and the conversation they had, jostles something inside him. Like a vending machine being shaken, making a stuck snack slightly less stuck. More within reach. And while he can’t tell what, he knows instinctively that it’s something… important. 

He spends the rest of his patrol thinking on it, and by the time he heads back to the dorms, he thinks he may have just grabbed a hold of what it was.

-

Whenever they have their class training sessions, most of the effort is focused on developing their quirks and learning their support equipment; but every once in a while they’ll do some close combat sparring, utilizing whatever martial arts they know. For Ojiro, it’s all one and the same, but for others, it’s more supplementary. If they even do it at all; some of his friends’ quirks are so naturally useful on their own they don’t gain much from martial arts. 

Like Todoroki and Tokoyami. No martial art can outdo what they can do. But even Sero and Mineta have natural weapons, which will restrain better than any pin or hold, and someone like Kaminari doesn’t need close combat when any part of his body can become a stun gun. Kouda tried to learn, but has always been more comfortable relying on his animals, and Bakugou refuses to spend any more time on it than he already has, too invested in his particular brand of explosive fighting.

The rest of them though? Martial arts has its uses. But he’s starting to think it can be more useful than it currently is for a few specific members.

Aizawa is the main conductor of the exercise, but he and Yaoyorozu tend to help when they can, having the most background in martial arts. They go through what they can, focusing on throws, pins, and takedowns, the stuff that tends to be useful for street encounters, but also give some refreshers on basic strikes and disarms. It’s all very surface level, but no one here is meant to be a master; they’re here to learn exactly as much as they need, and no more.

Curiously, Midoriya’s at this session. He never really attended these things, because he needed a much more specific direction; all of his ‘strike’ training was about being able to withstand the force of his quirk, rather than perfecting any form. And once he got his other quirks… well. Martial arts is a tool that works best when you don’t have any other tools.

Maybe that’s why he’s here now.

Once they’re done for the day everyone quickly starts to coalesce into friend groups to chat, but, funnily enough, rather than heading over to Uraraka and Iida like Mashirao would expect, Midoriya dashes straight to Yaoyorozu. Mashirao catches Jirou looking a little annoyed, no doubt because he cut her off from doing the exact same thing. It’s just as well; now Jirou won’t be upset at Mashirao for taking up Yaoyorozu’s time. 

He jogs over to the two of them before they start getting too deep into any discussion.

“Hey guys!” 

“Hey Ojiro!” Midoriya says. “Thanks for helping me with my stance earlier, it really helped me with my balance!”

“Sure thing, Midoriya.”

“Did you need something, Ojiro?” Yaoyorozu asks, always the helper.

“I did, actually,” he says. “I was hoping to get some advice from you. Hagakure says you’ve been giving it out.”

“O-oh! Well, I suppose that’s true…”

“Did you want to explore something with your quirk, Ojiro?” Midoriya asks. “If so, we’ll help any way we can!”

“Um, well,” Mashirao says, with an apologetic grin, “I kinda just meant from Yaoyorozu?”

Midoriya’s eyes go dead.

“I see…”

Mashirao chuckles. “No offense to you or anything, but it’s martial arts related.”

“Depending on the exact nature of your question, Midoriya may be able to contribute as well,” Yaoyorozu offers. “He’s quite clever.”

His eyes return to life, his cheeks tinged with red.

“Alright, let’s see,” Mashirao says. “Here’s my question, Midoriya:

“Which martial art is the most beneficial to learn for people with extra limbs?”

Midoriya goes blank for a moment. He glances down to Mashirao’s karate gi, then back up.

“...Karate,” he declares.

Mashirao laughs. “Probably not!”

Midoriya’s face wrinkles, almost exactly like Sayuri’s when confronted with Mashirao’s naked tail.

“But, isn’t that what you use?”

“Guess it depends on what you mean by ‘use,’” Mashirao says. “It’s the first one I learned, and I use it a lot meditatively. My uncle got me into it, and if you go back far enough in my mom’s family, you hit some practitioners of the original Okinawan arts. It’s definitely the one I like the most, and why I modeled my hero outfit after a gi.” He shrugs. “But I don’t actually use it to fight very much.”

“Oh? How come?”

Mashirao steps in to grab Midoriya’s arms, raising them up in a crude block. Mashirao steps a bit back and gets into a basic stance, his own arms up and a bit forward, legs a bit far apart and at a slight diagonal.

“Karate has a ton of different styles, so this isn’t the only way to do it,” he says, “but the one I’m familiar with focuses on keeping a bit of distance, and attacking with fast, precision strikes, in and out.” He flicks a kick forward with his leading leg, tapping the top of his foot against Midoriya’s forearm before returning to his stance, bouncing a bit back afterwards. “There’s lots more to it, but that’s the base. Thing is, I’ve got a big, heavy tail directly on my back, and doing quick strikes forward with it is tough.” He darts his tail forward, like a snake striking, but it takes a fraction of a second longer to build up the momentum to hit Midoriya’s arm.

“Oh, I think I get it!” Midoriya says, keeping his arms up. “And yeah, I rarely see you using your tail like that.”

“Right. When it comes to fighting, I actually tend to use Taekwondo. There’s some overlap between it and Karate, but it’s a lot more focused on kicks and uses them a bit differently. You keep even more distance away, and use that along with full body rotations to get more power.” He takes a step back and narrows his stance. He waits a second, then spins around his back foot, before leaping forward off of it and shooting it forward. It’s not a full force strike but he’s got enough momentum to shove Midoriya back anyway, from the weight of his body.

“Whoa!” Midoriya says, before they both step back into place.

“Yeah, it’s a bit flashier,” Mashirao says, “but it actually works really well for me because of all that rotational force.”

“Because you can use your tail instead of a leg for the strike instead!” Midoriya says.

“Ah, yeah, exactly!” Mashirao says, happy that his point was able to be followed. “My tail being behind me means speedy attacks aren’t easy, but building up power through rotation is way better for me, especially since my tail is so bulky. Taekwondo gives me an easier base to work off of for that.”

“And that’s not even to mention all the various grappling techniques you have,” Yaoyorozu says. “I imagine you utilize Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, perhaps even some wrestling forms for all that?”

“Yeah, but that kind of gets at the heart of what I’m asking,” Mashirao says. “Because while I can use all of that, I have to do… conversions, I guess. They teach you how to grapple with arms and legs, not a tail. I had to figure out how to make it work for me, you know? And it all works well enough, but I’m just wondering if there’s something out there that’s adaptable enough to work for all kinds of heteromorph quirks.”

“Ah, well that’s certainly a very interesting question!” Yaoyorozu says. “But you’re searching for something universal? Not just for your tail?”

“Yeah, pretty much!” Mashirao says. “My thinking is… how many different types of ‘extra limbs’ exist, even just within our class?” He looks back to their chatting friends, a group of them play-fighting with what they just learned. “Tsuyu’s tongue, Shoji’s Dupli-arms, Jirou’s earjacks. They can only be an advantage when it comes to close combat stuff, because it’s always good to have more appendages for that. I’m just wondering if there’s a better way to take advantage of that. For them, or anyone.”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes turn sharp and serious as she considers it, her fingers steepled against her chin. “It might not be possible for a single martial art to cover every possible heteromorph divergence. Like you bring up, a strong tail benefits from Taekwondo, but for something faster and lighter, karate may actually be preferable. One that granted a person arm analogues would benefit most from boxing, or muay thai, sports which favor heavy fist and/or elbow strikes, but they would also excel at any wrestling grapples and Judo throws. But what of prehensile limbs in other locations, such as Jirou and Asui? Again, Karate with its quick strikes and leg sweeps may be useful, but perhaps not as useful as more militaristic combat arts such as Krav Maga which teaches strikes to the eye.”

“Well, I dunno about that last part-”

“But perhaps being too practical about it can be a negative!” she continues. “Many quirks that result in extra limbs are the result of animal heteromorph quirks, including your own, maybe it’s better to seek inspiration from martial arts that are, in turn, inspired by animals! Chinese Kung-Fu has a number of styles based on animals like snakes and cranes and large cats and the Indian martial art Kalaripayattu has postures based on elephants and lions-”

She goes off on a very Midoriya-like mumble storm, and the boy she’s mimicking hangs onto every word, fingers fidgeting like they want to write something down. Ojiro is following along too, but while her ideas are good, it’s not what he was looking for exactly. He needed a narrowing of options here, not an endless nexus of pathways.

“-Of course, given that it may be useful to pull from as many as you can,” she says, building into her point, “perhaps something like Mixed Martial Arts would be best? By its very nature, it pulls from everything, finding what is useful from other martial arts and incorporating into itself. If you’re looking for just one, that seems the most obvious choice.”

“...Does MMA count as a single martial art?” Midoriya asks. “I mean, it’s in the name, right? It’s a bunch of them?”

“Functionally it acts as its own separate art,” Mashirao says. “Due to the things Yaoyorozu says. You can learn MMA by itself, without having any background in the other arts, just by working off of the conventions it’s set for itself over the years. Obviously there are plenty of MMA fighters who are full practitioners of other things, but it’s not required.”

“Then, do you think it may be what you’re looking for?” Yaoyorozu says, with a flicker of anticipation in her voice. 

“...Maybe,” he says, unsure. “It definitely has the broadest scope, but…” His tail swings side to side on its own, unsatisfied. “MMA is entirely focused on fighting and combat. That’s definitely useful, but it doesn’t have much focus on the other stuff. Mindfulness, awareness of your body, things like that.” He thinks of a clumsy little girl, her tails too wild and erratic to control properly. “Something for little kids to start off with.”

“Kids?” Yaoyorozu says. “That’s a bit of a different question…”

“True,” he admits, “but I guess I was hoping there was an all-of-the-above option. Probably too good to be true, huh?”

She chuckles. “Almost certainly so.”

“...Um, you two know way more than me about this stuff,” Midoriya says, cutting in, “so sorry if this is a stupid question. But can you just… make a new one?”

Ojiro blinks.

“A… new one?”

“A new martial art,” Midoriya says. “I mean, new styles and derivatives come up all the time, right? Sometimes organically, through cultural shifts, but sometimes it’s specifically intentional! If I’m not mistaken, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was developed by a single family, and different styles of Karate came from specific people! Even nowadays, you’ve got people like Gunhead who come up with their own spins on things…” The heel of his foot taps up and down as he thinks. “And you said MMA counts as its own art, right? Something that pulls from whatever it can, for the purpose of combat sport. Can you… do the same? Pull from everything into a whole new kind of martial art, make it exactly what you’re looking for?”

…A new martial art?

It almost seems laughable. Not because the idea is ridiculous, but because it’s so grand. 

MIdoriya’s right: plenty of people have started entirely new arts, and it isn’t even that uncommon. But the kinds of people who do that tend to be masters in already established styles, carving down all their expertise and knowledge into something narrow, concentrated. But something as broad as MMA, or what Midoriya’s suggesting, can only come about from experts all over the world coming together, bringing their cultures with them, sharing and mixing freely, until something all-embracing and integrated is born. Ojiro isn’t sure he can be the thing that leads to all that.

“...That’s a rather intimidating idea, Midoriya,” Yaoyorozu says, mirroring Mashirao’s thoughts. “One would have to research dozens if not hundreds of styles, study with practitioners of each, experiment with all the forms and techniques within, and verify with holders of specific quirks to see if any are even helpful for them in the first place.” She looks at Mashirao coolly. “And even if you managed all of that, you have to hope it catches on culturally. That enough people find it useful. Something like that could take years, even decades. Sounds like quite a bit of work.”

And suddenly, he sees it.

He’s been stumbling around the fog for a while now. Maybe since Shigaraki was defeated. Swiping his hands through it, thick and cloying, trying to follow his friends in directions he probably can’t travel down himself and only ending up in circles. But from one second to the next, the fog is gone; whipped away in an instant by hurricane winds. He remains safe in the eye while they spin and churn around him, but with the haze gone he finally knows where he needs to go. 

It’s there, off in the distance. A finish line he may never reach, on the other side of a nearly endless storm. And as Yaoyorozu said; it’ll take quite a bit of work just for him to start heading towards it. 

But, well. Mashirao has always been a hard worker.

“...Something new, huh?” he says. “I do like the sound of that. You really think it’s possible?”

“Definitely!” Midoriya clenches his fists assuredly. “You’re the hardest worker I know, Ojiro, if anyone could it’s you!”

That has Ojiro bashful, being seen so directly, and he scratches at the back of his neck.

“Thanks, man.”

“If you want, I could do some research?” Midoriya offers. “See if other countries already have local styles that might already be incorporating heteromorph traits?”

“I’ll take any and all help I can get,” Ojiro says, before turning back to Yayorozou. “And maybe we can talk more about those animal forms? I think you’re onto something with those.”

“Of course, Ojiro,” she says. 

They start discussing it there in the training room, talking until the room empties out and longer still. It bleeds into the next few days, the next few weeks, every new thought and idea bolstering him for the treacherous path ahead.

He will never be fully ready for it; the winds are too blistering to think otherwise. But he takes a step forward anyways, the first on the way to a lifelong goal that he may or may not ever achieve.

He smiles, satisfied.

***

8 Years Later

Prehensile Tail - Tailman

In a quiet, unremarkable neighborhood, in a thin building between two apartment complexes, sides so close to each other it looks as if it was squeezed into an already claustrophobic alley between the two, on the second floor above a convenience store and below a preparatory school, sits the first dojo of Japan’s newest martial art. 

Or so the building listing outside says. Izuku and Yaoyorozu check and double check it, just to make sure it’s the right place.

“It’s a rather… mundane looking building, is it not?” she says.

“Ojiro did say he had trouble finding a good place…”

The two of them shrug, then head up the stairs.

They enter with a ding into a tiny lobby, one that would feel cramped even with just the two of them alone but that has a few stacks of boxes against the wall taking up what little floor space it has. A few of the boxes have been squished into their neighbors to make room for two rickety chairs, crammed between the boxes and the adjacent wall; the closest thing there is to a waiting area. Higher up on the walls are scrolls and plaques inscribed with basic example forms and stances, along with the name of the new art they comprise.

Combination Heteromorph-Influenced Martial Arts.

Shortened to CHIMA, or sometimes, CHIMarA. Pronounced, Chimera.

They hear a bit of activity behind the closed, sliding bamboo door; a class going on a bit long, maybe, given what time it is. Upon the bell on the front door chiming, there’s a quick flurry of footsteps before the sliding door skids to the side, and Ojiro peeks his head out.

“Oh, hey guys!” he says with a wave, and they greet him back. “You got here at a good time, we were just finishing up.”

He nods them over, and they step into the training room proper.

It takes up most of the rest of the floor of the building, a bigger room that could fit maybe two dozen people, though right now it’s nowhere near capacity. He’s got all of five students, currently standing in a loose, attentive formation: a pair of twins with extra, insect-like arms at their ribs, a boy with long locks of hair like tentacles, waving ethereally in the air, an amphibious boy with, seemingly, tongues coming out of sockets in his elbows (which are currently wrapped around his forearm), and a fuzzy girl with three monkey tails cinched around her waist. All of them around the same age, tweens or early teens, and in gi-like clothes, modified to accommodate their respective quirks.

Ojiro introduces them all to Izuku and Yaoyorozu, before moving on to the other sensei of the dojo, who’s been quietly standing nearby. A strikingly beautiful woman, with dark, reddish-brown skin the color of mahogany, waist-length hair in a thick braid with pendants dangling off the intersections. Sharp-featured, with prominent cheekbones and a large, straight nose, a small bindi sticker just above it in between her eyebrows. Iridescent, turquoise feathers trim various parts of her body, shining like strips of jewels; on her forehead, her neck, her arms. On her back she has a pair of wings, folded and tucked in to take up less space, the feathers a muddled grey. Undoubtedly a peafowl quirk, peahen coloring based on her wing feathers and trimming, but curiously enough, she has a colorful crest of longer feathers coming out from the edge of her hairline, and a thick tuft of long, gorgeous tailfeathers, bright green with recognizable eyespot patterns. Peacock features.

Kohli, Ojiro introduces, and she greets them with a small nod.

“It is lovely to meet you,” she says, in a rich, deep voice, thickly accented.

“It is a pleasure,” Yaoyorozu says. “Ojiro has told us quite a bit about you; though, even his admittedly effusive praise doesn’t quite do you justice. You have such beautiful plumage, Kohli.”

There’s a tug to her smile, like she had to stop herself from laughing. “Thank you very much,” she says, flicking an amused glance at Ojiro. He looks off in a random direction, redness speckling his pale cheeks.

“...How come these guys are here?” Sayuri, the girl with the monkey quirk, says, completely unconcerned by their hero status. “They don’t even have extra limbs.”

“Oh? That’s true,” Izuku says. “But I do have this!”

He extends out the mechanical tail from his hero suit. It’s nowhere near as big as what it was designed after, but it’s thick and long enough he can lean back on it like an extra leg. He carefully whips it around his body in display.

Sayuri clicks her teeth. “That doesn’t count! It’s fake!”

“It is unkind to make such judgments, Sayuri,” Kohli says, with a firm, instilling-a-lesson voice. “Being synthetic does not mean it is any less a part of his body than our natural features.”

“O-oh, well,” Izuku says, a bit shy, “I dunno if that’s really true for me now… But, maybe some day!”

Sayuri seems skeptical.

But with their lesson already finished, Ojiro and Kohli excuse the kids, before transitioning into why Izuku and Yaoyorozu came here today: to get something like an overview of what Ojiro’s been working on over the years. They had both been very curious, but after being in and out of the country for so long, it’s only recently Ojiro has settled into this location - as both a sensei and a local hero - giving them the chance.

It’s quite a complicated beast, Chimara. Taking from everything it can, until it’s near bloating with excess. But what’s the other option, if you want to cover every possible heteromorph trait? Foundationally, it’s built off of MMA, using all the combat techniques it winnowed from every other art: the fast strikes of karate, boxing’s quick jabs and footwork, taekwondo’s kicks, judo’s throws, wrestling’s grapples, jiu-jitsu’s ground pins, muay thai’s sturdy, powerful hits. But each aspect has been modified, in a multitude of ways, to account for as many limb variations as possible, in a way that might be, if not standardized, then infinitely adaptable. 

Of course, that’s the advanced curriculum. Kids get something a little different. Styles, or aspects of styles, that help them get a bearing on a body that might not be like all the others around them. Taking primarily from Chinese martial arts - the exaggerated forms of animal styles like Praying Mantis and Monkey Kung Fu, the mindfulness of internal arts like Tai Chi and Baguazhang, bits and pieces from everything else - to help teach body placement and awareness, once again modified to incorporate limb possibilities of all sorts. Ojiro was also inspired by a growing culture of Indian martial arts, a lot of local ones splitting off from more weapon focused styles to make use of heteromorphic limbs. It was while studying them when he met Kohli, it seems, and where she was inspired to join his endeavor.

Izuku and Yaoyorozu get a big crash course on it, supplemented by a few demonstrations on Ojiro and Kohli’s parts. As best they can, anyways; the true challenge to teaching Chimera is that they can only be examples for what limbs they have. Ojiro has a whole roster of guest practitioners who help with that, experts in other arts who are willing to experiment with his with their own unique quirks, recording lessons and lectures for students both in the dojo and on the internet. Ojiro has certainly given himself quite the challenge. 

But it only seems to drive him onwards. To expand. He goes on for a few minutes excitedly about how he’s working on wing techniques with Kohli.

They can’t go over everything - there’s simply too much to cover - but it all has Izuku completely thrilled for what the future has in store. He hopes Chimara finds its place in the world.

It’s after Ojiro teaches Izuku a few new techniques for his tail that he has to go and throw Izuku off the deep end.

“So, you wanna spar? Try it out?”

“...What’s that now?” Izuku says.

Izuku had actually been a regular attendee to martial arts classes for a while, after graduation. He kept getting into situations, stuff that might’ve gotten him into trouble if his hero license wasn’t still technically active, and after enough of them, he was… encouraged to enroll. By every one of his friends, at once, in a long text thread that ended up going on for a few days. 

He ended up doing some muay thai, some judo, jiu-jitsu. He wasn’t even half bad! But, it’s been a few months since he last went to any. Not since… the moment he got his suit, maybe? It’s unrelated, probably.

“No better way to make sure it works, right?” Ojiro says.

“...I guess,” Izuku says. “Just, go easy on me, okay?”

“Actually, I’d like to offer myself as an opponent,” Yaoyorozu says. “I’d like to experience being on the receiving end of such techniques, and perhaps learn how to counter.”

“Oh, sure, go ahead,” Ojiro says.

Izuku blinks.

“Wait, what?”

Yaoyorozu stands in the center of the room, taking up a relaxed karate stance.

“W-wait, hold on a second!” Izuku says. “That’s not… I-I mean, that’s kind of unfair, right?”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes turn sharp and competitive.

“Oh? You think your extra limb to give you such a significant advantage? Then, allow me to even the odds.” She holds her palm up and a bo staff shoots out of it, and she swipes it into her grip as it falls, spinning it into a bojutsu posture.

“I meant unfair for me!” Izuku cries. “ You’re way better at close combat stuff than me, and you won’t go easy on me like Ojiro would!” 

“Sometimes, we must face challenges we are not prepared for, yes?” Kohli says with an easy smile. “That is how we grow.”

“I agree,” Yaoyorozu says. “And you know I do love to help you grow, Midoriya.”

Midoriya blanches, and looks to Ojiro pleadingly.

Ojiro pats him on the shoulder.

“Good luck, man.”

Izuku’s shoulders fall, and he takes his place across from his opponent.

Unlike Ojiro’s tail, Izuku’s is light and zippy enough for quicker strikes. He takes up a broad muay thai stance, fists up and tail curving forward to join them, the tip a bit lower than his hands, its flexibility allowing it to channel both arm and leg techniques as well as a few all its own. Ojiro showed him some strikes and a couple grapples, so hopefully between all that he can manage to deal with Yaoyorozu.

Ojiro signals the start of the spar, and Izuku rushes forward.

-

The third time he ends up on his ass, Izuku just stays on the ground.

He stares up at the ceiling, shins and forearms aching from staff bruises. The metal tail digs into his back uncomfortably, and he’s too frustrated to draw it back in. Maybe if he lays here long enough, he’ll melt into the floor, become one with the tatami mats. Then there won’t have to be a round four.

He hears Yaoyorozu chatting pleasantly with Kohli while he’s moping - Kohli, it seems, is quite the aficionado in weapon arts as well, and talks to Yaoyorozu of lathi khela, a similarly staff-based Bengali art. He’s not sure Yaoyorozu needs even more ways to kick his ass, though. It seems to be a common enough occurrence these days.

Ojiro peeks his head into Izuku’s vision, smiling with his eyes, before offering the end of his tail.

Izuku grabs it, and he’s yanked back into standing.

“Maybe next time,” Ojiro consoles, and Izuku grunts.

Ojiro’s gaze then falls to Kohli, and Izuku catches a look on it that he usually only sees on Jirou or Kaminari towards the other, whenever they’re not looking. Izuku is truly not the best at parsing expressions like that, but it’s easier when it’s this obvious.

“Oh!” Izuku says, getting Ojiro’s attention. He nods back to Kohli. “Are you two…?”

Ojiro’s cheeks pop red once again, and he scratches at the back of his head.

“...Nah,” he says. “But, let’s just say that may be the next marathon I try to run.”

Kohli and Yaoyorozu end their conversation, and when Yaoyorozu sees Izuku up again, she steps back out, stancing up. Her ponytail is in disarray from exertion, strands sticking up every which way, and a bit of perspiration drips down her temple. Her eyes are still sharp, with a slightly wild look to them, and a confidence that says she’s not at all worried he’ll be able to overcome her. He feels a sudden streak of determination, and decides that he wants, more than anything, to knock that staff out of her hand.

Ojiro laughs. “Maybe soon you’ll find your own to run, Izuku.” 

Before Izuku can ask him what he means, he feels Ojiro’s strong tail against his back, and with one firm shove, Izuku takes a step forward.

***

Chapter Text

Hitoshi has nightmares, most nights.

He doesn’t remember all of them. Just wakes up with a tightness in his chest, and a feeling that he got out just in time. But enough of them linger the morning after that he knows what he’s been escaping. Some type of suffocation, usually. Drowning in vast ocean waters, sinking in bottomless quicksand, shot into the airless void of space. That’s not the only thing happening - there’s plenty of context beforehand - but that’s the culmination, the ending, the finale. 

It’s more annoying than anything. Yeah, sometimes it wakes him up in the middle of the night, and he can’t get back to sleep, but usually he’s up with his alarm just fine, if slightly on edge. Five minutes into the day he’s over it, because nightmares aren’t real, and they don’t mean anything more or less than regular dreams.

He rarely tells anyone about it though, because they always disagree. They get this irritating, pitiful look about them, start fantasizing about how it’s all because he was traumatized or something. Might be easier if he had been. Yeah, he deals with and has dealt with all kinds of bullshit due to hero work, but he’s had nightmares since grade school. And while he hasn’t had a perfect life, there’s nothing he can point to and definitively say, that’s why I seem to die every night.

His parents kinda suck. But not in an awful way, just in that way lots of parents suck; kinda overbearing, thinks every time he does something they don’t understand it means society is corrupting him, always slightly disappointed that he doesn’t have better grades. Like he’s in a position where grades matter. But that’s the extent of it; it’s probably not great that he and them don’t talk much to each other, that when someone’s upset they walk around on eggshells because none of them know what proper conflict resolution looks like. But they do all the shit parents are supposed to do, and he does all the shit sons are supposed to do. It’s fine.

If pressed, he’d admit he was quote-unquote bullied a few times, but people read too much into the word. Yeah, he got teased or insulted because of his quirk, up until he used it on whoever was fucking with him. Then they kicked ass for a few days, he’d fuck with them back, repeat, until one side got bored and avoided the other for the rest of the year. When people hear ‘bullying,’ they think of the worst-case scenario, but for most people it just sucks for a while, until it hits an anticlimax. It’s definitely not non-stop nightmares worthy.

Maybe he fell into a pool or something as a kid, or got swept away in the ocean for a bit. Left a primal, instinctual fear in him. His parents would probably know, but he’s not gonna ask them about it. Then he’d have to tell them why he wants to know, and they just don’t talk about that kind of stuff. Not like knowing the answer would stop the nightmares anyway.

He’s just learned to deal with them. They’re a part of life, just how it is. What actually bugs him, the thing that gets under his skin more than any hazy, panicked feeling he carries with him into waking, is every asinine comment people make about how tired he looks. Shit got old when he was 12, and it will never, ever stop being old.

-

“Hey Shinsou!” Midoriya says. “You look like you had a bad night! You okay?”

With momentous effort, Hitoshi stops himself from rolling his eyes. “It was fine. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company.”

He winces, caught. “W-who says there’s a reason? Can’t I just say hello?”

“I literally saw you and Yaoyorozu nodding towards me while you debated something, until she won the argument and you walked over,” he says.

“Oh,” Midoriya says. “You’re… pretty perceptive Shinsou.” 

“Gotta be. What do you want?”

“W-well, just so you know” Midoriya clarifies, “I’d be more than happy to hang out with you for no reason-” 

“No thanks.”

“...But, yes, this time I wanted to ask you something,” Midoriya says, ignoring him. “And Yaoyorozu finally convinced me to go through with it.” He takes a seat across from Hitoshi .

“This about that quirk stuff you’re doing with her?” Hitoshi says. “Not really interested in ‘expanding my quirk’ or whatever.”

“W-well, I thought that would probably be the case,” Midoriya says, “but, if it's okay, I’d still like to ask about it?” He scratches nervously at the scars on his arm. “Out of.. personal curiosity.”

“You’re… curious about my quirk,” Hitoshi states. “People being curious about it isn’t usually a good thing.”

“Oh. Um, sorry to hear that,” Midoriya says awkwardly. “B-but if I’m being honest, I’ve been really fascinated with it since we met! There’s not a lot of quirks like it!”

“Evil?” Hitoshi suggests.

“Wha… no, of course not!” Midoriya says. “There’s no such thing as an evil quirk!”

“Quirk that turns people inside out,” Hitoshi says.

“...Erm, okay, that would be pretty bad,” Midoriya says. “Maybe there’s some medical applications that could- wait, nevermind that!” He shakes his head. “I’ve been curious because your quirk has such specific but arbitrary conditions for its activation, and I’ve always wondered how much of that you’ve assumed versus actually tested.”

Midoriya waits for confirmation to keep going. Hitoshi instead silently waits for him to continue.

Midoriya catches on, eventually. “Oh, uh, so,” he pulls out a small notepad, rips a sheet out, then tears it into three. “So, it looks like your quirk has three steps. One, a verbal prompt from you.” He writes 1 on a strip. “Two, a verbal response by the target.” 2 on a strip. “And three, an activation, which allows you to then give commands. Does that sound right?”

“Sure,” Hitoshi says. That third step could be a few extra steps itself, but he’s not just gonna tell Midoriya that.

“Well, you’ve done a lot of training for that third step, expanding out what kind of commands you can give,” Midoriya continues, “but it’s the first two steps I’m most interested in! I have so many questions about the nature of this call-and-response requirement!”

He keeps going. “So, we know it all starts with your voice. Digitizing doesn’t work, but your artificial vocal cords do, with their mechanical filters. They must retain whatever quality it is in your voice that causes the whole effect. But my question is, does your initial call need to prompt a direct response?”

“What’s the distinction there?” Hitoshi asks.

“Well, what if something just resembles a response? Like if you, say, start talking while your target is already talking, then treat the thing they’re currently saying as a ‘response.’ Could you trigger your quirk then? Or what if you just talk under your breath all the time? Couldn’t anything anyone says be interpreted as a ‘response’ to it?”

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. “You think I can trick my quirk somehow.”

“I dunno!” he answers. “I’m more trying to pin down what the exact trigger is.”

Hitoshi chews on it. He actually has an answer to those particular questions, but he’s not sure he wants it known. He more than any of them needs a bit of secrecy around his quirk to make it useful. It is rare that someone is actually interested in how his quirk works without being put off by it, though.

“You gonna keep this to yourself, Midoriya?” he says.

“Oh, sure!” Midoriya says. “Just like what I know about Shouji!”

Hitoshi clicks his tongue. “Part of keeping a secret is not letting people know you have one in the first place.”

“...Right. I won’t say anything, I promise!”

Hitoshi sighs. “Well, I’ll just go ahead and tell you none of that shit will work. A person does have to be able to hear what I say, and they don’t have to fully parse the words, but they have to realize something’s been said in the first place. If someone is, say, muttering to themselves,” he pointedly stares at Midoriya, who gives an embarrassed smile, “I can’t ‘sneak in’ a comment and take their words as a response, even if they can otherwise hear me. The hook doesn’t work in that case.”

“The… hook?” Midoriya asks.

Hitoshi shrugs. “Just what it feels like to me. I’ve never gone fishing or anything, but it’s kind of like that. When I say something, I’m throwing out lines, but it isn’t until someone notices it and talks back that I feel the ‘hook.’ Then I can reel them in.”

“Oh, that’s so interesting!” Midoriya says. “So there’s definitely some cognitive component on part of the target. They have to take notice of something you said, even if they don’t know who or what said it.”

“Uh huh,” Hitoshi says.

“So, then why do they even need to respond?” Midoriya says. “Why doesn’t the noticing itself trigger the ‘hook?’”

“...Just how it works,” Hitoshi says, instantly knowing it’s a lame copout answer. 

“Hmm…” Midoriya taps his pen against the table as he thinks. “I wonder if it’s something like computers. Do you know how two computers initiate a connection?” Hitoshi shakes his head. “It’s called a ‘handshake.’ It’s an initial exchange of specific information to establish rules for further communication. Like, making sure they’re using the same ‘language.’ Maybe there’s something like that here…”

“I dunno,” Hitoshi says. “They don’t need to respond to me in Japanese or anything.”

“Oh, I’m using ‘language’ more metaphorically…” Midoriya says. “It’s like this: everyone’s brain is different, with completely unique thought patterns, and maybe some aspect of a target’s response allows your quirk to understand how to properly control it. Establishing what ‘language,’ or ‘protocol,’ it needs to speak to brainwash.”

“...Maybe. Does it actually matter?”

“It could!” Midoriya says. “The thing that’s always confused me is, why does the response need to be verbal? Your voice has the… hypnotic signal, or whatever you wanna call it. What does their voice add? Maybe there’s something in it, some frequency, that gives your quirk the information it needs… But, maybe something broader could work too, and a vocal response just gives the easiest and most complete access.”

“As compared to…?”

“Well, even just other auditory but otherwise nonverbal response!” Midoriya says. “Like a grunt, or a growl, or a gasp. Something more involuntary. People would have a much harder time holding those back against you versus speaking words.”

“...True,” Hitoshi admits.

“But also, given the inherent telepathic nature of your quirk… what about any nonverbal response?” Midoriya says. “A significant portion of human communication is non-verbal. Someone has to take notice of something you said, but there’s a host of responses to that. Looking towards you, looking away from you. Eyebrows furrowing, lips turning, nose scrunching. Throat tightening, muscles clenching, eyes dilating. There’s a ton of things our bodies do that can communicate something to other people… why can’t any of that act as the ‘handshake?’ You only feel the hook for verbal responses, but… maybe it’s all just a matter of scale, and training. Becoming more sensitive to what you can actually hook.” Midoriya points a look of pure glee at him. “Maybe one day you can train it so that anything other than completely ignoring you will let you trigger the Brainwash!”

Hitoshi crosses his arms and huddles into himself.

Midoriya’s completely excited at the prospect, but the shit he’s saying has Hitoshi unsettled. He’s not an idiot; he knows that his quirk is pretty dangerous, and in a very different way than most people’s. But he could always point to its restrictions and say, hey, as long as a person knows, they can defend themselves against it. But who the fuck can police their entire body? Who can ensure they make no response to something prompting them, even subconsciously? How villainous is he gonna seem if he trains away his quirk’s one weakness? If he removes the one way to defend against it?

And given how easily Midoriya drops this whole theory, his dumb ass probably hasn’t thought it through all the way.

“Well, that’s a horrifying thought,” Hitoshi says.

“Why?” Midoriya says. “You’d be able to train away your quirk’s one weakness! There’d be no way for anyone to defend themselves against it!”

Hitoshi stares at him blankly. 

“You answered your own question,” he says.

Midoriya takes a mental step back. “...Oh. Okay, I can see why that can be a little scary to think about…” He shrugs. “But, I don’t think it’s much different than using your quirk on someone who doesn’t know its rules in the first place. Either way, there’s no defense, right?”

“...I guess.”

“All quirks can be dangerous,” Midoriya continues, “it’s just a matter of using them with proper consideration, right?” He smiles. “Personally, I think you should try expanding out what you can ‘hook’ like this!”

“Hm,” Hitoshi says, without committing.

“And if you’re really worried about the other side of things, maybe we could look into ways to fight off the brainwashing in the first place!”

“Now it’s ‘we,’ huh?” Hitoshi says. “Even if I was interested in any of that, it’s increasingly harder to test stuff out. Not a lot of people willing to be Brainwashed over and over again.”

“I can volunteer!”

“I feel like wanting to do it should be a bigger disqualifier than not wanting to,” Hitoshi says. “In any case, don’t underestimate it. I hear repeated usage can mess with people’s heads.”

Midoriya’s face scrunches. “The way you say that… You’ve never had your power used on yourself?”

Hitoshi shrugs. “Doesn’t work. There’s no hook if I respond to myself, and I wouldn’t be able to give myself a command anyways if there was.”

“But it would work if someone else used your quirk on you, right?” Midoriya reasons.

“How does that make any sense?”

“...I mean, we already know the perfect person for the job, don’t we?” Midoriya says.

It comes to him a second later. “Ugh, that guy?” he says with a sneer

Midoriya shrugs. “It’s a way for you to be your own test subject, so to speak! Maybe we can get together, work some stuff out!”

Hitoshi’s not sure there’s anything he wants to do less. The two people Hitoshi finds most aggravating, though for completely different reasons. But even so, there’s something more powerful than his distaste for either person.

Curiosity. He wants to know the answers to Midoriya’s questions, even if never ends up relying on what comes out of it.

“...Fine. But I reserve the right to bail at any point.”

Midoriya smiles wide.

-

“So, Class 3-A steps down from their golden throne to gift their presence to our humble dorms, do they?” Monoma says with a wild, taunting grin. “You have some nerve. Especially you, traitor.” He focuses on Hitoshi.

“Monoma, shut up,” Kendou says. “Hey guys, good to see you.”

“Hey!” “Hm.”

“Here because they want something, no doubt,” Monoma says. “Please let us know what, so that we can refuse with the proper emphasis.”

Kendou flicks him on the ear, and he squawks. “If you need anything, we’re more than happy to assist.” She glances at her classmate. “Well, I guess not him, but the rest of us are.”

“Unfortunately, he’s who we’re here for,” Hitoshi says. “We’re gonna borrow him for a bit.”

“Oh. Alright, go ahead and take him.”

“Ex-cuse me?!” Monoma says. “Don’t speak about me like I’m some thing to be lent and borrowed!” He puffs out his chest. “If you really want my help, I’ll give it. If you fall to the floor and beg me for it!”

“Alright,” Hitoshi says. 

Monoma flinches back.

“Wait, really?” he says, and his eyes go instantly cloudy.

Hitoshi smirks. Too easy. “Let’s go,” he says, and a brainwashed Monoma follows wordlessly.

“Have him back by dinnertime!” Kendou shouts as they leave.

-

Midoriya gives his audience of two a primer of what aspects they’ll be testing, what they’re hoping to find, what exercises they might do. Monomo pouts through the whole thing, and Hitoshi pretends he’s not paying much attention. It has Midoriya more than a bit frazzled, but that’s fine with Hitoshi; he doesn’t want anyone here to have a good time.

Monoma explicitly refuses to submit to further brainwashing, so Midoriya’s the big test subject to start off with. He’s got a few papers and charts that explains all his thoughts and reasonsings, but the gist of the testing is simple: start with verbal responses, get less and less linguistic, more and more nonverbal, to see what can catch his hook.

Hitoshi knows better than most how insufficient language can be. A small shift in the eyebrow can say more about a person’s feelings than a minute of speaking. Human communication is a haze of the spoken and not spoken, of intentional and unintentional, and he hadn’t really considered too much just where in that haze his limitations are. 

Unfortunately, rigorously testing his quirk is pretty boring. He prompts Midoriya, Midoriya responds, Hitoshi hooks him, gives a simple command to verify, lets go. Repeat. Nothing explodes, or gets set on fire, or starts flying. The fun is all in the commands he gives, the shit he can get people to do, but that’s not what they’re here for today.

Hitoshi prompts him, and Midoriya hums. Not a word, just a simple vibration of the throat, that most people still understand as an affirmation. Hitoshi tries to reel in the hook.

And it doesn’t not work.

Midoriya’s body shivers in a weird way, instead of going completely still. His eyes are less cloudy, more focused. The hold Hitoshi has on him feels… slippery, in a way that would be impossible to explain to another person. Like he needs to keep reeling in, but the target isn’t getting any closer. Still hooked, though.

“Jump,” Hitoshi says, and while Midoriya follows, it’s with a labored, barely-a-hop. Like he’s half fighting it off.

Hitoshi lets go, and Midoriya sucks in a breath.

“Whoa, that was weird!” he says, and Hitoshi waits for him to expand upon it. “Usually your brainwashing makes my head all cloudy, but everything seemed clear there! I still couldn’t not listen to you, but it felt more like a… loose rope, instead of total binding. I think a second longer and I could’ve broken out!”

“Hm,” Hitoshi says.

Monoma, who’d been faking boredom but was still paying close attention, speaks up. “So like, a partial control?”

“Seems like it!” Midoriya says. “It could just be because it’s untrained though, maybe with enough effort Shinsou can do a full Brainwash from it!”

“...Possibly, but I doubt it,” Monoma says. “Sure, it’s likely he can make the effect stronger, but when you push at a quirk’s limitation like this, there’s usually a levelling effect.”

“Oh? You seem pretty confident about that?” Midoriya says.

“Almost over-confident. They got a word for that?” Hitoshi says.

Monona scoffs. “Listen here, you rubes. As the only one of us who’s an expert at using multiple quirks-”

“Midoriya has like 7.”

“I’ve still used more!” Monoma says immediately. “My point is, you’re usually better off working with the reduced function, rather than against it. See what commands are the most useful with the reduced control you have, instead of trying to gain full control.” He shrugs with a dismissive smile. “But hey, what do I know, I’ve only mastered three dozen different quirks in my time here.”

“That’s definitely what they say about a Jack-of-all-trades, right?” Hitoshi says. “Master of every single one?”

Monoma clicks his tongue. “I’ll have you know, the phrase continues on after that!” He bares his teeth. “‘Better than a master of one!’”

Hitoshi smirks. “That part was added later, to make the Jacks feel better about themselves. Way to continue the tradition.”

“Why you…!”

“Well, I think that was a good insight, Monoma!” Midoriya says. “And you probably know better than anyone about these kinds of things!”

Monoma’s eyes shift to the left, then to the right, completely thrown off by the sincerity. He defaults to his normal bravado. “Well… obviously!”

They get back to it, and the more they test the clearer the edges of his ability become. It’s a matter of degrees, it seems; complete motionlessness on one end, vocal retort on the other, but various amounts of physical reaction allow him an equivalent amount of control. A vocal response allows what Midoriya shorthands to ‘full control’ - though, it has restrictions of its own - where it’s impossible to break out without outside help, and they will follow any command they can physically do. 

But a narrowing of the eyes, a raise of the eyebrow? It’s hard, and fleeting, but he can hook it. It’s trivial to break out of, and most commands don’t work because of that, but he quickly finds that asking for something smaller, more subconscious, he gets the body to respond anyways. ‘Trip,’ ‘step,’ ‘stop,’ ‘release.’ Anything instantaneous, that a person can’t stop before it’s already done. Midoriya breaks out right away, but by the time he does he’s already fallen to the ground from a stumble.

It opens up whole new strategies for him, and whole new problems. There’s a limitation to his quirk that’s not too tough to figure out but that he’s never openly verified; he’s always needed to hear the response given by someone to Brainwash them. If Hitoshi’s ears are blocked, his quirk doesn’t work. The logic is similar here: if Hitoshi misses the physical response given, the hook doesn’t work. Following the computer-handshake metaphor; Hitoshi sets up a connection with his prompt, and whatever response he gets sets up a ‘protocol’ through which his quirk can act, and how much access he has. But he needs to observe that response in the first place, for his quirk to know the proper protocol.

But, well, he’s certainly not gonna just tell anyone that. Let ‘em wonder.

There’s probably plenty more to figure out, but after long enough Monoma clearly starts to get antsy, being mostly a passive observer, so Midoriya transitions to the reason Monoma’s even here.

“I’m surprised it’s never happened during any exercise!” Midoriya says. “Monoma using Shinsou’s own quirk on him.”

Hitoshi shrugs. “When we’re on the same team, there’s no reason to do that, and when we’re opponents, it’s a big priority to never let him get close.”

Monoma laughs in agreement. “Because I’m such a dangerous threat!”

“More because of your personality,” Hitoshi says.

Monoma rolls his eyes, then suddenly darts out a hand to swipe at Hitoshi. He tries to dodge but the copy-brat’s fingers just tousle his hair, and he knows it’s enough.

Monoma smirks, fingers splayed out like he’s holding a fireball. “I’m really gonna enjoy this, you know? After all the times you’ve gotten me.”

Hitoshi stays rigidly still, and Monoma grumbles.

“...We’re not here to even out any scales, okay?” Midoriya says diplomatically. “This is more just to see if Shinsou will have any specific insight on how to break out of his own quirk.”

“Then tell him to respond!” Monoma says, not a little bit petulantly.

Midoriya looks to Hitoshi with a silent plea.

“...Fine. Prompt me again.”

“Okay,” Monoma says, “If you agree that I, Monoma Neito, am a superior hero to every person in Class 3-A, please give any response!”

Hitoshi really wants to roll his eyes, but if Monoma’s gonna grab hold of something, Hitoshi wants it to be more impactful.

He raises an arm and flips Monoma off.

Monoma’s eye twitches, but he smirks anyways, and sets the hook.

Hitoshi feels it viscerally, like the hook is wholly physical and yanking out his stomach. It pulls the air out of his lungs with it, and he gasps breathlessly while something quick and slimy slithers into the emptiness. His muscles lock up, not from control taken away but from the sudden shock, and before he can do anything about it Monoma shouts,

“Slap yourself!”

The thing slithers into his forearm, throwing it into an arc that circles around the elbow until the palm slaps against his face. 

What little control Monoma had goes away, if not because Hitoshi broke out of it himself then because of the strike, which ends any amount of his quirk’s Brainwashing.

Hitoshi rubs at his cheek. “...Ow.”

Midoriya gives Monoma a displeased frown.

“What?” Monoma says, with a grin full of shit. “No one ever gave me specific commands to use.”

Hitoshi clenches his free hand to his stomach.

That… didn’t feel right. Or, did it? Not like he’s ever felt his own quirk before, but he’s never heard anyone describe it like that. Then again, Hitoshi knows more than anyone how insufficient language can be.

“Let’s… try it again, alright?” Midoriya says, trying to move on. “This time with full control, okay? And no commands that cause pain!”

“Fine,” Monoma says with a sigh, before focusing back on Hitoshi. A smile teases his lips. “You ready?”

Hitoshi opens his mouth. The words stick in his throat for just a moment, like they’re cowering away, unwilling to leave the safety of his vocal cords. 

He clears them out, and says, hesitantly, “...Yeah.”

Monoma hooks him, and Hitoshi screams.

But nothing comes out.

Something important gets ripped out of him. Every throbbing muscle, every blood-thick artery, every pulsing organ, every calcified bone. His body stalls, empty of biology, but still aware of every missing piece. His non-existent lungs beg for oxygen, his phantom stomach gurgling for food, the husk of his throat bone-dry and thirsty. The only thing that remains is his brain, a piece of it, feeling every cut off nerve even as a haze slowly starts to eat away at what’s left.

“Jump up and down!” Monoma says.

The thing from before slithers back. Crawls up inside him, filling up his empty insides, bulging into every inner crevice until he’s bloating with it. It puppets his body with a tragic ease, knees bending and popping up into a few hops, and Hitoshi wants to shout, to yell, to even just widen his eyes, but he can feel it; the look of perfect, Hitoshi-like neutrality on his face. Unchanging. Immutable.

“Do a stupid dance!” 

The thing in his body obeys the order, tugging at the empty skin it inhabits, flapping limbs about like a ragdoll. It slips and sloshes wetly inside of him, and even though his stomach is gone the thing that’s replaced it sits inside like nausea. He wants to vomit, to empty himself of every last drop, and knows with a horrid clarity that he’ll only be able to do it if commanded.

“Now, bend over and pat your butt!

“Monoma…”

Monoma scoffs. “Like he’s ever held back on us?”

His body contorts to follow, bending him at the waist, puppeting his arms to smack gently at his ass. The stuff inside him splashes up, like water, like sand, touching at his brain, deepening the haze, choking out what’s left of him, and Hitoshi knows what’s happening. He’s drowning. Suffocating, from his thing inside of him that seeks to fill, to encompass, the same way the water of the ocean rushes into every open cavity, the way quicksand swallows and smothers you whole, the way the vacuum of space isolates and rips apart, until every atom is surrounded by infinity. He’s suffocating, and this time he won’t be able to wake out of it.

“Now, drop to the floor and flail around like-”

“M-maybe let’s stop for now!” Midoriya says. “Let him go and see if he reasoned out anything.”

Monoma sticks out his tongue mockingly, but follows suit, letting go of his line.

Hitoshi’s insides painfully slot back into place, and he collapses to the floor with a sob.

“Shinsou…?”

He clutches at his throat and feels himself shaking. He gasps in breath after breath, trying to fill himself back up with what’s normal, but the more air he sucks down the more it feels like something wrong is still inside. Something slimy and wet, twisting and curling through his body.

He vomits.

“Whoa!” “Shinsou!”

The two of them rush over, kneeling down to check on him but too unsure about his state to do anything other than hover. He spits out what’s left from his mouth, tries to swallow down the taste of bile, but the muscles of his throat aren’t working properly. Like something still has a hold of them. Like it’ll never let go. He feels moisture gathering in his eyes.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and Hitoshi grabs it desperately. 

“Shinsou, what happened?” 

Hitoshi pulls himself up, clutching at Midoriya’s shirt. And with a ragged voice, he asks a question he should've asked a long time ago.

“That’s… that’s what it fucking feels like??” he cries. Tears fall down his cheeks. “That’s what I’ve been doing to people??”

Midoriya flounders in confusion.

“Erm… what… did it feel like?” Monoma says, concerned.

Hitoshi turns to him, and, in stuttery flashes, gets images in his mind of Monoma, glassy-eyed, being puppeted into this very room half an hour ago. Everything important choked out of him.

Hitoshi vomits again, keeping it behind his lips.

He throws himself off of Midoriya and spills it to the floor, spitting out what he can, hoping that’s the last of it slithering inside. 

Then, he lurches up and runs out of the room, ignoring the calls of his victims as he leaves.

-

A few hours later, there’s a knock at his dorm room door.

He sits up and peeks his face out from the cocoon of sheets and blankets. He narrows his eyes at the door, willing his visitor to go the fuck away.

There’s another knock.

“Go the fuck away,” he says.

“Don’t talk to your teacher like that,” Aizawa says.

Hitoshi winces. It’s not like he knew it was him. But he knows better than to make excuses to Aizawa of all people.

“Sorry,” he says. “Please go away.”

“I know something happened between you, Midoriya and Monoma,” Aizawa says. “And either we talk about it, or I assume it’s nothing, and the reason you missed our training session today is because you’re slacking.”

He says the last word with venom. Aizawa is understanding about a lot of things, but one thing he will not accept is a student not putting in their all.

“...Give me a second.”

Hitoshi sticks out an arm and flings the end of his capture scarf towards the lock. It takes him a couple tries because the target is small and he’s mostly restrained by blankets, but eventually he clicks it open. Aizawa waits a second, expecting Hitoshi to open the door, but when it doesn’t happen he does it himself.

He scans the scene, and the natural frown on his face deepens.

“What happened, Shinsou?” Aizawa says. “I think I got the gist from Midoriya, but he was in a bit of a panic, so I wanna make sure I understand.”

“The only one who needed to understand anything was me,” Hitoshi says. “And now I do. What I wanna know is why no one told me until now.” He looks at his teacher with displeasure. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Hitoshi sneers. “That being under my quirk feels like you’re fucking dying.”

Aizawa closes the door behind him. He analyzes Hitoshi quietly, coolly.

“Is this really the first time you’ve considered what other people feel like when Brainwashed?” he says.

It feels like a punch to the gut, and Hitoshi cringes back.

“Yeah, I get it okay? I’m the asshole here, I already figured that out!” he says. “I didn’t give that much of a shit before, but now I do. So, I’m doing something about it.”

“Hiding in your room?” Aizawa says.

“Quitting using my quirk,” Hitoshi states.

He lets his proclamation linger in the air.

“That would be a foolish, illogical choice, Shinsou,” Aizawa says, voice heavy and stern. “You know what I expect of my students. A proper hero uses every tool at their disposal.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I won’t be one!” Hitoshi says. “Maybe I’ll just go back to Gen Ed. I doubt I’m the first hero to quit.”

“You aren’t,” Aizawa says. “But that’s immaterial. I don’t accept quitters into my class in the first place.”

“...So, what, you’re gonna force me to use it?” Hitoshi says darkly. “That what you’re getting at?”

“No one’s forcing anything. I’m stating facts. Some people don’t have it in them to be heroes, and some people don’t have it in them to stop. You won’t quit, because you can’t.”

Hitoshi’s chest starts to ache, and tears tease at his eyes again.

“But shouldn’t I??” he pleads. “Knowing what I’m taking from people? Knowing how it feels?”

His quirk just isn’t like other ones. A fire quirk can burn down a forest, but it can also provide warmth, cook food. An endless black hole at one’s fingertips could do an untold amount of damage, but it can also clear obstructions, clean debris. A quirk that can steal another can feed a selfish monster into near invincibility, but in better hands it could have led to shared gifts, willing transfers, new opportunities. But, there’s no use for Brainwashing other than to dominate.

He doesn’t remember when it first manifested, but he does have an early memory of forcing his parents to dance around the room while he clapped and laughed, and the terror in their eyes once he let them go. The eggshells they walked on for the next few days. They didn’t really talk about it afterward. They never really talk about much together.

He’d forgotten that, over the years. As more and more people gave him shit for it, he cared less and less what it did to the people he used it on. What a fucking hero.

Aizawa steps deeper into the room, prosthetic leg squeaking as he moves, pausing when he gets to the edge of Hitoshi’s bed.

“Shinsou, you’re not the only one with a quirk that takes something important away.”

Hitoshi’s eyes fall to Aizawa’s eyepatch.

“...Not exactly the same, Teach.”

“Not exactly, but similar,” Aizawa says. “A person’s quirk is a part of their identity, and with a glance, I can seal it away.” He pauses. “Well, I could. Over the years, I’ve made a lot of people mad, a lot of people scared; some of it more justified than others. I’ve also made a lot of mistakes. Cancelled a quirk mid-flight, or while it was charging up, or in the middle of a transformation. People have gotten hurt.” He shrugs. “But that’s the lot we’re dealt in life. We learn to control it better, and we stop those mistakes before they ever happen.”

“Yeah well, there’s no way to control this one, okay?” Hitoshi says. “The default state just makes you feel like you’re… drowning, you can’t just train that away!”

“That’s not what it feels like.”

Hitoshi blinks.

“Huh?”

“That’s not what it feels like,” Aizawa repeats. “Not to me, anyway. It’s not pleasant - there’s no glossing over the fact that you’re removing a person’s ability to control themselves - but it’s certainly not so visceral.”

Hitoshi furrows his brow. “Then, why…?”

Aizawa thinks on it for a few seconds.

“Your quirk is very mental, in the literal sense. You control a person’s body, but that necessitates cutting their brain off from it. Almost like sleep paralysis. It won’t feel good for anyone, but some people will react much harder and more negatively to it.” A smile teases his lips. “Looks like you’re sensitive to your own quirk, Shinsou.”

“...Tch.”

“Not surprising, given how in your own head you are,” Aizawa continues.

“Yeah okay, thanks.”

“You should be thankful,” Aizawa says. “You learned something important today. A lesson we’ve tried to instill in all of you since you entered this school: quirks are dangerous. They can cause great harm, on accident or on purpose, physically or mentally. On paper, we’re here to teach you how to use them properly, but functionally, the real purpose of this school is to sand down all your rough edges, make you safer for the world at large.” He points at Hitoshi. “So, the only real way to move forward here is to make sure your edges are properly sanded. Worrying about anything else isn’t logical.”

Hitoshi huddles deeper into his cocoon.

“...You’re really kind of a downer sometimes, huh Teach?”

“You want optimism, go to Midoriya.” He steps even closer, then tugs the blanket hood off of Hitoshi’s head. A tangle of purple hair puffs out. “Here’s the important takeaway: now you know, personally, how badly your quirk can make a person feel. Todoroki will never know how much his frost can bite, and Ashido will never know how much her acid can burn, but you get to know this. Make it your life’s goal to never make another person feel that way. To use your power responsibly.”

Hitoshi grunts.

Aizawa sighs. “I’ll give you a pass for today, but you will show up for training tomorrow. If you’re not comfortable using your quirk, there are plenty of other things we can focus on.” He starts to leave, opens the door. “And if you are, then, I hear you’ve got a few new tricks. Maybe I can pass on what I know about partial quirk use.”

Hitoshi jerks his head up.

“...You could cancel quirks partially?” Hitoshi says. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

“Like I’d just tell anyone that,” Aizawa says simply. “See you tomorrow, Hitoshi.”

He closes the door behind him, leaving Hitoshi alone with his thoughts.

-

He hates having to do it, but the next day, he texts Midoriya and Monoma to meet up with him. They’re aggravating at the best of times, much less after one of the most awkward moments in Hitoshi’s life. When he sees them, Midoriya is already fidgety and full of concern, Monoma, much more inscrutable. Eyeing him carefully.

“Shinsou! Are you okay?!” Midoriya says. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice something was wrong earlier, I would have-”

Hitoshi raises a hand to stop Midoriya before he really gets going. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Turns out my own quirk hits me harder than anyone else.”

“O-oh, I see…” Midoriya says, clearly mystified.

Hitoshi looks to Monoma. “Listen. Um.” He swallows. Clears his throat. “...Sorry. For brainwashing you to follow us yesterday.”

Monoma narrows his eyes, then rears back, like Hitoshi is about to explode.

“...Do I still have some kind of control over you?” he says warily.

Hitoshi rolls his eyes. “I just got some much needed clarity. And now I know where I wanna go from here.”

He takes a breath, then lets it out.

“I wanna try it again. Getting brainwashed.”

“What?!”

“No way!” Monoma says. “I’m a big fan of you not having a good time, but I don’t want to torture anybody. That was a pretty severe reaction!”

“Yeah, but if I don’t wanna be the world’s biggest hypocrite, then I need to familiarize myself with it. I won’t use it on other people if I don’t know what it’s like, in and out.”

“...Most people don’t seem to be hit that hard,” Midoriya says. He tucks his chin into his hand and mumbles to himself, “I wonder if it was your quirk itself that reacted so viciously, like an antibody fighting off an invading virus…”

“The point is,” Hitoshi says, ignoring the theorizing, “that someone could be hit as hard. If I use my quirk to prevent someone from hurting another person or something, and they have a bad reaction to it, I should be prepared to help them.” He crosses his arms. “So, will you help me?”

He looks to Midoriya. They both look to Monoma. 

Monoma grimaces, then sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “But on the condition that you have to tell me everything you know about your quirk!” He smirks. “I know you’ve got a secret or two up your sleeve.”

Hitoshi glares, and waits for Midoriya to object on the grounds that this is basically blackmail. But the boy himself looks away; almost eagerly. Like he wants to know just as bad.

“...Agreed,” Hitoshi says through gritted teeth. “Let’s get to it then.”

Monomo shrugs, then reaches out.

“Wait! Before we start!” Midoriya says. “...We should get a throw up bucket.”

They exchange glances, then give one simultaneous nod.

***

8 Years Later

Vocal Treachery - Nighthide

Izuku is worried about a particular student.

Problem is, it’s not one of his. Makes it harder to look into. But he first noticed her during the Sports Festival - a small, reserved Gen Ed student, who finished the first challenge dead last. Noteable, because the second to last person had been hit by a slowing quirk, and was still moving towards the finish line by the time the second challenge started. If her goal had just been to fail, there was no need to make that failure so complete.

It takes a couple days before he has the time to look into her. Yamamura. Average student, average grades; passive in class, seems to talk to few people. Marked as having past quirk troubles. Based on the quirk summary, Izuku can imagine why, but he tries not to make too many assumptions.

After the end of a school day, he manages to spot her in a classroom, the last one to stay behind aside from the boy keeping her company - the one who got slowed during the race. Normally students are in their clubs or heading home by now, but these two linger.

He walks in, greeting the two of them.

“A-ah, Deku-sensei” the boy all but shouts, hopping off the table of the desk he was sitting on. “I was just, um, testing the desk for its structural integrity! Yeah!”

Izuku smiles, already endeared to this boy, who reminds him of the brash but kind-hearted nature of Kirishima and Mina. 

“You’re okay, Miura,” Izuku says, remembering the boy’s name from his research. “I actually wanted to discuss something with Yamamura here!” Their eyes go wide. “N-no one’s in trouble or anything! Just, something I wanted to ask her.”

“Uh, okay?” Miura says, before turning to the girl still huddled up at her desk. “See ya later, Yama!”

He dashes out, closes the door, waits a second, takes a peek back in, gets shocked that they notice him, then takes off fully.

Izuku looks back to Yamamura. “New friend?”

She pulls her hands into her lap.

“He… keeps trying to cheer me up for being in last place,” she says, half of her face hidden by a section of long hair that falls to her torso.

“He doesn’t know you did it on purpose?” 

Her body buzzes with shock. “Y… you could tell?”

He nods. “And, I wanted to ask you why. There’s no rule against it or anything, this is just personal curiosity.”

She tugs nervously at the strands of hair cascading down her front as she deliberates what to say. Up and down, like she’s milking a cow.

“...If I try too hard, my quirk activates,” she finally says. “And, I don’t want that.”

Izuku chews at his cheek, remembering the brief notes about her quirk.

Terror Grip - Invokes feelings of fear and dread in everyone around her. Effect is more pronounced during emotional highs. Has caused a number of minor panics in previous schools; incidents declared unintentional.

Quite a troublesome quirk.

“...I’m sorry to hear that, Yamamura,” Izuku says genuinely. “You shouldn’t have to hold yourself back like that.”

Tug. Tug.

“I don’t have much of a choice…” she says.

“...You know, we’ve got a lot of pretty smart teachers here!” Izuku says. “Who have seen all kinds of quirks. I’m sure we can figure out ways to help you control it better!”

She shrugs.

“...That’s what my homeroom teacher said too. But I’d have to use it on people to figure anything out, wouldn’t I?” Izuku gives a hesitant nod. “I don’t want to do that.”

Izuku frowns. 

These are the situations he has the hardest time with. Students, people, who lock up a part of themselves because it is dangerous. And she’s certainly not wrong to do so; who wouldn’t, after hurting those around them, whether they meant to or not? And while Izuku is sure there’s always a way to manage something like that, it’s not always easy to convince someone to try.

But, he knows people who might offer their own kind of convincing.

“...Listen, Yamamura,” he says, “no one will make you use your quirk if you don’t want to, but, I think a friend of mine can help you out. Even if it’s just some advice.” He sends off a quick text. “Come to the training grounds after school tomorrow, okay? Hear him out, and if you think there’s nothing to be gained, we’ll leave you alone. Is that okay?”

She shrugs, then gathers up her stuff, calmly, without emotion.

“Bye, Midoriya-sensei,” she says, and heads off.

He stays there, in his thoughts for a few minutes. Until his phone buzzes.

Have you already promised I’d be there? The text says.

Um… yes? 😛

Goddamnit Midoriya

-

Izuku and Shinsou find Yamamura waiting there when they arrive, making herself small on a bench against a wall.

Izuku decides he needs to start with some good humor. He’s got his hero suit on him just in case, and he taps at the settings of his artificial vocal cords - a modification of Shinsou’s, though he rarely needs to use them for anything. He just thought they were cool. Mostly they’re used to amplify and broadcast his regular voice during tense situations, since unlike Shinsou, digitizing his voice doesn’t hinder anything he wants to do. 

He contorts his face to match his mentor’s, then jets over to Yamamura, screeching to a halt in front of her with his fists against his hips, and with a booming, artificial voice shouts out,

“I AM HERE!”

Yamamura blinks at him. Stone-faced, uncaring.

Izuku withers. She’s… probably just holding back her laughter.

“Stop being an idiot, Midoriya,” Shinsou says as he joins them, pulling his goggles up to his hairline. He nods to Yamamura in greeting, then at Izuku to point him out. “Don’t worry about him. He got hit in the head a lot as a teen.” 

Izuku grumbles in response.

Yamamura speaks up. “Um, okay. Who are you? You’re not a teacher.”

“I pay Midoriya to let me into schools so I can kidnap students,” Shinsou says.

“Sh-Shinsou!” Izuku shrieks. “He’s not…! He’s a friend of mine!”

“Doesn’t contradict what I said.”

“A-and a hero!” Izuku adds.

“Still doesn’t.”

Izuku clicks his tongue. “This is Nighthide,” he says. “And… he’s had to deal with similar feelings about his quirk. I think he can help!”

Yamamura looks to Shinsou curiously.

“Possibly. Depends on exactly what your quirk is like.” He analyzes the small girl with the same intense look Izuku sees in Aizawa whenever he does it. “Go ahead and use it now, on the two of us.”

Izuku sees the first real emotion in her face, and it’s the one her quirk inspires. A flicker of something hits the edge of his awareness; almost like vertigo.

“I… I can’t!” Yamamura says. “Midoriya-sensei said I wouldn’t have to…!”

Shinsou shrugs. “You don’t. But I’m asking that you do. We can handle it.” She remains hesitant, and he changes strategies. “Here’s what we’ll do. Close your eyes, cover your ears, then use it. You won’t see our reactions, and that’s probably the worst part for you, isn’t it? Seeing the results.” Yamamura doesn’t say yes or no, but Izuku thinks Shinsou hit a nerve. “Do that, turn it on for a few seconds, then off. Give us a minute to deal with it, then you can open your eyes again.”

She thinks about it, then questions Izuku with a glance. He nods.

Her face scrunches like she’s about to cry, but she shakes it off, then squeezes her eyes shut and slaps her hands against her ears, so tight he can see her jaw clench.

A second later, it hits like lightning.

There are times when, even when he’s terrified, his feet move on their own. Thrusting him forward, towards the danger, towards whoever needs help. But there was one moment where even that impulse failed him; one that had him frozen in pure, abject fear of an unthinkably powerful force. He feels it now, sees it, as clearly as the first time; All-For-One, stepping out of the darkness, revealing himself once again to the world, just moments before ending All Might’s time as a hero. When Izuku knew, for the first time, that there were monsters in this world.

And as quickly as it enters him, it leaves. Residuum lingers for a bit longer, scatterings of fears that move him forward, but tear at his heart anyway: Iida, standing up against Stain and nearly failing; Kacchan, bloody and dead on the ground; Uraraka, in the moments after the war, when he wasn’t sure if Toga had taken her away. It all quickly dissolves, becoming less potent over seconds, until one last thread pulls away. Something much harder to place, something uncovered. He tries to examine it-

He hears Shinsou gasp next to him, and he loses the thread completely. 

Shinsou takes a few shuddering breaths, wipes away a few tears from his eyes. It’s only then Izuku notices his face is wet too, and does the same. He debates putting a hand on Shinsou’s shoulder, but his fingers are shaking, and figures it’s best to calm himself down before Yamamura opens her eyes again.

They do their best to shake it off, throwing back and forth glances of a ‘Hoo boy,’ nature. A touch of dread still sticks, like tar, but he’s sure it’s not her quirk. Just regular old fear at the stuff they have to deal with every day.

A minute passes, and Yamamura stays tightly balled up, so Izuku gets her attention with a tap on the shoulder.

She jumps, but quickly schools herself, and opens herself back up. She scans them over to see if she notices anything off, but seems to find nothing. Or, maybe she did, and isn’t showing it.

“...Are you okay?” she asks.

“We’re fine,” Shinsou says, and it's not really a lie. “That’s some quirk, kid.”

A part of her shrivels. “See why I don’t wanna use it…”

“Yeah,” Shinsou says. “But that’s also why it’s gonna cause you problems.”

She looks up, confused.

“Here’s the thing,” Shinsou says. “You’ve got this big, strong thing inside of you, and because you don’t ever use it, it doesn’t know how to be used. So, when it comes out, it breaks things.”

He continues. “I once knew this kid. Had a quirk so strong, he couldn't use it without all of his bones exploding.” Izuku smiles. “Real dumbass.” Izuku frowns. “Kept using it even though he didn’t know how to use it right, and it kept on hurting him.”

“I’m… sure he tried his best…” Izuku says.

“He should have tried his best smarter,” Shinsou says. “But like I said. Real dumbass.”

“B-but, that’s why I’m not using it at all!” Yamamura states. “Then, no one will get hurt!”

“Not gonna work,” Shinsou says. “Because you’re not training it, it comes out when you don’t want it to. When you feel something too hard. But you’ll never be able to hold back every feeling.” He shrugs. “You ever stub your toe? Trip and fall? It make you frustrated, angry, before you could stop yourself from feeling it? Emotions happen, Yamamura. I know you’re trying to keep people safe, but all you’ve done is set yourself up to be a timebomb.”

Her eyes start to glisten, and she gets smaller than Izuku’s ever seen her.

“Then, what am I supposed to do…?” she whispers, voice creaky and wet. A feeling hovers over Izuku, like Muscular, standing over him and Kouta, ready to pull the two of them apart.

Shinsou feels it too, whatever his version is, and takes a deep breath. He puts his hand in her field of vision and points up to his face, to get her to look at him. 

“I’m gonna tell you something none of your teachers will, because they probably shouldn’t. Your quirk is a problem.”

“W-wait, don’t say that!” Izuku pushes back.

“See?” Shinsou says. “But it’s the truth. And you don’t fix a problem by avoiding it, you tackle it head on. Do what it takes to make yourself not a problem. How do you do that? There’s a pretty logical answer to that, kid: learn to use it right. Then you can decide if you never want to use it again.” 

Izuku zips glances back and forth between the two, fretting at nothing with his hands. They’re supposed to encourage their students, not call them problems!

But, if she doesn’t take inspiration from Shinsou’s words, something about them slows her tears.

“...If I learn to use it right, I’ll be safer to be around?” she asks.

“Yup,” Shinsou says. “I guarantee it.”

She nods, hesitantly, but then continues, “But… I still don’t know how to practice it without hurting people…”

Shinsou shakes his head. “No way around it: you probably can’t. Not at first. But that’s why your teachers are here.” He pats Izuku on his shoulder, and Izuku puffs up his chest. “To be willing test subjects.”

All the pride leaves him. It’s hard for Izuku to be around Shinsou, sometimes, due to all the emotional whiplash.

“...I’d put it differently, but he’s right,” Izuku says. “And you don’t have to worry about us! We’ve dealt with tough things before, and we’ve got a big list of good therapists, so…”

“Not only that,” Shinsou says, “but if I know Midoriya at all, he’s given your quirk some thought. I bet he already has a great idea of where to start. Go ahead, tell her.”

Shinsou just pushed Izuku into the middle of the proverbial road, blaring headlights headed in his direction. He has given it some thought, but he hadn’t come up with anything! He begs Shinsou to take it back with his eyes, but Shinsou just smirks, and Izuku wonders, not for the first time, whether Shinsou is a friend or an enemy.

Yamamura’s eyes widen with hope, and Izuku’s with fear, purebred and natural. He’s not gonna say it’s impossible, but he truly does not know how to make being scared easier…

It comes to him in a flash.

“Oh!” he says. “I do have something!” He tucks his face into his hand, thinking. “I’m not gonna say for sure it’ll amount to anything, but I think it’s a good place to focus on.” He holds up an instructive finger. “Yamamura. Being scared… it feels pretty bad, huh?”

She looks away, then nods. “...Yeah.”

“...But, not always, right?” Izuku says, and she turns back. “Have you watched a scary movie? Gone on a roller coaster?” She’s placid in response. “O-oh, maybe you haven’t, because of your quirk. But, lots of people do! Under the right circumstances, people like being scared! Maybe, if you work really hard at it, you can control your quirk enough to inspire that kind of fear! The kind that has people laughing, enjoying themselves.” He gives her a thumbs up. “And, your teachers will do whatever we can to get you there!”

Over the next few seconds, her neutral face collapses, features scrunching with an unrestrained relief that pours out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She covers her face, lets her sleeves mop up her face.

“Th…thank youuu…,” she weeps through sniffles.

Shigaraki throws an arm around Izuku’s shoulders, like he did at the mall all those years ago, his ruinous fingers scraping at Izuku’s throat. Izuku stiffens, ramrod straight, and sees Shinsou do the same.

“S-s-s-sure, thing, Yamamura,” he squeaks out, with a wobbly smile he can barely muster.

-

They take a few minutes to decompress once Yamamura heads off, a few new pages of mental exercises and visualizations in her notebook. He’ll talk with her homeroom teacher about it later, and work out some kind of schedule for her to train.

“Can’t believe you didn’t tell me she was Gen-Ed,” Shinsou says. 

“Oh?”

“Wouldn’t have come if you had.”

Izuku rolls his eyes. He’s certainly lying, saying that to get Izuku’s goat, and Izuku can’t help but let it be taken. “You’re saying that?”

Shinsou shrugs. “These Gen-Ed kids today, it’s like they aren’t even trying. Hasn’t been one who moved to the hero course since me.” His eyes flick to where Yamamura left, and back. “I think it’s about time for another one.”

“...We’ll see,” Izuku says with a competitive grin. “It’s not an easy task.”

“Really? Was for me,” Shinsou says. “Almost trivial.”

Izuku shakes his head. “Well, whatever happens, I hope she gets to a place where she doesn’t have to hold herself back so much. No one should have to do that.”

Shinsou puffs out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re one to talk.”

Izuku looks at him curiously.

“I dont know what you mean…?”

“I bet you don’t,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate.

Izuku frowns, and is just about to push back when he catches the time on his watch.

“Oh! Sorry, I gotta go, got stuff to do!”

“Let me guess,” Shinsou says. “Suit training with Yaoyorozu?”

“No, that’s tomorrow!” Izuku says. “Today I promised Uraraka I’d talk to some kids at the counseling center with her!”

“Oh, so it’s the other one today,” Shinsou says.

“I don’t what you mean!” Izuku says, frustrated.

“I don’t mean anything at all, Izuku,” Shinsou says, and Izuku leaves in a huff, mechanical limbs carrying him out of the grounds.

Understanding people is hard. And Izuku knows how insufficient language can be. But he sure wishes that some people maybe tried a little harder at it anyways.

***

Chapter Text

No matter how much Mina likes her quirk, there’s something she’s always sure to keep in mind:

Acid is scary.

There’s no cutesy way of putting it. When people hear the word, they think of the sizzle, the burn. Of brightly glowing bottles that steam out the top, skull-and-crossbones etched into the glass. Of what happens when it spills, gobbling through anything and everything as it eats and eats and eats, leaving nothing behind except for jagged, material wounds.

Acid is scary. And because of that, she’s had to be very careful with her quirk for a very long time.

It came in pretty early. She’s been bubblegum-pink since she was born, but her parents say that even before she turned one, she loved to dribble acid from her fingers and suck at it for comfort. It wasn’t very strong then, but it didn’t take long, maybe until she was two or three, for her to be able to cause some pretty nasty burns.

Her family has the scars to prove it.

Her dad calls them his ‘Polka Dots.’ All the faded burn marks that pepper his arms and legs, a story at the ready for each one. Her mom doesn’t look like she has as many, but only because of her rainbow-shimmer skin, half lessening the effects and half blending them away behind its flickering colors. Even her older sister has a few, from when they roughhoused together a bit too hard and bits of Mina splashed on her unintentionally.

But the thing is, all those polka dots are old. Over a decade old. Once Mina was able to understand the harm she was causing, she worked hard to prevent it. One of her oldest memories is plopping herself into a corner and clenching all her muscles; that would keep all the acid inside, she figured, just like holding her breath kept the air inside.

It didn’t exactly work, but it helped her start getting a handle on things. 

Luckily, no one got hurt too bad. And her family doesn’t hold it against her. But those scars are impossible to forget, if not for them, then for Mina herself. 

Once, she thought it’d be something she could bond with Todoroki over - but when she asked him if he’d ever burned anyone by accident, he looked at her boredly and said ‘No, that’s never really been a problem for me’ before going back to his meal. Because of course that’s the case; his dad probably had him doing push-ups since before he could crawl. He’s got a cargo bay’s worth of baggage because of it, but probably none of it is ‘accidental harm.’ Damn these beautiful, talented people that walk among us!

By now though, it’s been a long time since she’s had any serious accidents. Sure, maybe she’s burned a few clothes here and there, melted a phone case once or twice, and sure, maybe she gave a few first-degree burns to Midori without fully meaning to earlier in the year - but he was in the process of trying to completely demolish her in a battle review. That’s gotta give her some wiggle room in whether or not it counts as an ‘accident.’

But it is another thing she wont let herself forget. It could have easily been pretty bad, because acid is dangerous, for everyone who isn’t named Mina. It dissolves and bubbles and pops and burns until there’s nothing left - so, she needs to be the kind of hero that makes people feel safe despite that!

It’s one of the reasons why she stuck with Pinky. ‘Alien Queen’ will always be her favorite potential name, but she understands a little better why Midnight pushed against it. Bakugou can get away with calling himself Murder God because he’s rude and brash and loud and let’s be honest, a boy - but to be Alien Queen, she needs to live it just the same. To be alien, and distant, and scary. But that just isn’t her, not what she wants to be.

So Pinky it is; for both herself, and for Midnight, in her honor.

And so, as she gets closer and closer to graduation, she gets a better picture of the hero she wants to be. One who’s safe and soothing, even as she sizzles and burns. She hopes she can get there, to have these two conflicting pieces fit together in a way that isn’t smushed and forced. She just needs to find the right little bit that slots into place.

-

After a training exercise, she catches Yaoyorozu and Midori debating something, while occasionally looking her way.

They’ve been hanging around each other a lot this year. Objectively, she knows it’s because of their whole Quirk Studies thingy, but subjectively, it’s because they’re deeply in love and secretly dating and will probably get married right after graduation and have two adorable kids that Mina already has some great name suggestions for!

Unless they end up with Todoroki and Uraraka instead. Or Jirou and Iida. Or heck, Kaminari and Bakugou! She can see each one so clearly in her head; why limit herself to a single possibility!

Eventually Midori convinces Yaomomo of something, and the latter heads her way. 

“Hey Yaomomo!” Mina greets. She nods back at Midori. “You lose a bet or something?”

Yaomomo shakes her head. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Both of us agreed to encourage the other to… take the initiative, as it were. In exploring a matter each of us found intriguing. For Midoriya it was something related to Shinsou, and for me…”

“Something about me?” Mina finishes. “Aw, I’m flattered! What’s up?”

“I… have a request for you,” Yaomomo says. “And while I want to assure you you’re completely free to say no-”

“Name it, and I’ll do it!”

Yaomomo’s a little surprised at Mina’s easy agreement, but continues on. “W-well, I appreciate the support, but I will still accept any refusal without issue.” She nervously twirls a lock of hair between her fingers. “I… would like to learn more about your quirk. If that’s alright.”

That’s what she’s all shy about? Mina doesn’t get why; Yaomomo and Midoriya have already talked to half the class about theirs.

“Of course that’s alright!” Mina says. “Whacha wanna know? I’m an open book!”

“Well, I do have a number of questions, but I had a more specific request to preempt them,” Yaomomo says. “And it might be a little… awkward to consider.” She grabs at her elbow and pulls it close, huddling herself a little smaller. “I would like to… study the composition of your acid.”

“Sure!” Mina says easily, still not understanding the shyness. “The support classes have done some testing on it, go look all you want!” Mina makes a show of waving her hands forward, like she’s casting a spell. “I hereby give you my permission!”

“...Thank you, Mina,” Yaomomo says with an amused smile, “but that’s not exactly what I meant. I know I could easily reference the support classes records, but… I would like to see what I can discover with my own processes. Which would require…” A dusty, pink blush hits her cheeks. “Samples.”

Mina’s mouth flaps open in an O.

Okay, now it makes sense. Doesn’t really matter the situation, doesn’t matter the context: asking a friend for samples is never not awkward. Even so, Yaomomo’s kinda sabotaging herself here - she’s so embarrassed about the whole thing that it just makes Mina wanna tease her about it.

“Wow Yaomomo, usually you gotta take a girl out to dinner first before asking for her fluids!”

The red on Yaomomo’s face pops outward like a firework.

“R-right, o-of course,” she stumbles, “the request was rather forward, I apologize-”

Mina laughs, then shakes her head. “Relax Yaomomo, I’m just playin’ around! I don’t mind. How you wanna do this?”

It takes Yaomomo a few seconds to reset her composure, at which point she pulls out a folder from the backpack she has with her.

“I… have an outline for what I would require of you,” she says handing it over. Immediately her arms start to shine as she begins generating something from them. 

Mina opens up the folder and scans through it. It’s a few sheets, with sections on the specific things Yaomomo’s looking for in these ‘samples.’ Various combinations of qualities - acidity, viscosity, slipperiness, etc. - asked for both in percentages of her max ability and in non-mathematical ways. ‘75% acidity,’ ‘50% viscosity,’ ‘the consistency of honey,’ ‘thick enough to stop a cannonball.’ Mina doesn’t really work in percentages, though she’ll give it a shot anyways, but the other parts are super helpful for her. 

She flicks through one page, then another, then another, slowly realizing it might take her a couple hours just to prepare everything that Yaomomo’s asking for. It hits then just what Yaomomo has done to her.

“Yaomomo,” Mina says, aghast, “did you just give me homework??”

Yaomomo sends her an apologetic smile. “If you cannot find the time, I assure you I don’t mind,” she says. “But I… would really appreciate it.” She hands over a small pack that she just finished generating, filled with a bunch of clear plastic bottles. 

Mina grumbles, because obviously she’s gonna do it, how can she not after being asked so nicely, but anything that even resembles homework makes her stomach do backflips. Ones that end in faceplants.

“If you decide to go through with it, you can leave everything by my door, or give it to me personally, whatever is easiest,” Yaomomo says. “Everything is lined with fluoropolymers, so these bottles should be resistant to even your strongest acid.” Her finger goes to her chin, a thought occurring to her. “Though, if they aren’t, take a note of that as well. That would be a rather important discovery.”

Mina slings the pack across her shoulder, then gives Yaomomo a salute. “Got it. One fluid delivery comin’ up, ASAP!”

And with one last little pop of red, Yaomomo thanks her and heads off.

It doesn’t end up being too bad. She texts a few times for clarity on some of Yaomomo’s requests, but it’s almost a little fun, coming up with just the right combo in such an intentional way. She’s usually much more instinctual with her quirk, feeling out what she needs in the moment, but here she’s almost gotta be like Yaomomo herself, thinking hard about what the end result has to look like. 

When it gets to the high acidity stuff though, she pauses.

‘As acidic as you can make it,’ goes the request. So straightforward it almost doesn’t even bother her to think about it. Almost.

She’s only ever used her hottest stuff one time: on Gigantomachia. A man so tough he alone could take on an army of heroes and villains alike. And she was able to burn him with it, through skin stronger than steel. It’s not something she really wants to use ever again.

But Yaomomo doesn’t want to use it. Just study it. Maybe that’s okay.

She holds a finger over a bottle, then, with some effort, squeezes out a drop that plinks down into it.

There’s a sizzle.

She quickly holds her hand underneath the bottle in case it eats through. She waits a bit longer but it stays inside, still sizzling. She texts Yaomomo, asking if there’s gonna be a problem here.

It’s likely just reacting with the air, the text back reads. It should be fine once you close the bottle.

Mina frowns. Is acid strong enough to burn the air itself really fine? 

But she does as asked, gets it all ready, and just before she goes to sleep she drops off all the bottles at Yaomomo’s dorm door. With a small note pinned to the fabric reading,

Filled 2 the brim, just 4 you <3

-

A few days later, right as Mina’s gearing up for dance practice, Yaomomo rushes up to her with stars in her eyes.

“Mina!” Yaomomo cries. “I simply can’t hold it in any longer!”

“Huh?”

Yaomomo grasps Mina’s hands and holds them up between them, stars blazing at Mina with an intoxicating fervor.

“Mina, I am absolutely in love-”

Music swells. Glitters and sparkles fill the air. There’s a flutter in Mina’s chest.

Could this really be happening? A moment she’s dreamed about since she was a little pink gumdrop who loved nothing more than staring at nuzzling strangers? A confession?! She’s never really thought about Yaomomo that way, but… heck, why not? They’d be GREAT together, two beauties against the world! What does she have to lose?? Love is about all about taking risks, taking chances, so how can she not throw caution to the wind and say in a breathy gasp,

“I accept!”

“-With your quirk!” Yaomomo finishes. She registers what Mina said. “What’s that?”

The music dies. Sparkles fade. The flutter flutters off.

“Nothing!” Mina yanks her hands back and waves away the bubbles she swears had formed around her. “What’s that about my quirk?”

It’s then she sees Midori scramble into the courtyard after Yaomomo, sample-bag against his waist and a stack of books and papers in his arms. Yaomomo had to be moving pretty fast to outrun him.

“I’ve been going over the results of my studies over and over, each time finding myself more and more enthralled by the particulars of your quirk!” Yaoyorozu says. “It’s rather wonderful!”

“Oh, stop,” Mina says with a flick of her wrist.

“...She was kind of in the middle of talking about it to me when she dashed off,” Midori says, “so I don’t have the full picture, but honestly I still have to agree! It’s deceptively complex, there’s so much more to it than I ever thought!”

She puts her hands to her face like she’s humble, even though she’s sucking up the praise like a vacuum. What can she say - she’s not shy about compliments! Midori in particular has gassed her up before about her quirk though, so she’s a little surprised there’s more to say about it.

“I’d really love to talk to you about it, Mina,” Yaoyorozu says, grabbing the books out of Midori’s hands and planting herself on Mina’s big workout mat. 

“Um, well-”

“I’ve always assumed it operated through straightforward gradients of select substances,” Yaomomo says, laying out a number of things across the mat, “and while that’s definitely part of it, there’s a whole-”

“Hold on a sec!” Mina says, stopping the Yaomomo train before it fully left the station. “I was just about to start something, y’know?”

Yaomomo finally takes notice of Mina’s setup - the mat, wireless speaker, Mina’s workout clothes - then pulls the brake on her enthusiasm.

“Oh! I apologize, I didn’t mean to get in the middle of anything…”

“Nah, no worries!” Mina says. “We can still talk if you want, it just means you gotta join!”

Yaomomo’s eyes widen with a hint of fear. “O-oh, I don’t know about that…”

“Hm, sounds like you don’t really wanna talk about it…,” Mina teases, getting a cute little pout from Yaomomo. “C’mon, it’ll be fun! That’s what ‘active learning’ is, right?”

“Not… exactly…”

“Midori, you’ll join in, won’t you?” Mina asks.

“Sure!” he says instantly, surprising both girls. “I know firsthand how helpful dancing can be. I managed to save the school festival with it this year!”

“Yes, I supposed you’ve mentioned…,” Yaoyorozu starts, before catching something. “Wait, this year??”

“Sounds like we’re all agreed!” Mina says. “Let’s get to it!”

Their clothing isn’t ideal, Midori in cargo pants and a t-shirt, Yaomomo in casual comfort pants and light blouse, but it’s good enough; there’s a chill in the air from the cool autumn breeze, but sunlight pours down in thick blankets of warmth from crystal clear skies, perfectly cancelling out the cold. A day made for dancing, by the Earth itself.

She stands them next to each other and faces them so they can watch her movements, giving them all enough space to move around. She starts up a workout playlist, something low volume, not too intense, since her dance workout buddies are beginners and they’re all gonna be talking.

“Just try to match what I do!” she instructs.

The first song is slow, with a simple, sparse bass overlaid by a light synth melody. A warmup to the warmup, to get their bodies nice and revved up. She moves her torso side to side every other beat, popping up the opposite elbow with each tilt. 

“Okay, lay it on me!” Mina says as her two workout buddies copy what she does.

Yaoyorozu’s excitement beats out the minor self-consciousness she has at dancing and starts talking.

“Mina, how aware are you of the chemical composition of your fluid?” she prompts, elbows popping along with the beat.

“Not very!” Mina answers. “Support classes did some basic tests and gave me the results, but I couldn’t understand ‘em!”

“Honestly, even if you were able to, it might not have revealed everything that Yaoyorozu learned!” Midori adds, with similar but stiffer movements. “They tend to test baseline and extremes, but they don’t always do the in-betweens.”

“So it’s my in-betweens you like?” Mina teases.

It’s completely lost on them in the moment. “Correct!” Yaomomo says. “We tend to just refer to it as ‘acid,’ but given that you’re capable of changing various properties of the fluid you excrete independently, it always made sense to me that there were multiple substances at work. One that affects acidity, one that affects viscosity, et cetera.”

“With you so far,” she says. “We’re ramping up!” She tilts her torso deeper on the in between bits and flights out the opposite arm, 4 steps to the simple groove. Right elbow, fling, left elbow, fling.

“And that does seem to be the case,” Yaomomo falls into the same groove, right elbow, fling, left elbow, fling, “which is fascinating on its own! But what I expected to find was a steady change in concentration of these substances to match whatever quality is requested.” Elbow, fling, elbow, fling. “And while that is true, to an extent, there’s a more complicated mechanism at play as well!”

“Based on her testing,” Midoriya says, with his own right elbow, fling, left elbow, fling, “it looks like you’re actually capable of producing dozens of various compounds!”

“Whoa, so many!” Mina says, shifting the exercise as the song gets more complicated. Bringing legs to it, a kick to the side and back, kick and back, upper body still moving but more constrained. “What do I need all of that for?”

“Ah, well therein lies the wonderful complexity of your quirk!” Yaoyorozu flows nicely into the new exercise. “But let’s start from the beginning, and with a secondary quality of your quirk. Do you know what causes a liquid to be more viscous, more gel-like?”

“Not even a little bit!”

“So, there’s not just one way to do it,” Midori answers for her, his feet occasionally tripping over themselves, “but an easy way is to introduce really long molecules, polymers, to a liquid. These molecules will slide up against each other, causing friction and slowing the overall flow of the fluid. Introduce a specific type of polymer, one that can also chain together with itself to create more rigid structures that trap fluid between them, and you get something like a gel!”

“Ooh, is that how jelly works?” Mina starts moving her arms more as the song picks up, signaling for them to do the same.

“More or less, yeah!”

“So I’m like… making Mina jelly??”

“...If you wanna look at it like that…” Midori says with a slightly sick look. He has to take a moment to jump back into the exercise.

“And here’s the twist,” Yaoyorozu says, following along perfectly. “You don’t have just one molecule involved in that process. In fact, that’s the bulk of the different substances you can exude! A number of different-length polymers, some that merely increase viscosity and some that chain into gels.”

“Different flavors of jelly,” Mina adds.

“...If you insist!” Yaoyorozu says.

“Funnily enough, some of these long-molecule substances are also what makes your fluid slippery!” Midoriya says. “You’ve got some triglycerides, oils and fats, that can act as lubricants, viscous enough to stick to surfaces but smooth enough to let you slide on top of them!”

“Jelly and oil? I’m a whole snack over here!”

They reach the end of the first song and a new one starts. It’s already faster than the first, with a simple bass beat underneath, a galloping percussion over that, and upbeat synth and vocals, all of which make you want to skip and bounce. She leads them into full body stuff right away, things that have them shuffling back and forth, side to side, while their arms swing with wide, floppy movements.

It takes Midori a bit to get the feel of things because, frankly, he’s got zero rhythm, but Yaoyorozu catches on faster; probably ‘cuz of all that martial arts training under her belt. And once she gets more comfortable with it, she gets right back to it.

“And of course, all of this without even mentioning your acidity!” she says, her body moving to the bouncing groove of the song. “Which has its own peculiarities. Do you know what makes an acid an acid?”

“We talkin’ Brønsted–Lowry acids or Lewis acids?” Mina says.

There’s a hitch on both her workout buddies’ steps.

Mina rolls her eyes. “I’ve read some books about acid, y’know!” One book. The Beginner’s Guide to Acid. She even remembers some of it! “The names stuck with me ‘cuz of the line O!”

“The… line O?” Midoriya asks. He’s a bit behind the beat now, but does his best to match her steps again. “Oh! You mean the Danish letter?”

“Øbviously!” 

His face pinches with confusion. Right, he probably can’t tell she put the line in the O. It’s definitely there, though.

“Uh, well, in this case, it’s the former that applies!” Midoriya says, back in teaching mode. Side shuffle, swing, side shuffle, swing. “A Brønsted–Lowry acid is, more or less, a substance that gives a proton, a hydrogen cation, to another, a ‘base.’ That’s what most people think about in regards to acids, because that’s the reaction that’s happening when acid ‘dissolves’ something. And what your acid is!”

“Acids!” Yaoyorozu says. “Because you produce more than one!”

There’s a hitch in Mina’s step.

“I do?” She’s thrown off enough she shifts form again, staying in place but rocking her hips, letting motion travel up and down the rest of her.

“Indeed!” Yaoyorozu says. Here she has trouble matching what Mina’s doing, the more subtle movement giving her difficulty. But she keeps at it while she talks, jutting her hips back and forth. “I noticed a number of different acid species: acetic acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, even a small amount of perchloric acid. And that last one is so strong it qualifies as a superacid.”

“Whoa.”

“What I thought I’d find was a single type of acid, diluted as necessary to whatever pH or pKa was needed,” Yaomomo continues. “Something like that does happen, but a stronger overall effect is that your body produces more acidic substances when you want more acidity. Your maximum-acidity excretion is almost pure sulfuric acid! It’s all so very interesting, and yet, that’s not what fascinates me the most!”

Her rocking slows. It’s barely even a wiggle now. 

“In donating their hydrogen, acids break the bonds of other molecules. But as mentioned before, your fluid has a multitude of other substances in it in addition to the acid. Wouldn’t the acid pull apart at least some of these, affecting the overall properties of the fluid? And the answer is, it does, but your body completely compensates for this effect! And thus, we come to what truly has me captivated.”

By this point Yaomomo has completely stopped dancing, her attention all focused on Mina while she continues explaining. 

“Your ‘acid’ is actually a complicated, multi-substance emulsion, whose various concentrations of parts all fluctuate to balance out any competing effects, leaving only the specific ones you want! Even down to changing the overall solvent itself - your fluid is usually water-based, but it dehydrates with stronger acids to limit volatility. All of this necessarily implies you have the physical glands to create each and every one of these substances, and each of them are completely controllable!”

Her eyes shine, stars back in her eyes.

“All this to say: Your quirk isn’t just acid, it’s a full suite of chemical synthesis!”

“Hold on,” Mina says. “Chemical synthesis? Isn’t that your quirk?”

“Yes!” Yaomomo says breathlessly. “That’s one of the reasons I’m so enamored by yours!” Grabs Mina’s hands again. “I feel such a kinship with it! With you!” She sighs dreamily. “Your quirk is just so… spectacular!”

Mina’s body is pumped up from the exercise, but she doubts the warmth she feels in her face is because of that. She wants to fan herself, sit on some couch to work out the vapors, but Yaomomo’s got an iron grip on her.

“I-I dunno about all that,” Mina says, just keeping herself from stumbling over her words. 

“No, I agree with Yaoyorozu!” Midori says, who has actually kept going with his awkward hip rocking throughout; she never instructed him to stop, after all. “Obviously yours doesn’t have the same versatility as Yaoyorozu, but no one on the planet is as versatile as her!” Mina catches Yaoyorozu fawning at the praise. “But you have such fine control over the range of things you do produce, that you might be an expert in them in a way Yaoyorozu will never be with her creations!” A dark cloud hovers over Yaomomo, complete with thunder and rain.

Midori seems completely oblivious. Mina has to hold back a laugh. 

“...Still,” Mina says, taking her hands back. “I don’t exactly use my quirk like that, y’know? Picking out specific stuff to be in it. It just… happens!”

“Well, you’ve always been a more intuitive person, Mina!” Midori says, finally stopping his ‘dancing.’ “But just because you don’t approach your quirk with the same intentionality others do doesn’t mean your abilities are less impressive. They’re just impressive in a whole different way! It’s obvious that you work really hard to get the ‘feel’ of your quirk right, to make all those aspects of your quirk almost instinctual. There’s not a lot of people out there who could do that!”

“I have to agree,” Yaomomo says. “I can only hope to feel even a fraction of the comfort you feel with your creations towards mine.”

Geez, she’s really getting it from both sides right now, isn’t she? Compliments to the left of her, flattery to the right. And she’s gotta admit; being so praised by these two smarties is certainly doing something for her. She definitely doesn’t mind being the Mina jelly in this particular sandwich.

She fakes being shy again, hands in various positions against her face like she just can’t handle it even though she’s slurping up every drop of their accolades. The next song on the playlist starts though, and she decides she needs to cool herself off a bit by doing more exercise. This one is equally upbeat, but poppier; less thrumming bass, more complicated synth arrangements, with a clear, melodic voice singing over it all, and she quickly starts a new exercise to match.

She twists and shakes to it, closer to actual dancing than what they’ve been doing, because she’s still on a bit of a high and really it in the moment. Her two dance partners follow suit, a bit more shyly because it’s kind of freeform right now, but soon enough they’re all back in the groove.

The song ramps up and she picks up the pace, switching into quick, fluid steps and wide, floaty arm movements, and it’s then that Yaoyorozu starts to speak again.

“You know, Mina,” she says, panting a bit heavily, “Obviously I have much to say about your current abilities.” Breath, step, breath, step. “But I’m equally intrigued about the possibilities. Would you like to hear my thoughts on the matter?”

More like, can Mina handle hearing any more thoughts at this point?

The answer is yes.

“Tell me!” she says, ready for more of her own greatness.

“You rely on your intuition,” Yaomomo says, between puffs of breath, “but there’s no reason that can’t be bolstered by some intentionality. You create a multitude of chemicals, many of which I haven’t even specified yet, and if you tried exuding some in specific mixtures, you could likely achieve some new effects!”

“Ohh, like making it harden?” Mina suggests. “I’ve tried to get something like that going, but I haven’t figured it out yet!”

“I think that’s certainly possible! But I believe even more pronounced effects are within your grasp!” Breath, step, breath, step. “For instance, I mentioned you dehydrate your fluid with stronger acids. If you didn’t, and let water mix with sulfuric acid, it would create a vast amount of heat energy that would boil and explode outward!”

Mina’s happy-go-lucky mood takes a turn.

The song slows, almost to match, the melodic tones of the vocalist winding down as they croon over a simpler beat. Mina changes the exercise, matching the speed, to give them all a breather.

“...Oh!” Mina says, leaning to the side in a stretch while her arm slowly arcs.

Yaomomo and Midori follow along, letting their lungs fill as they lean from side to side, before Yaomomo continues. “Not only that, but while I haven’t done the math, you might be able to use that same heat to ignite some of the other substances you produce! With a delayed effect, ideally, so the resulting flame wouldn’t affect you!”

“Hm,” Mina hums, thoughtlessly shifting to some new exercise. She catches Midori looking at her strangely.

“I even found signs of glycerol in some of your mixtures!” Yaomomo keeps going. “Mix that with nitric and sulfuric acid, and you can theoretically produce nitroglycerine! Using the heat I mentioned before, you could potentially make use of explosives along with your other-”

“Um, Yaomomo?” Mina cuts in. “That sounds pretty cool and all, but, I dunno if I really need more ways to hurt people, y’know?”

Yaomomo freezes, both her hands and one leg up (…What was Mina having them doing?). Her eyes flick away, embarrassed, and all her limbs fall back into place.

“...Right, of course,” she says. “Apologies, Mina, I believe I may have gotten ahead of myself there…”

Mina lets go of whatever she was doing too, and shakes her head.

“Now worries, Yaomomo!” she says, genuinely. “It’s no biggie. Just, my acid is already all the danger I need! Right now I wanna figure out any other cool tricks I can do!”

Yaoyorozu gives a hesitant smile.

“Such as making a hardening substance?”

“Exactly!” Mina answers. “‘Cuz then I can trap people in it like Todoroki with his ice? No need for more fighting after that!”

“That’s… likely a much more productive use of your quirk,” Yaomomo admits. “I suppose I get caught up in the spectacle of things, sometimes.”

Mina beams her a smile, because hey, she gets it. 

Even knowing the danger, even knowing the injuries she’s caused, she still loves her acid. The spark, the sizzle, the pop. Knowing that, with a flick of her wrist, she can melt through anything in her way. If she could have a version of that that didn’t hurt people at the same time, she’d take it in an instant. 

But, that’s just not how the world works. So, as long as she has this danger in her, she’ll do everything she can to find the safety in her, too. That’s what her Acid Veil is all about, after all! To be a force that protects, rather than burns. However much her acid is a part of her, she won’t let it be the only part of her.

“...Well, I’ve no doubt that a number of other effects should be within your reach,” Yaomomo says. “Like hardening. Many resins are just organic polymers that are cured through some process, and the insect-derived resin shellac is even acid based… Perhaps we can look into it, see if you can produce any molecules that might be similar.”

“Yeah, sure!” Mina says.

It’s only then she notices that Midori seems deep in thought, staring at her like he’s trying to solve a physics problem. 

“‘Sup, Midori?” she asks.

He takes one last moment to think.

“Mina,” he says, “do you… consider yourself dangerous?”

She blinks.

“I mean, I am, aren’t I?” she says. She bares her teeth and holds up her hands, clenching her fingers like monster claws.

“..Not especially dangerous, I don’t think,” he says. “Not more than any of us, anyway.”

“If you say so!” she says. “But you gotta admit, acid can be pretty scary, right? All it does is burn and melt and rip stuff apart…”

“But, that’s not true at all!” he says right away.

She scrunches her face, confused.

“Remember how we defined acid?” he starts. “ Something that donates a proton? The more easily something donates a proton, the more acidic it is. Theoretically, the most acidic thing that could ever exist is a single hydrogen cation, because it is just a proton! But they don’t functionally exist anywhere other than in outer space, in isolation. You know why?”

“Why?” she says, hanging on his words.

“Because it will instantly react with any other substance it gets close to!” he answers. “The hydrogen wants to bond, and will do that whenever it gets the chance. When you look at the smallest level of things, that’s what an acid is doing. Reaching out to whatever it can, sharing itself with another substance, changing it, and being changed in return. Forming something completely new in the process. 

“And honestly,” he continues, “I think you’re exactly the same! Someone who can make friends with anyone and everyone. Who makes connections and bonds easier than anyone else in the world. Who can, just by being around, excite all the other people around her into becoming something new.”

He flashes her a wide, brilliant smile. “So, how can acid really be scary, when it’s just like you!”

Her eyes go big, and her breath hitches.

There’s something really special about Midoriya. Every one of them knows it. He has a way of grabbing a hold of you, flipping you around, forcing you to see yourself in a whole new way. Someone who makes roiling fire feel safe to a boy who got burned, who can teach a little girl that slurps away time just how helpful it can be to rewind. If she’s like acid, then he’s like alchemy, turning one thing into something else completely, and for the first time, a piece of her makes sense, in a way it never did before.

A smile takes over her face again, slowly at first until it explodes out completely with a laugh.

“I guess it isn’t!” she says, easily and freely.

Midori laughs with her, a bit awkwardly because he clearly wasn’t expecting her energy, and as he does she catches Yaomomo eyeing him with so much affection that it has Mina blushing. 

“I… think that’s a rather lovely way of looking at things, Midoriya,” Yaomomo says.

Midoriya rubs at his neck shyly, and the whole interaction has Mina bursting with energy. The song changes, something fast and wild, and she lets it take her over, full on dancing without regards to any form. Her two friends watch her, amused, until a particular impulse has her jolt towards Midoriya to grab his hands, tugging him into a dance with her. 

It’s sloppy and haphazard, mostly her pulling his arms back and forth, but he lets it happen, doing his best not to move against her as she steps two and fro. With another laugh, she lets go of one hand and makes him twirl with the other, freeing him from her grasp as he completes the spin. She dashes over to Yaomomo and grabs her hands, getting a soft, surprised exhale in return, and starts dancing in just the same way, the other girl catching on fast enough to shimmy along with her properly.

Then, she twirls Yaomomo too, facing her towards Midori and letting go.

“Your turn!” Mina shouts.

There’s twin bursts of crimson as Yaomomo all but tumbles into Midori, hands falling into his as he holds them out to catch her. There’s a second of stillness as their brains catch up to the situation, but then it dissolves into light laughter, and the two of them shake to the music together, grasped hands moving back and forth, completely caught up in the flow.

There’s a glint in Mina’s eye. All of her bubbling energy condenses into sharp, laser-like focus.

With a speed that could rival Ingenium she discreetly pulls out her phone and hits the camera shortcut. Her finger flurries on the screen, taking pictures so fast the shutter noises smear into one long hiss. It lasts the whole few seconds they dance, before their mutual shyness causes them to break apart. It’s only then that the weird noise registers, but when they look back at her with questioning looks, her phone is already back in her pocket.

“What was that sound?” Yaomomo asks.

“Song must have skipped!” Mina says. “Bluetooth connections, am I right? Now c’mon, let’s get back to it, we’re just getting started!”

She directs them back to their workout, and her two smarties dance with her as they go deeper and deeper into her quirk.

Acid is all about the bonds, it seems. All it wants is to make new ones. If that’s the case, then Mina must be the most acidic thing there is, because she’s just as happy seeing any bond coalesce and form, between anyone and everyone, whether she’s a part of it or not. Endless new connections, just waiting for her to find them.

***

8 Years Later

Superacid Reaction - Pinky

A small, unassuming office building sits across the street from the Deku and Pinky. Officially an investment group, though they have their fingers in many pies, most of which aren’t very official. But they’ve got some pretty good lawyers, and a connection or two in high places, so dealing with them isn’t easy. Especially not for Pro-Heroes - it’s a bit out of their purview. But the people in there are no less bullies than those who swing a fist or fire off a quirk. It’s the reason Pinky asked him here in the first place.

“Yup, just two heroes, taking a small break!” Pinky says loudly. A few pedestrians passing by look at them oddly.

“Yup!” Deku agrees. “Nothing suspicious about it!”

The pedestrians shrug and move on. 

He and Pinky are nailing this.

It’s not much longer until a small group of people, five middle aged figures, walks down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. They stop in front of the office building and pause, taking deep breaths like they’re readying themselves for something. Deku definitely doesn’t know who they are, but if he had to guess, they look like the kind of people who maybe got coerced into some exploitative loans, and had their homes taken out from under them. By some awful money group, no doubt. It’s just a guess, though.

The group walks into the building.

A few seconds later, there’s some shouting, and the grunting noise of combat.

“Gasp!” Mina says, slapping her hands to her cheeks. “That sounds like trouble! We better go check it out, Deku!”

“Right you are, Pinky!” he says, his acting perfect. “Someone in there could get hurt!”

And so the two of them heroically rush in.

The group is in a number of scuffles with building security, quirk emissions flying every which way through the air. Luckily, it hasn’t been nearly long enough for any serious harm to occur, and he and Pinky quickly sweep through and carefully detain the group of people they saw walk in, Pinky trapping most of them in a sticky mass of neutral liquid, him getting the rest with Grape Rush, his nanomachine swarm forming a binding net.

The security guards look at them, confused at how fast they got here.

“Uh, thanks?” one of them says. 

“Sure!” Pinky says. She points a thumb up at the ceiling. “But we better go check on the big boss upstairs, make sure none of these dastardly fiends got to him!”

“That isn’t necessary, none of them-”

She’s off and up the stairs before they can stop her.

For some reason, this causes the security to start attacking them. How completely unexpected! He traps the ones down here with his own stock of Pinky liquid and dashes after her, finding her already halfway through the goons on the next floor. She’s flinging globs of ‘acid’ in every direction, some turning sticky like tar, others hardening into a thick, acid-cured resin that traps movement just the same. He goes after the rest, encrusting them in his Pinky acid, while Pinky directs the office workers in the middle of everything out of the building. It only takes them a few minutes, but once projectiles stop heading their way, they move up to the final floor. 

They crash into the office at the top just as the CEO, an older gentleman with an annoyingly charming face and salt-and-pepper hair, is tipping over a box of papers into a shredder. The first piece of paper dangles at the lip, fluttering just over the blades.

“You’re in danger, sir!” Deku shouts. “Let us help!”

“W-wait! That won’t be-”

Deku aims another shot of ‘acid.’

There’s a spattering noise as the last few dregs of liquid drip out instead. 

All three of them stare at the leaking nozzle at his wrist. 

Pinky snorts. 

“Happens to everyone,” she says. His face goes warm.

The CEO, in the brief pause, lurches forward to dump the papers in. But Deku manages to slide out and shoot forward one of his Tentacole arms, scooping up everything before it hits the shredder, and Pinky captures the man in hardened amber-like goo like the others.

“No need to fret!” Pinky says. “We saved you and all your files! We’ll go over it all to make sure none of those ne’erdowells downstairs messed with any of it!”

“N-no, that’s quite alright!” the man says, struggling inside his cocoon. “You can leave that to us, we’ll-”

Pinky walks over and throws him over her shoulders with a ‘Hup’ while Deku starts gathering up folders and harddrives. Any one of these could have been tampered with in the attack; it’s only proper that they check it all.

“Don’t you worry, sir!” Pinky says. “We’ll make sure everyone gets what they deserve!”

-

When they step outside, a few reporters are already lingering by the doors. As if they’d somehow been tipped off beforehand. 

Pinky takes the lead in talking to them while her sidekicks and interns round everyone up to take to her agency. She paints the reporters a picture: of a duplicitous but sweet-seeming man who found people at their lowest and took them for all their worth. It almost exactly matches Deku’s earlier guess. What a coincidence!

She’s charming and exuberant as she speaks, her bright and righteous energy gripping the reporters even as they try to be dispassionate, or even combative. She simply lets her genuine compassion and empathy shine through, towards people, any people, who have been bullied and extorted, and Deku is sure by the end of the week she’ll have inspired others suffering the same misfortunes to come forward. He adds what he can, but this is Pinky’s moment, through and through.

She ends with a mention of an advocacy group who helps people with exactly these types of problems; one of the many, many connections she’s made in her time as a hero.

Back in their third year at UA, their class had something of a Big Three. Kacchan, Todoroki, and for some reason, Izuku, even though everyone knew he was slowly losing his power. He never really liked it, not when so many of them were just as or even more incredible, but they were viewed a bit like how Toogata, Hado, and Amajiki had been. It was obvious, though, that however strong they were, they all lacked the same thing, a thing that Mina has in spades.

Charisma. It’s a weapon all its own, and one Mina wields better than anyone.

They regroup at her agency, getting some statements and info from everyone before letting them all go; they’ve got all their identities and addresses, so they can follow up on anything later, though the old CEO sticks around a bit longer to argue otherwise. Something about pressing charges, even though they all know he’s gonna try to flee the country the moment he steps out those doors. He might even get it done; but soon they’re gonna know where all his money is, and they’ll make sure all of it ends up where it needs to. 

Mina instructs her team to start looking through all the files and send everything to wherever it needs to go before leading him to her office. She peels off her eye mask and tosses on her desk, before shaking her mane of curly pink hair.

“Thanks again for the assist, Midori!”

“Of course, anytime!” 

She flashes a smile, which immediately turns cheeky.

“And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your… performance issues.”

“That…!” He wonders if it’s a personal goal of hers to find all the shades of red he can turn. “I just, underestimated how much I had left! It’s hard keeping track!”

“I bet…,” she says, smirking, before flicking her fingers at him towards her. “Now, come on, take ‘em out, time for a reload!”

His eyes go wide.

He really tries not to be in person for her refills. Not after the first time. But she’s not one to take no for an answer, and while he could theoretically just order the chemicals on his own, to do it in the proper concentrations would be… very expensive. For Mina, producing them is trivial, so it’d be foolish to not have her do it. To her delight, and his chagrin.

“A-ah, no, that’s okay Mina!” he says. “Y-you don’t have to do that now, it’s not a priority…”

“Can’t have you runnin’ around on empty!” she says, cocking her hip. “What kind of sugar momma do you take me for?”

“N-no kind!”

She rolls her eyes and beckons him again. 

He grumbles, and snaps the canisters out of their sockets, one on the outside of each arm. He quickly tries to hand them over, even though he knows she’s not gonna take them.

“Hold ‘em for me, yeah?” she says, eyes squeezing playfully. He sighs, and points the refill ports towards her.

She touches the tips of two fingers, index and middle, right against the tops. She waits there a second, then slooowly pushes through the flexible shield of the ports with a squeak. She sinks them deeper, down to the second knuckle, then stops. She waggles her eyebrows. He tries not to show his embarrassment, and fails utterly.

There’s a sound. A light trickling, as liquid fills the vials. He can see it rise through the clear glass casing, slowly, as if it’s barely dribbling out her fingers. He knows she can do this faster if she wanted, but she draws it out, stays quiet, lets the sound of dripping bounce around the room. He wishes, not for the first time, that Hatsume and Melissa had made the canisters opaque and soundproof. Mina does not stop waggling her eyebrows.

It takes a full minute before her acid starts to press against the top. She lingers one more second, squeezing in one last bit, fluid bulging against the glass, before yanking her fingers out all at once. A small bead of viscous liquid drips down her knuckles, and she sucks it off her finger with a smack. The light glints off her brilliant smile.

“There!” she says, with a wink. “Filled to the brim, just for you!” 

He quickly jams the canisters back into place and looks away, sure that his face is even pinker than hers.

He is so bad at handling this. She’s a much bigger flirt these days - an upward trend that started and has only gotten worse since their graduation party, when near the end of it, everyone buzzed from exhaustion, Mina screamed out ‘TIME FOR SOME CHEMICAL REACTIONS’ and made her way through the class, being just about everyone’s first kiss in the span of five minutes. She teases pretty much everyone, but he’s never been able to shrug it off, or god forbid go along with it, like some of their friends. 

“...Do you really have to do that every time,” he pleads. “I know you’re just playing around, but still…”

She leans forward and lids her eyes in a way that could almost certainly be described as smoldering.

“Oh? Am I playing around?” she says, voice lowering.

There’s an ominous hum. His vision darkens at the edges. His stomach drops.

This can’t be happening. A moment he’s been dreading since he started watching girls and boys trade chocolates in grade school. Misinterpreting a person’s feelings?? If anything he’d always figured it’d happen the other way around, him seeing something that wasn’t actually there, but this is so much worse! Now he has to figure out the best way to turn her down without hurting her feelings and he’s really never been good at something like that but he opens his jaw anyways and he tries to say the words but all that comes out is a squeak-

Mina snorts.

“You are too easy, Midori,” she says.

The hum stops. His vision resets. He breathes a sigh of relief.

“...You can be really mean sometimes, Mina,” he grouses.

“Guilty as charged!” she says. “But geez, you were gearing up for a pretty big rejection!” She holds out two fingers, pinched close together. “You weren’t even considering it a little bit?”

“Th-that’s…” He crosses his arms uncomfortably. “I don’t have room in my life for that right now…”

“Uh huh,” she says. She steps in close and pokes at his forehead. “ Or maybe you’ve just got someone else on your mind?”

He frowns. “I… don’t think I do…”

She ‘smiles,’ but all it really looks like is a predator baring its teeth.

“You know what, Izuku? I absolutely, 100 percent believe that you think that.”

There’s a buzz from the intercom on Mina’s desk.

“Hey boss,” a voice says. “Creati’s here to see you.”

Mina widens her eyes.

“Gasp!” she says, slapping her hands to her cheeks. “A surprise visit from Yaomomo? Who could have seen this coming!”

“...Didn’t you have me call her-”

Mina swipes her hand over to click off the voice.

“Let’s go see what she wants!” she says, flipping Izuku around by the shoulders and pushing him forward.

“Uh, okay?” he says as he stumbles along.

There’s something he’s clearly missing here. Maybe everything. Mina understands other people in a way he never will, an ability to spark and pop and catalyze the world around her, making it into something dazzling and new. He’s given up ever operating on her wavelength, but, as always, he finds himself unable to fight against her flow - the same way he can’t tear his eyes away from something fizzling away in acid. There’s just something thrilling about the reaction.

And, well… He’ll never turn down the opportunity to spend more time with Yaoyorozu.

***

Chapter Text

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. Just like her parents.

Her dad says he’s actually a Toad - but, toads are just a type of frog, no matter how much he thinks they aren’t. They’re their own thing, he’ll cry, and no amount of talk about Order and Family classifications can convince him otherwise.

It’s an argument older than Tsuyu. Her mom tells the story often, of how when they first met, instead of feeling any solidarity due to having similar quirks they found each other aggravating. Why use such specific, arbitrary labels, her mom would say, when something much broader binds us. And her dad would say, Because it’s what makes me me, what makes me an individual. And her mom would say, You could still find value and individuality with a more accurate label, and he’d say, But it’s not accurate, toads aren’t frogs, and she’d say, Yes, they literally are, and at this point I just want you to admit it. 

22 years later, and he has yet to do so.

He’s still a frog though, and so is her mom, and Tsuyu loves them more than anything for what they’ve passed on to her. From all her wonderful abilities down to the way she looks.

She’s the shortest member of their class, and yet, almost everything about her is lengthened. Her eyes are large; obtrusively so. They take up so much space on her face, and her eyelids naturally fall open, so it always looks like she’s staring, somehow both blankly and intently. Sometimes, when she gets excited, they bulge just a bit out of the socket. If a person were to look closely, they might see when her other pair of eyelids sweeps across her eyes, moistening them when they get too dry. 

Her hands are big - bigger than some of the boys’ hands - and seem so even compared to her abnormally long arms. Her fingers are thick, elongated, and, if one were to touch them, feel the slightest bit sticky from the structures on them that let her cling to walls. Her feet are flat, and jut out a bit farther than a normal girl’s. Her mouth is wide, lips pulling out twice as far as they should. The only thing that isn’t stretched out in some way is her torso, which only makes all those other lengths seem longer.

She’s been called weird before. Strange, off, even ugly. It hit her hard when she was younger - how could it not, to any kid? - but it was in middle school, after meeting her friend Mongoose, that the both of them learned to take pride in looking different. Now, when she looks into the mirror, she likes what she sees.

And she has lots of amazing friends who see her beauty just the same. 

“Tsuuu I love your hair so much!” Ochako says as she combs through it, with brush and fingers both. “It’s so soft and long and silky…” She rubs a lock against her cheeks.

“Thank you,” Tsuyu says simply. It’s not the first time Ochako has complimented her so enthusiastically.

“I don’t know how you keep so much of it so well cared for,” Yaomomo says, Jirou combing her hair behind her. “I do everything I can for mine, but if I leave it down for long I can almost feel the ends tangle and split…”

“No kidding!” Mina says. “I’ve wanted long hair for so long, but it’s hard to manage even this!” She ruffles through her own short hair. “Maybe I’ll finally give it a try though…”

“If you do, don’t bother asking Tsu for any advice,” Ochako says playfully. “You know what she said when I asked her how she takes care of it?” She pauses, building up the moment. “She says, ‘I just shampoo and condition it everyday.’ That’s it!”

“Are you kidding me?!” Mina all but shouts. “I’ve gotta use like two conditioners, a shampoo, a serum, a balm…!” She leans in close to Tsu on one arm as she squints her eyes examining Tsu’s head. “Be honest, Tsu. Is it because of…” She gets even closer, mouth right up against her ear, hand up like she’s telling a secret. She stage-whispers anyway, for everyone to hear, “some kind of froggy mucus??”

Tsu puts her finger to her chin.

“Maybe,” she says honestly. “She doesn’t keep it as long, but my mom has really pretty hair too. Maybe that’s part of it.”

“From what I remember about your mom, you do look a lot like her!” Hagakure says, before giggling. “More than like your dad, anyways!” 

They continue theorizing about it, mostly without Tsuyu’s input since she really doesn't know the answer anyways. Instead, she thinks, and wonders if Hagakure knows exactly how right she is. 

-

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. But, not really like her parents.

Her father has what some people might call a ‘full divergence.’ A term no less arbitrary than any other, but it describes a common enough occurrence: heteromorphs with a large body part replaced by an analogous feature. It’s easiest to understand for animals heteromorphs. Much like Tokoyami has the head of a raven, her father has the head of a toad; wide, stout, with ridges and bumps and two eyes near the sides of his head. A ‘full head divergence.’

Tsuyu does not have that.

Her mom doesn’t either. But see her in person, and you can tell what animal her quirk resembles. Face just as wide as her father’s but soft and round, over a thin neck that accentuates the shape of it even more, her eyes small and high up on her head. She’s about as tall as Tsuyu is, but with arm that extend even further, with fingers that are just a bit longer. ‘Partial divergence,’ it could be said.

But, not as partial as Tsuyu’s.

Tsuyu is, in some ways, less like a frog than either of her parents. Her siblings are the same. Somehow, even with two heavily froggish parents, they came out of it looking closer to the human average than either of them. 

Sometimes, it makes her wonder if the pride she feels in her appearance really means all that much. She’s lucky, all things considered. A few negative words sprinkled over years of her life amount to nothing. She hasn’t had to deal with the scorn and hatred the heteromorphs of decades ago had to deal with, that some like Shouji still experience in smaller, more isolated towns. She looks different, but not in the eye-catching way that Bondo or even Mina does, always drawing curious stares and glances from strangers anywhere they go. If someone doesn’t look too close, they might not even realize Tsuyu is heteromorphic.

Is it right, then, to take pride in it? Wouldn't it mean more, if she looked more like a frog than not?

She thinks about it, sometimes. What her life might’ve been like if she more resembled her father. She’s even heard of cases where it happens. Kids who start off like her or her siblings, but grow into more divergence, even into adulthood. Maybe one day bumps and ridges will sprout up on her face, maybe one day her eyes will drift further apart, maybe one day her skin will stain with greens and browns and blues. 

Would it be bad, to wish that it did? Would it be bad, to wish that it didn’t? She likes what she sees when she looks in the mirror, after all. But maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe one day, she won’t.

-

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. She can breathe easy, even in suffocating situations.

She means it literally. When she’s underwater, she can feel it on her skin; the fresh cleanness of oxygen bubbling its way into her, the choking thickness of carbon dioxide leaving out the other direction. A gentle prickle everywhere the water presses against her. She can’t be down there forever - her body still uses oxygen faster than her skin can breathe - but she can last for hours if need be. Longer, if she doesn’t move. If she waits, deadly still, at the bottom of a pool of crushing water.

She means it metaphorically. When disaster strikes, when the world comes crashing down on her in one way or another, she always manages to keep her cool. No matter how much the fear tears at her from the inside, no matter how it tries to claw its way out of her chest, a part of her remains deadly still. At a distance. She can only be grateful for such a temperament, given the nature of the work she does.

One of her earliest memories at UA, one that chiselled itself into her eyes, is of five fingers gripping her face. Palm so close she could see every wrinkled line, telling a story she only now knows the end of. Sometimes, she can still feel the sharp ridges of his fingerprints cutting into her skin, as if he had never removed his hand. She was a fraction of a second away from death; saved only by a just-in-time glance from her teacher, cutting off Shigaraki’s quirk before it turned her into dust. 

It was the first time she nearly died, and even then, she remembers being slightly out of her body. Terrified, but distant enough to not completely fall apart. 

She’s rarely frightened in the same way for herself these days, but she’s pulled enough people out of deep, choppy waters that something like it echoes through her constantly. Lay a waterlogged body on the floor of a rickety boat, chest unmoving, eyes glassy and empty, in front of a crying loved one; how could it not? She’s scared everyday, for the people she wants to help, the people she hopes to save. And when she attempts resuscitation, fear climbing up through her ribcage straight through the muscle and cartilage, a part of her can hang above, gently reassuring the panicking person that is screaming at her to move faster, try harder. And it works more often than not, her calm, stoic words in the face of near tragedy. It keeps the both of them grounded, together, until the body on the floor suddenly coughs and spews water from its mouth. No longer a body. Saved, a fraction of a second away from death.

It’s another thing she didn’t quite get from her parents.

They don’t have the disposition to be cool under so much pressure. How many people do? It is something that has to be trained; it rarely comes as naturally as it does to her. To be able to stay calm while the temperature rises around you. Maybe it really fits her, though. There’s an old saying about a boiling frog, after all, that will stay completely still even as it’s slowly cooked. 

If so, that’s one of the many ways she’s more like a frog than her parents could ever be. Neither of them have the breadth of capability she does. The things that let her be such a well-rounded hero. From her athleticism, flexibility, and hardiness, to her paralyzing mucus, her camouflage. Even the traits they do share aren’t as potent. Their skin respiration is less efficient, her mother’s tongue can’t extend as far, her father’s isn’t long at all. Their quirks are all so similar; and yet, so different. She’ll never understand why the dice rolled the way they did.

It’s almost unfair, that she has so many strong abilities without the corresponding appearance. Or maybe it’s unfair to think that in the first place. As if having more obvious divergence is a kind of cost. But, isn’t it, sometimes? Even if it shouldn’t be? Maybe she’s doing a disservice to heteromorphs everywhere, in not helping to bear that cost. 

-

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. She’s got a poison in her, that can sting whoever gets close. 

It’s getting more and more potent, she thinks. It used to tire and dehydrate her, producing enough to paralyze, but now it’s almost trivial. It’s no magic bullet - it only affects whatever muscle it touches, and it doesn’t last long - but one good application of it against an attacking foe gives her more than enough of an opening to use all her other skills. Unless a person has lots of training or a particularly powerful emitter quirk, she rarely has much trouble neutralizing them. She’s strong, and she’s quick, and she’s dangerous. In a way her mom and dad aren’t. Ironic, given that when they were her age, they were looked at far more suspiciously. People rarely seem to know what really makes something dangerous.

She doesn’t like using it. Doesn’t like what it takes away, even temporarily. Doesn’t like the emptiness it leaves. The way a paralyzed arm flops uselessly against a person’s body, like it’s something dead and foreign. The way a paralyzed leg twists and bends as if its component pieces don’t fit together right anymore, until the whole structure buckles and collapses. If she’s careful with it, it’s only ever safe, safer than trading punches and kicks, but it’s never pleasant, for them or for her. 

She hates most having to practice with it. Because then she has to see her friends with lifeless limbs, struggling to compensate, getting tangled up in their own bodies. It’s only ever been voluntary on their parts, but that doesn’t make it any less disquieting. She makes sure to sit with them afterwards, no matter how used to it they are, assure them as the feeling in their limbs slowly prickles back into place. The pins-and-needles is almost worse than the paralysis, she’s been told.

Though, some of her friends take the whole experience more graciously than others.

“So interesting!” Midoriya says, holding his upper arm parallel to the ground. His forearm hangs down at the elbow, and he sways his body forwards and back. His forearm flops bonelessly along with the motion like a pendulum, paralyzed at the bicep. He can still clench his fingers, and he does, marvelling at the localization of Tsuyu’s neurotoxin. “A neuromuscular-blocking substance that can cause an effect like this usually needs to be injected, but yours seems to penetrate straight through skin! And it works so fast, doesn’t stay for too long…” He swings his arm a few more times, before letting it fall against his side. His hand slaps against his thigh. He goes right into a brainstorm, his chin tucked down without his usual hand against it, since it’s paralyzed. “It must be a very small molecule to get through skin, oil-soluble, maybe something similar to nicotine, and shaped to interfere with the synapses at neuromuscular junctions, and based on the initial twitching it might be through excess activation rather than-”

Yaomomo pokes at his limp arm while he continues. 

“Fascinating!” she says. “Would you happen to know the specific substance involved?”

“Sorry, I don’t,” Tsuyu answers. “Support does, I think.”

“Hm. I wonder if I know enough processes to figure it out myself…” Yaomomo wonders out loud.

“Are you gonna ask me for samples of my fluid too?” Tsuyu says. 

Yaomomo blushes, and bashfully rubs at her own paralyzed arm.

“I… wouldn’t turn it down were you to offer some…”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Tsuyu says. “Mina says I should get a dinner out of it first though.”

A puff of laughter leaves Yaomomo’s nose. “Of course.”

At their insistence, she gives one more application each of paralytic then sits with them on a bench in the training room while it runs its course. The two of them trade observations on their experiences with it, while Midoriya writes some very messy notes with his non-dominant hand (“Are you sure you want me to do that arm?” Tsuyu had asked. “Yeah, go ahead!” he had responded. She didn’t bother pushing further).

This whole encounter started off as a broader curiosity about Tsuyu’s quirk, but Yaomomo quickly became more enamored with this part of it. The chemical side. It’s also a bit easier to broach, Tsuyu thinks, compared to her biologies. Both of her friends have a genuine thirst for knowledge, for asking questions and learning answers, but it’s a bit harder when the question is ‘Why is your body like that?’ At least, for most people it is. Tsuyu would appreciate the bluntness, even if she knows they aren’t quite capable of it.

“You know, Mina has mentioned some struggles she had as a child, with accidental acid secretions causing burns,” Yaomomo says. She lifts her dead arm up, and lets it fall into her lap. “You never had anything like that?”

Tsuyu shakes her head. “I didn’t even know my mucus could paralyze until UA. It didn’t seem to have that property before.”

“Spontaneous generation of a new ability…” Midoriya says offhandedly. “It’s not even your only one. Your camouflage is kind of the same, right? You couldn’t do it until relatively recently.”

“Sure.” Her finger goes to her chin. “Is that so weird, though? Lots of us have figured out new abilities.”

“True,” he admits, “but stuff like that has bigger implications for heteromorph and transformation quirks than emitters…”

“Really?”

Midoriya just hums in response, bouncing his pen between his fingers as he works something out in his head.

“...Well, at least I think it does,” he says. “I guess I don’t know for sure. But it’s especially interesting for you though! And the specific abilities you’ve discovered.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, the type of toxin you create, and the kind of camouflage you can do, aren’t frog traits,” he says. 

“Yes, frog poisons tend to be much more potent, with less localized and more permanent effects,” Yaomomo adds. “Those toxins directly damage nerve cells instead of blocking synapses, and once in the body will quickly cause lethal damage to heart muscle.”

“I guess it’s good mine doesn’t do that,” Tsuyu says.

“Indeed,” Yaomomo agrees. “And as far as your camouflage, few frogs can change color, and the ones that do have a limited range.”

“...I think that might come from my grandmother,” Tsuyu says. “On my mom’s side. She had a chameleon quirk.

“Oh, if so, that’s probably why you have such a long tongue too!” Midoriya says. “Frogs don’t actually have long, thin tongues at all, they’re more like a flap that they pivot out to catch things-”

“I know how frogs work, Midoriya,” Tsuyu says. And though it comes out deadpan, Midoriya knows her well enough to hear the tease.

“A-ah, right, sorry,” he says with a shy laugh.

“And yes, that’s where we think the tongue came from too,” she affirms.

“...But, that still might not explain the camouflage,” Yaomomo says. “Chameleons can change into a very wide range of colors, and do occasionally use that to hide from predators, but they can’t perfectly mimic their surrounding environment like you can. They don’t have the level of fine control necessary to do that. But certain cephalopods do! Like octopodes, and cuttlefish. Each of their chromatophores has a nerve associated with it, allowing them very precise control over their colors; enough to even mimic textures. That seems much closer to what you can do.”

“Do you have any cephalopod quirks in your family?” Midoriya asks.

Tsuyu thinks on it.

“If I do, I don’t know about it.” 

“Hm. I suppose it could just be an enhancement of chameleon capabilities…”

“Does it matter much either way?” Tsuyu asks.

“It very well could!” Yaomomo says. “Think of it this way; if it is cephalopod based, then you may have access to other abilities related to such organisms! And the effects of your poison resemble the plant-based curare toxin more than a frog-based one; perhaps there are unexplored possibilities there?”

“Maybe I should try growing some leaves or tentacles, then,” Tsuyu offers.

“It couldn’t hurt!” Yaomomo says. “Maybe you truly have yet unknown abilities waiting to be unlocked. That’s the rather fascinating thing about heteromorph quirks!”

Tsuyu wrinkles her brow in response.

“Well, by know you know my thoughts on the arbitrary divide of these labels,” Yaomomo continues, “but to the extent that these definitions work, it seems that many emitter quirks aren’t as bound to the biologies they come from. They cause an effect on the world, and that effect might not come from a specific aspect of their body. Think about many psychic or mental quirks, like Shinsou’s, or energy-emitting quirks like Hadou’s. Improving them, finding new capabilities, is a matter of pushing at the boundaries of their rules and limitations, rather than enhancing a specific aspect of their bodies.

“But then, what does it mean for a heteromorphic quirk to gain new abilities?” She picks up her arm, the paralysis just about over, and she flexes feeling back into it. “If your skin cells could always camouflage, there is almost 0 chance you wouldn’t have discovered that at a much younger age, just by accident. That implies that, since you can do it now, the very biology of your body has changed to allow for it. As if you unlocked a previously locked part of your genome.” She turns to Midoriya. “Perhaps that is what you were getting at earlier?”

He purses his lips, not quite satisfied. “...I dunno. It’s kind of what I was getting at, I think!” His arm is back to normal, his body burning through the toxin faster than Yaomomo. He points to Tsuyu. “It’s like how you get some aspects of your quirk from your grandmother, or how Tokoyami inherited his crow features while having a different quirk entirely. Aspects of heteromorphic quirks tend to linger through generations; and if you can unlock aspects of yours, why couldn’t another person? Unlock something from their ‘non-dominant’ quirk?”

“That is a pretty interesting thought,” Tsuyu says. “Maybe once I figure out how to grow leaves and tentacles, I can help Tokoyami figure out how to grow wings.”

“It might not be entirely out of the realm of possibility!” Midoriya says. “There’s a whole field of study about changes to genetic expression that happen without the DNA sequence itself changing. Rather, genes that are already there are turned on or off, based on all kinds of factors. Maybe one day, people will figure out how to do that voluntarily! Maybe this is how transformation quirks already work! Heteromorphic genes that are activated and deactivated. Interesting to think about!”

Tsuyu frowns.

Something about the idea unsettles her. Makes something heavy fester in her belly. Biology has always seemed so absolute to her, ironclad and unchangeable; but could it really be as fickle as any given human? Letting itself be turned on and off on a whim. Or something much darker than a whim. 

Would she do it, if she could? Turn off the froggier parts of herself? Or maybe even the reverse. Make them fuller, more complete. She doesn’t know if that’s better or worse than the former. 

“Oh I agree!” Yaomomo says happily. “Perhaps that is the future of quirks and quirk complexity. Maybe instead of inheritance from one parent or an amalgamated quirk based on both, humans will instead have access to the entire familial quirk history within their DNA! Then they can just, pick and choose what aspects they want out of that!”

“...What they want?” Tsuyu says. Not as blankly as she wanted to.

“Yeah!” Midoriya says. “It’s like, you can just turn on the best parts of any given quirk, and leave off the less useful parts! It would be like custom builds in a video-”

“Do you really think that’s an appropriate way to be talking about this kind of thing?” 

She can’t keep the bite out of her words. The frustration that tinges them. Doesn’t want to. 

The two of them flinch back. 

“...Tsu?” Midoriya says.

“‘Best parts,’” she repeats. “‘Less useful parts.’ This started with a discussion on heteromorphic traits; do you often determine certain heteromorph features as ‘less useful?’”

He winces. “H-hold on, I didn’t…”

“Are there parts of me that you would suggest I ‘turn off?’ Parts of me to make lesser?”

“N-no, of course not! I’d never say anything like that!“

“Y-yes, of course,” Yaomomo jumps in. “Apologies Tsuyu, neither of us meant anything of the sort.”

Tsuyu shifts to her, eyes burning.

“Is there any other way to mean it? Is there a kinder way to view turning off a piece of someone?” Tsuyu asks. Her lips feel hot and caustic. “Or maybe the implication that some parts of a person aren’t worth having is just inherently repellant.”

Yaomomo shrinks so far into herself she looks half her size.

“R…Right. You’re right, of course. I’m sorry, Tsu.”

Midoriya does the same, squeezing himself down three quarters.

“...Sorry, Tsu. We weren't… we weren’t thinking…”

“That much is obvious,” Tsuyu says, staring daggers at the ground. “The two of you can be very thoughtless sometimes.”

Even without looking directly at them she can feel it. Imagine it. The hurt on their faces, the pain in their eyes. 

The silence afterwards is deadly. The air gets sick and toxic around her. It stings at her eyes, making them water. 

Before anything else can be said, she lurches up and leaves.

She immediately regrets it all. The words that left her lips, her wordless exit. But she’s got a poison in her, after all, and sometimes it comes out even when she doesn’t want it to. Stinging whoever gets close. The right thing to do would be to sit with them while it ran its course; assure them it’ll all be okay.

She doesn’t turn around.

-

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. She can hide herself away in a wet, slimy hole, far from anything that might try and find her. Perfectly camouflaged.

As long as someone doesn’t dig through all the plushies.

In her most frog-like moment yet, she’s buried herself deep into a cave of squishy frogs. Pressed on all sides by bulging eyes and squat bodies, in all kinds of colors and shapes and sizes. She has quite a collection these days; enough that she could cause a major avalanche were she to get up. None of them are actually wet and slimy, of course. That’s all on the inside. 

She keeps replaying the moment in her head. The building excitement of her friends as they try to make sense of the world around them, smothered by the bubbling swamp of Tsuyu’s oafish bluntness. It’s always been important to her that she says what she thinks, that she doesn’t moderate her words to lessen the point she wants to make; but when her emotions get the better of her, all it really looks like is her lashing out. 

She doesn’t like the way they talked about it, but she knows them too well to think it was ever malevolent. They were as they always were - Yaomomo, a bit naive as to how the world works, and Midoriya, his passion working just a bit faster than his otherwise thoughtful consideration. Tsuyu could have put a stop to it much more gently. With a calm reminder to think about the implications of their ideas. Instead she called them thoughtless. Repellant. 

She sinks further into her bed. A small cascade of plush fills in the empty space. 

Her insecurities got the best of her. What is Tsuyu anyways, but exactly what they described? Someone who has all the benefits of being someone different, without the drawbacks the world tries to burden them with. To have everything a frog can do, without having to look very much like a frog at all. Does it really matter if it was never her choice in the first place? Would having the option to be exactly the way she is now be somehow worse? And if the ability to choose is what makes it bad, then is it much different to wish to be more like a frog, as she often has? To wish for more heteromorphism, or less; trivializing it to some setting that might be adjusted, a genetic dial that might be turned. Either way, taking for granted what you started with. What you were gifted. Even now, she’s not sure she wouldn’t turn it if she could.

She whines to herself. It sounds exactly like a croak.

There’s a knock at her door.

She unfurls herself enough to push her head up. The dome of plushies keep their shape, but lift just enough for a thin strip of light to peek between a frame of fuzzy eyeballs. She can see her door through the gap, holding the unknown behind it.

“...Who is it?” she half-shouts, to push her voice through the stuffing around her.

“...It’s Yaoyorozu,” a voice says. 

“A-and Midoriya!” another voice says.

Tsuyu whines again. It still sounds like a croak.

They shouldn’t be here. It should have been her who went to talk to them. But she’s always had a little trouble summoning up the courage to apologize.

After a second or two she manages to gather it up here, shaking off all of her plush friends and leaving behind a nest of them on her bed that spills part way onto the floor. She sloshes through them to get off her bed and to the door. She hesitates one last moment, shoulders huddled.

“Tsuyu?” Yaomomo says. “If you’d like us to leave, we will, we just wanted to-”

Tsuyu opens the door.

The sudden surprise throws them off, and they stare at her unblinkingly for a bit.

Then they both suddenly pitch forward, bowing deeply. There’s a soft bonk as their heads meet, before they correct to an inch of separation.

“We’re sorry!” they exclaim unanimously.

Tsuyu winces. “Um, that’s not-”

Yaomomo thrusts her hands towards Tsuyu. A gift bag sways by the handles from her fingers, coming to a stop after a few swings. A poof of crinkled paper spills from the opening, blocking its secrets. Tsuyu feels even worse than before.

“...You guys didn’t have to…” She trails off, unsure which specific words to say. Come after her? Apologize? Get her a gift? 

Yaomomo asserts the gift bag with another swing. Tsuyu, with no other feasible option, takes it from her. It’s only then that they stand back up.

“W-we wanted to get you something, as our way of saying sorry for our careless attitude about heteromorphism,” Midoriya says. “N-not that we’re trying to buy forgiveness or anything! A-and sorry if the gift isn’t appropriate given what we messed up about but we know you like them so much but if you don’t like this one please don’t feel like you have to-”

She lets him flounder while she scoops out the gift paper and pulls out the treasure inside.

It’s a frog. A big plush one, about the size of a throw pillow, though unlike all the other frog plushies she has, this one is hyper realistic. It looks like a completely real frog, but scaled up and made of fuzz, colored in red and green swirls like a mix between poison dart and tree frogs, with absolutely no cartoonish stylization in its design. A brand tag sticks off its foot; Yaomomo prefers to buy gifts, rather than generate them.

Tsuyu looks into its large, expressionless eyes.

She spins it around and squeezes her arms around it, its front legs dangling over her forearms. It’s soft.

“Thank you,” Tsuyu says. “It’s really cute.”

Their faces brighten, happy that their offering has been accepted, but the mood wavers in the following silence. They don’t know where to go from here. Neither does Tsuyu.

She tries her best anyways.

She backs up and keeps the door open with her shoulder for them to step inside. With a quick shared glance, her two visitors accept the invitation, and she closes the door behind them. She only has one chair, but she rolls it over and offers it to them; Midoriya grabs it, then spins the seat towards Yaomomo, who thanks him with a nod as she sits. He stands next to her, and Tsuyu perches herself on the corner of her bed.

“It’s… okay,” Tsuyu says. “I know you guys didn’t mean anything by it. I overreacted.”

“N-no, I think you were correct to call us out,” Yaomomo says. “My… views on the arbitrary definition of heteromorphism are well known, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore the realities involved for those prescribed that label. Viewing quirk features as something that can or should be turned on and off in that context is… reckless, to say the least.”

“R-right,” Midoriya agrees. “F-for me, it’s hard not to view quirks a bit… abstractly, I guess. Sometimes I forget the stuff people have to deal with…”

Tsuyu squeezes harder at her new frog.

She regrets everything even more. Yaomomo could’ve maybe known a little better, but why wouldn’t Midoriya see things that way? For him, a quirk is something extra, that can, perhaps, be turned on and off. Given, and taken away. He’s dealt with his own issues by being part of such a populace. And even now, she has no doubt that, if he were offered another quirk, any quirk, without consequence, he’d take it. He loves them too much to turn it down. Would that be bad? Would it be good? Both, or neither? She doesn’t know the answers to that, or if those are even the right questions.

“...It’s okay,” she repeats. “Really. But thank you for making those considerations. And, I’m still sorry for saying what I said.”

Yaomomo smiles, and reaches out to grab her shoulder, squeezing it affectionately. Tsuyu places her own large hand on Yaomomo’s, squeezing back.

Tsuyu wishes she had the courage to tell them now all the worries she has. The ones that flared up as they spoke of adjusting quirk traits like switches and toggles. The ones that hang eternally in her mind when she sees what her dad or Shouji or Tokoyami have to deal with that she does not, or what she has to deal with that Yaomomo does not. 

Instead, she lets Yaomomo’s hand go and says, “Do you really think things will be like that in the future?”

They question her with twin furrowed brows, and she clarifies.

“That one day, people can access every quirk in their heritage, turning them on and off at will.”

“...It’s one theory of many,” Yaomomo says. “Like the Quirk Singularity theorizing that quirks will become too complicated to control, or Meta-Convergence hypothesizing that every quirk will eventually evolve into a single, broad, reality manipulation ability, or Sentience-Paragenesis suggesting the inception of consciousnesses in every quirk to control its effects. There are… many unknowns to the future of quirks.”

Tsuyu hums in acknowledgement. “...What if it does happen? And everyone decides to turn off all the parts that make them different. That make them… beautiful.”

Yaomomo’s face falls, stricken with a true sadness at the idea. She may be naive at times, but she has only ever had a love for the diversity the world has to offer.

Midoriya, however, seems skeptical, and with a rare confidence says, “No, I don’t really doubt that would ever happen…”

“Oh?” Tsuyu says, surprised at his firmness.

He takes a moment to collect his thoughts - a departure from his usual sub-audible mumblings.

“...I said before that heteromorph features tend to linger,” he starts. “And so do heteromorphic aspects of emitter quirks. They pass on through generations, often becoming more recessive, but, importantly, when they do, they’re distinct from a person’s main quirk factor! We know that for most people, having more than one quirk is debilitating, but that clearly isn’t true for heteromorphic features! Whether it’s Tokoyami’s head, or Kouda’s skin, Mina’s horns and eyes, Pony and Kamakiri’s animal traits… None of these are directly related to their quirks, and yet don’t cause the strain another quirk would.

“And that’s kind of what I was struggling to articulate before,” he continues. He focuses on her as he speaks, but she can tell there’s something much more distant in his mind. “It really seems like these heteromorphic features are passing from the not totally understood ‘quirk factor’ to becoming a part of basic human biology! Drastically changing the human genome, in potentially unlimited ways not bound by quirk factor restrictions.

“To me, the logical outcome of all that is that one day, almost everyone will have heteromorph features and abilities! Minor ones, major ones, single, multiple, in potentially infinite configurations of possibility! What it means to be human will be fundamentally different, even more so than it is now! Like quirks became a majority, heteromorphs will become a majority…, at which point the word itself probably won’t mean much anymore.”

His eyes shift, pointing towards the wall, but it’s impossible to say how truly far beyond he’s looking. 

“A world where there is no ‘standard’ morph from which to diverge, where everyone is different in radical, even unimaginable ways. Where these differences are so natural and intrinsic that, even if they could be turned off, people wouldn’t think to do so any more than they would think to turn off their own arms and legs.”

His eyes flick back, a pooling hope in his emerald-green irises.

“A world where difference is standard, and celebrated… That’s what I think would happen. What I hope happens.”

His words flutter in the air like dragonflies, zipping between the three of them. Tsuyu’s face remains placid. It reveals none of the wonderment she feels inside; wonderment that’s much more plain to see on Yaomomo.

Midoriya always paints such a beautiful picture of the world. A boy who believes it to be a place where everyone can be saved, a place where, one day, everyone will be loved. Who doggedly crawls his way towards that ideal no matter how much he suffers and breaks on the way there.

The cynic in Tsuyu struggles to fully believe the same - everyone is different now, and those differences certainly aren’t so universally celebrated. Would much greater, more obvious differences truly lead to what he describes? Or to something much worse than they have now? No one can really know. Not even Midoriya.

Even so… he has pulled the world after him before. Cast himself into every onlooker, willed them to believe what he believed, too. Maybe he’ll do it again. Maybe someone like her can do it instead.

It’s times like this she wishes showing emotion came easier to her. That her face would squish and squeeze and wrinkle, freely and without constraint, in that easy way Midoriya’s does. For now, she takes solace in Yaomomo doing the emoting for the two of them, eyes staring up and Midoriya full of starstruck admiration. They’ve all probably looked at him with something like it; though, Tsuyu wonders if this one is just a bit deeper.

It’s only a flicker though, before Yaomomo becomes somber once again.

“...If only things were so appreciated now,” she opines. “I know you have offered your forgiveness, but I remain sorry for my earlier words. I hope no part of you thinks that I, or anyone, expect you to turn any part of yourself off. You are beautiful, just the way you are.”

“U-um, right!” Midoriya says, flustered at the wording. 

Tsuyu smiles, then holds her new frog out.

“Even if I looked more like Izumo?”

Yaomomo chuckles. “Of course. Any version of you.”

Midoriya’s face scrunches and he starts muttering under his breath; in some new thought-spiral as he considers whether Tsuyu’s quirk can genuinely make her more frog-like the same way it gave her camouflage. But before he gets too deep, he latches onto something else.

“...Wait, Izumo? Is that its name?”

Tsuyu nods, then picks up Izumo’s front legs and points them at each of her friends.

“I named her after her parents.”

They instantly dissolve into stammers and sputters, vehemently rejecting any supposed parentage through faces so bright red they’re almost poisonous. She puts her hands over where Izumo’s ear holes would be if she were a real frog, to protect her from having to hear it.

Tsuyu is a lot like a frog. But maybe exactly how much like one, never really mattered. It is something she lovingly and happily shares with her mom and her dad, with her brother and her sister, and would no matter how froggy any of them were. Maybe one day, she will share it with her children, or her grandchildren. Or maybe she won’t; maybe they’ll be something else entirely.

She thinks about the future, and smiles.

***

8 Years Later

Suction Pads - Froppy 

A beast slithers through the waters.

With a confident, ethereal grace, it twirls back and forth in spirals and figure-eights. Zipping more quickly through the crystal clear water than a bird through the air, unencumbered by its weight. It circles back and forth, over and over, as if waiting for something. Searching.

A gaggle of children huddle together at the precipice. Tiny bodies lean over the still waters, eyeing the large, moving form with a naive curiosity. They point and marvel at its graceful flips and turns, squinting to catch a better look through the refraction of the water. But it remains nothing but a blur of elegant movement. An unknown.

One child can’t help herself. Even though the beast is far and deep, she reaches out, dipping her hand into the cool waters.

The form suddenly stills. It pivots to face the cascading ripples. A collective breath is held.

Then, it surges forwards.

The children instinctively twitch back, but it’s already too late. The figure is at them in an instant, crashing up from newly agitated waters, sending wild streams and splashes in all directions. With arms too long for its body it reaches out, faster than lightning, wrapping around the torsos of two children, pulling them into the water.

They scream.

And bubbling laughter follows.

With two strong, elongated legs, Froppy kicks backwards through the pool, keeping the top half of her body and the kids she’s holding just above the water, letting them splash at the surface safely. She curves back around and makes sure the resulting waves plop up off the rim of the pool and into the remaining children, who attack her back happily with their own small waves.

And Izuku can’t help but smile as he watches.

On the other side of the indoor pool, he can see Uravity floating through the air, keeping careful hold of a few slightly older children, their small hands in hers. Near her on the ground, Tentacole acts as a jungle gym for four others, who clamber and crawl through a maze of duplicated arms, with Tsukuyomi beside him, forming Dark Shadow into ramps and slides for even more children to play on.

Izuku, for his part, has two with arms wrapped around his neck as he crawls up the sides of the walls, the sticky Froppy pads at the end of his Tentacole arms gripping firmly to the smooth surfaces. They giggle as he jolts and jerks purposefully, like he’s trying to shake them off even though he makes sure they always have a good grip. Below him, Creati makes a production of generating various things from her arms, from little poofs of smoke and fire to small toys that she hands out to any child who asks. Elsewhere, Anima shows some how to properly interact with animals, Ingenium dashes around with another on his back, Pinky slips and slides with a few more across the ground.

They rarely have time for things like this, but for these kids, they make it. After the war, a number of children were left with no one; the children of professional heroes, of people who fought back on their own terms, no less heroes than the professionals, of people who had simply been unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were enough that a few facilities were created to house and care for them, and every so often Izuku and his friends take them out for a day of fun. To remind them that they haven't been forgotten.

He climbs back down next to Creati and drops off the kids he’s holding just as Froppy leaps out of the water with hers, landing with a wet plop.

Even from a distance, he can see that she's just a bit too big. Stretched out, lengthened and widened. If she stood tall, she might almost hit six feet, but she naturally hunches when she’s in the state she’s in, leaning forward onto two long arms that reach the ground, held up by her fingers. The children she had slide down her arms, and after a shake of her body, flicking water in all directions, she starts to shrink.

Her proportions go back to normal; or, what is normal for her. Arms no longer most of her body length, shoulders once again narrow, a thinness replacing the bloat. At the same time, a stream of water pours from her mouth like a water hose, and she shoots it at the kids around her, who once again scream and laugh. 

And with one last spurt of water, she is her normal Froppy self - the extra frogginess tucked away, at the ready for whenever she wants or needs it. Froppy, who is now something just a bit different, blurring the already fuzzy lines between Heteromorph and Transformation, between human and animal.

As he watches her, a little boy he hadn’t interacted with skips up to him excitedly, eyes sparkling at Izuku’s mechanical arms.

“Mr. Deku!” he says, jabbing two pointer fingers at the swaying metal tentacles. “I like your legs!!”

Izuku laughs, then mentally commands them forward, the grippy ends zipping around the boy like dragonflies. He grabs at them playfully. “Thank you!”

“They’re like mine!” the boy says, after he gets a hold of one. 

“Oh?”

Suddenly, out of his midriff, four spider-like legs burgeon from the skin, slicing through hidden, biological slits that accommodate them, without blood, without pain. But these legs are mechanical, too, or something like it; gleaming silver metal, perfect machine-like edges, but with an organic bulge to the joints, and tendon-like connectors where the end of the legs join his body. They push against the ground and lift the boy off of it, and he sways up and down, side to side on them, and Izuku marvels. 

Another blurred line, between organic and inorganic, between human, animal, and machine. Izuku probably won’t be around, when humans finally solve all the mysteries quirks introduced to the world - heck, by the time he leaves it, there may be more questions than there were when he entered - but he is more than lucky he gets to be here now, meeting all the people he gets to meet, seeing all the quirks he gets to see, learning all he can about them. Maybe some piece of him will be somewhere at the finish line, too.

“Wow, I like your legs too!” Izuku says. “They’re so cool!”

The boy flashes him a missing-toothed grin, then pokes with one leg at the other kids annoyingly. They take it as the challenge it is and start firing newly generated water pistols at him as they chase him away, giving Izuku a brief respite from their attention.

He catches Yaoyorozu staring after them with soft, crinkled eyes, and a smile so content it makes him feel a little shy just looking at it. Like he’s seeing something he’s not supposed to.

“You’re quite good with children,” she says, her gaze still on the playing kids.

“O-oh, um, thank you!” He scratches at his neck bashfully. “I guess being a teacher really helps with that…”

She shakes her head. “Even before that. You were always so precious with Eri, and Kouta.”

He wants to disagree, point out that his first interaction with Kouta was getting kicked really hard in a very soft place and that any aptitude he has regarding children is completely accidental - but something holds his tongue. Instead, he manages to figure out the right thing to say.

“You’re good with them, too, Yaoyorozu!” One of the kids floats the water gun she gave them into the air somehow, firing it down from above. “You had a small crowd of them trying to be your friend.”

An amused puff of air escapes her. “No, that was because it’s easy to get children’s attention when you can make toys out of nothing. Without that I’d be rather hopeless around them.” She continues to observe them, and her eyes squeeze even more. “To be honest, I find them quite intimidating.”

He laughs, because Yaoyorozu has faced down a rampaging, 20-story tall Gigantomachia with confidence and determination yet finds small children intimidating. Because he feels exactly the same way.

There’s a beat of comfortable silence, speckled by the laughter and giggling of young voices.

“Do you ever think about what it would be like?” Yaoyorozu asks. “Having children.”

He feels suddenly hot and nervous, like someone just pushed a lit torch towards his face. 

“Uh, wow!” he starts. “H-honestly, it’s a bit… hard to imagine. I can barely believe that Satou is a dad now.”

“Yes, things like that catch up on you, don’t they?” she says genially. “It feels so far away, until someone you care about grabs a hold of it faster than you ever thought possible.”

“...Yeah,” he says. “How about you? Do you think about it?”

“Yes,” she says instantly. “I do. I… think I would very much like to have some, some day. When I’ve found the right person to share that with.”

“...Yeah. With the right person, the idea doesn’t seem so scary.” A smile doesn’t seem enough to get across what he wants to say, so in a fit of inspiration, he puts a hand on her back, just behind her shoulder. “I hope you find someone like that, Yaoyorozu, because for what it’s worth, I think you’d be an incredible mom.”

Sunlight cascades down from the windows high up on the walls, reflecting rainbow shimmers off the water of the pool in every direction. A few of them dance across her face, in the gleam of her dark eyes, and there’s something in her glowing expression he can’t quite place.

“...Thank you, Midoriya,” she says. “I hope you find someone like that too.”

Before he can say anything else, there’s a call from high above.

“Deku!”

He flicks his head up to see Uraraka floating near the ceiling, waving at the two of them with a wide-open smile. Next to her, Tsu hangs upside down, on all fours on the ceiling with her head pulled back to stare down too, a waterfall of long hair dripping from her head. A few children orbit them weightlessly, trying to kick and flail around and getting nowhere, but laughing all the while. Ochako then beckons him to join them with a ‘come here’ gesture.

“...Looks like you’re needed elsewhere,” Yaoyorozu comments.

“I can bring you up too, if you’d like?”

“Thank you, but I’m okay. Go join them.”

He nods, then with a last small press of his hand against her back, he commands his Tentacole arms to carry him up the ceiling, catching one last inscrutable look from Yaoyorozu as he departs.

By the time he gets up there, suspended from the ceiling by thick metal arms like he’s in theater rigging, Ochako, Uravity, has jetted a bit away with her small boot thrusters, tugging the kids along with her. He is just about to crawl after her when spots a very pointed stare coming from Tsuyu, eyes so intent on him they could probably see through the wall far behind him.

“...What?”

She shakes her head.

“You know, Izuku,” she says, “for someone who has such an eye for the future, you’re very bad at seeing what’s right in front of you.”

His metal arms sag down along with the rest of him, completely displeased with yet another cryptic comment that people keep throwing at him these days.

“You gonna tell me what you mean by that, or no?”

“Sorry,” she says. The latter, then. “For what it’s worth, what’s right in front of you could stand to be a bit more blunt about things, too.”

“That doesn’t clarify anything for me!”

With the smallest upward (downward?) turn of her lips, she shrugs, then spider crawls after Uraraka, and Izuku has to wonder if the vast, infinite mysteries behind quirks might be easier to solve than the ones his friends seem to have.

***

Chapter Text

Three words Hanta would use to describe himself? Easy:

Just. A. Guy.

But Sero, one might say, isn’t everyone just a guy?

And to that, Hanta would simply point to each one of his friends as proof to the opposite.

Tokoyami’s quirk is a formless, abyssal monster that can crush mountains, and Yaoyorozu’s quirk can create literally anything in the world.

Hanta can make a bunch of tape.

Todoroki has one of THE most messed up family dynamics Hanta has ever heard of, that’s only barely on its way to something better, and he’s still just about the strongest of them, and one of the smartest and most caring to boot.

Hanta’s family is normal - two loving parents, an older brother and sister he gets along with swimmingly - and he’s profoundly middle of the pack. Maybe lower.

Mina, Jirou, and Satou aren’t just awesome heroes, but experts in a whole other thing, whether it’s dancing or music or baking.

Hanta reads manga in his free time. Not even anything niche; the mainstream stuff.

Bakugou and Iida are the most driven people on earth, always moving, always training, never letting themselves rest for even a moment.

Sero likes to take naps. Often.

Midoriya and Uraraka are the most compassionate people he’s ever met, willing to extend empathy and grace even to the people trying to kill them.

Sero… would not.

Fact of the matter is, he’s surrounded by people whose lives are far more compelling than his own. He knew that day one at UA, and he knows it’ll be that way for the rest of his life too. And he doesn’t have an ounce of envy over it; having a boring life is a privilege. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Still. Sometimes it’s more than a bit humbling to be surrounded by giants. It’s why, even if he doesn’t agree with half the stuff that comes out of Mineta’s mouth, Hanta can vibe with the guy anyway. They both know the feeling of being small, compared to everyone around them. 

But, he’s realized, if there’s one thing he knows how to do better than any of those titans, it’s how to have fun. 

Who knows how to get a laugh? Hanta. Who knows how to keep it light, even when things get serious? Hanta. Who knows how to execute a good prank without going overboard with it? Hanta. 

Even his quirk is perfect for fun, and not just ‘cuz of said pranking. While other people get to run fast, or teleport, or outright fly, he gets to swing. 

Running, almost anyone can do, and doing it faster isn’t impressive, being able to teleport just annoys everyone who can’t, and as for flying… Whether it’s Uraraka and Midoriya bouncing around weightlessly, or Tokoyami held up ethereally by Dark Shadow, or Tokage’s parts buzzing around like hummingbirds, it all looks so effortless. Too effortless.

Swinging, though? When people see someone swinging around they get that it takes work. They can almost feel it themselves: the pull on the arm, centripetal force straining muscle and bone; the weight of the swing, so subject to the whims of gravity; the low margin for error, that you’re one wrong move from being a stain on some window. And in spite of all that, or maybe because of it, people understand how friggin’ sweet it must be to be the one swinging. Unique, too - not a lot of people who move around the way he does.

There should be more heroes that swing around on stuff. They could make a whole universe of them and no one would ever get bored. 

Point is, he knows what makes things fun. Knows that, when things get dangerous, sometimes a smile and a joke with someone he just saved works better than kind reassurance. Knows, when things aren’t dangerous, how to make people have a good time. 

All it takes is the right poking and prodding.

-

Even now, when she’s got a billion other things to do, Yaoyorozu finds the time to have her study sessions. 

It’s a sanctuary for some of those here: him, Mina, Kaminari, Kirishima. Technically, grades aren’t so important anymore, but that only applies as long as they’re passing, which is still up in the air for… all of them. This time though, Midoriya and Mineta are here too; ostensibly, to help with the tutoring, but more likely because they both seem to hover more around Yaoyorozu these days. For different reasons, Hanta thinks, but also maybe, the same reason.

Between Yaoyorozu’s broad base of knowledge and Midoriya’s ability to communicate ideas at each of their levels, all of it bolstered by a contribution or two by Mineta, things go pretty smoothly. He’ll never be top of the class, but with such expert instruction, Hanta is confident he can get exactly the minimum scores necessary to graduate. What more can a guy ask for?

There’s a rhythm to these tutor sessions, and things begin to wind down as Kaminari and Mina get a few last bits of personal instruction. Hanta and Kirishima, satisfied with where they are, transition to talking about other things.

And it all starts with an offhand comment by Kirishima.

“Huh,” he says. “I just realized somethin’, Sero!” Hanta waits for him to continue. “We’re the only ones here who haven't gotten the ol’ Midoriya-Yaoyorozu quirk treatment!”

That draws a bit of interest from the table.

“Who says I haven’t?” Hanta counters with a grin. “Maybe we just had to keep things quiet because of what we uncovered?” 

That earns him a few chuckles, and an eye roll from Mineta.

“What would you hafta hide about making tape?” Mineta says.

“Probably nothing!” Hanta says. He looks at Midoriya and Yaoyorozu. “Right guys?” He gives a big, comical wink.

They shake their heads, and the whole moment signals the end of the tutor session entirely.

“Well,” Midoriya says, “even though we haven’t talked about anything with you yet-” 

“Right,” Hanta says. He winks.

“W-we haven’t!” Midoriya argues, before moving on. “But, we’d like to! Especially Yaoyorozu!”

Hanta raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah!” Midoriya says. “She has plans to start up a bunch of laboratories in the future, and one of the things she wants to study is the structure of various quirk emissions! Isn’t that cool?!”

Yaoyorozu blushes at the sudden attention. “Oh, stop…”

“Yeah, she even said my balls,” Mineta points to his head, “are gonna be the first thing she looks at!”

“Oh, really?” Mina says, with a smug grin. “‘Cuz she already took a look at a bunch of my acid samples herself!” She flexes an arm and grabs at it with the other. “Looks like Pinky got there first!”

“What?! No!” Mineta yanks off a few spheres and holds them out to Yaoyorozu pleadingly. “These were supposed to be the first! Study ‘em now!”

Yaoyorozu gestures for him to take them back. “Mineta, I assure you, whenever I have my laboratories your quirk will be test substance number 1, for much more in depth studying. For Mina, I simply did some basic tests for identification purposes.” She turns to Hanta. “And, admittedly, I would be interested in doing something similar for yours, Sero, if that’s something you're comfortable with. I’d love to know the structure of your tape!”

He shrugs, and is about to instantly comply - what reason does he have to say no? - when, out of nowhere, he senses it. A hidden path that he wants nothing more than to travel down. Something that he can say instead that will lead to a bit of fun. His brain goes into overdrive, working harder than it ever does in any other circumstance, combing through every possibility, discarding hundreds and hundreds that won’t lead anywhere interesting, all in a fraction of a second. 

Until he finds it. 

He smiles.

“Yeah,” Hanta says, “I bet you would.”

That gets him a few questioning glances.

“...What do you mean by that?” Yaoyorozu asks.

His smile grows wider. She fell right into his trap.

Everyone knows it: Hanta loves to tease. He’ll poke at anyone and everyone, see if he can get that big reaction. And sometimes, it’s just a bit too easy. It doesn’t take much to get Bakugou steaming, or Midoriya floundering, Kaminari frustrated, Mineta screeching.

Yaoyorozu though? She’s a tricky one. She’s not unflappable like Tsuyu or Shouji, not a play-along-er like Mina - there are things that fluster her, but they’re usually crude or mean, and that’s just not his way. But in this moment, he sees it, and how to play it all out; a perfect way to mess with their humble Vice President.

“Oh, I dunno,” he says, rubbing his chin as if deep in thought. “Just, awfully suspicious you’re trying to learn so much about our quirks, right?”

Confused looks pop up around the table.

“...Why?” Kirishima says. “She’s just trying to help us out!”

“Oh?” Hanta says, completely pleased they’re asking him what he needs them to ask. “You don’t think the girl who can make anything as long as she knows enough about it doesn’t have an ulterior motive to learn about our quirks?”

There’s a beat as they all consider his words.

"You… think Yaoyorozu wants to copy your quirks?” Midoriya says.

“I didn’t say it!” he says, making a big show of denying it. “But, I’m not not saying it, y’know?”

“I, I mean…” Yaoyorozu starts, “I suppose I’ve always been aware of the possibility, but it truly isn’t-”

“So you admit it!” Hanta declares, pointing a finger at her.

She gets flustered at the sudden accusation, and Hanta waits for someone else to defend her, ready to keep this whole thing going.

It’s Kaminari who gets there first.

“I mean, even if she was,” he says, “what’s the big deal?”

Hanta takes a moment, as if he’s thinking about it. “Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s fine. Though, even if things are changing, the hero world is awfully competitive… Need to find your niche.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Hard to do that when a professional niche filler comes in.”

He continues, focusing on Kirishima. “I mean, you’ve seen one of her favorite tricks. Growing metal shields from her body. But if she learns the structure of your Hardened skin, maybe she just does that instead!” He splays out his hands in a resigned shrug. “When the Everything hero can just be Red Riot, seems like Red Riot himself will be out of a job!”

“Whoa! So devious!” Kirishima laughs.

“Obviously that’s not my intent…” Yaoyorozu grouses.

“Oh? Not even for Mineta?” Hanta says. “I mean, same goes for him, right? You learn how to make Grape Juice’s grapes, why keep around the juice?”

All eyes flick to Mineta.

His eyes instantly start to water.

“Is… is that what it’ll take?!” he cries, tears streaming down his face. “To make things right?? I’ll, I’ll do it, I will!” He holds out two more spheres. “Just, please, lemme at least be a sidekick or somethin’, please!!”

“Oh please, Mineta, stop!” Yaoyorozu says, once again pushing his hands away. “I… I’ve no intention to disrupt anyone’s professional aspirations!”

“U-um, Sero, I think maybe we should-”

“And what about you?” he says towards Mina, cutting Midoriya off. She points to herself, with a look of exaggerated shock. “Yaoyorozu studied your acid, so she could probably make it, right?”

Mina eyes Yaoyorozu with mock suspicion.

“That’s true…”

“Consider this!” he says, standing up. He walks towards Mina with big, slow steps as he talks, arms folded behind him. “Yaoyorozu gets real good at making it. Exactly the way you can. Better, even. She changes her whole hero identity around it. Including her hero name.” 

He stops behind Mina’s chair, bracing himself on the back and leaning over her head. 

“Yaoyorozu Momo. The Acid Hero… Alien Queen.”

Mina gasps.

“Yaomomo!” she says, scandalized. “You’d really do that?!”

“O-of course not!” the woman in question says. “T…to even create high volumes of acid safely without burning myself in the process would require me to overcome a number of hurdles that I’m not sure are surmountable-”

Hanta leans more down as if to whisper conspiratorially to Mina, but says it loud enough for everyone to hear.

“See how much she’s thought about it already?” he says.

Mina snorts, but quickly schools her amusement.

“Wow,” she says, “what a mastermind…”

“Right?” Hanta says, before slapping at his elbow. “That’s why I’m keeping mine a trade secret! Can’t let just anyone in on it, y’know?”

He gets a couple chuckles from the table now that it’s obvious the bit is over, and waits for further denial from Yaoyorozu so he can just give in like he planned to.

She looks at him, flustered, exasperated. She opens her mouth to say something.

But then, something shifts.

A wrinkle on her brow. A squeeze of her eyes. A turn of her lips. The frustration that had been mounting on her face all at once collapses into something gloomier. Something hurt.

“I see,” she finally says. “I apologize.”

…Uh oh. 

“Eh?”

“I… can see how I may have overstepped,” she continues, staring contritely at the table. “And not just in regards to you, but everyone here too.” She gathers herself up, and gives them all a small, polite bow. “I apologize.”

And she quickly heads off.

Hanta loves to joke around. The world could always use another laugh, and he’s gotten pretty good at keeping everyone in it. But, maybe for the first time in a while, he might have just gone too far.

The rest of them are too stunned to call after her, save for Midoriya who yells out, “Yaoyorozu, wait!” to deaf ears. 

The awkward spell on the table holds until Yaoyorozu disappears up the stairs. 

Midoriya looks at Hanta with an unusually blank expression. A bead of sweat drips down Hanta’s temple.

He gives a wincing, apologetic smile.

Midoriya frowns, and it hits like a bullet to the chest.

He leaves without a word, following Yaoyorozu up the stairs.

There’s another moment of awkwardness, quieter than a graveyard.

Until Mina slaps her hands angrily on the table with a growl, pushing herself up. She points a vicious glare at him, eyes burning hotter than her acid.

“Sero!” she spits.

“Oh, you can’t get mad at me!” he says. “You were more than happy to join in on it!”

She clicks her teeth. “That…!” She cuts herself off, unable to argue back. Instead, she gathers up her stuff and, after one last scathing glance, storms off herself.

Another beat.

“Wow,” Mineta says, “never thought there’d be a day where the girls are more upset at you than me.” Mineta says.

“Oh shut up!” Hanta says.

He clasps his hands behind his head, sighing heavily as he stares at the stairwell.

Kirishima starts, “You should probably-”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll go apologize in a second,” he says.

“...I do wonder why it bugged her so much, though,” Kirishima continues. “She can’t really think you think all that, do you?”

Hanta shrugs, and gets the feeling he’s gonna find out soon.

-

He heads after Yaoyorozu a minute later.

It’s late enough in the day that technically he could get in trouble for being on the girl’s side, but the apology takes priority, and in any case the person he’d get in trouble with is who he’s on his way to see.

He spots her open bedroom door and heads over, but catches a voice talking before he hits the threshold, and pauses.

“-don’t actually think you’re trying to steal their quirks or anything!” he hears Midoriya say. “I-I mean, sure, I guess you can for some of them, and maybe even replicate the effects of many others, but… A-and in any case, if we’re talking copying quirks, Monoma can do that way more than you! And, yeah, a lot of people don’t like him very much, but that’s more because of his attitude than anything…”

Hanta cringes. That’s some piss poor damage control on Midoriya’s part, for sure.

“I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” he continues. “But, I’m pretty sure no one is upset with you or anything. Sero was just messing around, you know? 

Yaoyorozu sighs.

“Maybe he was. But what if there’s a kernel of truth to the points he made anyways?”

Midoriya waits for her to continue, and Hanta leans against the wall by the door, listening in.

“...Sometimes,” she eventually says, “it feels as if I’ve meaningfully contributed to a friend's understanding of themselves. And just when I begin to take pride in that, some new consideration reveals itself. Am I doing this all for some personal gain? Using our friends as… experiments, to further my own understanding and abilities, without proper regard? Thoughtlessly inflaming insecurities in the process, leaving marks that may linger in some unseen way, deep in their hearts… I keep finding myself circling back to these questions, over and over, and increasingly it seems like perhaps the right answer is to stop this whole enterprise.”

She laughs sourly. “And yet, I don’t want to. I want to keep learning, despite the difficulties I may cause. Rather selfish of me, isn’t it?”

Hanta frowns, waits for some immediate denial on Midoriya’s part. Instead, there’s just silence, that extends for a full minute.

He’s seen a bit of what she’s worried about, he thinks. Kaminari was the most obvious, pouting for two straight weeks over having to use his electricity differently, but there’s been subtler stuff too. Hagakure occasional super focus on her light bending, a couple of fights Tokoyami had with Dark Shadow over some new dynamic they’re working on, Asui’s recent bouts of contemplativeness.

There’s been a change in all of them, but none of it seemed bad. Nothing for her to take so personally. But then again, their Vice President has always been too hard on herself.

“...Honestly, I ask myself the same stuff, too,” Midoriya says, after a bit. “After Kaminari, I thought that maybe I figured out a good approach, but then with Shinsou and Tsu I…” He doesn’t finish the thought.

“Remember when you first suggested this whole thing?” Midoriya continues. “And I initially didn’t want to? It’s… because I was worried about something like this. Maybe it’s because I was quirkless, maybe it’s just who I am, but… quirks always seemed like something extra. A fun aspect of someone to analyze. But… most people don’t want to be analyzed, no matter what place you're coming from in doing it.”

“…Do you believe we should stop, then?”

“...I don’t know,” Midoriya says. “I don’t want to stop. I’m… having a lot of fun doing it, w…with you.”

“...The same is true for me.”

A pause, where they’re no doubt staring into each other’s eyes or something. Hanta shakes his head.

“W-well, it’s not like we’re doing anything without their permission!” Midoriya adds. “B-but, I dunno. Maybe by asking people directly about it, we’re just… putting them on the spot. Like with Sero…”

“Perhaps…”

Oh man, they sure know how to make a guy feel bad, even when they aren’t even trying. But he’s not gonna be the reason they stop doing what they're doing for everyone.

Hanta takes a breath, then knocks against the wall so they can hear him.

He pivots himself into the doorway.

“Can I come in?” he says. 

Yaoyorozu is tucked up cross-legged on her bed, since that’s what takes up most of the space in her room, and is facing Midoriya, who sits at the foot of it in her desk chair. Given the chair’s placement, they either had to maneuver the thing out from the narrow gap between the bed and the desk before they had their whole heart-to-heart, the visual of which delights Hanta even now, OR, that’s just its new place now. Midoriya’s spot, as a frequent visitor. Close enough to the bed to use it as a desk.

They’re a bit surprised to see him, but Yaoyorozu quickly addresses him.

“…Yes, of course,” she says. “Listen, Sero, I’m sorry if I-”

He makes a T with his hands and a buzzer noise with his mouth. “Hold off on that Yaomomo, it’s a side switch. My turn to apologize.”

He continues. “Look, all of that was just me messing around, alright? There was nothing to it. No overstepping on your part, I promise, so don’t go sitting there thinking you did anything wrong.”

Her mouth pulls to the side in disagreement.

“It’s… not like you were incorrect in your assessment,” she says. “I am likely capable of reproducing the effects of many of your quirks…”

Hanta shrugs. “So what? Have at it! What's that thing they say? ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?’”

“W-well, the full phrase is a bit more pejorative…” she says.

“There's a full phrase?” He waves it off. “Nevermind that. Point is, everyone knows you’re not gonna undermine anyone. That was the joke, you know?”

“...Joke?” 

“It’s like this,” he says, before addressing the other person in the room. “Hey, Midoriya.”

Midoriya flinches a bit from being directly addressed. “H-huh?”

“How was puppy kicking practice yesterday?”

“Wh-what?” he says, immediately flustered. “I didn’t kick any puppies…”

“Not what I heard!” Hanta says with a grin. “‘Knockin’ this one right outta the park,’ I think you said!”

“N-no I didn’t!”

“‘Straight into the stratosphere,’ you said!”

“I didn’t!” 

“‘I’m not done until every pup’s a satellite,’ you said!”

“N-no!”

Hanta catches Yaoyorozu’s eyes, and finds her holding back laughter; not so much at his dumb joke but at Midoriya’s instant distress.

Midoriya grumbles.

“I didn’t kick any puppies…” he says to Yaoyorozu, as if defending himself.

“...I’m very aware of that, Midoriya,” she says.

“‘Cuz it’s absurd, right?” Hanta says. “Completely ridiculous. Just like the idea that you’d want to do anything other than help us. There’s not a person in the class that feels otherwise.”

“...Well, thank you for saying that,” Yaoyorozo says, a bit of warmth on her face and in her voice, “But, you can’t necessarily speak for everyone else, can you? There’s still a chance I may have caused some lasting offense to someone…”

“I guess that’s true,” Hanta says, “but to that I say, again… So what?”

Both of them are shocked to hear him say it.

“Maybe you did hurt someone’s feelings,” he says. “That the end of the world? There’s a fix for that, right? You apologize, make things right, then make sure you don’t make the same mistake again!” He beams her a smile. “Simple, right?”

When he was in middle school, Hanta once made one of his friends cry. He doesn’t remember the exact words he said, but it was something about the other boy’s dad, and it drew tears. The thing is, he’d teased this same friend a lot of times before, about everything else, and got teased back. That’s the dynamic, right? If you dish it out, you damn well better be able to take it. But no matter how comfortable someone is on either end, when you poke at another person like that, sometimes you hit a sensitive spot. 

Hanta was dumber then; took him a week or two to nut up and apologize. But once he did, they went right back to it, poking and prodding, ribbing and joking - but this time, with dad mentions verboten. He still texts the guy today - mostly about how much Hanta will charge him if he ever needs his life saved.

Maybe the safer move is never to tease. To always stay just out of poking distance.

But that isn’t any fun now, is it?

Midoriya will keep helping, even when there’s pushback, Yaoyorozu will keep learning, even when it’s hard, and Sero will keep teasing, even if he sometimes pokes the wrong spot. Because there’s more than one way to reach out to others, more than one way to make people smile, and this one is his. 

“Er, well,” Yaoyorozu starts, “but, I did try to apologize to you, and you said I didn’t have to…”

“Because you didn’t! And that’s the other thing I’m saying, y’know? Apologize if you mess up, but be sure you actually messed up first! Don’t worry about feelings you might have hurt. You’ll drive yourself crazy that way! You just gotta trust that we’ll talk to you properly if you go too far. You think after dealing with Bakugou for three years we haven't figured out how?” He points a thumb at himself, and smiles. “After dealing with me for three years?”

Yaoyorozu opens her mouth, as if to retort, and lets out a puff of laughter instead.

“That’s… a well reasoned point,” she admits. 

“Of course!” Hanta says. “I'm a well reasoned kind of guy!”

At that, he catches a contemplative look from Midoriya, and prompts him with a nod.

“Ah, it’s just… you like to make fun of things, and a lot of the time it feels like you’re just being goofy, but…” Midoriya scratches at his jaw. “You’re surprisingly thoughtful about all of it.”

Hanta laughs. 

“Oof,” he says. “‘Surprisingly,” huh?”

“O-oh! I didn’t mean…”

Hanta waves it off good-naturedly. Midoriya can’t even handle accidentally teasing someone.

“Point is, you, both of you, are already super considerate people, who as far as I can tell have only ever asked politely about all this. And maybe you sometimes poke at something you don’t mean to, but, that sometimes happens when you try and help someone, yeah?” He stares pointedly at Midoriya, who hesitantly nods in response. “But I promise you guys, you’re good. Keep doing what you're doing. And hey, you wanna study my quirk? Go for it!” Hanta starts to spool out a bunch of tape from his elbow.

“Oh, you don’t have to…” Yaoyorozu starts.

He shakes his head as a stack of tape layers in his free hand. “Yaoyorozu, listen to me when I say this. There isn’t a person in the world I would trust more with my quirk.” He tilts his head at Midoriya “Not even ‘Problem Child’ over here.”

“H-hey!” Midoriya says. “What’s that mean?!”

Yaoyorozu raises her eyebrows. “You think he would abuse it?”

“Nah,” Hanta says, “I think he’d find some new way into the hospital with it.”

Yaoyorzou holds back another laugh. “How… very true.”

Midoriya groans, and Hanta wonders if Midoriya will ever truly understand the wonderful service he provides for all the teasers in the world. 

Hanta cuts off a line, and hands the stack of tape to Yaoyorozu, who takes it carefully, avoiding the sticky bits.

“Thank you,” she says, placing it on the bed sticky side up. “Do you… already know the composition of it?”

“Uh, admittedly, not totally!” Hanta says. “Pretty sure the backing is made up of the same stuff as hair-”

“Alpha-keratin?” Yaoyorozu offers.

“Yeah, sure!” Hanta says, not totally sure. “Other than that, not really. Mineta says it’s sticky in a slightly different way than his quirk, though.”

“...If your tape is like standard tape, that makes sense,” Yaoyrozou says. “Mineta’s spheres are semi-liquid at the surface, allowing the polymer adhesives that compose them to seep into surface irregularities. The solvent that liquifies them evaporates, hardening what’s left and trapping the surface to the sphere. Tape uses a solid polymer adhesive that requires pressure to be ‘pushed in’ to these same irregularities to accomplish a similar, though usually weaker, effect.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” Hanta says. “And as far as I know, it works pretty much like other tape does.”

“Being made of keratin probably gives it a kind of strength and flexibility that most manufactured tapes wouldn’t have, I imagine!” Midoriya adds. “I wonder what the adhesive is specifically though? There’s all kinds of possible biological glues, like maybe a sugar-derived syrup of some sort, or the polymers that make spider-silk sticky…” Something occurs to him in the moment. “Oh! Does any of that affect whether or not you could actually synthesize it yourself, Yaoyorozu? None of that is living, but it’s close…”

“I believe I’d be able to, but you’ve certainly hit onto something complicated,” she says. “There’s not an easily defined line between ‘living’ and ‘not living,’ especially at a cellular level. Keratin is made up of amino acids, which themselves are the basic building blocks of life, but do not classify as living themselves! So, what is to stop me from chaining enough together to create some facsimile of life? Seemingly nothing, though the sheer complexity of any given living structure might be enough to-”

Okay, they’re not even talking about his tape now. Maybe he’ll follow up on that later.

He slides his way unnoticed out of the room as Midoriya listens, enthralled, to Yaoyorozu’s lecture.

Once he’s out, he shuts the door behind him, carefully, silently. He stares at it for a second, light peeking out from the crack on the floor.

And then, with a grim, solemn nod, he pulls out a new line of tape with a quiet squeak.

It only takes him a few minutes to tape the entire door over, sealing it shut to the doorframe. Layered so thickly that, even if Midoriya wanted to smash through it (he wouldn’t - Destruction of Property’s a crime, after all!) he’d still have a hard time without bringing down the whole wall. He supposes Midoriya can just fly them out the window, but a boy fleeing out of a girl’s dorm window this late in the day is a bad look on its own. 

Eh. Hanta’s sure they’ll figure something out. But maybe they can work out a few things while they’re stuck.

He walks away, smile reaching ear to ear.

-

The next day, he has to once again apologize to two very red-faced would-be quirk-scholars; he knows better, though, than to ask how the sleepover went. That would be a step too far.

***

8 years later

Clinging Lines - Cellophane

Izuku stands on the edge of a rooftop; and this time, it’s not so high.

They’re about 200 feet up, surrounded by other tall buildings of various heights, and even though that’s still quite a fall, Izuku feels more comfortable in this setting, where he’s got plenty of places to latch onto with his various suit components.

The same cannot be said for Yaoyorozu.

She stares stiffly at the gap between buildings in front of them, over the road below, lips sucked tightly into her mouth.

“...Whose idea was this, again?” she says.

“Pretty sure it was yours!” Sero says, smile wide on his face and hands clasped loosely behind his head.

“Hm,” she says.

“We don’t have to if you’re not comfortable!” Izuku says. “We can just head back down.”

“Right, totally!” Sero says. He winks at Izuku. Izuku rolls his eyes.

She takes a quick breath, then claps her hands in front of her to steel herself.

“...No, let’s do this. I want to learn.”

She raises up the device attached to her arm, something of her own design and creation, and points it at a high spot on a taller building.

She begins a synthesis, a line of tape burgeoning out of the skin of her forearm; Sero’s tape, its composition copied exactly. It feeds into the device on her arm, and with a few manipulations of some switches on her fingers, it fires out the line of tape with compressed air. She synthesizes its length all the way until it hits where she aimed, the end sticking to a building. She tugs at the line and finds it secure; ready to be used.

Because, if she can copy his tape, why not his form of locomotion?

She tugs at it a few more times, checking the hold, not quite finding satisfaction despite it being completely affixed. She steps up to the edge of the roof anyway.

“Ready?” Izuku says, and Yaoyorozu gives a hesitant nod. “Just remember, we’ll both be keeping an eye on you just in case anything happens!”

“...Yes, of course. Thank you.” She takes a long, deep breath.

Then another.

Then, another.

Another.

Sero and Izuku share a quick, amused look behind her back.

But then Sero’s grin turns mischievous.

He nods towards Yaoyorozu, and Izuku furrows his brow, not understanding his meaning. Sero holds out one of his hands, then presses it forward in the air in a shoving motion. He wags his eyebrows.

Izuku’s eyes go wide.

He shakes his head

Sero nods.

Izuku shakes his head harder.

Sero nods even more. 

Izuku flaps his hands side to side.

Sero takes a step closer, bringing up both hands, repeating the motion towards Yaoyorozu. And just as Izuku is wondering if he’s gonna have to straight up tackle his good friend here on this rooftop, Yaoyorozu says,

“If this is going to happen at all, one of you is going to have to push me.”

Sero’s smile goes supernova, and his hands jolt forward, shoving Yaoyorozu off the building.

She makes an indelicate squawk as she falls, her line immediately pulling taut and swinging her forward with a frightening speed. He and Sero follow right after, jumping off and anchoring lines while airborne, Sero with his tape and Izuku with Cellophane, his grappling-hook-like tethers. They travel through the air with far more confidence, and stay close enough to her that they can intervene if she falls.

Her legs kick wildly as she arcs down, and then up, almost spinning herself around her tape as she does. But gravity keeps the motion clean enough to finish out the arc, and near the peak of her upswing, right before she hangs weightlessly in the air, she flexes another finger switch and severs the line. She flings up and forward, free from her tether, and she screams, limbs flailing - but even so, he can hear the excitement tinging the cry. That heart-pounding, gut-flipping excitement that hits when you hang weightlessly in the air despite the well of gravity pulling you down, and realize just how open the world can be.

She collects herself as best she can in freefall, and aims her arm for another building, muscles shaking. She fires it crookedly at another building, leading to a line that’s probably shorter than she meant, but it’s good enough to continue. The frame of the launching device softens the strain on her arm as she starts another swing, giving another adrenaline-fueled shout as she arcs. And even though Izuku and Sero stay focused on her movements, Sero finds the time to give Izuku another amused look as he enjoys Yaoyorozu’s exhilaration.

Her second swing ends faster than expected due to the shorter line, and she cuts it off a bit too late, shooting her more up than forward. It throws off her orientation completely, and when she tries to aim another line, it fires off uselessly between two buildings.

A more genuine scream leaves her lips. She makes a token effort to fire off another line but the fright at missing has her frazzled, and something quickly gets tangled up on her arm. She starts to fall, without a way to save herself, her hydrogen-fueled jet boots much better for pushing off the ground than flying and stabilizing in the air. 

But, that’s why she’s got backup.

With a few careful jets of propulsion Izuku orients himself towards where she’s falling. He grabs around her waist with his free hand while they both continue downward, then with another line in combination with some precise thruster-use to soften the g-forces, he shifts their momentum back up. Instantly, she wraps her arms around his neck, gripping him tightly, laughing with glee as he keeps swinging forward.

He goes through a few more swings to make sure everything’s in control, lines extra tight from the added weight - she is, in fact, much heavier than she looks, though he knows better than to ever say that out loud -  then aims towards a particularly solid building to perch on. Four mechanical arms unfurl from his back and grip onto the building, giving the both of them a quick break. 

She lets out breathy, giddy laughter, her face flush and glowing from all the excitement. Her warm body blazes against him, even through the fabric of both their suits, and he can feel the heavy rise and fall of her chest as she catches her breath. Normally he’d assure her with a smile, like he would with any other person, but she’s too utterly enthralled with the sights around her to even notice, her attention flitting back and forth between the skyline, the ground below, through windows of nearby buildings. So instead he squeezes her close. He makes sure to keep a hold of her, tight as he can, his arm firm around her back and fingers pressing hard into her sides. So that she knows that she’s safe. That he’s got her.

Sero catches up and swings back and forth in front of them like a pendulum, taping new lines as necessary, making poses as he crosses by them; swinging backwards, with one leg over the other like he’s lounging, cannonball, upside down. Show off.

Eventually he joins up with them on the wall, taping himself to it.

“Havin’ fun?” he says with his cheshire grin, and Izuku can’t help but think he’s teasing them, even now.

“Absolutely!” Yaoyorozu declares, windswept hair all askew.

Sero looks them over, and finds something amusing. 

“Yeah, I bet you are!” he says. “But hey, we’re just getting started! Ready to keep trying?”

She nods to him, then to Izuku.

“Let’s do this,” she says confidently to him, and adrenaline buzzes through him. 

He nods. “Let’s go!” 

The mechanical arms shove them off the building and he sets a new line, falling into another swing, but as he hits the end, he tosses Yaoyoorzu forward. He can see the fear in her as she leaves his grasp, but she confidently takes aim regardless, setting her own tether of tape near perfectly. She swings away, and they swing after her.

-

Leaving long strands of tape behind on every building they pass.

“Should… we do something about that?” Izuku says in between bites of lunch, the three of them sitting on the edge of another rooftop. Izuku in the middle, and Sero and Yaoyorozu on either side.

Sero shrugs. “Nah, it’s fine. That’s what I pay my taxes for!”

Izuku frowns. “I was being serious…”

“So was I!” Sero says.

“Indeed he was,” Yaoyorozu says, mouth hidden politely behind her hand. “Every hero who produces lingering quirk emissions is required to pay a Public Sanitation Tax to help fund those services.” She swallows. “Mine is… rather hefty.”

“Oh wow, I didn’t know that!” Izuku says. “Me, I have to pay a bunch of reconstruction fees for all the minor damage my suit does gripping onto buildings…”

“I rarely get anything like that myself,” Yaoyorozu says, “but I know Kyouka has a specific “Window Fund” with which she-”

“Ah c’mon, are we seriously talking about money stuff?” Sero says, leaning back. “That’s no fun at all!”

They ignore him, and continue chatting.

A few moments later, Yaoyorozu shifts, and Izuku hears a smack.

“Ow!”

Izuku looks to Sero, who’s flapping away the pain in his hand. As if he’d just gotten slapped after, say, mimicking pushing Izuku off the roof with it.

Sero gives a bright, innocent smile. “‘Sup, Izuku?”

Izuku purses his lips.

Sero has a strength that Izuku will never have. An ability to make others laugh, to tease with a quick wit, to find the fun. He’s very good at it.

Maybe a little too good.

***

Chapter Text

Tenya lives his life by single principle:

There is always room for improvement!

Run 100 meters a millisecond faster. Jump a hurdle a centimeter higher. Score a single point higher on an exam. There is always something more to achieve, and if it isn’t obvious what, then one simply must look harder!

A millisecond can’t be reached? Then try for a microsecond! Can’t quite hit the centimeter? A millimeter is still an advancement! A perfect 100 has already been achieved? Ask for extra credit!

Many people see walls everywhere they look, but Tenya knows the truth. These walls can likely be scaled, and if they truly cannot, they can be run around. 

This principle serves him well day to day, especially when so much needs to be done. Every microsecond faster he evacuates a citizen from a crumbling building is a microsecond in which they avoid critical injury. Every millimeter extra he can move gets him that much closer to dodging a pinpoint strike from a foe that wishes to cause him harm. Every extra point, every bit of extra credit is a reflection of an expanding intelligence, and there is nothing as important to a hero as they’re ability to think on their feet; especially when those feet move as fast as his.

Some may call him a perfectionist, but he knows perfection is impossible. And yet, that does not mean it is not worth pursuing! Like a mathematical asymptote, forever approaching a value but never reaching, there is pure, logical beauty in the ever-rising slope.

Most of his friends do not agree.

He has often been called ‘too much.’ An unfair assessment, he thinks, especially when he doubts labelling another ‘too little’ would be so acceptable. And yet, like there is always room for improvement, there is always room for criticism! He has done his best to internalize theirs, and, after a few years, he believes he has finally come to an understanding about the deeper points they make.

Everyone can benefit from traveling the ever-rising slope; but for some, the slope must simply rise more slowly! 

To that extent, he has started to refrain from pushing so hard at his classmates' limits. The push is too valuable to stop completely of course, but he has learned to be more strategic about it. To be more aware of when it is welcome.

Which is why, when heard of a new, self-driven project propagating amongst his class, a part of him soared with delight.

Yaoyorozu and Midoriya, taking it upon themselves to better their friends and classmates, offering them help and giving them new ways to improve? And a significant portion of their class took part? All without any outside pressure from teachers, simply because they wanted to? It is everything Tenya could have hoped for in the last of his school days!

Given that, how could he not wish to be a part of it?

-

“Midoriya! Yaoyorozu!” he declares, startling a few support students working at their stations in the lab. “I would like to submit myself to your analysis!”

They look up from what they’re looking at together, some technical specifications for some kind of boot thrusters. It doesn’t look like anything from their class.

“Hey Iida!” Midoriya greets warmly. “You… want our quirk advice?”

“If you have any to offer! I understand you’ve been handing it out to many of our friends.”

They wordlessly exchange a glance.

“Well, we’ve given everyone’s quirks some thought, including yours,” Yaoyorozu says, “but Engine has a few challenges that are tough for us to overcome.”

“Oh?” Iida says. “I’ve always felt it was rather straightforward.”

“It’s not so much whether it’s straightforward or not,” Midoriya says. “It’s just, you’re at such a different starting point than pretty much anyone at UA! Your quirk is generational, and generational in a family of heroes! It’s pretty hard to match that level of expertise, I doubt we could come up with anything they haven’t.”

Tenya thinks of his family, and smiles. “Yes, I am lucky to have such a privilege. Even so, I would love to hear your thoughts! If something in your theories could make me even a fraction of a percent better, then it would have all been worth it!”

“Well… I suppose it can’t hurt,” Yaoyorozu says. “Maybe we can do it tomorrow?”

“Oh? Can we not do it now?”

Another exchanged glance.

“W-well, I guess we could…” Midoriya says hesitantly. “But all the notes we have on yours are in my room right now, so…”

“Oh, of course,” Tenya says. “Then I shall go and retrieve them!”

“Er, w-well,” Midoriya says, “you might not know which ones to grab…”

“Then you shall accompany me!” He runs over and grips Midoriya by the arm. “Float yourself, if you will!”

“W-wait, I don’t know about-”

But Tenya has already pulled him over his shoulder and started moving.

It’s not until the first step out of the lab that he feels the weight on him shift, making things much easier. It takes him all of a minute to dash to the dorms, up the stairs, and into Midoriya’s room, where the boy in question woozily scoops up a stack of notebooks, and another minute to get back. He pulls Midoriya off his shoulder, and the boy stumbles across the floor for a second, his hair frizzy and his lips chapped. 

“Let us begin!” Tenya says.

They walk him through their notes and Tenya quickly finds himself fascinated. By now, they’ve been working on them for months, or in Midoriya’s case, years, and the effort shows. His earliest theorizing depicts roughly drawn diagrams of rather whimsical systems - miniature car engines somehow squeezed into Tenya’s calves, in complicated and likely impossible layouts to make it all work - but soon he catches on to Engine’s similarities to rocket thrusters rather than piston engines, and changes his hypotheses to match. 

From there, he, and later Yaoyorozu, continue theorizing more specific mechanisms. They realize that while he calls Vitamin C his fuel source, it’s a bit of a misnomer; it is absolutely required for his thrust, but it is feedstock for more potent reactions. They clearly haven’t landed on one they prefer - notes switching back and forth from glucose or methane burning, to biological hydrolysis creating hydrogen fuel and oxygen for oxidizing, to the even more fantastical antimatter creation and annihilation, as well as many others. The exact nature of Engine is, of course, a trade secret owned by the Idaten Agency, so he cannot confirm or deny whether any of these are correct… but one of them is very close!

There are also more mundane notes - much of which is focused on his particular running form, which they recognize as not matching the standard form of professional runners. His upper body tilts more forward, and the movement of his legs more accurately falls somewhere between running and leaping. Necessary, so that the thrust of his engines can act better along the axis of his body, rather than just on his legs, torquing them around his hips against the stride of a standard run. There are a number of well-drawn diagrams depicting this, done by Midoriya’s hand, with observations of all sorts in two different hand-writings pointing to various sections.

It’s all rather impressive. Of course, it doesn’t hold a candle to the generations of research and testing his family has done for themselves and for him; nor should it! It is a valiant effort regardless. Though, when he expresses this exact sentiment to them directly, they do not seem to take it as the compliment it is.

As he’s perusing their notes, however, he comes across something that outright shocks him.

Underneath a section titled, Possible methods of enhancement, he finds a list of substances that might be injected into his system to increase his overall ability. He can scarcely believe it.

“Midoriya!” he says, tapping on the section in the notebook. “Explain yourself!”

Midoriya glances at where Tenya’s finger is pointing.

“Explain what?” he says. “It… seems self-explanatory?”

“That is exactly what I feared!” Tenya says. “Are you seriously suggesting I take performance enhancing drugs??”

Midoriya checks the list again.

Nitrous Oxide. Hydrogen Peroxide. Liquid oxygen.

He frowns.

“...These are all things that make combustion more efficient by increasing the amount of oxygen?” he says, confused. 

“And would that not be considered a drug to enhance performance with a biology such as mine?!” Tenya says sternly. “You should be ashamed!”

“H-hey, hold on!” Midoriya says. “That’s not… I don’t think it works like that at all!”

“Of course it does!” Tenya argues. “Why, my dear older brother sat me down when I was but a child, to explain to me the dangers of abusing nitrous with our engines. He was quite insistent on it!”

“Th-that doesn’t make any sense!”

“Are you suggesting my brother was wrong?!”

Midoriya stammers out more denials, but Yaoyorozu cuts in more calmly.

“...Iida,” she says. “I’m an only sibling, so forgive me if I misunderstand the dynamic. But, is it possible this was simply an older brother, messing with the younger?”

Tenya holds up a firm hand, ready to disabuse her of the very notion.

And then he remembers exactly what Tensei is like.

Tenya takes a mental step back, hand on his chin as he thinks.

“Hm,” he says. “I may need to have a… discussion with Tensei, on how much of his advice may have been misguided.”

Yaoyorozu sucks in her lips, holding back a smile. 

“Well,” she eventually says, “perhaps it was correct advice. On the off chance it wasn’t, however, I doubt the usefulness of such enhancers. They would almost certainly make your engines more efficient, but figuring out a compact way to store these oxidants on your person would likely not be worth the effort.”

“...Not to mention you’d need a proper delivery system to your engines,” Midoriya continues, “the mechanics of which aren’t easily accessible. You’d be better off looking for efficiency increases through external nozzle design, which I imagine your family has already done…”

“That is correct,” Tenya answers, “and such designs have already been incorporated into my suit.”

“...Have they ever looked into larger redirecting systems?” Midoriya wonders offhandedly. “If you could point your exhaust, say, downwards, you might be able to hover…”

“Not thus far,” Tenya says. “I am not officially part of the agency yet, so specific equipment like that has not been researched. The rest of my family never had need for anything like that; my grandfather has shoulder thrusters, my father back, and my brother arm, all positioned to give quite a bit of freedom in how they moved. My engines being located where they are, low on my legs, results in more inflexibility in that regard. Though, do not take that as any sort of complaint on my part!”

Midoriya’s lips quirk up. “I would never! I know how much you love your quirk.”

“Of course!” Tenya agrees. “Once I graduate and join, I planned to ask the engineers about it, but it may add a bulk to my costume that I frankly cannot afford. We will have to see.”

“I see…,” Midoriya says. “Then, after that I only have one other idea, really.” 

Tenya leans forward in anticipation. 

“...Wheels?” Midoriya says with a shrug.

“Oh, I had the same thought,” Yaoyorozu says. “Surely using some type of wheel would be more efficient than running, and cause less impact on your joints.”

“That is likely true!” Tenya answers. “Similarly, no other Ingenium made use of them so there is no precedent, but it is yet another thing I want to look into. I only had the idea myself at the start of this year, and rather than take the support classes’ valuable attention away from something more necessary, I decided to wait until I can make it an official Idaten project.”

“It still might be worth floating those ideas to Hatsume before then! She’s a miracle worker,” Midoriya says. “But yeah, that’s basically all we have. I wish we could have offered you more…”

“It is quite alright, Midoriya,” Tenya says, “and in any case, my quirk is only partially the reason why I am here! I have a request that I hope the two of you will consider.”

“Oh?” Yaoyorozu says.

Tenya nods. “This examination of our classmates’ quirks… I would like to be a part of it!” He places a hand on the stack of notebooks. “This side of it. The research, the theorizing. As our Class President, I believe I have a responsibility to contribute any way I can to the betterment of our peers!”

There’s a momentary blankness on both of their faces.

“Oh!” Midoriya says first. “You… wanna help us out?”

“Of course!” Tenya says. “In fact, I should have offered long ago. But it is only recently I realized the seriousness of your endeavor, and the positive effects it is having on our class.”

“...W-well, ‘positive’ might be a simplistic way of describing the events up to now,” Yaoyorozu says, a bit dourly.

“Oh? In what sense?” Tenya asks, intrigued.

She hums with a bit of dissatisfaction. “I… feel as though our efforts are not always so straightforwardly helpful…”

“I see,” Tenya says. “Well, perhaps the addition of my efforts will make things smoother!”

They trade more looks, each of them trying to glean something from the other.

“I… can’t see why not,” Midoriya says, before turning a bit brighter. “I mean, the more the merrier, right?”

Yaoyorozu, more hesitant, says, “I suppose…” 

“Wonderful! Then, let us proceed!” 

He thumbs through the notebook as they talk and talk, ideas of his own slowly sprouting and growing. And as they part, with an agreement to meet again in the future, he is excited, in a way he often isn’t. Excited that perhaps this time, his friends and classmates will accept the help he has to offer, rather than ignore it. 

-

“Jirou!” Tenya says. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you!”

“...Uh, sure?” she says, twirling her remaining jack between her fingers. “There some graduation form I need to fill out or something?”

“No, this is unrelated to my duties as Class President,” he says. “Rather, it is about the possibility of regrowing your earjack!”

Her body goes rigid. 

“...What?”

“I’ve heard that it is something you may be considering!” he says, adjusting the frames of his glasses. “If so, I thought I could offer you some information about such procedures!”

There’s a stillness to her he doesn't quite understand; disbelief, perhaps, that he may have an answer for her that Yaoyorozu did not.

“...Why exactly would you have any information about that?” she asks, suspicious.

“I try to keep myself abreast of cutting-edge medical and surgical innovations! I started during our first year, after… after my brother lost the use of his legs.” He pauses a moment to take a breath. “The world has yet to achieve the ability to restore his function, but… I remain hopeful! Perhaps it will be there in the future, should he so want it.”

“...O-oh, I see,” she says. A bit of the strange tension that had been building in her deflates, and he realizes his mistake: here he is raising her hopes, only to seemingly dash them the instant after! He must correct her assumption.

“Ah, but that is not to say there is no hope for you currently!” he continues. “Our beautiful country may not have the technical capacity for it now, but there are some remarkable studies and trials in China and India that suggest it may be possible to-”

“Look Iida, I’m just gonna stop you right there,” Jirou says. “I get that you’re trying to help, and thanks, but I’m… not interested, alright?”

He furrows his brow.

“...I don’t understand. Are you worried about possible negative consequences? Tensei’s spinal injury meant repairing any damage may be more dangerous than not, but surely this would not be true for the damage to your ear!”

“N-no, that’s not exactly…”

“I believe you could really benefit from what I’ve found!” he says. “Surely you’d like to once again operate at full capacity?”

It comes the next instant. A flare of anger that suggests he has crossed some line he did not know existed. 

“Oh?” she says. “That how you’d describe your brother? Lacking capacity?”

His eyes go wide.

“N-no, of course not! I simply meant…”

He trails off, because, quite frankly, he does not know what he simply meant. 

The anger leaves Jirou as quickly as it came, and she cringes at her own harsh accusation.

“...Look, let’s just, cut off this whole conversation here while we’re both ahead, alright?” she suggests. “Any more and we’ll both end up with our feet in our mouth.”

“But, Jirou-”

“Drop it, alright?” she pleads. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

She takes her leave, and Tenya starts to consider that this may be more difficult than he thought.

-

“Hagakure!” he calls after her, small cardboard box under his arm. “May I have a word with you?

“Sure!” she says cheerfully. “What’s up, Prez?”

“I understand that you’re… working on a new technique, of sorts,” he says. “Passive light refraction, so that we may see your expressions.”

“Something like that, yeah!” she answers. She holds out an invisible arm, and it flickers into view with a dim orange like a near-dead light bulb. “It’s pretty tough though, like having to hold a flex for a long time.”

“I see! I hope you manage to figure it out, Hagakure!” he says. “I have to say, however, I never considered that your inability to show your emotions could be such a hindrance. Rather thoughtless of me, I think!”

Her shoulders shrug. “You’re fine! Just the way it is, you know? Though maybe not for long!”

“Indeed! But I may have come up with a way to bridge the gap in the meantime!” 

“Oh?”

He pulls the box out from under his arm and takes the top off, settling it underneath. “Perhaps these could be useful to you!”

He collects up what’s inside: a stack of flat, wooden sticks, each with a sticker on one end, of a face with minimal features showing off a specific emotion, paired with a matching color. A big smile for happiness, bright yellow, a big frown for sadness, blue, a shocked, open mouth for fright, sickly green. 

She scoops them out of his hand and shuffles through them, examining each one.

“What do you think?” Tenya prompts.

She pulls a particular one out and holds it up.

Brows pointed in and down, mouth in a frown, face a deep red.

“...Oh,” he says.

She slams the anger stick back into his box.

“Iida, do you know how patronizing this is?!” she cries. “I’m not a baby!”

“I, I never meant to imply otherwise!” Tenya argues. “I have read multiple studies that this is a useful and valid way to communicate emotions!”

“For adults?” she hisses.

“W…well, the studies primarily involved children…”

“Ugh.” She throws the rest of the sticks back into the box. “I got enough of these dumb things back in grade school, so no thanks, Iida.” She storms off.

“Ah, Hagakure, wait!” he says, taking a few steps after her, grabbing a random emotion stick and waving it her way as one last plea. But she doesn’t even turn around.

His shoulders slump, and he sighs. He stares at the stick he pulled out. A sad, blue face stares back.

-

Tenya clears his throat to get the other boy’s attention. “Shinsou! I… would like to discuss something with you, if that is okay.”

Shinsou looks up at him from his seat with bored, irritated eyes. He does not offer further response.

“...So! I know Midoriya has offered you his thoughts on your quirk, and I wondered if you were interested in mine.”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. “You too? I thought that was his and Yaoyorozu’s whole deal.”

“It was, but they have elected to involve me as well!”

“Uh huh,” Shinsou says skeptically. “Sure you’re not getting in the middle of something?”

“...In the middle of what?” Tenya asks. 

Shinsou shrugs. “Nothing I give a shit about, I guess. Either way, not interested.”

“Are you sure?” Tenya says. “I know you have quite a firm grasp on the intricacies of your quirk already, but after talking with Midoriya about it I think I may have-”

“Midoriya was talking to you about my quirk?” Shinsou says, and this time the anger isn’t so minor; it’s cold and sharp, crackling with frostbite. Another line crossed, and this time Tenya hadn’t even gotten to his idea yet.

“...Yes?” Tenya says.

Shinsou growls. “Un-fucking-believable. The only reason I even agreed to talk with him in the first place is because he promised not to spread that shit around!”

Tenya, on the verge of understanding Shinsou’s ire, pushes back. “Ah, and he hasn’t! He only spoke of it in the broadest sense, on observations I myself-”

“I don’t want him talking about it in any sense to anyone!” Shinsou growls. “I know he’s joined at the hip to the Vice President these days, but I didn’t think he’d go around yapping about it to every other one of his little friends!”

“I promise you he is not!” Tenya says. “Whatever secrets you have are safe, I assure you!”

“Yeah, I bet,” Shinsou says dubiously.

“They are! Though, I would offer that there is no need in the first place! I understand the need for secrecy, but surely you can trust us as your classmates!” He offers a calming hand to Shinsou’s shoulder. “There is no need to guard a piece of yourself so staunchly, Shinsou!”

Shinsou smacks his arm away. “Not everyone can ride on our family’s coattails, Iida. Some of us have to figure out how to navigate the hero world with an awkward quirk that only works when people know fuck all about it. So forgive me if I keep my shit close to the chest.”

He shoves himself out of his desk and collects his stuff.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go have a chat with Midoriya about all this…”

Tenya winces, and does nothing to stop Shinsou as he takes his leave.

Afterwards, Tenya pulls out the case he brought and clicks it open. On a cushion inside sits a pair of shaded, polarized goggles, with a small set of additional, telescoping lenses attached to the outside corners, that would allow the wearer to zoom in to small, far off details. 

It is unclear to Tenya whether Shinsou needs to hear a response to activate his quirk, or whether something like lip reading would be enough. If so, perhaps this would have let him watch for distant mouth movements. If not, the eye protection itself would still be beneficial. To give him clear sight, no matter the circumstance. 

Tenya wishes he had the same. 

He closes the case and leaves it on Shinsou’s desk, just in case.

-

In a rare, solemn moment, Tenya finds himself alone, staring out the dorm windows.

He can see some of his friends in the adjacent courtyard, passing a volleyball back and forth in increasingly savage, quirk-powered hits. Many of them he had also approached, and while none of these attempts were as disastrous, it became clear Iida could do very little for them. He had no new ideas to offer those more receptive to his efforts, like Satou and Ojiro, and even worse, had drawn next to zero interest from the rest. They had been perfectly happy, after all, with what they got from Midoriya and Yaoyorozu.

His eyes flit down to the table he sits at, to the Midoriya-like notebook filled with his own paltry notes. He feathers through mostly blank pages, feeling more than a little arrogant for thinking he could add something substantial to Midoriya’s dozens in so short a time.

“Iida?” he suddenly hears. “Are you okay?”

He looks up to find his Vice President, staring at him with mild concern.

“Ah, Yaoyorozu!” he says, suddenly energized by her company. “I am… well. I simply have a few things on my mind.”

She spots the notebook, familiar to her by now, and gives him a sympathetic smile as she sits down to join him.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“There is not much to talk about, I’m afraid,” he says. “I am simply coming to terms with my inadequacy in this endeavor.”

“...Oh?”

“...I knew from the start I would not have the impact on our class that Midoriya does,” he admits. “He shines brighter than any other, a constant source of inspiration for us all. There is no one quite like him.” He gives the girl across from him a smile. “But I have always felt that you and I are of the same sort. That we can contribute in our own, special way to the growth of our friends. As, perhaps, guiding forces, as through our roles as President and Vice President. Something I am honored to have been a part of with you.”

She smiles warmly back at him.

“Because of that, I thought I could offer something in this capacity as well.” He flicks the notebook towards her. “But that is not the case. I… seem to be incapable of offering anything useful to our peers.”

She watches him for a moment, then does something he never would have expected.

She chuckles. 

“Oh Iida. Believe me when I say, I know exactly how you feel.” 

He furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

“I said as much when you first asked, did I not?” She taps her fingers on the notebook in between them. “That our efforts sometimes felt unfruitful.”

“...I suppose you did,” he admits. “But from my interactions with our class, I have only ever heard you and Midoriya spoken of glowingly.” Through the window, he watches Ojiro deliver a truly dangerous tail-spike to Kirishima’s face, who has to Harden up his neck to prevent it from cracking. He laughs as the ball bounces off his forehead, leaving a deep red welt. 

“I admit, I’m glad to hear that,” she says. “But there have been a number of… issues, navigating the sensitivities of our friends. Especially at the start.”

“...And yet, it remains true that these efforts have been accepted,” Tenya contends. 

“Well, I can only speak for myself, but I suppose I found a good way of managing things after enough mistakes.”

“Ah, I see!” Tenya says, on the verge of understanding again. “That must be what they call a ‘woman’s touch,’ yes?”

Instantly, her sympathy collapses.

“You just undermined this whole moment, Iida.” She crosses her arms defensively. “Do you really think any part of my efforts has been more accepted just because I am a woman?”

“N-no, of course not! I apologize, I have made yet another misstep. I did not mean to imply a difference in ability due to gender.” He clenches his hands and stares downward at the tabletop. “I simply… thought I had figured it out.”

“...Figured out what?”

“What it is that am I lacking,” he says. 

The only sound that follows is the muffled laughter of their friends outside, and the occasional thunk of leather.

It is not the first time he has come to this conclusion. That he is missing something that others are not. An understanding he can’t quite grasp, despite the end result being obvious, unavoidable.

He puts people off. In a way beyond what he understands to be his faults. He has worked hard to limit these, to hamper his impulse to scold, to hold himself back from so quickly jumping to conclusions. But even when tries to consider his friends in good faith, there is something extra still that seems to roll their eyes. A thing he’s missing that, ironically, makes him too much.

“Oh Iida…,” he hears, after a bit. He feels warm fingers wrap around his hand. “You aren’t lacking anything. I promise.”

He looks back up, and finds nothing but kindness and compassion.

“Listen. I’m going to be frank with you,” she says. “You are very hard to keep up with.”

“...Ah, well, of course, with Recipro Burst I can reach speeds of up to-”

“I was speaking more metaphorically,” she teases. “You have a love for bettering yourself that I think no one in this school can match. Even someone like me.”

“But, you are the number one student in our class!”

She clears her throat. “Y-yes, well, thank you. And I certainly find satisfaction in that. But, would you? Or would it be just one more step for you, fractionally closer on your way to some unknown height?”

“…The latter, I suppose.”

“Yes, I thought so. That is how you are in everything you do, and I find it wonderful.” She laughs. “You are not lacking, Iida, you simply have so much in you that it can overwhelm. This is not your fault, but ours. I’m sorry if any of us have made you feel otherwise.”

“...It is fine,” he says genuinely. “I suppose I can see how that might be hard for others to handle.” He reaches out his other hand to sandwich hers between both of his, squeezing gratefully. “Thank you for helping me understand a little better.”

“Of course,” she says, before their hands part. “But let it be known that people do appreciate you, Iida. Do not think otherwise. It can just take a little time.”

“...Oh?”

She nods. “While Hagakure did vent to me somewhat about your emotion sticks,” he winces, “I think she actually liked the color coding.”

The volleyball thwops against the window, and a floating blouse and jeans runs over to grab it. Hagakure stops to wave at them as they watch her, flickering a happy yellow. She hesitates one last second, then squeaks out a drawing on the light film of window dust. A smiley face, with a wide open grin. They wave back, and Iida’s heart swells with something that would need two emotion sticks to fully communicate.

“Also, I’m fairly certain Shinsou has been carrying around the goggles you gifted him,” she continues, “and is just stubbornly refusing to actually use them. You know how he is.”

“Yes, I suppose I do…,” Iida agrees. “So… you think I can continue my efforts, without drawing further ire?”

“...If that is what you want to do, then yes,” Yaoyorozu says. “But I think I should continue to be frank, for both of our benefits.” He sits up in anticipation. “If you did, I’d rather you do it on your own.”

His eyes shoot open. The sentiment is so blunt and exclusive that he’s only curious, not offended, that it exists. 

“I very much value your company, Iida,” she continues. “But after so long I’ve come to view this quirk-studies enterprise as something… just between us. Me and Midoriya.” Her face speckles with a hint of redness. “And… I’ve come to very much enjoy that aspect.”

“Ah, I see!” Tenya says. “I suppose I can understand that, too.”

“...Yes,” she says. “He has become a dear friend to me, and I like that we have something that is ours. Though, I realize how frivolous a reason that is…”

“I do not mind at all, Yaoyorozu!” he states. “In fact, I thank you for being upfront. If I do continue my efforts however, perhaps we can still trade notes on occasion?”

She beams at him, brightly.

“Of course!”

The two of them get up and join their friends outside, and he feels just a bit lighter. A small burden, lifted. Perhaps he is too much for others, at times, and perhaps others are not enough for him. They can only ever try to bridge the gap on either side, fractionally, infinitesimally, two lines approaching one in an ever-rising slope.

Tenya leaps up, and kicks the ball so hard at Sero he goes unconscious.

-

“Hatsume! On the advice of some of our friends, I’d like to request your input on some support equipment ideas I’ve had!”

“Sure!” Hatsume says. “Who are you again?”

He sputters. “I am Iida Tenya! We have been schoolmates for the past two and a half years!”

Her face remains blank.

“I’m the one with engines on his legs.”

She takes off her goggles and glances at his calves.

“Oh, hey Engines, it’s you! Why didn’t you say so?” He does not bother to say that he did. “Whacha got for me?”

“I was wondering if it would be at all possible to come up with something to redirect my thrusters downward,” he says. “Something compact. And if possible, with retractable wheels.”

She thinks hard on it for a minute.

“Yeah, probably! I could probably whip up something like that!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you, necessarily!” he says. “I meant theoretically. For a team of professionals.”

“Eh, I could do it better!”

“...You believe that you can do better than the team of Idaten engineers?”

“Definitely! Just give me a few weeks or months or a year or two and I’ll have something for sure!”

“A rather ambiguous time frame, don't you think?”

“Well I gotta come up with everything from scratch; new composite material for the heat and force so that it doesn’t explode through necessary pipework, a tight-sealing mechanism to shift back and forth between out and down, a wheel retracting frame that won’t fall apart at high speeds, a good design for all–terrain wheels… Don’t know exactly how long it’ll take, but I’m pretty sure I can do it!”

“...Really. Just like that? So sure, even though you start from nothing?”

“Doesn’t matter where I start, I know where I’m going! From there I just gotta go one step at a time, closer and closer, like a… like a…”

He perks up, arm chopping forward. “Like the ever-rising slope of an asymptote??”

“Sure, that works! It’s like, once you start the line, it’s already all mapped out, you know? Just gotta do it! And no invention’s gonna be perfect, but I can try to get as close as I can!”

And for the first time, in this one way, he understands the frustratingly difficult to understand Hatsume as deeply as he understands himself.

***

8 years later

Supersonic Engine - Ingenium 

“Burst as you kick off your back foot!” Iida shouts. “And lock your leg so that the thrust travels along your body!”

“Right!” Midoriya chants, thrusters jetting him forward.

“As your front foot lands, let your back leg move forward, quickening up your strut!”

“Right!” Smoke poofs out of nozzles on his calves.

“When the back becomes the front, when it steps onto the ground, cut off the thrust so that it does not interfere with your stride!”

“Right!” His foot thuds into the ground just as the exhaust cuts off.

“Repeat with the other! Left, then right, left, then right, never stopping, never slowing!”

“Right!” He dashes after Iida, their forms nearly matching.

And as they race around the track, Momo follows them with a high speed camera.

They loop around a dozen times, then another dozen, covering in minutes what would take others hours. But on the next loop, Midoriya slows as he approaches the starting line, then fully stops and settles against the fence, taking in gasping breaths.

Iida does an extra loop, then runs in place at the starting point, before calling to Momo, “Yaoyorozu! Your turn!”

She nods, then stands next to Iida as Midoriya stumbles over to take her place at the camera.

She readies her hydrogen-fuel boots, these ones modified with thrusters on the back of her calves, as well as on the bottom. As close to Iida’s thrusters as Midoriya’s suit.

“Onward!” Iida cries, and they fire off, generated hydrogen burning in her boots. “Burst as you kick off your back foot! And lock your leg so that the thrust travels along your body!”

“Right!” Momo chants.

“As your front foot lands, let your back leg move forward, quickening up your strut!”

“Right!” Vapor poofs out of nozzles on her calves.

“When the back becomes the front, when it steps onto the ground, cut off the thrust so that it does not interfere with your stride!”

“Right!” Her foot thuds into the ground just as the exhaust cuts off.

“Repeat with the other! Left, then right, left, then right, never stopping, never slowing!”

“Right!” 

And as they race around the track, Midoriya follows them with the camera.

-

Momo and Midoriya settle against a fence on the edge of the track as they rest their sore legs. Iida continues on his own, switching between running and skating on retractable wheels. She and Midoriya may have lots of energy, but Iida outpaces them both; even accounting for the extra dense muscles in his legs.

Every part of Midoriya’s suit is modeled after one of their quirks, in one way or another, but it is Ingenium, his leg thrusters, that benefited most from personal instruction. A mechanism that comes very close to the original, with a very high learning curve. To flare out leg-breaking power in carefully metered blasts for smooth, forward motion – it is something that took Iida years to get a handle on.

She is sure that Midoriya will have it down in months.

She watches him gulp down a bottle of water, then pull out two protein bars, handing one to her. She accepts it with a thank you, and delights in its dark chocolate crunch. His legs are splayed out, his cheek full of granola, looking for all the world like a tired child in a playground. It could almost lead someone to underestimate him. Almost.

But no. Instead she is eternally surprised by his adaptability and cleverness. To be given a gift of such complexity and depth it would take any other person a lifetime to become an amateur, and yet so quickly approach not just competence, but proficiency. She has been helping him for almost a year now, to learn and practice and train, watching him as he improves in leaps and bounds, every month, every week, every day. It won’t be long at all, she feels, until he’s become an expert, who will need no assistance, no instruction.

What will she do, then, when she no longer has an excuse to spend time with him?

Something she thought long faded is starting to return. Something possessive and yearnful. Over the years it has ebbed and flowed, waxed and waned, never quite stable due to chance and changing circumstance. It seems almost impossible to avoid having it happen again.

He swallows his mouthful, Adam's apple bobbing, and with a flick of his hand he commands his Creati swarm to swirl and flutter in front of them. He wiggles his fingers, and they sculpt themselves into a hollow shape; a head, featured chiselled out to look like hers, a buzzing ponytail spiking out the back. He turns to her and smiles, and leaves an ache inside her chest.

She thinks often of orbital systems of motion. Celestial bodies connected by inescapable tethers, eternally affecting each other’s movements according to some cosmic metronome. It is impossible for her, for anyone, to escape their orbits around him - his presence felt, regardless of how far apart they are - but sometimes she swings close in a tantalizing perigee, before eventually, inevitably, continuing on. 

Her first perigee, the one that set it all in motion, was at UA, as she spent every other day in his company discussing quirks with him until the sky turned from blue to purple to black, learning more about the world than a thousand books could tell her. The next, years later, the mutual hardships of higher education - the only two of their class to attend - briefly bringing them back together as they encouraged and carried each other through those final months into graduation. And now, the third, brought about by the culmination of 8 years of research and development; the result of which must be tested, of course, and who better to oversee such testing than her? 

And once it is done, she will swing past him once more. 

That seems to be the way of things. Frustratingly temporary, in a way she doesn’t have the strength to break. To do so, to get close and stay close, become a binary pair, seems just as impossible as overcoming the nature of gravity itself.

And only one of them can do that.

It almost seems fated. Momo, like many of their class, saw the longing looks they traded, Uraraka and Midoriya, the admiration they shared. But there was simply no time for it at UA, and so it did not happen. The orbit continued on. But it swings back again, too, now as it did then, and half a dozen times between, as he helped Uraraka with her counseling centers, as she visited his classes. Getting ever closer to an obvious, forgone conclusion, forever approaching an inescapable value. It is only a matter of time, really, before the Gravity Hero locks herself to him fully.

Iida skates past them, again and again, and Midoriya cheers him on each time he gets close.

It’s funny. There was a time once when she considered herself and Iida together. In an abstract, distant sort of way; the top two of the class, President and Vice President. She’s read many stories of that nature, of the rivalry, the passion; something their dynamic has always lacked. And she has thought of others, too. Of Shouto, a boy at the edges of her life since they were children, the first of them to truly believe in her. Of Kyouka, her best friend, who pushed and teased her, showed her new ways to be, made things sharp and fun. But she has only ever felt this pull to the boy who rests beside her, a boy so bright and full of energy he bends space and time itself. 

She wishes, more than anything, to keep learning and growing with him. To uncover the mysteries of the universe together, through quirks and science and technology and everything outside or in between.

And yet, she is bound by things she can’t control, fundamental forces that are simply too much for her to push against. Perhaps if she were more like Iida, who doggedly races after perfection one step at a time, forever approaching it, endlessly pursuing an unknown infinity, this would not be the case. 

But she is not. She is a coward, too afraid of the dangers of asymptotes and infinities, which build and build until they collapse, tearing apart the universe as ruinous black holes. As final, unchangeable end states. She cannot handle an ending such as that.

And so, as before, as always, she will simply take what she can get. Her stable, unchanging orbit.

“Yaoyorozu! Izuku!” Iida cries, finishing his last loop. “I believe we are done for today. Would you like to come get dinner with Mei and I?”

They communicate their assent, and with a smooth jet from his back thrusters (designated: Uravity), Midoriya pivots up into standing, as if it is something he has done all his life. He turns to her and holds out his hand, then sees the wire fence formerly behind him is now melting from where the thrusters burned. He winces, then looks back at her again, as if absolution lies with her.

It is not hers to give, but she does so anyway, and takes his hand.

***

Chapter Text

There are voices everywhere.

Even when no words are being spoken, there are voices. Dogs that bark their greetings and warnings through glass windows, cats who roam the neighborhoods mewling requests for food and company. Birds that sing their birdsong for attention, to warn their rivals, or, occasionally, because it is fun to make such beautiful noises. Rats and rodents who scurry in walls, in hollows, squeaking as they play and bond with each other where no humans can see them. Snakes and lizards, whispering and humming in crevices and burrows, patiently waiting.

When he was younger, he used to lay outside, in parks, on sidewalks, on streets, listening to the din of animal noises - whether they were ones everyone could hear or ones only he could. Taking it all in, like one might take in the rustling of leaves in the wind as you sat under a tree, or the woosh and trickling of a stream while lounging at its banks. It got him nearly run over multiple times - by pedestrians, by bikers, once, by a car - but as much as his mother and father scolded him for it, he could never quite break the habit himself.

It took something else to do that.

He still remembers the day it happened. He was in grade 4, during some outing with his class at a park. While his classmates played and roughhoused with each other, he was nestled against the trunk of a tree and the bushes at its base - left alone, since they had long since figured out he wasn’t one for more boisterous activity. And while their cackles and shouts and laughter filled the air, his attention was focused on the subtler sounds of the world around him, on the birds chirping their songs, on the critters in the trees chittering back and forth, listening on as the grass tickled at his leg, as the shrubbery prickled at his arms, as the bark scraped at his back.

It was in that calm, quiet moment, that something new started trickling through his senses.

Like the creaks and rattling of an old house, something in the background started to make itself known. A previously unnoticed susurrus that he almost thought he was imagining. His first instinct at hearing it was to rub a knuckle at his earhole, as if there was a trapped bit of water dripping ocean sounds into the cavity. But the noise remained, unaffected, because it was never audible in the first place. It thrummed against his other sense, the one that twinges at the structure of his horns and rings into his brain in a way that others might call psychic but that he calls his Animal-Sense.

He looked around for this new animal that he hadn’t heard before, having trouble finding the direction it was voicing from.

And then he spotted it. There. Perched on a jutting branch of the shrub against his side.

A spider. One long leg reaching out to begin crawling on him.

The scream he let out was loud, enough to get the attention of his peers and teacher. But not so loud that it could ever drown out the noise of the spider - and everything else like it.

Sitting and listening stopped being so peaceful after that, because this new sound was unrelenting.  Coming from any and every direction. The otherwise pleasant and beautiful rhythm to birdsong was overtaken by the buzzing and humming of every bug inside the trees they sung on, crawling under the leaves, in the ridges of the bark, inside the cork of the tree. The grass he loved to lay on now screamed with every step he took, as bugs of all sizes scrambled away to avoid being crushed. The ground itself began to rumble, with the voices of a million million creepy crawlies taking up every inch of dirt and soil, unseen by everyone but now sensed by him. Only him.

And that was just the places where someone expects bugs to be. The outside. But this new noise was inescapable, no matter how much he wanted to get away.

They’re in buildings, too. The walls, the vents, the ceilings. Thousands of them, outnumbering every animal he’d ever heard outside, skittering just behind the surface. A quiet room will never be quiet, because he can hear them, chittering away as they live and eat and fight and die. They’re in hallways that look clean, in bathrooms that shine from polish, in the barest, emptiest surfaces around. There is no human structure that can hold them all back, no amount of civilization that can escape their influence.

Even humans themselves aren’t free of them.

Because they’re in people’s clothes, too. The tiniest insects, too small to be seen by anything other than a microscope. They hide inside the fabric, clinging to the threads and fibers. Some live in people’s hair, exalting in the feast of dead skin they have before them. Some are even on faces, grasping onto eyelashes and cheeks and brows, feasting just the same, completely unnoticed by the bodies they inhabit and consume.

But Kouji can sense every single one, the same way he does other animals. That buzz at the back of his head, through his horns, that lets him know how the animals he can speak to and command feel, their simple wants and desires. They are all animals just the same, and he can’t turn them off individually any more than a person can turn their ears off to a single person. It just… doesn’t work.

And so, he just has to hear them. A million tiny, random screeches, always going, never stopping, scraping like static against his brain. He hadn’t been the biggest fan of bugs before Animal-Sense started picking them up, but the now omnipresent hum pushed them into a full on phobia. And it turned him from an already quiet boy to an even quieter one - it’s hard to speak up, when the already loud world becomes that much louder.

He’s got a better handle on it, these days. The fear. But he still doesn’t like them, bugs, and the way they haunt him and him alone. He wishes he could rise above it, be like his veterinarian mother, who truly has a love for all living beings, big and small; but while his mother can hear the voices of many animals like Kouji, she can’t hear the bugs. It’s much easier to love them, Kouji thinks, when they aren’t all living at you. 

The whole experience ended up completely changing the way he related to his quirk, and to the animals around him.

Maybe that’s why he ended up where he did.

-

There are voices everywhere.

A thousand people fill the streets, packed like sardines onto the asphalt and sidewalks. Agitated bodies push and shove each other, not out of malice but from lack of space, protruding shoulders and clumsy steps and fretting hands bumping into others around them. There are whispers, raised voices, shouts, yelling, all adding up to a chaotic cacophony that’s on the verge of panic but stops just short; a lit fuse of unknown length, on its way to detonation. The mass of people shifts and undulates, like ripples on a pond, like a neighborhood-sized muscle stretching and flexing, full of individuals but in some sense acting as a collective, pulsing to unknown whims. So much noise, so much sensation - it’s almost overwhelming for Kouji.

And though it may have once overloaded him, he is different, now.

The evacuation is just about complete. There’s a fog creeping around the nearby buildings, one that’s noxiously, obnoxiously purple. It drifts through the cracks of windows, the slits of doorways, through vents and exhausts. It hangs in the air like ink in still water, slightly curling from the breeze but never properly dispersing. A few sections of the tightly packed crowds have been pushed back, to make room for emergency services dealing with people who have been directly affected by the gas; vomiting, dehydration, delusions. Everyone else stands and waits while a group of heroes investigates, finding the cause, hoping it’s all accidental, figuring out how to clear it all up.

And it is Kouji’s job to make sure the aggravated masses stay just shy of a mob.

In a flurry of yellow-green feathers, the coterie of finches takes off. They swoop and swirl through the cold autumn air, scanning the mass of people below with dozens of sharp, perceptive eyes. Each of them has been given a target to find, a brief description or a quickly flashed photo, their clever little minds more than capable enough to hold onto an image and search for it; children who have been shoved away from parents, elderly who need their medication, anyone who depends on another and may have been separated.

And while they make their rounds in the sky, raccoons and squirrels and even a monkey or two from the nearby parks patrol the edges, looking just the same but more predominantly distracting and calming the crowds. It’s hard for a person to be upset, after all, when a monkey is juggling fruit in front of them.

There are other heroes assisting with the calming efforts, but Kouji’s helpers have the greatest impact. That’s how it is, with people and animals. The average person has a limited slice of the animal kingdom familiar to them – cats and dogs, flies and roaches, maybe lizards and spiders – but everything else is something special. From another world, almost, even though the ones Kouji is asking for help are just as much a part of the city as the others; just hidden, normally, in the bushes and parks and trees. But in this moment, through Kouji, these two groups can be connected, even just temporarily.

One of the finches comes back and lands on his shoulder. She tweets out what she found, one of the kids whose parents are looking for them - in trouble, along with one of their friends.

The bird sets out again and he dashes after her. However shy he is, he’s a big guy, and he takes advantage of that here as he politely but firmly maneuvers his way through the crowd, giving a nod and a smile to the people he passes to assure them. The finch flies ahead, faster than he can travel, before fluttering back and tweeting impatiently. Birds tend to be an impatient sort, he finds.

He’s eventually led to the opening of an alleyway, the crowd of people ending suddenly in a semi-circle around it; as if an invisible wall was stopping them from going in further. The people at the edges are looking towards the alleyway with concern, a few of them making movements to go into it then suddenly stopping at some provocation. Once Kouji reaches the boundary, he sees what everyone is worried about - and the source of the invisible barrier.

There’s a small child in the fetal position on the floor, back against the wall. He’s clearly sick, with a puddle of upchuck nearby; inhaled a bit of the gas, likely, before somehow getting pushed over here. He’ll need to be taken to the medical tents, where others are being treated, and given the worry of the crowd likely already would have… were it not for his little guardian.

A small Shiba Inu, standing protectively in front of the boy, growling ferociously at the onlookers.

The dog’s motivations are clear, even to anyone who can’t hear his thoughts. Stay away from him! She all but says, in language nothing like Japanese but understandable all the same. I won’t let you hurt him! Kouji doesn’t think any of the people here will, or have; but all the little dog knows is the noise and anxiety of a hundred surrounding strangers.

Kouji steps forward, and the dog hops from her front two paws towards him, pointing her ferocity his way.

“It’s okay,” Kouji says, “we’re trying to help him.”

She doesn’t stop growling, but the quiver of her jowls lessens, and her attention shifts in that same way most animals do when they understand him in ways they don’t understand other humans. Kouji’s quirk isn’t really like a translator, converting from ‘animal’ to Japanese or vice-versa – most animals do not have a ‘language’ to translate, and language has context that is all but impossible to translate to any given animal – but it does facilitate an exchange of sorts. Impressions, emotions, feelings, desires, traded on some level beyond language, filtered through either side’s mind into a form their respective brains might understand. She won’t really understand the words he’s saying, but she’ll know that he’s here to do exactly what she’s doing: taking care of her family.

“He’s sick,” Kouji continues, and she understands that the boy needs a kind of protecting she can’t provide. “I can take him to someone who will make him better,” he says, and she understands that there are others who will bark over him in their own way; a different sort of guardian.

The dog drops her growl, but keeps a wary eye on him.

Kouji carefully gathers up the boy into his arms, sweaty, pale forehead leaning against his chest. The crowd even more readily parts as he pushes through them, the dog nipping at his heels the entire way, and together they make their way to one of the medical tents nearby.

The dehydration is the most dangerous aspect thus far, and the kid is quickly set in a cot and given an IV drip to stave it off. The Shiba Inu holds herself up at his side, front paws clattering at the edge of the bed, whining sadly. Wanting more than anything to be able to do something more.

The boy’s parents find their way to where he’s been set, and the dog’s somber mood uplifts just a bit at seeing familiar faces. As they fret over their son, as they thank their son’s little protector, Kouji can tell this is a dog who is very loved, and loves just as much in return.

“Thank you for helping him,” the mother says with a relieved sigh, after Kouji explains what happened. “And I’m sorry little Missile gave you some trouble.”

Kouji shakes his head, and crouches down to scratch at Missile’s jaw - and even as worried as she is, she accepts them with a happy pant, her curled, fluffy tail wagging hard. “She was just trying to help how she could.”

The mother smiles. “Well, either way, we’re lucky a hero like you who loves animals so much was around to calm her down!”

He smiles back, not quite certain that he agrees with her assessment.

Does he love animals? He’s not sure he does. He loves his animals, the same way this family loves Missile: Yuwai-chan, his rabbit; the birds and critters in the trees by the dorms who he often trains with; the dogs and cats he runs into often as their hosts walk them around nearby neighborhoods. But he can’t say he loves all animals, in the way people might understand a statement like that. 

What does it mean, to love animals? To care for and invest in every individual life they share this world with? It’s a noble value, and one he admires, but one he can’t live up to. Because even now, he can hear the hum. A hundred thousand bugs, slightly retreated from the mass of people but around just the same, in every nook and cranny. As always, he hears them, as they live and eat and breathe, and then he’ll hear them as they die, every minute of every hour of every day. Should he be sad for every bug that passes? Could he?

Animals die. He’s more aware of it than most people. And even if they prevented every single one caused by humans, they’d die less but still die, eating each other, starving, getting sick. He’s not sure he has it in him to love and mourn them all.

What he does is respect them. All of them. He respects them, like one might respect the Western Fae, or Japanese Yokai. They are amazing, incredible beings all their own, operating on their own rules and logic, who can only be met with on those terms. And whether they are shy or curious, safe or dangerous, friendly or hostile, they are each whimsical and mercurial and strange. And while most people have to navigate these rules and logic blindly, Kouji gets an inside scoop to the way they think and feel – and, when the occasion calls for it, the ability to ask them for assistance. 

A daunting responsibility, but one he accepts, willingly and passionately.

-

Midoriya and Yaoyorozu find Kouji sitting outside, underneath the nearly barren trees, the last few leaves still clinging to the branches. Not so much to listen to nature as he used to – though, the bugs are quieter around this time of year – but to give Yuwai-chan a bit of time to venture and roam before the colder winter months hit. It’s pretty chilly even now, him and his friends in sweaters and coats, breath puffing out in visible clouds, but not so cold that it’ll cut through his rabbit’s thick fur. 

Midoriya kicks away a mass of dry brush and dead foliage with a few shuffles of his foot, clearing a spot for them to join. He plants himself cross-legged next to Kouji, and Yaoyorozu side-sits next to him, and after a quick greeting their attention quickly goes to Yuwai-chan. She’s used to it by now so doesn’t shy away from it, allowing them to pet and play with her, and when Kouji asks for the company of a few more nearby critters his two friends become outright joyous. That’s how it is, with people and animals.

But this is Midoriya and Yoayorozu, together. It was only a matter of time before the conversation turned to one specific topic.

“Hey, Kouda?” Midoriya starts. “Can I ask you what might be a… tough question?”

“...How tough?” Kouji says shyly, honestly.

Midoriya smiles and shakes his head. “W-well, not too tough I don’t think. But I didn’t wanna just jump right into it, you know?” Kouji nods, then waits for Midoriya to continue. “I imagine it’s something you’ve talked about with Aizawa-sensei, but it’s never been clear to me…” 

He gently sticks out a finger to Kouji’s rabbit, who allows him to press it against her forehead, and he rubs it it in small circles. 

“...Can animals say no to your commands?”

Kouji swallows.

“That… is a tough question,” he says with a mirthless smile. With gentle hands, he scoops up his rabbit, holding her close for comfort. “And the answer is… I’m not sure.”

“...You’re not sure?” 

Kouji nods. “Whether I ask, or tell, they do it. I’ve never heard them refuse.”

Yaoyorozu frowns. “Doesn’t that mean they can’t, then?”

“Maybe…” Kouji admits. “But animals aren’t like people. They don’t have as many reasons to say no.” 

“Oh? That’s a curious thing to say,” she says. “Can you elaborate?”

He takes some time to formulate his words.

“If you asked someone, even a stranger, for a small favor, a lot of people would do it, I think. The people who wouldn’t… what reasons would they have? They’re busy, they’re annoyed, they’re distrustful…” A yellow bunting, speckled with black and gray, swoops around the trees and lands on Kouji’s shoulder, chirping very loudly about how hungry he is. “Those aren’t common concerns for most animals.”

“...I dunno, I feel plenty of animals are distrustful of humans,” Midoriya says. He reaches out a slow hand to the bunting, who immediately flutters off, screaming about how he’s being attacked.

“Being afraid and being distrustful are different, I think,” Kouji counters. “Distrusting someone means thinking they’re lying, or hiding something about themselves. That’s not how animals think. They either believe you are dangerous, and fear you, or that you’re not, and don’t. And when they see they can speak with me, they tend to lose whatever fear they have of me.”

“And, once they lose this fear for you, they are willing to do what you say?” Yaoyorozu gathers.

“...Maybe,” he admits. “I know that sounds a bit far-fetched, but…” He runs a large hand down his rabbit’s fuzzy back, and she snuggles deeper into him, squeaking out happy sounds. “While they never say no, if they think they’re in danger while doing something for me, they have no problems leaving. Though, I try not to put them in danger in the first place.”

“Hmm,” Yaoyorozu hums as she considers it. “Perhaps rather than taking explicit control, you psychically instill a compulsion. Giving animals a higher-order want beyond their normal behavior, that will still fall away under baser survival instincts.”

“I wonder how you’d even begin testing to confirm something like that…” Midoriya ponders.

“I imagine however it’s done, it’d be rather dangerous for the animals in question,” she says. Despite the subject matter, Yaoyorozu has managed to gather a flock of animals around her like a fairytale princess, birds perched on various parts of her and a few fuzzy critters sniffing at her thighs and fingers. Midoriya stares at her, half enrapt at the sight and half jealous he doesn’t have the same attention. “And it’s one thing to ask humans to put themselves in danger for the service of others, but animals? That’s a completely different moral question.”

Kouji nods, and thinks back to one of the earliest lessons his mother instilled in him.

Humans, all humans, have a power over animals. An awareness and understanding that they lack; or perhaps, one that operates on a scale far past what they are capable of. Humans have an ability to be cruel, and to be kind, far in excess of any given animal – and this power must be wielded responsibly. To never be cruel, and to never assume cruelness in animals, and to always be kind, and to never expect kindness from animals.

And Kouji has even more power over them; and thus, more responsibility. He can only hope he lives up to it.

“...I don’t want to test that,” he agrees. “I already ask so much of them.”

“That’s completely understandable,” Yaoyorozu says, holding a small sparrow in front of her on her index finger while another makes a nest in her hair. “Though, I suppose if you ever wanted to explore pushing those limits in a safe and responsible way, you could talk to Shinsou about his quirk. His and yours are quite similar, with similar moral quandaries.”

An image flickers in Kouji’s mind; a mass of purple hair like coiled tentacles waiting to strike, cold, indifferent eyes seeking out weakness and vulnerability, an eternal, unhappy frown, as if nothing, not even the cutest animal in the world, could raise it up.

“Shinsou is… kind of scary though…”

Yaoyorozu tsks. “Oh, he’s not really as-”

“He is, isn’t he?” Midoriya says, with a grim and far off look. “Really scary.” He shudders, before clearing his throat. “B-but you know, there might be a more delicate, natural way to figure out those boundaries.” He points to Yuwai-chan. “Have you ever considered a more permanent helper?”

Kouji’s eyes go wide, and he clutches his rabbit closer. “I-I can’t ask that of Yuwai-chan!!”

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean her specifically!” Midoriya says, waving his hands side to side. “I just used her as an example. But there’s no reason you can’t have a specific animal sidekick! Using your quirk with the same animal over a long period of time in various degrees could help you clear up any fuzziness about it.”

“...I’ve thought about it,” Kouji says. “But I kept running into a big problem.”

“Oh?”

“...I wouldn’t know which animal to pick. There’re so many to choose from!”

Midoriya laughs. “A big problem, for sure! If I were you though, I’d go with something quick and clever, so it can naturally understand you better, and be able to avoid any actual dangers.”

“It could only be a bird, I imagine,” Yaoyorozu offers. “If things truly got dire one could simply fly away out of any danger. Crows in particular are very intelligent, very playful.”

“Crows, hm…” 

He can imagine it easily. A midnight-black partner -- or, partners, as a crow needs other crows –  perched on his shoulders, or the ridges of his head, him and them working together fluidly, seamlessly, to help everyone they can. Partners intelligent enough to understand complicated requests, but independent and free enough to protect themselves above anything he might ask of them. Maybe he can run the idea by a few crows he knows, see how they feel about it. 

Midoriya’s face turns serious. “I wonder if you can register a group of crows as official sidekicks? Might have to just settle for labeling them support equipment, at least then you could write off all their care requirements as necessary maintenance…”

“However it works, if you decide to go through with it, I hope you keep us updated on any new insights you might have!” Yaoyorozu delicately gathers up the bird nestled in her ponytail and gives it a small toss, letting it fly away safely. “Or, that any of your friends might have.”

“Of course!”

She smiles. “Actually, on a separate note, I have my own question I’d like to ask, if that’s alright? Not a tough one, but perhaps one with major implications?”

He nods.

“I’ve always wanted to know,” she says. “What counts as an animal for your quirk?”

Kouji blinks.

“Um,” he says. “Isn’t it obvious what animals are?”

Her eyes widen just a bit, and glow with a sudden intensity.

“Oh, no no no! Not obvious at all, especially at the fringes!” Her previously relaxed posture straightens out. “How we choose to define what ‘animals’ are in the first place is arbitrary, and has changed over time! The modern definition describes animals as multicellular organisms with membrane-bound, specialized cells, who require an outside food source to survive. And though this definition is useful, it is hardly intuitive! It includes a lot of organisms that are very unlike other ‘animals,’ in structure, behavior, physiology.

“And personally, I would find it very odd if you could command organisms in line with this definition,” Yaoyorozu says. “What would be the mechanism that would allow your quirk to work according to this specific arrangement of cellular biology, rather than for some other reason? Given the psychic and mental nature of it, I imagine a more understandable requirement would be ‘anything with a brain,’ which not all animals have.”

“Or more broadly, anything with a nervous system!” Midoriya offers, while a solitary duck that made its way over from a far off pond tries to nip at his fingers; the only animal attention he’s gotten so far. “Not all animals have brains, but almost all have a system of nerves and neurons, which acts as something like a brain. Jellyfish, starfish, sea urchins and cucumbers…” The duck flaps its way onto Midoriya’s head, making her own nest, to his chagrin. He gives her a soft poke at her underbelly, and gives a resigned sigh, before continuing. “And then there’s something like Portuguese Man o’ Wars, which are collections of organisms that are simple individually, but work together to act as a much more complicated superorganism. Would you interface with the individuals, or the collective? And if it’s the latter, then you might not even be limited to animals!”

That has Kouji confused. “In either case, I’m still talking to the… neurons, right? Don’t only animals have those?”

“Yeah, but some organisms have things like them! Fungi and trees can transfer nutrients and communicate in certain ways through connected, underground root networks that collectively look an awful lot like neural networks.”

“Indeed!” Yaoyorozu agrees. “In either case it is simply cascades of chemicals transmitting information from one spot to another. If the two are similar enough, perhaps one day you could have limited communication with actual forests!”

The thought is… overwhelming. He’s never actually given much consideration over the boundaries of what he can talk to are; he’s always been more satisfied with focusing on what’s around him, and fostering those connections, the animals he sees every day. But what are the bounds of his quirk? Could it really be up to something as grand as the Earth itself, even just a piece of it? He finds it hard to believe.

“W-well… I’ve never heard the forest so far,” he says. “Just, the animals in it.”

“Perhaps it’s merely something you have to train for?” Yaoyorozu says. “Something you might unlock? You didn’t always hear insects, correct?”

“True…”

“Maybe we can see if you can talk to those other fringe cases first!” Midoriya adds. “I bet if we go to an aquarium we could try with all kinds of weird animals!”

His initial impulse is reluctance. The last time the world of animals expanded for him, it made everything loud, and it hasn’t quieted down since. He hadn’t chosen to open that door, but this one he gets to decide. The easiest option might be just to leave it closed, never see what’s on the other side.

But he will always remember that first exam of his with Jirou, who bled from her ears fighting against Present Mic while Kouji ran away, terrified, from bugs he already knew he could talk to. The day she inspired him to not get over the fear, but move forward despite it. Like a good hero should.

He nods. “Okay. Let’s do it!”

-

The singular Mustafa Aquarium is large enough to rival the ones in Tokyo.

Kouji hasn’t actually been to an aquarium before. His mother doesn’t like them, or zoos; swore them all off after a bad experience in her childhood, with some mistreated animals. But though he can’t speak for all such places, he knows most modern facilities have extensive animal welfare practices. Yaoyorozu and Midoriya assure him this one is no different; though, he supposes if any of the creatures inside tell him otherwise, he knows a particular animal principal who would fight very hard to make it true.

It’s a noisy place, just like everywhere else. Visitors chatting and laughing, workers giving tours, all the colorful fish they put at the front to draw interest bubbling out their simple wants and thoughts. Kouji bids the fish he sees a greeting, and they flock to the pane of the glass, curious as to how a fish like him can handle so much dryness. None of the other odd fishes out there ever tell them, they say.

Kouji makes a brief, futile effort to explain, but fish don’t really have the ability to understand most of the concepts he’d need to go over, and he’s on a mission, besides. He could likely make a whole day of leisurely walking the place, communicating with every animal, but both he and his companions are burning with curiosity over the limits of his quirk. 

So they head straight to the deep sea exhibit, where all the strangest creatures reside.

They enter a very dark room, with the barest hint of light coming from bulbs on the ground to mark walkable pathways, and the subtle, artificial glow coming from other bulbs inside the various tanks. The most predominant of which, is a humongous one that takes up the entire left side of the room, and likely, much more space beyond the visible edges. The thickest glass he’s ever seen stands between them and ocean pressures, allowing the opportunity for visitors to experience a world they’d otherwise never get to see. Scattered across the rest of the room are smaller exhibits, more contained ecosystems or simple instructional displays.

It’s quiet in here. Quieter than he’s ever heard it. The normal omnipresent hum of insects is almost imperceptible, perhaps due to the nature of how this extreme environment is maintained, but even the animals inside seem… otherwise placid. There are fish in there, just like everywhere else in the aquarium, scary, exotic looking things that he can only see thanks to the added lights, but their thoughts are less active. They are old, old things, who spend much of their lives drifting calmly, seeing very little, waiting for food to float to them rather than seek it out.

He gets a bit more from the creatures that shift and bob around. The small, scuttling crustaceans who are always seeking safe spots, the squids and octopi, with their much more complicated thought patterns, thick with neurons that think in ways Kouji has trouble parsing. But there is so much more behind that glass, and something in Kouji tells him it should be louder in there.

He sees lots of jellyfish. Squishy looking things of all shapes and colors, drifting about in meandering ways. At the base of the exhibit, on a recreation of an ocean floor, other creatures lay in wait, fixed in place, for something to drift by: coral, sea urchins, anemones, starfish. 

These, he doesn’t hear, or sense. The stuff without brains. He stands still as close to the glass as he can, held back by a few rails to keep people from touching the tank directly, ‘listening’ as best as he can, but nothing comes through. Perhaps it really is a hard limit to his quirk.

“Anything?” Yaoyorozu asks. He shakes his head.

But Midoriya beckons them a bit further down the room, to a slightly separate gathering of creatures.

“Try these guys!” he says. “This one came up close, it’s a siphonophore like the Portuguese Man o’ War!” He reads off a nearby plaque. “Lightbulb Siphonophore, Rosacea spp. Must have been pretty hard to get this here!”

What Kouji sees really strains his concept of an animal. It looks more like a collection of beaded strings, all attached and hanging down from some invisible cord that winds in a few loose spirals. One thicker ‘string,’ with heavier ‘beads,’ droops down in the middle of the rest, curling up a bit; it has the faintest glimmer to it, bioluminescent, and the end of it has a jelly-like mass that the glimmer bounces off of. The whole creature – or, creatures, as they are a collective – looks a bit like if you took apart a tentacled jellyfish and put it back together weird. 

“Siphonophores, rather than having specialized cells like other animals, have specialized morphs!” Yaoyorozu says. “All the creatures in the superorganism start with the same genetic code, but mutate into different ‘versions’ with different functions! Some to move the colony around, some to digest, some to reproduce. A single individual can’t sustain its own life because of that; they can only exist together!”

A fragile existence, it sounds like, but a beautiful one. 

He doesn’t hear anything from it, just like some of the other creatures in the tank. But seeing it, he gets this feeling. Not in his Animal-Sense, but something more instinctual. Like that feeling you get when you know someone is on the other side of a door, even before it’s been opened.

He stares up at this strange, fantastical creature that floats ethereally in the water.

“Can… you hear me?” he beseeches it, sending it out as a voice, as a thought.

He gets nothing. But, somehow, he knows there is something looming behind the door.

The ridges of his head crack and throb as he gathers up a much more powerful thought.

“Can you hear me?” he thinks, loud but gentle, heavy but kind.

Everything seems to still, for a moment.

And then, something alien responds.

It struggles to fit into his brain. An existence so different from his that his quirk can’t shape the thought into something he can parse. But he holds onto it, letting it thrum against his mind, bouncing back and forth as Anivoice pokes and prods at it, mapping it out as best it can. His head aches from the effort. His upper horns burgeon from his skull, vibrating like tuning forks as they decode and decrypt. Midoriya puts a hand on his shoulder, and Kouji has to wave him off.

But eventually, it becomes something he can understand.

A thousand creatures voice back; but not at all like a crowd of people chanting the same words. It’s as if each small voice whispers a letter, a fraction of a letter, all at once. A single burst of compacted meaning, that even if he could dissect into single, individual components, wouldn’t mean anything on their own. It’s only by shifting them all into the right order that he can even begin to make it make sense, and after his mind does this and settles, the one thought this alien chose to broadcast finally makes itself known.

“Hungry.”

Kouji laughs.

It would be ominous, if he hadn’t heard the same kind of thought from every other creature he’s talked to. It might be the one shared experience that all animals have: being hungry. Beyond brains, beyond nerves, beyond the shapes and forms of bodies, there is hunger.

And now that his quirk and brain has made that first step, the world becomes louder once again – but this time, he’s ready for it. The brainless, hovering jellyfish pulsing out their simple pseudo-thoughts like words smeared over paper, muted but parseable, the urchins and starfish humming their quiet existence amidst the seafloor rocks, the synchronized bubbling of the polyps of the coral, a collective but disconnected unlike the Siphonophore. A wave of tiny whispers, far more numerous and chaotic than the Siphonophore and coral, slams into his Animal-Sense, and initially he can’t tell where it’s coming from – but then, he remembers the bugs. 

The ocean has its own ever-present creatures. Tiny, microscopic things that exist in every inch of water, krill and worms and the itty bitty juvenile forms of lots of other animals, echoing out in a thousand thousand different but oh-so-similar voices. Hungry. They don’t say much more than that; or maybe, he just can’t hear it yet. 

He turns his attention back to the Siphonophore.

“Nice to meet you,” Kouji says, and he knows instantly the creature doesn’t really understand it. But there is something like curiosity coming from it, a realization that something is strange. After all, it seems to have budded this whole new morph of itself, somehow completely separate from it yet connected to just the same, whose function it doesn’t know. What does this other morph want the rest of them to do?

And he can tell Yaoyorozu and Midoriya are buzzing with excited energy, waiting for him to tell them if he was successful, and he decides he can answer everything with one simple request.

“I’d really like to see your lights, if that’s okay!”

The strange workings of his quirk make their conversions, and he beams it out to everything.

And the entire tank lights up.

Like its namesake, the Lightbulb Siphonophore flickers on, much brighter than it was before, the thickest beaded string a white-hot blue and every other string a glimmering golden. The dim glow of the colored jellyfish buzz with a new fervor, reds and purples and yellows and blues, dancing their lights around the tank. A beautiful, luminescent glow sparks out from every creature that can do it in one simultaneous outburst of light. Like they are all one collective, with Kouji at the center.

He hears Midoriya gasp, and turns to see him staring up in wonder.

The other boy is nearly leaning over the railing, the only thing keeping him back as he desperately tries to plant his face against the glass. The gentle, arcane glow of bioluminescence reflects off his endlessly curious eyes, scattering rainbows against the green. Yaoyorozu stands next to him on the other side, just as enamored, but her attention flits back and forth between the animals in the tank and the boy bumping legs against hers. As if Midoriya is just as fascinating to her as all the mysterious, alien creatures of the deep. 

Kouji smiles.

A similar wave of wonder repeats itself among every other person at the exhibit, who can’t help but notice the change and crowd up against the barrier. Children who point up with glee at every shining, drifting form, a whole new excitement blazing up in their eyes; zoologists in the making, perhaps. Young adults who trade looks between each other, then the animals, delighting in the atmosphere. Entire families, taking pictures, making memories, forever cementing this moment in their minds.

And Kouji takes it all in, exalting at each little peek he gets into the lives of the strangest, most wonderful animals of all.

He’s got a whole new world open to him now, but even so; Kouji can’t say he loves animals. He finds them endlessly interesting and extraordinary, respects them like spirits and fairies and demons. But he can’t say he loves them; not all of them, not unconditionally.

But he does love humans. In all their complicated, troublesome splendor. Whatever problems they cause, whatever harm they do, he can’t help but love them. It’s why he became a hero, rather than anything else. Why he devoted his life to protecting people instead of animals – even as he finds the latter much easier to communicate with. A lot of people who love animals can’t understand his attitude; they’re often the harshest critics of humans, after all.

But maybe it’s something he shares with the creatures he talks to. He’s never met an animal that has it in them to hate humans, as a whole. They just don’t have that kind of capability. Maybe Kouji doesn’t, either.

And in this moment, as he stands as a bridge between the two, allowing mutually unknowable existences to reach out to each other, voices everywhere on either side of him, he finds it exactly the place he wants to be.

-

Afterwards, the three of them have a very long discussion with the nearly panicking zoologists managing the exhibit, who were very worried over the sudden odd behavior of the animals. They take the safety of the animals here very seriously, after all.

***

8 Years Later

Mobile Drones - Anima

It’s quiet out here, in the forest by the city.

The normal hustle and bustle of people is absent. The chatting voices of pedestrians, the revving of car motors and squeaking of wheels, the whirs and hums of machines of all sorts attached to streets and buildings. Instead, there is the light rustling of leaves as a breeze blows through the trees, the woosh and trickling of a nearby stream, the pleasant, beautiful rhythm of birdsong and the occasional squeak or trill from some other animal. There is a flap of feathers, the creaking of a branch shifting. The brush on the ground crinkles as something runs by. It is serene.

Though, maybe not for Anima.

He grimaces as he leans against a nearby tree. Izuku imagines there are any number of things just beyond visible sight that Anima can hear and feel, making themselves known to him and only him. Like always being surrounded by a crowd, no matter how empty it looks around him. Though, in this case, Izuku knows it’s not the reason for his current consternation.

Anima taps his foot impatiently, as he waits for the tree to finish answering.

They’re trying to map out the various territories of a number of animals in these woods; foxes, raccoons, other scavengers. They don’t tend to congregate in large groups, but there are places where more of them are likely to be found than not. Anima has his team searching from the skies too, but there are things only the stuff on the ground knows.

And so, he’s asking the plants, and waiting for the Mycorrhizal network of roots and fungi below the ground to formulate an answer.

It takes a very long time. They don’t think like humans or animals do, if what they do can even be called ‘thinking,’ and are patient in ways few animals can be, if what they have can even be called ‘patience.’ The messages that trickle through the roots and mycelium are slow things – ‘Like saying one word over the span of an hour,’ Anima complains – and there is no force on Earth that can make them go any faster.

…Unless a hero like Kamui Woods or Vine can plug themselves into it somehow? Is that possible? He takes out a notebook and starts up a few new notes. Plant-based quirks are less common than animal ones and don’t typically give the users the same kind of insights into the corresponding organisms, perhaps due to the larger difference in biology, but plant quirks with controllable appendages like theirs might have a form of nerve or synapse that can join with a much larger plant network-

“Perhaps we can ask one of them to test it?”

Creati stands tall next to him, and she leans over the slightest bit to look over the notes he’s making. It’s nowhere near enough to make her lose balance, but he feels her hand come to rest at his shoulder to brace herself anyways, fingers lightly gripping at his suit. She rests her chin atop her knuckles, staring down; her cheek is close to his, enough that he can smell the sunscreen on her face amidst the heavy scent of leaves and bark in the air. A long time ago he’d have been much too embarrassed to let her spy on his notes like this, but at this point she’s as familiar with them as he is.

“Maybe!” he agrees, shifting the notebook just a bit more up and towards her so she can read it better.

After a few minutes of trading thoughts, Anima finally lets out a relieved sigh.

“Thank you…,” he says, not a little bit frustrated but grateful all the same. He pats at the trunk of the tree, before turning to them. “There’s a particular pond where a significant portion of the animals in this region pass by at one time or another. Might be the best spot.”

They head that way but don’t get up close; they don’t want to scare anything away. Instead, Izuku boots up Anima – his four small drones – and they fire out of the sockets on his sides. They buzz up into the sky and towards the pond, and he clicks on the screens on his arm, showing the view from their cameras. 

They find it easily, and in the moistened silt at the banks they see tons of tracks and footprints of all sorts.

“Looks good. Let’s start!” Izuku says.

Izuku calls back his drones, and Anima his crows. Four black birds descend on them, two perching on Anima’s shoulders, one on Creati’s, one on Izuku’s head. Anima explains to them as best he can the task they’re here to help with; though, when he asks them to start, the one with the most… personality, Tabitha, caws loudly instead.

“...Can you have some too?” Anima translates offhandedly. “W-well, no, it’s not really for you…”

Tabitha caws again.

“What… yes you will!” Anima says. “I’m telling you to!”

A black peak jabs into one of his head ridges. Anima clicks his teeth.

“Will you just do it, please?” he says, rubbing at the sore spot.

Tabitha caws again, in a way that sounds an awful lot like laughter.

They’ve got a better understanding of his quirk these days. Animals can refuse, it seems, but it’s tough; doing what Anima asks of them satisfies their brains much in the way getting a treat does. Not a lot of animals that can turn down a treat – frankly, there’s a lot of things people will do for you if you promise them cookies for doing it. But tricky little Tabitha and her family – Edgar, Salem, and Sabrina – have long since realized there’s all kinds of other treats to be had, through Anima. At this point, it is only by their good graces that they ever do what he says.

But they, along with Izuku’s drones, gather up their payloads, and take off into the air. Bundles of animal meal, laced with antivirals, swing down from their talons.

There are early signs of a sickness in this area; something that might burgeon into something much, much worse. And as always, it’s much better to be proactive, and stop it before it ever gets there, especially when so many of the critters in these woods venture down into the city proper. A way to protect humans, by protecting animals – there is no one better suited for the task than Anima.

Their air carriers loop back and forth, dropping their bundles in random, scattered areas near the pond before picking up new ones and repeating the process. Normally, something like this is done by dropping much more from planes, but they might have gotten to this fast enough they won’t need a bigger undertaking. Unfortunately, only time will tell.

They have plenty of meal, but only some of it has been laced; it’s a new virus, and a new antiviral, so there isn’t a process for mass producing it yet. Luckily, they have a portable manufacturer right there with them – though of course, Creati is far, far more than that.

She sits down legs under her in the shade of a big tree, and pulls out a flashcard of the antiviral molecule, as she does not in fact have perfect eidetic memory capable of recalling any substance she’s ever seen or heard of – as much as she makes it seem like she does. ‘I’m just as human as anyone else,’ she chastises whenever he tells her that, though he still can’t help but think she’s a step or two beyond.

She stares hard at the card, and her nose wrinkles from the effort. Her jaw slackens, enough that he can see her tongue bounce up and down against the roof of her mouth. It’s one of her mnemonic tricks for memorizing things quickly, turning the molecule into a rhythm that dances on her lips and in her head, in her hands and on her fingers. One comes up and loops in circles, mapping out carbon rings, flicking off attached structures and their directions, while her tongue keeps track of specific elements and amino acids and other subgroups.

It’s always mesmerizing to watch. He’s okay at memorization, but he’s never had to internalize a huge amount of information very quickly like that, never had to learn tricks and techniques for doing it. His eyes switch from the movements of her finger, spinning and flitting about like a conductor’s baton, to the bobbing of her head to her made up rhythm, the mass of her ponytail swaying along with it, to the bouncing of her tongue and lips. He wonders if he can learn more about them. Her strange, whimsical rhythms, and the peeks they give him into the incredible workings of her mind.

With a nod, she is done; satisfied with how it sits in her brain. She grabs an empty vial from the box beside her and places her finger inside. With an ethereal shine, a trickle of liquid starts to drip from the tip. He is reminded of Pinky filling up his Acid Vials, and has to turn away, for some reason.

And when he does, he sees Anima watching him, with a gentle smile.

“...What?” Izuku asks him.

The other man takes a moment.

“It’s scary sometimes, isn’t it?” Anima says. “What might be on the other side of a closed door.”

Izuku blinks.

He looks around the forest.

“…I don’t see any doors?” he says.

Anima lets out a sigh, a bit like the ones he does whenever Tabitha teases him extra hard.

“So scary it can make you not notice there’s a door in the first place, I suppose,” he says. 

Izuku purses his lips.

“...I don’t suppose you can just tell me what you mean by that?” he grouses.

The corners of Anima’s mouth quirk back up, and he shrugs. “Just, don’t make things harder than they need to be, Izuku. It looked like you wanted to ask her something. Why not just ask?”

Izuku glances back at Creati, at the stretching and curling of her lips as she starts her rhythm once again; new information likes to fade, after all, unless reinforced. He wants to know better the shapes they make.

He gives a thankful nod to Anima, then sits right next to Creati.

“Hey, Creati?” he says. He throws off her cadence instantly, but instead of showing any frustration, she gives him a bright, happy smile.

“Yes?”

“Can you teach me about your mnemonic?” He wags his finger in meaningless shapes. “I think it’s really cool!”

Her eyes widen, and a touch of red hits her cheeks.

“Oh! I… suppose I’d be more than happy to,” she says, “but I imagine it has very little use for you…”

“Maybe not,” he admits, “but I don’t mind! I just, like learning things with you.”

The surprise in her face softens, and her eyes twinkle from the dappled sunlight that hits them through the leaves above.

She shifts to be just a bit closer to his side, then tilts the flashcard towards him.

“This is a rather complicated one to start with, but I’ll go over my process for it regardless and perhaps instruct you on the basics another time…”

And as Anima’s team of crows take turns doing their jobs and teasing their leader, as Izuku’s drones auto-pilot back and forth, Anima listens to the big, loud world around him, and Izuku listens to the small, quiet one beside him.

***

Chapter Text

Eijirou thinks a lot about scars.

It’s hard not to. Over the past 3 years the number of new ones his friends have gotten has gotta be in the hundreds. Big ones, small ones, obvious ones, hidden ones, clean ones, gnarly ones - Midoriya alone counts for half of ‘em. And every time Eijirou sees that mottled, discolored skin, he can’t help but admire what it represents. A moment when his friends put their bodies on the line, and lost a piece of it in the process. A sacrifice willingly given, marked forever by new growth that filled in the empty space. And while it might be more reasonable to wish they were never received in the first place, more than that Eijirou wishes he could better share the burden.

But he doesn’t really get scars anymore. Not in the same way.

When stuff gets serious enough for scars, he’s got his quirk going. Thick, craggy skin that covers every bit of him, harder than rock. And when something hits him, he’ll crack, and crumble, but as long as nothing gets all the way through, it’s nothing but clear skin once he’s back to normal. And he’s never seen anything get all the way through yet. Done his best to make sure nothing can.

And because of that, he can be a perfect shield, for anyone he stands in front of. An immovable wall that can go up against everything but the most unstoppable forces. By now, he’s been struck by bullets, hit by buildings, exploded at, set on fire, stabbed at, slashed at, bursted, blasted, and everything in between, and managed to come out of it without a scratch. It can almost make a guy feel invincible. 

But the scars he came into UA with more than keep him humble.

The cut in his eyebrow is small, but it’s there in the mirror every morning, disrupting the symmetry of his face, impossible to ignore. It keeps him grounded. Reminds him that no matter how tough he is, he can still be marred, that he bleeds same as anyone. A pretty obvious lesson, but hey, one not every person in their class seems to get.

And heck, if he wants to get poetic about it, his whole self is a kind of scar. He understands that best when he sees old pictures of himself. He doesn’t have many, but the ones he’s got all captured the same image: a small, shy kid who tried to make himself even smaller, hoping he could shrink so much he’d become invisible. A kid who had no friends and was too scared to make them. Too scared for a lot of things, really. Too scared to fight for something, too scared to try.

But that kid is gone now. Cut out, so that something new could grow in the empty space. And there’s a part of him that misses that old version of himself, like anyone might miss what was once smooth, unblemished skin; but Eijirou finds scars just a bit too cool to ever really regret it. He likes it, this new version of himself, one that he had to stitch together like scar tissue, imperfect and unignorable, until it became the only him there is.

When you get right down to it, that’s what a scar is. Proof that you’ve overcome something, and healed from it. And there’s nothing manlier than that.

-

The thing about his quirk is, it gets stronger, and he gets stronger, by getting hit.

“AP SHOT!” 

Pinpoint blasts of volcanic force slam into his torso like bullets, jerking his body back where they connect – but he holds his ground, each shot quickly fading away into nothing but a small plume of smoke.

“Gonna have to do better than that!” Eijirou taunts, and Bakugou’s already feral grin grows more wild. 

He sees movement in his periphery, and his skin thickens along his arm as he raises it just in time to block Ojiro’s massive, heavy tail, limb cracking into the layers of craggy armor and flaking off bits of it to the ground. Ojiro twists and hits him again, and again, in tornado-like spins, Eijirou shifting to meet each strike with more armored skin, all while Bakugou continues to fire thin explosive streams from the palm of one hand.

Ojiro kicks away just in time for Tokoyami to swoop in with Dark Shadow, massive obsidian claws tearing at him in gargantuan swipes. The points of his fingers are sharper than razors, cutting through the initial layers of Eijirou’s hardening easily, but he’s got plenty more underneath, the plating of his quirk shifting and growing to fill in the new crevices until they’re just as strong as before. Maybe even stronger. 

Dark Shadow clasps his amorphous hands together and pounds down on Eijirou from above, his fury hampered by the bright lights of Bakugou’s explosions but still powerful enough to flatten any other person, but Eijirou crosses his arms over his head and takes the full brunt of it, bracing himself through his legs, cracking the floor beneath him. And yet, he stays standing, his body strengthened that much more.

That’s when Mina makes her move, dancing in with acid strikes, pink transparent goo so thick and viscous around her arms and legs it reminds him of Uraraka’s hero suit. She doesn’t hit as directly hard as any of the others here but each attack leaves residue on him that keeps eating away, forcing him to regrow more shielding in just those spots. And, he already knows from experience, not in a way that makes it better in the future.

But she’s not here to help; she’s here because she likes bothering him, and because he can’t say no to her.

(The same is true for Bakugou, really, but at least his explosions toughen Eijirou up).

They go at him for a few more minutes, but once he feels his quirk start to strain they wind everything down. On another day, they’d go until he’s damn near exhausted, but right now this whole exercise is more for the benefit of their two observers.

One of whom, Midoriya, gets up and jogs over to him, kneeling down and staring hard at one of the acid spots on his bare torso as it faintly sizzles. 

“Hmmm…,” Midoriya hums, framing that section of Eijirou’s skin with his fingers and squinting his eyes at it. The feeling of his hands, his breath, his attention; it’s enough to make a guy blush.

“Really gettin’ in there, eh Midoriya?” Eijirou says.

The other boy catches himself, then jerks back shyly. “A-ah, sorry! I-I was just, trying to confirm some observations I had…”

“No worries man, have at it!”

Midoriya’s still clearly embarrassed, but not enough to not get close again, scanning Eijirou’s body for whatever he’s looking for. Behind him, Mina waggles her eyebrows at the two of them.

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asks, after Midoriya goes back and trades a few comments with Yaoyorozu. “Can Yaomomo copy my Horn Buddy’s quirk? Is Red Riot out of a job?”

Yaoyorozu rolls her eyes. “That’s not what we’re here to discover,” she says. “But also, no. I had guessed as much before, but I cannot replicate the effects of his quirk, at least not in anywhere near the same way. His quirk seems to alter his skin cells directly, and I cannot Create skin cells, even non-living ones.”

“Glad to hear my job security’s still intact!”

“What are we here to discover then?” Ojiro asks.

“Nothing, really,” Yaoyorozu says. “I doubt any ‘discovering’ will happen. Transformation quirks like Kirishima’s are some of the least understood and hardest to study quirks, having all the biological complexity of heteromorph quirks and the metaphysical eccentricities and voluntary expression of emitter quirks. Though, because of this, they may one day hold the key to understanding quirks entirely! By occupying this intersection they’re really an exemplification of how blurred the lines really are, but it also means confirming anything specifically is very tough. More than anything, we’re just trying to see which if any of Midoriya’s hypotheses seem closer to the truth.”

“As in, more than one?” Eijirou says.

“Yes, he’s given your quirk quite a bit of thought,” Yaoyorozu offers.

Eijirou throws an eyebrow up at the other boy, who turns shy once again.

“I’ve… always really liked your quirk, Kirishima!” he says, splotches of red between the freckles on his face. “It’s a quirk meant for protecting others, a perfect shield! If anyone finds Red Riot standing between them and something dangerous, they know they’re gonna be safe!”

“Aw shucks,” he says, with a sharp grin in his mouth and a hand rubbing at his neck. He’s long stopped believing his quirk wasn’t flashy enough for hero work, but it still feels pretty good knowing he’s got his place. “You confirm anything then?”

Midoriya flicks his pencil against his chin. “Nothing new, I suppose. At this point you’d need some pretty intensive biological testing to nail down how it works specifically. But I think I actually have a solid guess!”

“Throw it at me!”

His whole body language shifts as he gets into ‘teaching’ mode, straightening up with a confidence he rarely has in everyday life. “So, when it comes to non-emitter quirks, it’s almost always useful to check to see if some species of animal has similar properties. More quirks than you’d think are related to animals! In this case, I thought about certain mollusks like starfish and sea cucumbers, who can stiffen their skin to protect against predators.”

Mina gasps. “Are you saying Kiri’s a starfish??” She skips over behind him and forces his arms out to the side. He broadens the stance of his legs to match, forming a perfect star with his limbs, getting a few laughs out of her in turn.

“Unlikely,” Yaoyorozu says, and both he and Mina deflate. “We don’t actually understand too well how starfish do it, but if it’s anything at all like sea cucumbers, then the stiffening happens in the dermal tissue, the second layer of skin. But by all accounts, your hardening happens at the epidermal layer above that.”

“You know that for sure?” Ojiro asks.

“If it happened any deeper, he’d be spraying blood everywhere everytime his Hardening cracks,” Bakugou cuts in. “No blood vessels in the epidermis though.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s right Kacchan!”

“No shit it’s right!”

“Which of course, is not to say there’s not a similar mechanism,” Yaoyorozu continues. “Skin tissue of any sort contains long strings of proteins, and a sea cucumber’s hardening happens due to other proteins temporarily binding those long strings to each other. Cooked noodles will slide past each other if you shift them around, but wrap a rubber band around their lengths at various intervals to hold them together, and they become ‘stiffer.’ It’s possible you have a similar mechanism in your epidermis, but as mentioned, it would take more complicated testing.”

“Or maybe, you have a similarly protein-initiated transformation that takes advantage of a separate hardening mechanism! One humans already have!” Midoriya holds out his hand, then taps at one of his nails. “Nails are hard, compacted tissue, with specific cells to form them, but maybe your quirk starts a keratinization process in your outer skin cells, hardening them like nails! Or horns, or hooves, or claws…”

Mina gasps again. “Omigod, he’s literally made of horns?!” She points at her own and hops up and down happily. “The truest Horn Buddy there is!!”

“Possibly!” Yaoyorozu says. “Or something like it. He may have other protein structures involved to increase its toughness and impact resistance, but I agree with Midoriya in finding that explanation the most compelling.”

“...What about when it goes away?” Bakugou asks. “Don’t know how that shit works, but far as I know you can’t unhorn horns.”

“Hard to say,” Yaoyorozu says. “Maybe the way his body does it, the process is reversible. But the thing that makes most sense to me, is that Kirishima simply grows skin cells in excess when he activates his quirk, then sloughs off these extra cells when no longer needed.”

“You think he just grows extra skin?” Ojiro says. “Isn’t that basically like a self-healing quirk?”

“In a sense,” she says. “But limited to the outer layer of skin tissue. Meaning, it can’t heal any injuries that draw blood.”

“Hang on,” Eijirou says, “that actually doesn’t sound right to me.”

Her eyebrows tilt up. “Oh?”

“I mean, that sounds cool and all,” he starts, “but if I just grow a bunch of skin and shed it off… how does my quirk remember stuff? Get stronger from taking hits?”

She frowns. “...Yes, that’s one of the bigger questions I’ve had. But, like any other specifics, that would-”

“Lemme guess!” Mina says, before holding a finger up like Yaoyorozu does when she’s teaching and pitching her voice down to match the other girl’s. “That would require more complicated testing.”

Yaoyorozu shakes her head, but in that exasperated way that says it’s all in good fun.

“...I do actually have a theory about that,” Midoriya says, after a bit.

He walks back over to Eijirou once again, his eyes intense and focused. 

“All epidermal cells come from a single base layer, the basal layer, made up of a type of skin stem cell. These cells can split into exact copies of themselves, to fill in the layer if there’s ever a gap, but also split into cells that later form into the various types of cells above. The ones that later die, and flake off. If your quirk makes extra skin grow, then it can only be this layer that grows them.” 

He reaches out, the light taps a fist to Eijirou’s chest, right where it meets his shoulder. “I think, when you get hit hard enough, this force mechanically affects those basal cells directly. Compacting them, or fusing the cells above into them to make them more dense, or something like that.” He points at the spot he touched, and Eijirou knows instinctively he wants a demonstration, and hardens that section of skin. Midoriya nods. “From then on, any skin cells those grow are just as dense. An impact that’s forever stored in the cells of your body.” He taps again, knocking at the horn-like growth on Eijirou’s skin, and gives him a devastating smile. “Pretty cool, right?”

“...Yeah man,” Eijirou gets out. “Pretty damn cool.”

It hits him so suddenly that he almost stumbles back. A thick wave of pure sadness that Eijirou has to fight against to have it not show on his face.

He looks down at Midoriya’s arm, still between them, and stares at the purple grey skin streaking across it.

If the universe was fair at all, it’d work the same way for Midoriya, too. That all the shit he went through, all the power he has, would etch itself into his DNA, make itself permanent. How many times had One-For-All cascaded through his body, coursing through every inch of it, every cell, filling it with a strength other people could only dream about? Why can’t his body remember it in just the same way as Eijirou’s does, to be called up again whenever he wants or needs it? 

Instead, it’s sloughing off, day by day, until one day he’ll be left with nothing to fill in the gaps. A hole, instead of a scar.

Midoriya stays by him for a bit longer while Mina and the others congregate around Yaoyorozu, asking her other questions. Eijirou keeps that section of skin lightly armored for Midoriya to keep studying, but otherwise finds his thoughts a bit lost and wandering. Here Midoriya is, educating Eijirou on his own damn quirk, and Eijirou can do nothing in return for his. 

When Midoriya starts writing something in a small notepad, Eijirou finally speaks.

“Hey, Midoriya? Can I ask you something.”

He hums. “What’s up, Kirishima?” He doesn’t look up from his notes.

“Can you… still use One For All? Like, the full 100%?”

His eyes bounce up.

They never meant for it to, but it’s become almost taboo to talk about his quirk leaving him out loud. Like bringing it up will make it go away faster. Heck, maybe it does work that way, but no one would ever really know, because no one talks about it. No one wants to be the reason it finally goes, he supposes.

Midoriya taps the end of his pencil against his chin a few times again.

“...Yeah. I think so. I mean, I haven’t tested it, but the way it feels suggests I could.”

“...What’s it feel like?”

He puts his notepad away, and gives it serious consideration.

“Think of it like a huge reservoir of water,” he says. “One that’s still got a lot in it. But there’s a hole in it too, and every day more and more of that water spills out, no matter what I do about it. And it’s small enough that it doesn’t look like much as it leaks, but every few days I can tell the level is… lower.” He looks at his hand, and clenches his fingers. “Does that make sense?”

“...Yeah. Sorry, man.”

Midoriya smiles and shakes his head. “It’s okay. I’ve still got a bit more in me. And as for using 100%...” He rotates his arm around the shoulder, stretching. “Basically, I can make use of that leaking energy for free, it’s going away anyways, and it’s enough to still hit 100% for a small amount of time.” He does a quick, non-powered jab. “If I overused it though, I’d start draining the water faster, I think.”

“Gotcha,” Eijirou says, and he’s glad to hear it. Means he can ask what he wants to ask. “So you can go all out for a bit and it won’t make it leave faster?”

“I think so, yeah,” Midoriya agrees. “Why?”

“‘Cuz I want you to hit me with it.”

Midoriya startles back like Eijirou’s the one throwing a punch.

“...Excuse me?”

“I want you to hit me with it!” Eijirou slaps at his forearm. “Right here.”

“What… no! I can’t do that!” Midoriya flaps his hand from side to side, rejecting the idea completely. “100% is a pretty big deal, that could seriously hurt you!”

“Ah c’mon man, it’s me we’re talking about!” He points a thumb at himself. “Perfect shield, right? I can take it!”

“I dunno, Kirishima…” Midoriya says. “I don’t… what would even be the point?”

“You said it yourself, right? My quirk is for protecting! And what better way to make sure it can do the job by testing it against the strongest thing there is?”

Midoriya purses his lips, unconvinced.

“Then, how ‘bout this,” Eijirou continues. “My quirk gets stronger when being hit, right? That’s what all my training tends to be about. So, if I can take the strongest hit, then my quirk is that much better for the future, right?”

“I… guess that makes some sense…”

Eijirou steps close and claps a hand on Midoriya’s shoulder.

“Look, I promise I can take it, alright? And, you know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important, right?” And it is important. Maybe the most important thing Eijirou will ever do. 

“I-I, I dunno, Kirishima, this can go bad in a lot of ways and-”

“Midoriya,” Kirishima stops him with a pleading look. “Please?”

And something in his voice makes Midoriya relent.

“...Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I am.” He gives a toothy smile and a thumbs up. “And hey, feel free to throw in a bit extra, if you got it!”

Midoriya lets out a sigh, heavy with resignation. He looks over his shoulder at their nearby friends, who hadn’t heard any of the conversation. “Do you want to let everyone know?”

“Nah, let’s just do it,” Eijirou says. There’s a decent chance one or more of them will put a stop to it, after all.

Midoriya shucks off the last of his hesitation, then stands up a little straighter. He steps a bit around Eijirou, putting himself between him and their classmates, then grabs Eijirou’s shoulders and gently lines him up. 

He steps away. He holds out an arm, measuring the distance between them, so that the knuckles of his closed fist just touch Eijirou’s bare chest. He brings it back.

“You ready?”

Eijirou gives a sharp nod, then crosses his forearms over his chest, right over where Midoriya measured.

Midoriya’s front foot steps forward, nearly in line with Eijirou’s now, and his other foot steps back, knee bending him into a lower stance. His arm cocks back harshly like the hammer of a gun. Every one of his muscles tightens, like a jolt of electricity went through them. His eyes start to burn with crackling, green energy, making the color of his emerald eyes that much deeper.

“...What are you doing?” Yaoyorozu asks loudly from where she’s standing.

“Just a little test!” Eijirou answers. With a stomp, stone erupts from his skin, covering him in thick, rugged spines.

Even from here, he can see her roll her eyes. “The hour of testing beforehand wasn’t enough?”

“You know how it is!” he answers. “Just one of those ‘Matters Between Men’ sorta deals.”

She’s unimpressed. “I’m sure.” Next to her, Bakugou narrows his eyes.

Eijirou looks back to Midoriya, and nods once more.

And god, he can feel it a second later, even before Midoriya has moved an inch. Something grand and majestic in the air. Like being near a jet engine as it starts to spin up, like hearing the crack of thunder right before a storm moves in. Something massive is building up, and once it’s let out, something about the world will be fundamentally different than before. A kind of power that can scar the Earth itself.

He maxes out his armor, making it so thick it feels like it’s cutting into muscle and bone. He can only hold it like this for 30 seconds, but that’s more than enough for a single, instantaneous strike.

Midoriya hits some unseen peak, and a thrum of air shockwaves out, one that everyone can feel. Black tendrils burst out of his cocked arm and twirl around it, wrapping it up so tight Eijirou can hear creaking, holding it all together for a strike that might possibly tear it apart. Sparks of green lightning crackle and pop across the newly compacted limb, and Eijirou can smell the tinge of ozone. Midoriya glances behind his target. Making sure the area behind him is clear.

“…Hold on,” Yaoyorozu says. “How hard are you planning to hit him?”

Everyone’s eyes go wide. Some of them start to step towards them. 

Midoriya takes that as his cue.

Eijirou can only describe it in slideshow moments. In one, Midoriya’s fist is back, and in the next, it’s crashing against Eijirou’s arms, the air white hot around his knuckles. Next, he’s in the air, free from gravity, and his friends disappear as he crashes through the back wall. In another, howling winds rage around him as he breaches the outside, and it’s only then he feels the first of the pain lancing up his arms and through his chest, nerve signals going slower through him than he’s going backwards.

He crashes through another wall. He snaps through pillars and beams of the building behind.

Another wall. The blast of air pushing him back is so thickly compressed it’s like steel against his front, solid and burning, sturdier than a ballistic missile, fusing the hard skin of his arms to his chest.

Another wall. Slashes of wind sharper than knives.

Another wall. Through brick and concrete, wood and metal, tearing wires and cracking pipes.

Another wall. Another wall. Wall, wall, wall, crashing through building after building of miscellaneous training grounds, each collision getting further and further apart as the slideshow moments smear back into regular time.

He hits the last wall, and he only knows it's the last because he falls to the floor once he’s through it, skidding against the gravel, bouncing off it a few times like a flat stone across a river.

With one last sharp slide against the rocks, he stops, facing up at the sky. The last twirls of wind flutter by above.

His arms are numb, the skin raw and crumbling. His back is sore and throbbing, stuck full of random debris. His chest feels sharp and fractured, every gasping breath he takes sending jolts of pain through his body. He tastes sticky iron in his mouth.

He bares a sharp grin and laughs wetly through his teeth; giddy with the knowledge that Red Riot can take on even the most unstoppable forces and live to tell the tale.

And then, he passes out.

-

When he wakes up in the nurse’s room, it’s to a thoroughly guilty looking Midoriya, and a very displeased Yaoyorozu next to him.

Eijirou says the first thing he feels.

“Eeuughh,” he groans.

“Kirishima, you’re awake!” Midoriya says, jumping up from his chair. His arm swings lightly in the sling it’s in; his body never could quite take the full 100%, after all.

“...Yeah,” Eijirou gets out. “Feel like shit.” Midoriya winces.

“Yes, almost as if there is a lesson to be learned here!” Yaoyorozu says sternly, giving a particularly pointed glare to Midoriya. The kind that might, just a bit, reveal a tiny shimmer to her eyes.

Midoriya huddles into himself. “...He asked me to do it…”

“And I suppose if he asked to test if you could both handle falling off a cliff, you’d do that as well??”

Midoriya’s eyes squint thoughtfully. “...Would his hardening soften a fall? I mean, the impact isn’t necessarily meaningfully different than a-”

“Not the point, Midoriya!”

Eijirou can’t help it. He laughs, his voice raspy and pained.

“...Kirishima?” she prompts.

He shakes his head, and gets a few flickers of pain from his neck. “Nothin’. Hey, can I talk to Midoriya alone for a second?”

“Absolutely not,” she says. “I’m here to make sure no more arms get broken, which is a task the two of you apparently cannot be trusted with!”

“...C’mon, Yaoyorozu,” Midoriya says, “what damage can we do in a nurse’s room?”

The glare comes back, and this one says she’s got a whole list of things in her head that she’s more than happy to enumerate.

“No more broken arms, alright?” Eijirou says, waving one of his. It’s only then he notices both of his are in casts. “Just, really quick.”

She sighs, but stands up and starts to head out of the room - though, at the doorway, she turns around one last time and gives them both an I’m watching you with two fingers.

Once she’s out the door, Midoriya turns back to him.

“...Sorry, Kirishima,” he says sincerely.

“Nothin’ to apologize for, man,” Eijirou says. “I wanted to thank you, actually.”

“Thank me?”

Eijirou nods. 

“...I’ve told people before, right? How I used to be. Scared little kid, too afraid to do anything.”

Midoriya’s eyes go a bit wide, but he nods. “Y-yeah, I remember you mentioning that…”

Eijirou chuckles. “Sometimes it’s hard even believing I’m the same person. If that me saw me now, I doubt he’d believe it either. But I’m here, aren’t I? I made it. And now,” he pats his hand against his bandaged chest, “now I can do this. Now I can deal with anything that gets thrown my way.”

He grabs the bed rail between him and Midoriya, pulling himself closer. “You get it, right?” he says, not a little bit desperately. “What that means to me? You, of all people?”

And all of Midoriya’s guilt falls away, replaced by something tragically empathetic.

Midoriya doesn’t talk about the times before UA. Bakugou also doesn’t talk about times before UA, but he doesn’t talk about it less around Eijirou. He’s gotten these tiny, secondhand glimpses into Midoriya before his quirk, before All Might, a glimpse at the scared, shy boy he used to be, same as Eijirou. No one else in their class gets it, what it means to give up a version of yourself, force yourself to leave it behind, and have something new grow in its place. Only Midoriya. Only Eijirou.

“...Yeah,” Midoriya says. “I do.”

Eijirou breathes out another laugh, and tries not to pay attention to the wetness forming at the corners of his eyes.

“Good. Because, I get it too, okay? What you had to do. What you’re gonna have to do again, when One-For-All goes away. But you know what, Midoriya?”

He leans forward even more, rail digging painfully into his side.

“It’s here with me now, yeah? That power you’ve got.” He slaps one hand against the other cast, on the spot Midoriya struck directly with the unfathomable power of his quirk. “The shit I get hit with, it stays, remember? Stays in the skin of my quirk.” The tears in his eyes reach critical mass and start spilling down his cheeks, and he doesn’t bother pointing out that Midoriya’s are doing the same. “Even when it leaves you, it’ll be here.”

With a flick of his arm, craggy skin bursts through the cast, tearing the plaster away; and there, right in the center of his forearm, are the depressions of four fingers, like a fist. Scarred permanently into his quirk, into the very biology of his cells, skin compressed to the absolute limit by a godly power.

“My body will remember it!” he cries with a wobbly voice. “Even when yours doesn’t!”

At that, Midoriya’s face finally collapses into sobs, his whole body hunching forwards as grief racks him. Eijirou tugs him into an embrace, wrapping his broken arms around Midoriya’s and hugging him close, and Midoriya’s one good arm does the same, desperately clutching at the back of Eijirou’s scrubs.

“Th… thank you, Kirishima,” he says between tears. “Thank you.”

And for the first time, Midoriya cries over the inevitable loss of his quirk, to a boy who will never understand it totally, but understands enough. Enough of what it means to have to build yourself up from nothing.

“You… you will find something else, Midoriya, I promise,” Kirishima says as his shoulder gets damper and damper. “Something new to take its place. You will.”

Midoriya cries, and Eijirou cries with him

***

8 years later

Perfect Shield - Red Riot

Blistering winds tear through the streets, faster than sound.

Like heavy, wicked claws it rips down every open space, carrying with it anything isn’t sunken deep into the Earth itself. The air is thick with detritus, unbreathable; filled with dust and dirt, smothering out the sunlight, with plants and brush too shallowly rooted into the ground, with metal, bikes and powerlines and stoplights that bounce and slam off every building. Cars roll down the asphalt on chasses instead of wheels, older, weaker buildings have long since crumbled, and a heavy, muddy downpour has flooded up the rest.

And there is nothing Izuku, Deku, can do to stop it. There are no more heroes that can fight off a hurricane; if there ever were in the first place.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to. Every place they knew would be affected had long since been evacuated, and while there will be a heavy cost, it won’t be in human life. But sometimes, there are cracks in the process, a series of mishaps and wrong places, wrong times, and he is here to correct that, by seeking out the emergency signal they managed to get through the storm, from a small gathering of people trapped in a slowly dissolving building. However they were missed, he will make sure they do not pay for it.

And so, he stomps through the storm with thunking footsteps, with Red Riot just beside him, thick with skin heavier than metal.

The plating of his regular suit is already strong, and inspired by Hardening – but what he’s got on now is the rarely used Plus Ultra version of it. Inches thick everywhere on his body, heavy on his frame even with pneumatics lessening the strain, and just about indestructible. Helpful, because they’ve both gotten struck by all manner of things as they made their way through the hurricane winds; chunks of cement, shards of glass, razor sharp metal. He gives silent thanks to his Red Riot plating that he isn’t currently impaled by a broken support beam.

They find their way to it quickly enough, assisted by the direction of the wind; a nearly collapsed bar, upper floors sagging down on the first, debris spilling out onto the rest of the ruin covering the street. The entrance is gone; disappeared under a pile of lumber and stone.

Using arms flesh and mechanical, he clears out what he can, until there is a big enough hole to squeeze through, fragile though it is. They clamber inside, finding a space choked with more debris leaving little room to maneuver around. They’ve no clue the layout of the place, or where the basement is that they know houses the civilians, so they split briefly to dig through more of the building while the winds howl outside.

It’s Red Riot who finds it first; he signals Izuku with a simple beep through the short-range comms. Within seconds, they are down the basement stairs, digging through one last unintentional barricade. It’s quiet enough in here he can hear yelling coming from the other side.

With a warning and a tackle, he bursts through the last bit of debris, to find three terrified people clinging to each other on the ground; a mother, an injured father, and a small child.

They immediately cry out their thanks, blurt out explanations for why they had to linger behind, but it’s not the time for words. Instead, Izuku and Red Riot gather them up, the man on Red Riot’s back, careful of his injured leg, the woman and child following behind for now. They manage their way back up to the first floor, prying open a bit more space to allow for it, but stop just before the passage they made between inside and out.

With the few supplies they have with them, they bind the injured man to Red Riot with a few tethers, to assure the winds wont sweep him away. Izuku is just about to do the same with the other two, to him, when he hears an ominous creak above.

Then, a much louder sound. Like the sound of a building starting to collapse, straight above where he and the rest of the family is standing.

His first impulse is to shove the two of them away, and let the weight above fall on him and him alone, too heavy and slow to jet away along with them; but a voice at the back of his mind stops him. It sounds like everyone he’s ever known.

His brain goes into overdrive, and he takes an extra fraction of a second to think; his suit has too many tools for this to be the last thing it does. In the next fraction, he’s got a plan.

The mother and child are wrapped in a Tentacole arm each, and extended out away from the crashing sounds above, that haven’t yet broken through the ceiling. He throws spatter of Pinky acid at a point of the ceiling in the other direction, attaches a few lines of Cellophane around it, then, with a pinpoint burst of Sugarman in his arm, yanks them down. The weight above finds a new weak point, and in the next second cascades down into it with a thick wave of dust and rubble. It’ll take the rest of the building down with it; but he’s got just a few more safe seconds to get everyone out.

He steps towards the exit and curls the woman and her soon close to him, wrapping another, real arm around each, their faces against him to protect the slightest bit against breathing in the poison around them. It’s likely not too comfortable for them, but it’ll have to do. Behind him, he hears the building’s groans getting closer.

He regroups with Red Riot, and together they crawl out of the building the same way they came in. The winds aren’t any better, and they have to fight against them now, but it means they can take the brunt of them, rather than their rescuees.

It’s a long, slow journey, carefully navigating around the dangers whipping by in the air, but soon they make it to the evacuation bunker, safe and whole.

-

In the bunker, all they can do is wait.

Besides Izuku and Kirishima, there are a few other heroes in this one. Shemage, who’s mostly budding up mushrooms just short of hallucinatory to chill everyone out, and sidekick of hers, along with Creati, who’s been non stop generating medical and other supplies for anyone who needs it. Izuku and Red Riot can do the flashy stuff and save a family in the middle of the hurricane, but it’s someone like Creati who can save everyone else.

They catch her in a moment of rest and sit with her as she houses down a few heavy-calorie granola bars. Their job, for those initial minutes, is simply handing her a new one when she’s finished the one in her hands.

When she’s done, she goes over how everyone’s doing: fine, mostly, and they should have enough resources to wait out the storm, for a few days if necessary. She hopes out loud that they don’t burn through their water too quickly, though; she’d rather not this be the moment she finds out what drinking Created water might do.

“And everything went smoothly on our end!” Kirishima summarizes. He loops an arm around Izuku’s neck and tugs at him jovially; there, on his forearm, lies an eternal bruise, four adjacent grooves in the shape of a fist. “And I’m so proud of this guy! For a second I thought he was gonna let a building fall on top of him to save those people, but he figured out a way to get everyone out of it instead, including himself!” 

Izuku grumbles. “I don’t know why that’s something that needs to be pointed out…”

“Everytime you come back from a mission uninjured is a win in all our books,” Yaoyorozu says with a rare smugness to her grin.

“Y-you know, I’ve been really careful since I’ve come back to hero work!” Izuku argues. “Zero major injuries, and most of the minor ones came from suit training!”

“That… is true,” she admits. “You’ve shown remarkable restraint recently when it comes to rash actions.”

“Well yeah!” he says. “If I’m in a position to get hurt really badly, then so would the suit! A-and, a lot of people worked really hard on it, I don’t want anything to happen to it!”

There’s a moment of disbelief on both their faces; then, Creati’s eyes squeeze with an awful sorrow, a kind that he most easily remembers people throwing his way when both his arms were broken.

“Oh, Midoriya,” she cries, face falling into her hands. “I don’t know what it says about you that your new caution is more about protecting your suit than your body…

“Hey, let's take what we can get!” Kirishima says with a hearty laugh, before using his other hand to pat at Izuku’s chest. “Anything that keeps Izuku out of the hospital, yeah?”

“Oh you’re one to talk…,” she mutters, before letting out all her frustration with a weary sigh. “But I suppose you are right. If that is what it takes.” She swipes her hands down off her face and lets them come to rest on her lap, before shooting Izuku a stern glare. “You are to make sure no damage comes that suit, understand?”

He can only give her his own weary look back.

“I was already planning on that…”

Kirishima laughs again, then with a parting wave heads off to check on everyone else.

In the comfortable silence afterwards, Izuku simply hands one more bar of granola to Yaoyorozu; the emergency one he keeps for her in one of his pockets. It’s not really an emergency right now, but she’s still looking a bit pale from her earlier efforts. No harm in it, he decides.

She stares at it for a second, silently, before collecting it from him. She thoughtlessly reads the label.

“...I mean it, you know,” she says suddenly.

“Hm?”

“You’re not allowed to be as reckless as you once were. I… we can’t keep an eye on you as easily as we once could.” Her fingers tighten around the granola bar, the wrapper crinkling. “Keep… keep that suit of yours safe.”

Her eyes flick up, and there’s a pleading shine to them, making the onyx of her irises that much deeper. Like a bottomless pool of dark water. There is no escaping it. No denying her.

“...I will.”

With a delicate twist of her thin, elegant fingers, she splits open the foil of the bar, then cracks it in half and offers him a piece. They are so much unlike his; smooth, straight, unblemished. 

Izuku thinks a lot about scars. How could he not, when his body holds so many? He doesn’t regret them, even now; they have always been an acceptable cost to save the people he got to save. But when he looks at Creati, who has saved just as many people as him and came out of it unscathed, his inadequacies become that much clearer.

He has been given one more chance to be a hero; new growth, to fill in the space left behind when he lost a piece of himself, willingly given. And this time, he’ll make sure not to worry his friends so much because of it. He owes them that, and so much more.

He grabs his half and chows down, filling in the hollow of his growling stomach.

***

Chapter Text

There is a rather curious experiment that Yuuga often finds himself reflected in these days.

Point a laser against a wall, and you will see a dot. Place a barrier in between, with a narrow opening to let only part of the laser shine through, and the light diffracts, spreading out like a wave into a wide band. Fire the laser through two narrow openings side by side, and you get a band of luminous stripes, alternating dark and light as the wave splits and interferes with itself. 

But look up close and something much more fantastical reveals itself. 

For this band will have been built up, point by infinitesimal point. One at a time, seemingly through one opening or the other, as single points cannot split or be divided. And yet, the interference remains; a pattern that requires a wave to split, constructed by discrete particles that cannot. A transformation happens when the light is forced to make decisions, left or right or both or neither, and an otherwise straightforward phenomenon reveals itself to be something altogether strange and magnificent.

He doesn't understand the science behind it. He is, truthfully, unconcerned with it; light does not need to be understood to revel in its brilliant luminescence. And even though his quirk did not start in his body, it has become his and his alone, and perhaps through it he can be just the same. Brilliant, and luminescent.

But he sees a similar choice ahead of him, some day. A divergence, a choice between left and right. And when he looks through both options, he finds an overwhelming band of possibility, both hazy and discrete, waiting for him on the other side. One he may have even less of an understanding of.

After the dust of the war settled, his family retreated back to France; and he along with them. It had only felt appropriate, after the parts they all played, the mistakes they made. But his friends had saved him, in more ways than one, and despite it all his desire to be a hero remained. And heroes are everywhere, not just Japan, and though it took some doing, he found his way into a pre-eminent hero school in his birth country. One not quite as esteemed as UA, but a fantastic one just the same. And while he has had many advantages in life, in his acceptance he can take personal pride. As with UA, he was admitted on his own talents; though, whether his contributions he made to the fight in Japan were a factor, he can’t say. They are known here, just like they are known in many other places.

(He hopes they were not. He can only ever view them as his atonement, not his virtue.)

He does… well enough. He has always struggled with schoolwork, but he knows how to stumble his way through it. Knows how to ask those around him for help. He has made a number of wonderful friends in his new school, who care about him and his ambition, whose ambitions he in turn cares for as well. They will become heroes together, graduate into the very different and yet oh so similar system of helping others this wonderful home of his has established. He could make a life here, if he so chooses.

But alas, a piece of his heart remains firmly in Japan, with the family he found in UA’s hallowed halls.

He talks to them when he can. In chaotic text threads that have new messages by the minute, in phone calls that last late into the night, in video chats while they do nothing, or everything, cameras on just so that they can see each other in the only way they can these days. Showing him every day that he is still a part of their class, even if he no longer sits with them in school, no longer lives with them side-by-side.  

And so the burning question is; can he continue to be a part of them, once they all ascend into adulthood? When the next stage of their lives, of herodom, finally starts? He understands his parents to have something of an arrangement with the Japanese government, that they are unlikely to be allowed back in due to the connection they had with All-For-One, but this arrangement was something he had been spared from. Once he is out from under his parent’s wings, once he has graduated and become a fully licensed hero, he could return. He could make a life there, if he so chooses.

And thus, he finds himself nearing the split. France, or Japan, through one slit, or the other. But as before, the consequences of the choice are far more complicated than the setup.

How welcome will he truly be, in a country he had so thoroughly wronged? His friends may have forgiven him, but will the public he serves do the same? How far and wide the specifics of his crimes have travelled is unknown. UA did not broadcast his offenses, but there are any number of entities crawling through All-For-One’s dismantled empire to figure out his vast web of connections. If Yuuga’s involvement isn’t already known, perhaps it will be if he tempts fate by returning as a hero, and he will be maligned for his past errors. Could he say for certain he deserves otherwise?

And yet, how happy will he truly be, if he stays where he is now, far from the friends he cares for most? His friends in France are wonderful, but they did not fight and bleed for him, let him fight and bleed in return. They did not save him, the way UA had saved him. But maybe a similar trust of sorts can be forged, in the everyday fight for good? There is so much future ahead of him; it would be foolish to think this distance will not close. Maybe some version of him could stay, and be happy enough.

Two choices, left and right. Maybe there is a way he could do both. Maybe life is such that he will do neither.

The gleaming haze of stripes he sees ahead of him does not give him his answers.

-

“And then, get this,” Hagakure says, before mimicking pulling something out of an invisible box. “He takes out these little sticks that have face stickers at the end of ‘em, the ones they use for babies to help figure out their emotions or whatever, and looks at me like he solved all my problems and goes, ‘What do you think?’” Through his laptop screen, he can see her shoulders roll through the sleeves of her shirt, indicating a disbelieving shrug. 

Yuuga tsks with his tongue. “Iida’s ardor for helping often gets the best of him, non?”

“For real,” Hagakure vents. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t appreciate him trying, but like, read the room!” There’s a flicker of light in her body, the shade of which means little to him in the moment, but her voice is warm despite the irritation. “But hey, he inspired me to work on refracting different colors, so I can’t get too upset with him.”

“And what an incandescent idea it is!” he says. “To shine bright with every color of the rainbow; I can only dream of such splendor!”

Hagakure giggles. “As much as I’d love an Aoyama that could shoot rainbows out of his belly, I’m not sure the rest of the world could handle it!”

“And yet, if I had such an ability,” he flicks his head back, hand against his face in a mock pose, “I would force it to!”

“I believe it!” She moves in a familiar way that he knows she’s clapping her hands together. “Well hey, if you really wanna see if something like that is possible, I bet Yaomomo and Midoriya could figure it out!”

“Yes, it seems they have illuminated a number of things regarding everyone’s abilities.”

“Definitely, and sometimes getting into trouble doing it!” Hagakure buzzes light down her hand so he can see her wagging finger. “Just last week Kirishima and Midoriya ended up with 3 broken arms between the two of them.”

“Excusez-moi! I feel like that is a much more important story than the stick thing!”

“Eh, it’s Midoriya and Kirishima! It’s barely news if one of them ends up with a head injury!” She shakes her head. Probably. “They’re fine now though. And I don’t think the quirk-study crew are focused on anyone right now, I bet you could ask what they think!”

Aoyama chuckles. “Perhaps. It might be tougher to assist me, given the circumstances.”

It is times like this he really feels the distance. He may still talk to all of them, and frequently, but they are making memories together. Changing, in ways he only sees the edges of, the miniscule tip of the iceberg. And while he has no doubt that Midoriya and Yaoyorozu are clever enough to make him more adept in his own quirk, even thousands of miles away, the idea of it happening through a screen darkens something in his otherwise luminent mood.

 “Eh, they could figure something out! With your quirk, Yaomomo doesn’t even need to ask for any samples.”

“She must have quite the collection these days,” he teases. 

“You wanna get a blush out of her, ask where she keeps it!” Hagakure says happily. “She says she ‘disposes’ of it all, but I have my doubts!”

They talk for much longer after that; it was Hagakure who first saw through him - just as he was the first to help her be seen - and it is Hagakure that remains his closest friend. She more than any other has made an effort to keep a hold of him, and for that he is eternally thankful.

And, as they wind down their conversation, she asks her oft-asked question.

“You know whether or not you’re comin’ back once you graduate?”

“Unfortunately, my heart has not settled on an answer.”

“Well, don’t forget that if you do, I’ve got a place for you at my agency!” she says. “Well, once I establish one. Might take a bit…”

“Of course.”

She is not the only one to offer. ‘If you come back, there will be space for you here,’ they seem to say. Kind enough to suggest a future, thoughtful enough to allow for him to stay where he is, should he so choose. 

He just needs to choose. Left, or right. To go back, or not. He is not sure what it will take, to finally clear up that glowing haze.

-

He does eventually ask Midoriya and Yaoyorozu for their thoughts.

He makes an outing of it. Secures a space in a large testing chamber his school has on the grounds, one that can absorb the power of his lasers through a number of specialized panels. A section of one wall has a rather large screen, ten feet wide, with a recessed computer input panel below it, for viewing or taking notes, or examining the footage the various cameras in the room can record. 

After a bit of finagling, he gets them up on screen, larger than life.

They’re bundled up in casual winter clothes with green accents for the upcoming holidays, the walls behind revealing them to be sat in some corner of the common room in their dorms. For his part, he’s in his full gleaming hero suit, sparkling so brightly he spent a good 15 minutes figuring out how to adjust the saturation of the cameras on him. Increasing it, of course, so that they may truly experience his magnificence.

They bid each other their greetings - ones a little guiltier on their ends, as it has been some time since he last spoke to them outside of group texts. He does not hold it against them; from the sounds of it, they have both been quite busy this year, doing exactly this. Helping a friend in need.

“And, that’s the only thing you’re asking about?” Yaoyorozu says, with a bit of consternation. “Whether or not you can make your lasers rainbow-colored?”

“Of course!” Yuuga says. “What else would I need?”

“W-well, we actually have a number of interesting ideas about the propulsive nature of your-”

“Unnecessary!” he declares. “Just the rainbow thing, s'il te plaît!”

She clenches her fingers and sucks in her lips, as if holding herself back from something. He has always felt his disposition to grate a bit against his former Vice President, though of course not in a way that is at all approaching serious. Next to her, Midoriya, with a much greater tolerance towards Yuuga’s eccentricities, gives an apologetic smile, though to whom it is directed at is unclear. Maybe both of them. 

“...How about we think through that first, then if time allows, we can go through other stuff? For our personal curiosity.”

“You need only have asked!” Yuuga states. The screen is large enough to reveal another clench of her hands.

Yaoyorozu shakes it off with a deep breath. “...Okay. If that’s truly what you wish, there are likely simple ways to make that happen. You’ve never shown any tendencies towards changing its color naturally, I assume, but there are straightforward, mechanical ways to make it happen.” She shrugs. “Your suit channels your quirk through a number of specialized lenses; simply change these lenses into colored ones.”

Yuuga examines the smooth, shiny lenses at his navel, his elbows, his knees. “That’s all it would take?”

“Well, it might be a little more complicated than that,” Midoriya says. “Your laser is naturally a bluish-white color, and while the white component might properly filter through any other color, the blue might bias it otherwise. Like… a blue-tinged rainbow.”

Yaoyorozu chews at her cheek.

“That does not seem like a very significant issue,” she says blankly. 

“Mais c’est! If I cannot achieve the proper sparkle of each individual color, then it may as well not be worth exploring in the first place!”

She closes her eyes. Takes another deep breath.

“...Well, I think it’s probably achievable,” Midoriya says. “The harder thing is getting the request accepted by whoever develops your hero suit now. The materials that are used for handling quirks like yours are a bit rare and costly, and they’d likely ask for some reasoning as to why it’s necessary.”

“Surely, they would understand?” Yuuga says. “I am Can’t Stop Twinkling! The lack of color with which to twinkle seems an obvious detriment!”

“...You know, standard optic materials like glass and plastics can’t handle quirks like yours due to the concussive force,” Yaoyorozu says. “And the crystals that are utilized to channel and lens concussive light currently come from a single source. They are generated by an individual and their quirk, and though efforts are underway, currently no technology can replicate them. As such, it is generally recommended a request is made when there is enough utility for the creation of such material to be justified.”

“Ah, I see what you’re saying!” Yuuga says, and Yaoyorozu sighs with relief. “The middle-man support companies likely won’t understand my need, but the creator of these materials will! Perhaps I can speak to this person directly and ask!”

“The identity of this person remains a closely-guarded secret!” she says sternly. “Because what they create is valuable enough to warrant it!”

“And I am very good at keeping secrets, non?” Yuuga agrees.

“That’s not-”

Midoriya clears his throat. “...Ultimately, whether or not it’s worth creating is up to the synthesizer and the support companies they work with, right? I don’t see the harm in submitting a request.” Yaoyorozu glances to the side at him, eyes aflame with what Yuuga assumes is agreement. Midoriya shrugs. “I’d suggest asking for a lensing system that can maybe shift to any monocolor, along with something like a rainbow. There are lots of ways you can justify that being useful, especially for long distance messaging or things like that.”

“Oh, quite clever!” Yuuga says. “I could perhaps shoot a red beam for, ‘Can’t Stop Twinkling is here!’ or a green beam for, ‘Can’t Stop Twinkling will save the day!’”

He hears Yoayorozu whisper harshly to herself, “What is the difference.” He opens his mouth to elucidate.

“Y-yeah, something like that!” Midoriya cuts in instead. “I can maybe, uh, help you come up with some other reasons. Another time.”

“Very well! Thank you so much for your assistance, mes amis, you have been so very helpful!”

“...You’re welcome,” Yaoyorozu says, begrudgingly. “And now that we’ve covered that, perhaps we can talk about more useful-” Midoriya gently elbows her, with an amusement and closeness Yuuga certainly doesn’t remember him having towards her. She clears her throat. “About other aspects of your quirk.”

“What would you like to know?”

She gets right into it.

“So, you’ve used your lasers to propel you in the opposite direction,” she says. “And I can’t think of any reason why that be utilized more fully to increase your movement options. We’ve already seen your lasers can be redirected, so why not behind you? Or down, to boost you up? That’s something we’ve been exploring in various ways, from using Jirou’s heartbeat pulses to power a skateboard to me generating hydrogen for jet-propelled boots. As for you, with constant emission of your quirk you may be able to fly around like Bakugou does.”

“Ah, like so!”

He squats down, then jumps, rotating his body forward so that it is parallel with the ground and positioning his elbows down. He fires from every output, navel, knees, elbows, blasting towards the absorbing panels of the floor. The thrust of his own lasers keeps him from falling further, and he adjusts the size of the beam to even raise him up a few feet, before reducing them once again so that his vertical position in the air does not move.

He holds it for but a few seconds, before cutting off his knees and letting his elbows thrust him back upright, then cutting off the rest. He lands with a thunk, the metal of his shining armor clattering from the force.

“...You already knew you could do that??” Yaoyorozu says disbelievingly. “Why haven’t you ever used it like that previously?!”

Yuuga wags his finger, then points at the ground, which the cameras they are looking through can see. The floor can more than absorb the force of his lasers, but a number of throbbing singe marks remain behind.

“My lasers propagate quite far, mon cher. I cannot simply fire away in any direction; they will inevitably strike something. Even pointing forward and down, they would necessarily be aimed at the city below; but behind? It would be quite reckless of me to shoot behind myself, where I cannot see where they might end!”

Her mouth gapes open.

“...Oh! That’s… rather reasonable of you.” She puts a finger to her chin. “I suppose I was going off of times I have seen you thrust backwards. Your laser didn’t travel very far in those instances.”

“I have only done so at low power, which dissipates faster, for a marginal amount of extra speed,” he clarifies. “But at those outputs, it would certainly not be enough to keep me airborne. Such a method of travel is likely not in the cards for me, semble-t-il.”

She grumbles and crosses her arms.

“Fine. I guess what you told me before we started was correct, Midoriya, in that I would have nothing to offer him.”

“That isn’t what I said!” he says, smiling despite the disavowal. “I said that he would probably have a very specific idea of what he wanted, and that we probably couldn’t do much beyond that!”

“Ah, Midoriya still knows me quite well, it seems!”

“Well, how about this?” she says, a petulance to her voice. “What if I simply solve the whole problem right now?”

Midoriya’s smile softens with affection. “Oh? How?”