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#1 – As of someone gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door.
Izuku is lying on the couch of his new home when he feels the eyes of new people land on him. He rolls over to face them, and blinks for a second, before bouncing up.
“Hi! You must be Shouto’s students. I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he smiles brightly at them, giving a short bow in greeting. They stare at him, confused, before one nudges the others with a pointed elbow to the ribs, and they all bow back, slightly deeper, because he is older than them.
It’s then that Shouto enters the dorm living room, exiting the elevator. He spots the students and looks between them and Izuku. “Ah,” is all he says for a second.
Then, with a grimace worthy of the time Aizawa-sensei accidentally added salt to his coffee, he says, “This is my husband. Yes, the one you all keep bugging me about.”
He then promptly backs into the elevator again, and rapidly presses the ‘close’ button, attempting an escape before his students can ‘bug him’ about it. Izuku raises an eyebrow, but Shouto just sticks his tongue out and lets the doors close.
Meanwhile, the three students in the doorway are looking back and forth between the two adults, and when Izuku turns back to them, they have a chaotic gleam in their eyes, and he immediately gets why Shouto made his escape so fast – they may be pro heroes, but students could be scary when they wanted.
(Izuku would know – he was one of them, once.)
When the rest of Shouto’s third-year class slowly trickles through the door, they are greeted by the sight of their peers surrounding a green-haired man in the lounge room, questions fired in every quiet moment, being answered with gleeful recounts of embarrassing stories.
By the end, the students were convinced that Midoriya Izuku was a simple civilian, not noticing that any question about his work was skilfully evaded or talked around.
For example,
"So, what's your quirk? Is it cool?" asks a student with a dragon mutation.
Izuku laughs, "Nah, it's just a simple one. I have telepathy, but it only works on small objects, sadly." There's no weight limit, and he can lift a lot at once, but he's not going to say that, is he? Where was the fun in that?
Or,
“Oh, you went to UA too? What course did you do?”
Izuku smiles back brightly and replies, “I did multiple, actually! Aizawa-sensei called me problem child, because every time I went near his classroom, something blew up, sometimes a student, sometimes a support item! It was kinda funny how absolutely done he looked by the time I graduated!”
The students laugh at the tale, not realising that he didn’t say which course.
Another student asks, “is that how you met Todoroki-sensei?” And the conversation takes a new turn, no one the wiser for what they missed.
~~~
#2 – And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Kaito Ryo wasn’t one to scare easily – he was the one who encouraged his friends to watch the old horror movies in the middle of the night, the one who laughed when at the jump scares, while everyone else screamed.
So when the giant shadow leapt into the dorms through the window, he definitely did not jump, nor did he activate his quirk, his water spirit circling around him protectively as he was faced with two toxic green eyes, and a large grin. No, he did none of that. Of course not.
The shadow appeared to be a giant raven, maybe a demon in the night. Ryo wouldn’t be surprised if it was, after all, he had a spirit companion, what’s to say they couldn’t roam free?
The raven spirit had imposing black wings, seeming almost too large to fit in the room. They glinted with a hidden metallic edge, shimmering slightly green in the moonlight from the open window. Ryo stared at the spirit, frozen.
A cloud crossed over the moon, and the dim light it had cast through the window disappeared. He could no longer see the outline of the spirit, only those bright green eyes. And then they blinked, and there was darkness.
When the moon was revealed again, the spirit was gone.
~~~
Shouto stood outside the door to the classroom, listening in amusement to the conversations his students were having.
Apparently, the dorms were the home of a giant raven spirit. He’d have to tell Izuku, he’d have a field day with it. He must’ve been spotted coming in through the window after his patrol last night.
He pushed open the door, and casually walked over to the desk. Shouto didn’t bother to be stealthy, but the class was so absorbed in their debate that they didn’t notice them. Aizawa would surely be hearing of this, and organising some form of mildly sadistic lesson plan as a recap on situational awareness.
Shouto could endorse that.
But now he’d been standing there for well over thirty seconds, and while he didn’t have an Erasure quirk to quickly get the attention of his students, he did have a temperature manipulation one.
The air in the classroom chilled within a second, and his breath turned to steamy puffs in front of his face. “As much as I enjoy hearing about how the dorms are haunted, we do have a lesson to get to,” he said drily to the now silent classroom.
A mass scrambling ensured as students rushed to their correct seats, and waited for their next instructions.
“We’re going to be focusing on switching between evacuating and fighting today, but I just want to warn you, next time you get a class with the principal, be prepared for the Hell course, stealth mode. Aizawa’s going to have fun. You guys? Not so much.”
Shouto gives them a grin worthy of his former teacher, and revels in their soon-to-be suffering. Maybe Izuku could get the ‘raven spirit’ to participate in that lesson…
~~~
#3 – In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Yui Kaze stands in Gym Gamma with the other eleven students of her class, waiting for Todoroki-sensei to arrive. He wasn’t usually this late to class, but maybe something had happened…
Their quiet chatter is interrupted when Kaze spots Midoriya entering, his usually loose green hair tied in a bun, and decked out in black clothing. He’s also carrying bags full of what looks like… puffer jackets?
“Uh, hey, Midoriya? Where’s Sensei?” Sora asks from beside Kaze.
Midoriya smiles at them, and it’s almost like his normal one, but for some reason, it sends shivers down her spine. It’s just slightly off.
“Shouto got called for a mission with some of his old class, I think Kac- Ground Zero, and Bassline. So Aizawa got me to sub for him! I didn’t have much time, but I’ve got a rough lesson plan, so hopefully you all learn something today!”
Kaze blinks in confusion. Midoriya… is subbing a heroics lesson? Ryouichi says as much, and Midoriya responds with even more cheer, somehow.
“I used to teach a little, at a different school, and I’ve picked up a few skills over the years, what with spending majority of my time with pros!” Which… makes sense, if Kaze thinks about it. If she had a civilian friend or partner, she’d want to make sure they stayed safe.
Midoriya ploughs on though, and proceeds to explain what they’ll be doing for the lesson. “So, you might be confused as to why I’m carrying a shitload of puffer jackets.”
Yes, she is wondering that. Why on earth…?
“The answer is, we’re doing stealth training! You’re all going to put one of these on, as well as pants made from the same material, and by the end of this lesson, you’re all going to be silent in them!” He holds up a jacket and rubs the sleeves together, demonstrating exactly how hard it will be.
They all pale at the realisation that they will be covered head-to-toe in that fabric.
Midoriya’s grin suddenly makes sense – he’s evil. “What are you waiting for? Come get a jacket, everyone!”
~~~
Izuku watches in amusement as the twelve students groan, the microphone having picked up a sound. They make their way back to the start of the course, and try again.
He’d spent the first five minutes of the lesson recapping the basics of stealth, and then showing them a few more advanced techniques, like how to practically silence your breathing and heartbeat, before moving on to the jackets.
After that, he released them into pairs to practice for a few minutes. Because he wasn’t a complete monster, he walked around and gave them advice on what they were doing wrong.
(No one asked how he could do any of this – no one thought that maybe this wasn’t something the average civilian knew how to do.)
Once everyone was pretty confident, he set them on the obstacle course, telling them to, ‘make it across here together, without the mic picking up anything, and I’ll help you put googly eyes on Aizawa’s goggles’.
They were rather motivated, after that.
~~~
#4 - And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor.
Arakai Kizashi is an insomniac. This is why he is awake at- he checks his bedside clock- 1:49AM. Being awake at this time normally didn’t lead to any interesting discoveries (besides the one that Ryouichi breathed fire while sleepwalking).
But on this occasion, it meant he was awake to hear the giant CRASH! from downstairs. His quirk had been tingling for a good ten minutes beforehand, and it was making him uneasy. See, Kisashi’s quirk was called Precognition. It meant that when he activated it, he could see the movements someone would make before they made them. Real useful in combat.
But it also had the passive side effect of warning him when something important was about to happen. So when it started going off at 1:39, naturally, he was on edge.
As soon as he heard the noise, he leapt up, scanning the hallway outside his room. Nothing. Kizashi carefully made his way down the stairs, eyes straining in the darkness.
The kitchen light was on downstairs, as was the living room one. Lying on the couch was none other than Midoriya, blood leaking from a stab wound in his shoulder, and a bullet hole in his side. Todoroki was almost frantically searching through the first aid cabinet in the kitchen, looking frantically for… something.
When he got to the landing, Todoroki spun around, the temperature of the room flaring, and his face pale with a mixture of stress, fear, and a whole lot of fierce protectiveness. Kizashi held up his hands. When his teacher had gotten his quirk under control, he addressed the student. “Go get Renji.”
Kizashi just nodded, and sent a worried glance to the wounds. Renji would be able to heal some of it, but definitely not the whole thing, even with a good energy source.
He ran back up the stairs, no longer attempting to silence his footfalls. When he reached the door to her room, he knocked rapidly until she opened it, a groggy ‘wha..?’ escaping her.
“Go downstairs. Sensei needs your help, Midoriya got stabbed. And shot,” he says quickly, before running down a few doors to Akane’s room. Her root network would be the ideal source of energy for Renji. Sure, it would get rid of a good chunk of the section in UA, but she could build that back up much easier than most other places.
When he knocks on her door, Akane is much more awake than Renji. She has also heard what he’d just said to Renji, through her quirk, Worldroot. It let her passively create an invisible root system everywhere she went, and then take control of those roots when she wanted. The stored energy within the system would be the perfect source of energy for Renji.
Those two are the only ones he needs to bring down, but he can see other doors opening as they run past.
Back downstairs, Todoroki-sensei is crouched beside a mildly delirious Midoriya, tweezers carefully manoeuvring them to remove the bullet – or, pieces of bullet, as Kizashi discovers – while said delirious guy hisses and says, “’s n’t tha’ bad, Sho, ‘swear.”
Yeah, right.
Kizashi hangs back as his classmates work together to heal the wound as best they could. He watches as the white-green-gold roots Akane had summoned shrivel and fade away, the golden threads slowly stitching up the wounds, enough that Midoriya wouldn’t be in danger of dying. Todoroki-sensei then bandaged them both, and started to clean up.
Renji slumped, the amount of energy the healing had taken out of her almost enough to knock her out - her ability to heal others was extremely energy inefficient, and had used Akane’s stored energy from the entire dorm building. Using her quirk like that would be a last resort, even if she managed to hone it more.
The crisis dealt with, their teacher sends them back up to their rooms and tells them to get some sleep. When Kizashi was back in his room, about to finally fall asleep, he found himself wondering how Midoriya had gotten those injuries.
But when he woke up in the morning, the question was forgotten.
~~~
#5 - But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only…
Shouto sighed as he stared down two of his students over the rim of his mug. They had realised exactly five minutes before starting to make dinner that they did not have any ingredients to make it. None.
What made it worse, was that he had to eat too. And he really didn’t want them to get the wrong ingredients – they would do that. Had done it, too.
And then, of course, when he begrudgingly said yes to supervising the last-minute excursion, three more just had to ask if they could come too, because yes, Sensei, they really did need to take a package to the post office, yes, Sensei, today, and wouldn’t it be easier to do it now, when there were people going to the shops? And it would be faster if they went too, because they could do two things at once, Sensei!
Shouto did not for the love of sanity, know why he became a teacher. Surely he could have learnt from Aizawa-sensei. But no.
So that was how he and Izuku came to be watching over his whole class of twelve as they frantically ran through the small shopping centre as they tried to complete their tasks in as little time as possible. At least they were efficient..
Suddenly, his phone started vibrating, and when he pulled it out, it turned out to be one of his students, calling from the supermarket.
“Sensei, which noodles did you say you wanted? They’ve got waay to many varieties here…” says the voice of Sora.
Shouto dies a little inside, and debates the benefits of rescuing his noodles from the hopeless hands of his class, versus leaving the majority of said class alone with Izuku.
Yeah, he could send his husband to retrieve the noodles.
~~~
Izuku glares at the shelving, willing them to reveal the right type of soba. Sora wasn’t kidding, there was definitely way too many. Eighteen different variants for one brand was a little over the top, in his opinion.
He’s vaguely aware of someone also browsing the noodle shelves beside him, but he ignores them – it’s not one of Shouto’s students, he’d sent Sora and Kaze down a few shelves to see if it was misplaced.
The guy next to him reaches for a packet, and Izuku’s eyes light up, because that’s the right one. Holding the prize in his hands, he lets the two students know that he has the package, mission successful.
It’s as the three of them are leaving the aisle and heading to the checkout that Izuku sees him – the guy from the noodle section. He’s trying to shoplift the soba. Izuku reaches out a hand and taps him on the shoulder, a polite smile on his face. But when the guy turns, irritation written all over his face, Izuku is surprised to see familiar teal-blue eyes, and scarred skin.
Dabi’s face lights up in recognition, “Nev-” he says, before spotting the two students behind Izuku. A questioning eyebrow, to which Izuku just smirks.
“Why don’t I pay for that for you, sir,” he says brightly.
Dabi sends a glance at Sora and Kaze again. “Thanks,” he mumbles. Quieter, when Izuku has started leading him to the checkout, he says, “I got fired. Customer complained that I ‘looked like a villain’.”
Izuku hisses in sympathy for the vigilante. It was only through his hastily built support system that Izuku made it through high school, and he was lucky enough to have gone to UA. At any other school, he knew he would’ve been treated like shit for his ‘weak’ quirk. In middle school, he was.
Dabi’s childhood experience had been much, much worse, to say the least. Izuku may be a pro, but he certainly wasn’t going to bring Dabi in just for attempted shoplifting (not like Izuku tried particularly hard on patrol, either).
They arrive at the checkouts, and while Sora and Kaze go through one of the registers, what with having majority of the shopping, Izuku only had a few things, plus the soba noodles, so he and Dabi went to the self register.
Once paid for, Izuku gives Dabi a small wave, and says, “Say hi to the gang for me!”
“You tell Shouto I said hi, and I will.” Dabi walks away, noodles in hand.
A ways behind Izuku, Sora and Kaze exchange a confused glance. Wasn’t that a vigilante…?
~~~
+1 – What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
Ryoichi Kage just wanted to have a normal, peaceful summer camp. That technically went out the window before the camp even started, seeing as it was a training camp, with Todoroki-sensei (the sadist), and Shinsou-sensei (another sadist, but more subtle. Todoroki-sensei revelled in his sadism). Midoriya was also tagging along, and Kage had discovered that he was the biggest sadist of all. The lesson they’d spent in puffer jackets would forever be scarred into his mind.
But the ‘peace’ of their training camp had been interrupted, by nothing short of a villain attack.
The last time this happened was the war against All For One. Kage had been two, and didn’t remember much, but he’d heard stories about it as he grew up.
He never wanted to see a Noumu.
Thankfully (silver linings, you know?) there were only normal villains. And their target seemed to be Midoriya? They’d already managed to injure him in a surprise attack, the man lying unconscious on the ground from a head injury. The villains kept making towards him, snarling as a student blocked their path. Twelve almost-graduated hero students were quite capable, it turned out.
There were four of them, guarding Midoriya, just under the shelter off the main building. Himself, Hana, Arakai, and Yua. Between them, they had a good mix: Hana could defend, with her Mirror quirk, and reflect the villains’ attacks away from them. Yua was great for distracting with his Flashbang quirk, Arakai could predict attacks, and worked well with Hana, and Kage himself was a great fighter, with his Dragon mutation.
The others in their class were with Todoroki-sensei, clearing the forest of villains. They hadn’t let many slip through, as there was only three A-ranks, and a few C-ranks that they dealt with quickly.
Nevermind, make that four A-ranks. Kage eyed the newcomer, holding several ball-bearings. They’d have to be wary of them, until they figured out exactly what they did.
They didn’t have to wait long. The villain lobbed the balls over the five, and they stuck to the ceiling, blinking lights faster and faster until-
They didn’t explode, like Kage had expected them to. Everyone, including the other villains, had their arms up to protect their heads. He started to drop his, thinking that maybe they had some other purpose that wasn’t exploding.
And then the building started to tremble, and cracks spiderwebbed outwards, until with a CRAA-CK! the ceiling started falling, small but heavy pieces tumbling dangerously towards them.
None of them had the right quirk to protect them. Not even Kage, who’s scales would be enough to prevent his own serious injury.
Except, apparently, there was a quirk that could save them.
Midoriya stood, blood running down half of his face, covering one eye. He stood, arms spread outwards, and the hundreds of chunks of the heavy roof were suspended in the air.
The four students watched as not a single speck of dust touched the floor, instead all of the rubble forming behind the man in the shape of a giant pair of wings.
The shape that Kaito recognised, from a night where he encountered what he thought was a spirit.
Wings which would explain why Midoriya had so much knowledge on stealth.
Wings that painted a target big enough to get shot and stabbed in the dark hours of the morning.
Wings that belonged to someone who Sora had almost heard the name of, from the mouth of a vigilante.
Wings that belonged to the Missing Hero: Nevermore.
~~~