Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was a lovely summer day in Mie Prefecture, not too long before the school year at UA High was due to begin, and Ochako Uraraka was sitting at an old picnic table in a park, waiting for Izuku Midoriya to arrive.

He had promised her a present of some kind, and despite his claims that he had stuff to take care of in her area, she was pretty sure he was coming entirely to visit her and give her whatever mysterious gift he had in mind.

Kicking her feet, she smiled softly, enjoying the warm sunshine. Since she'd learned that she'd been accepted into UA, it felt like her life had been a bit of a whirlwind of trying to get ready and figure out exactly how her housing arrangements were going to work. It was nice to just stop for a moment.

Still, badly needed break or not, she could only sit and do nothing for so long before her mind started to wander. And of course it started to wander towards the boy she was currently waiting for.

There were a lot of things that Ochako Uraraka noticed about Izuku Midoriya when she met him on the day of the UA entrance exam, she mused.

She noticed that he was amusingly awkward and jumpy and had cute freckles.

"I hope you don't mind me using my Quirk on you!" she said. "I just saw that you tripped, and I figured it was bad luck to fall right before an exam!"

"Oh no, it fine for me to use my Quirk on you!" he replied, then immediately realized his mistake. "I mean, I don't mind you using my Quirk on me! I mean, using your Quirk on you! I...ugh!" He buried his face in his hands. "I'm sorry..."

Ochako giggled. "Not very good at talking to girls?" she asked.

"Not very good at talking to humans in general," he groaned. "Sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," she assured him, grinning. "My name's Ochako Uraraka, by the way."

"Izuku Midoriya," he replied, peeking out between his fingers.

"Nice to meet you, Midoriya-kun. So, uh, would you like me to stop using my Quirk on you?" she asked the still floating boy.

"Oh, um, yes please," he said, adjusting himself so he could land on his feet when she did.

"Release!" Ochako said, touching the tips of her fingers on both hands against each other.

She quickly found that he had a habit of quiet, high speed muttering to himself.

"Uh, th-thanks for helping me out there," he said once he was standing on his own two feet again, literally. "That was really cool. What's your Quirk exactly? If you don't mind me asking, that is!" he was quick to add, almost frantic about it.

She smiled at him. "My Quirk is called Zero Gravity," she explained. "It lets me remove the gravity from anything I touch with all five fingers of one hand, but if I use it too much or on something too heavy, I get really nauseous."

"Oh, that's a really interesting Quirk!" Midoriya said. "It could be really useful in hand-to-hand combat! Most people would become totally helpless in a fight with their gravity removed! And of course you could use it on large objects and then utilize them as projectiles! And assuming you're able to use on yourself, then with some support gear, you might even be able to run on walls and ceilings like they're the ground! You could completely dominate the battlefield, and..."

She just stared at him as his monologue started to go faster and faster as he got lost in his musings, the words becoming less and less comprehensible with every moment.

"Uh..." she eventually tried to break in.

Midoriya slapped his hands over his mouth, looking mortified. "Sorry! Sorry!" he said. "I do that sometimes! I guess I'm just really into Quirks, but I know it's weird and creepy! Sorry!"

"It's okay, Midoriya-kun," she assured him, mustering a smile. "In fact, I'd like to hear your ideas for my Quirk, but...more slowly next time. And when we don't have to get to the exam."

"R-right, of course!" he agreed.

By the time the exam was over, she saw that he was almost recklessly brave.

"Ugh!" she grunted, trying to get up but find herself immediately thwarted by a chunk of rubble pinning her to the ground.

Ochako had felt like she was doing pretty well in the practical part of the UA entrance exam, until the zero pointer robot had revealed itself, erupting out of the ground like some kind of evil giant and sending debris flying everywhere.

She had scrambled to get away from the thing—which Present Mic's had not told them was so big—but something had hit her, and the next thing she knew, she was colliding painfully with the ground.

Now the zero pointer was bearing down on her and the other examinees were all sprinting away.

"Are you okay?!"

Except one, it turned out.

"Midoriya?" she asked. "I...I can't get up. I'm stuck, and I think my ankle's sprained!"

He rushed over and tried to move the piece of rubble pinning her to the ground, but whatever Quirk he had, it clearly wasn't any form of super strength, and he quickly gave up.

"Go," she grunted, looking at the enormous form of the zero pointer, which was getting closer by the second. "Save yourself!"

"No!" he refused, looking frantically about. Dashing off for a moment, he quickly returned with what had probably once been part of the pole for a street sign. With a grunt, he managed to wedge it under the debris holding Ochako down.

"I'm going to try to lift this up a bit, enough for you to move," he said. "But I don't think I can hold it for long! You need to use your Quirk on it!"

"Right!" she agreed, painfully aware of the zero pointer.

He pushed down on his improvised lever with a loud grunt, face screwing up with the effort. Ochako felt the pressure of the rubble on her let up a little, and she seized her chance, rolling over despite the movement aggravating her sprained ankle and sending enough pain to make her gasp shooting through her.

Now on her back rather than her front, she was able to sit up and slap a hand against the biggest piece of broken concrete holding her down. She could've cried in relief as it floated off of her.

There was no time for that, though. The zero pointer was practically right on top of them now, and it looked even more freaking huge and terrifying up close.

Midoriya pulled her roughly to her feet, and she draped an arm over his shoulders, leaning on him for support.

The two of them might've even gotten away, too, if another stomp from the massive robot hadn't shaken the ground so hard that it caused them both to tumble to the ground.

Ochako had looked up the moment she'd gotten her bearings to see the bottom of the massive robot's foot about to slam down onto the two of them.

Then, she acted without consciously making a decision.

She reached out, pressing a hand against Midoriya (only later realizing she'd put her palm directly onto his face), activating her Quirk and shoving him away as hard as she could. With no gravity to tether him to the ground, he'd gone flying away and out of the danger zone.

The brunette had instinctively reached up after that, shielding her head with her arms, as if that would help anything.

Then a thunderous air horn had sounded, following by Present Mic's booming voice proclaiming that the test was over.

Ochako wasn't even particularly ashamed of the fact that she'd puked then, and that it hadn't even really been due to her Quirk.

After the test had concluded and Recovery Girl had healed her ankle, Ochako had been able to speak to Midoriya a bit more. It was during that conversation that she'd noticed the thing about him that she'd found had stuck out the most in her memory.

Namely the quiet sadness he'd had about him.

It wasn't something he was loud about in any way. He clearly tried to be friendly and cheery to her, through his obvious shyness. There were no Eeyore-like declarations of pessimism, but there was a certain air of resignation about his odds of passing the exam and getting to become a hero.

Despite having known him for only brief a time, she got the sense that he was someone who'd been told "No" and "You can't" so often that it had long since made him permanently adjust his expectations for the future downwards.

Between that and the muted sorrow in those beautiful green eyes, Midoriya had an undeniable mournful young poet vibe about him.

...maybe she was getting a bit too poetic herself about it, really.

In any case, he had surprised her by asking for her phone number and inquiring if he could ask her some questions about her Quirk later, which had seemed surprisingly bold for a boy who'd so easily been sent spiraling around her earlier that day.

"That was really heroic what you did, trying to save me at the cost of yourself. So, I'd like to give you something, if you get into the hero course," was the rather cryptic remark he'd made about it at the time, followed immediately by, "I-I mean, I could give it you even if you don't get in! I'm not trying to say you'd deserve it less if you don't get in or anything! I j-just don't think you'd have too much use for it if you don't get into the hero course!"

More concerned with getting to be the nice boy's friend than his mysterious reward, Ochako had agreed and happily exchanged phone numbers with him, then headed back to her hotel room to crash and start what she was sure would feel like an endless wait for her exam results.

Since then, the two had communicated frequently via text, email, and the occasional phone call (and she would've been happy to do more phone calls if not for her limited minutes on her family's phone plan). While not bereft of friends, Ochako didn't have the money to go on the sorts of outings her classmates often did and so was frequently left behind by herself while they were having fun, so it was really nice to be able to speak to Midoriya during those times when she was left out.

It also helped to distract her from the anxiety of awaiting for her results, which had finally arrived recently, informing her that she'd gotten in and prompted Midoriya's visit.

"Uraraka!"

The sound of the familiar voice pulled her from her thoughts, and looked up to see Midoriya approaching, holding a plastic cup in each hand.

"Midori-kun! Hi, it's great to see you again!" she greeted, getting up from the table and running over to him.

"Hi, Uraraka!" he said. "Thanks for meeting me here. I brought you a boba tea." He added, holding up one of the cups.

"Oh, thank you!" she said, accepting it from him. "You didn't have to get me anything, though. I really don't mind meeting a friend, and besides you said that you wanted to give me something already."

He shrugged. "I went to get one for myself. It just seemed polite, especially since you mentioned you like it but don't have it often."

"Thanks, then" she smiled, accepting the drink. "Now, before anything else, why don't you tell me about your exam results."

"Oh. We don't need to get into that..." he mumbled.

"Yes, we do! You've avoided the subject every time I bring it up when we're texting, so I need to take the chance to ask you while we're face to face," she said firmly. "Did you get into the hero course, too?"

"...no," he said, looking away.

Despite his earlier evasiveness having made her suspect as much, Ochako found she was surprised. "What?! Why not? You were so brave, coming to help me escape the zero pointer when everybody else just ran away!"

He blushed. "Th-thanks," he said, mustering a weak smile. "And I did get a lot of points for that, but it wasn't enough to get me into the hero course. I actually came closer than I thought, though."

"So I guess that means we won't be seeing each other at UA, then," the brunette said, crestfallen.

"No, we will, just not as much," Midoriya said. "I may not have gotten into the hero course, but I was able to pass the test for the management track."

Ochako perked up immediately. "That's good to hear! I'm surprised you're going into management, though. No offense, but you don't really strike me as the businessman type. You don't even have glasses." She added.

He chuckled. "I'm not specializing in business," he said. "It's not well known, but you can specialize in Quirk analysis instead and then work for a big hero agency to break down villains' Quirks and help the sidekicks develop and stuff."

"Oh! That sounds perfect for you!" she said. "I bet you'll be amazing at it!"

He went crimson again. "Th-thanks," he said. "Anyway, now that we got that out of the way, I think we should move onto what I have for you. As you might've guessed, I didn't ask you a million questions about your Quirk just because I was curious. N-not that I wasn't curious, of course! Zero Gravity is a really cool Quirk!"

She laughed. "I'm glad you think so, but now that I know you're going into Quirk analysis, I kind of figured you had something else in mind," she said. "Did you do some write-up on Zero Gravity and how I can best use it or something?"

"N-not exactly," he said.

She blinked, surprised. "Oh. Then, um, what do you have for me?"

"Well..." he fidgeted nervously. "You probably noticed how I never really talked about my Quirk, even though we talked about yours and a bunch of other Quirks?"

"I mean, yeah, I did notice how that was another thing that made you change the subject whenever I asked about it," she said. "I figured you were embarrassed of it or something, so I stopped bringing it up."

Privately, she had assumed it was something that wouldn't exactly be useful in professional heroics. Maybe some minor cosmetic Quirk, something weak. Now was thinking it was perhaps even an analysis ability that could be useful but not on the battlefield.

"It's not that I'm embarrassed exactly," he said. "It's more that people tend to get either scared or...opportunistic when they find out what my Quirk does."

"You don't need to tell me if you don't want to," she said.

He shook his head. "No, you're my friend, and I told you I'd do something to help you as hero student," Midoriya insisted. He took a deep breath. "My Quirk is called Modify. It gives me the ability to, well, modify a person's Quirk. I need to know a lot about it to achieve the desired results, and there's definitely some limits to it, but I can make a person's Quirk much more powerful."

"You...wait, seriously? You can just change a person's Quirk?" she asked. "How does that even work?"

He took a sip of his drink and chewed on one of the tapioca pearls for a moment before he answered. "It's hard to describe, and there's no perfect comparison," he said. "The closest one is that, to me, each Quirk is like a big, complex machine that I can use my Quirk on to, well, tweak it, move around some of the components, change the settings on the buttons and the dials. That sort of thing."

"So you can just totally overhaul a Quirk?" Ochako asked, still stunned that such a thing was possible.

"No, like I said, there are limits," Midoriya said. "I can't change the basic nature of a Quirk. To go back to the machine analogy, if someone's Quirk is, say, a car, I can tune it up, turbo charge it, maybe even replace the engine, but I can't turn it into a jet. Or take Zero Gravity for instance. I couldn't change it so much that it becomes, I don't know, a fire Quirk. Also, the 'dial' only goes so high on certain Quirks; there's a hard limit on how much I can soup up any given Quirk. It's higher than you'd expect a lot of the times, though."

"That still leaves a lot of room to make changes," she observed. "So what kind of things can you do?"

"I can turn down or even eliminate the drawbacks of using certain Quirks," he answered. "I can change activation requirements. I can often make the basic Quirk a lot stronger, and unlock new abilities that are offshoots of the existing ones."

Her eyes widened at the thought of what applying even some of that could do for her. Just not being in danger of losing her lunch every time she used her Quirk on something heavy would be an absolute revelation for her.

"And you want to do this for me?" she asked softly.

He nodded. "I mean, you did save me from that robot, risking yourself in the process, so that makes you my hero," he said.

She felt her own cheeks redden and wanted to protest that he would've been fine, just like she had been, if she hadn't used Zero Gravity on him and shoved him away, but she knew better than to try that argument with him at this point. They'd had it enough times over text that she knew it'd be pointless.

"And I expect I'll probably end up doing it for a lot of heroes and hero students," he continued. "I'd like for you to be one of my first 'customers', though. That is, if you're okay with it."

"I'm not going to say no to an awesome free power up," she mustered a smile, even though she still felt vaguely dizzy from what he'd told her his Quirk did. "What do I need to do?"

"I just need some skin contact," he mumbled. "Ideally to the part of a person that their Quirk's expressed with. So, your finger pads, in your case."

Nodding, she lay her hands down on the picnic table, palms up, though she kept her thumbs folded. "You can touch all the pads on each hand except one," she said. "That way you won't activate my Quirk by accident."

He nodded, gently (and nervously) reaching out to place his hands over hers.

Ochako expected to feel a bit more flustered at doing something that sort of resembled hand-holding with a boy, but this just seemed too different somehow to invoke those sorts of feelings in her. It reminded her more of the time she'd gotten her palm read by a fortune teller at a festival than what she'd imagined romantic encounters with a guy would be.

Then, he activated his Quirk.

There was no dramatic fanfare. No clap of thunder sounded, and no glowing aura surrounded Midoriya. But all of a sudden she felt an unmistakable presence inside of her, gently and carefully probing something at the core of her being.

He regarded her with wide green eyes that held an undisguised awe. "I've never felt a Quirk that had so much dormant potential before," he said softly. "I thought for sure you'd need to pick and choose from the changes I could make, but I guess I was wrong."

She opened her mouth to ask what changes he was planning, but before she could say a word, he started.

Ochako understood immediately why he used the analogy of modding a machine of some kind. She could practically feel him unscrewing parts of her Quirk, then sliding them out and putting them into place, then manipulating various controls as he went over an essential part of her, carefully giving it a tune up.

Then, more quickly than she would've expected, she felt as though multiple pieces just sort of clicked into place all at once, and he was done, his presence receding until it disappeared. He took his hands off of hers.

"Whoa," she breathed.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Um, better, I think," she said, looking down at one of her hands. It felt like the parts of her Quirk were...better put together than they had been a while ago.

She wasn't sure how she could've explained it to someone else. It was like some discomfort that was so minor and that she was so accustomed to that she no longer noticed it had vanished, like she had been wearing a shirt backwards all day without realizing it all day and had finally fixed it.

"So, what did you do, exactly?" she asked.

He smiled. "Why don't we go and test it?" he asked. "I saw that a river runs through this park, and there were some trees by the bank that fell down recently. I bet they'd be good for testing your Quirk on."

Well, this was new. He actually looked eager, like somebody who'd managed to get a cherished friend a gift he thought they'd love and he wanted to see them react properly.

"Sure," she said gamely. "Let's go!"

Grabbing their drinks, the two made the short trek to the river bank, finding the downed trees. Ochako handed her tea to Midoriya, then made to touch one of the fallen logs.

"Wait," Midoriya said. "Don't touch them directly. Try and reach out with your Quirk without direct contact."

She blinked but did as he requested.

The brunette gasped as tendrils of pink light emerged from the pads on her fingers and swirled toward the fallen tree. The moment the light touched it, the tree rose up into the air and floated there.

"How in the world...?!"

Midoriya smiled. "You told me you could didn't necessarily need to touch bare skin for your Quirk to work on a person, so long as whatever clothing they're wearing wasn't too thick. That means you can transmit the effect of your Quirk through at least some types of matter," he said. "I made it so you can transmit the effect through air now, too."

Her eyes were nearly the size of saucers. "That's incredible," she breathed. "I barely feel any nausea at all, too."

He nodded. "Oh yeah, I turned the backlash from your Quirk way down and also increased your weight limit on what you can safely use your Quirk on," Midoriya said, like it was no big deal.

"Amazing," she said. "I could've practiced for years and not made my Quirk this much stronger."

"Well, most people can't make a Quirk evolution happen by just training," Midoriya pointed out. "Anyway, I made more changes besides that."

She turned to look at him with wide eyes. "What else did you do?"

"First, I removed the five finger requirement for activating your Quirk," he said.

She blinked, then extended one arm, pointing at another fallen tree with just her index finger. Another pink tendril emerged from the pad on her fingertip and went swirling toward its target. When it hit it, this tree also lifted off the ground.

"Whoa," she breathed. "You said you did other stuff, too?"

He nodded. "Yeah, besides that, rather than canceling out gravity, you can increase it on an object under the effect of your Quirk instead. You can also change the direction that gravity pulls an object after you've tagged it, basically allowing you to imitate telekinesis. You can do that with yourself, too, so you can use it to fly."

Looking gobsmacked, she turned her attention to the two trees, making them fly right, then left. She then increased gravity on them, causing them to slam into the ground, both of them sinking deep into the soft earth.

"I don't think 'Zero Gravity' is an accurate name for my Quirk anymore," she said softly.

"You can update your registration to something like Gravity Manipulation," Midoriya said. "Or Gravity Mastery, if you want it to sound even more impressive."

Ochako was silent for a moment, then she launched herself at him, throwing her arms around him. The green haired boy's face went crimson.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed. "I can't even say how amazing this is! I can be ten times the pro hero I could've been before!"

He patted her back, very awkwardly and slowly. "I...I'm glad," he said. "Th-that's what I w-want to do. Help heroes be b-better, that is."

She let him go, to his mingled relief and disappointment. "You're planning to do this for the other hero students at UA, then?" she asked.

He nodded. "If the school will let me."

She chuckled. "They'd have to be fools not to," she said. "I'm surprised the exam wasn't just dominated by people from your middle school or something."

"Oh, well, nobody from my middle school wanted me to ever touch them with my Quirk," he said softly, looking down.

"What? Why?" she blinked. "I'd expect you'd have the opposite problem."

"I don't just have the ability to turn people's power levels up," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Oh," Ochako said.

She knew immediately that there was a story there; somebody didn't get ostracized by their peers because of what their Quirk could theoretically do, not unless there was something about it that made it seem "evil" or "villainous" to people, anyway. Basically every powerful Quirk could be used to harm at least as easily as it could be used to help, after all. However, she immediately decided not to pry.

"Well, they were dumb, then," she proclaimed. "I'm super grateful for your help!"

"Thanks," he managed a smile.

"No, thank you," she said, giving him the sunniest grin she could.

She tested out her Quirk's expanded abilities a bit more, still amazed at her new powers, though it quickly became clear that she'd need to practice a lot when it came to mimicking telekinesis and flight. Just the fact it was possible absolutely blew her mind, though.

Eventually they returned to the picnic table and finished their teas, then bid one another goodbye, with Ochako promising to text him that evening and that she hoped to see him a lot at UA.

The last thing she wanted was for him to think she wanted nothing with him anymore now that he'd given her an awesome power up, after all. He was so nice, and kind, and just wanted to help, and those green eyes were so beautiful, and...

...wait, what?!

Izuku sighed tiredly as he walked into his apartment later that afternoon, removing his shoes and putting down his bag. It had been lovely to see Uraraka again, and her excitement at what he'd done to her Quirk was wonderful.

He knew he could never be a hero himself; the UA entrance exam had confirmed that for him. But making people happy like that and helping future heroes be better and stronger, well, it was pretty darn good.

"I'm home," he announced.

"Big brother!"

He let out as exaggerated "oof!" as a small white missile collided with him. "Whoa! Hi, Eri," he said, scooping the little girl up into a hug. "Happy to see me?"

"Yeah!" she nodded. "I missed you."

"You saw me just this morning," he pointed out with a chuckle.

Then a warm weight was abruptly on his back, nearly causing Izuku to fall forward even as another pair of arms wrapped around him. He released a yelp.

"It's easy to miss you, Izu-kun!" Himiko exclaimed, leaning forward to nuzzle her cheek against his.

"Himiko-chan! If I'd fallen, Eri could've gotten hurt!" Izuku scolded.

"You'd never let that happen, Izu-kun!" the blonde said with total confidence, clinging onto him more tightly and wrapping her legs around him, too.

"You know, if Mom comes back, she's going to get the wrong idea," he pointed out.

"Who says it'd be the wrong idea?" Himiko asked, her mouth close enough to his ear that her felt her warm breath wash over his skin.

He sighed. The blonde was such a tease. He wondered if she'd ever given a thought to what she'd do if he tried to take her seriously one day. Probably not; he suspected she realized as well as he did that he didn't have the nerve for such a thing. Also, he knew all too well that she wasn't serious about it. Nobody ever would be, after all.

He set Eri down on the floor. Himiko might have faith that his strength wouldn't fail under the weight of both girls, but Izuku didn't.

"You're not about to let me go, are you?" Izuku asked.

"Nope!" Himiko said cheerfully, popping the P.

Izuku sighed and trudged over to the couch, careful not to squash or otherwise hurt Himiko when he sat down. Eri immediately climbed up and sat down next to the two of them.

Izuku took out his notebook and began to update Uraraka's entry.

"Oh, that's that cute brunette you met at the entrance exam, right?" Himiko asked. "The one you've been texting so much since then? Did you power up her Quirk today? Did you?"

"I did," Izuku nodded.

"How did it go?" Himiko asked.

"It went super well," Izuku grinned. "Her Quirk turned out to have an insane amount of untapped potential. I was able to do all the modifications I had in mind, not just a few of them."

"Oooh, her Quirk must be super duper strong now then," Himiko remarked.

"I'd like to think so," Izuku replied. "She should be able to use her Quirk to mimic a telekinesis Quirk now, make thing heavier, and even fly herself, with a bit of practice."

"That is a huge upgrade," Himiko said. Then she smirked, showing off her unusually long, pointed canines. "I bet she's totally crushing on you now, if she wasn't already somehow."

Izuku scoffed. "As if that would ever happen."

Girls who were as cute as Uraraka and who were amazing enough to get into the UA hero course didn't think about him like that.

Girls in general didn't think about him like that, really, but especially not girls like that.

"You don't need to pretend she's not interested, Izu-kun," Himiko said. "I'm not the jealous type. I can share."

Izuku sighed in a long suffering sort of way.

Himiko nuzzled her cheek against his again, still clinging onto him like a baby koala. "One of these days, I'm going to make you realize you're as cute as I think you are," she said softly.

The green haired young man couldn't help but smile. While he could sometimes be exasperated by her antics, he wouldn't have wanted her out of his life for anything. Much like Eri, he'd become extremely attached to her.

There were very few people he'd ever deliberately used Modify on, and Himiko and Eri were two of them.

Removing the blood element entirely from Transform had proven impossible; it was just too inherent to the blond girl's Quirk. She still needed to drink a person's blood in order to assume their appearance. However, Izuku had been able to make it so that Himiko no longer had any physical need for blood. She still enjoyed the taste of it, but she didn't crave it the way she once had and wouldn't suffer any negative consequences if she went without consuming any indefinitely. He'd also been able to improve the Quirk in several other ways; short of Uraraka, the blonde's Quirk had had more dormant potential than any others he'd yet used Modify on, short though that list was.

When it came to Eri's Rewind, Izuku had only used Modify to turn down her power to the point where it wouldn't do any significant harm even if she completely lost control of it. Eri would've been more than happy with leaving her "curse" permanently de-fanged, but Izuku regularly restored it to full strength so she could practice with it. Once she became comfortable with it, he intended to leave it that way permanently, and if someday she wanted to become a pro hero, he'd happily make it stronger for her.

He felt the blonde's grip on him loosening as he was putting the finishing touches on the gravity girl's expanded entry, while her breathing slowed.

"Himiko-chan, you're falling asleep," he warned.

"No 'im not," she mumbled, shortly before succumbing to slumber.

Next to him, Eri had also dozed off.

Izuku sighed fondly. "I don't know why the two of you think I'm so comfy..."

There were many things that Shota Aizawa found tiresome about his job at UA. Frequently dealing with cocky teenagers who thought the extremely dangerous field of pro heroics was a game was definitely the most exasperating, but the principal's theatrics were certainly exhausting as well.

Of course, he found just about everything tiresome, so perhaps that really wasn't saying much.

Still, he didn't bother repressing a sigh when the door to Nezu's office opened by itself a mere instant before he could knock or otherwise make his presence known.

"You wanted to see me, Principal?" he asked, entering the office.

"Yes, indeed I did!" Nezu chirped. "Tea, Shota?"

"No, thank you," said the underground pro. He didn't want to drag this meeting out any longer than needed, and he was hoping to catch a nap between now and when he went on patrol.

"Your loss," Nezu proclaimed, taking a sip from his teacup with obvious pleasure.

"What do you need from me?" Aizawa asked, barely bothering to conceal his impatience.

"Ah, yes!" the mammal of indeterminate species said, as though he'd actually forgotten his reason for calling the homeroom teacher. "I wanted to inform you that I'll be suspending your expulsion privileges this year until after the Sports Festival!"

"What? Why?" he demanded.

"Oh, no worries, no worries," Nezu said. "It's not that I no longer trust your judgment or your methods. Indeed, feel free to threaten them with expulsion to your heart's content before the festival."

"Then why?" he demanded.

Smiling cheerfully, Nezu placed the file for a student down on his desk so the underground pro could see. "Because I believe you may have reason to reevaluate your opinions of your students' potential not too long after the year really gets going."

With a frown, Aizawa picked up the file and skimmed it, seeing it was for a management student rather than one in the hero track. Tired eyes widened minutely when he went over the part about the boy's Quirk.

"You intend to have him use his Quirk on the first years?" he asked.

"Indeed," Nezu nodded, grinning.

"Hmm, I suppose it's only rational," Aizawa said. "Fine, I'll hold back until then. I hope you know what you're doing with this, though."

"Don't I always?"

Aizawa didn't dignify that with a response.

"Do you two have all your school supplies?" Inko asked. "Notebooks? Pencils? Phones charged?"

"Yes, Mom," Izuku said.

"Yes, Inko-san," Himiko nodded.

The Midoriya matron gave the pair a watery smile, then pulled Izuku into a tight hug. "I know the Management track wasn't what your heart wanted, but you're going to do great, and I'm so proud of you," she said. "The world's most famous heroes will call you their hero someday."

"Thanks, Mom," Izuku said.

Inko then released him and gave the blond girl a more modest squeeze. "You've come so, so far since we met you, Himiko," she said. "Anyone who wouldn't be proud of you is a complete fool." She added, gaze darkening at the thought of her biological parents.

The blonde swallowed thickly. "Thank you."

Inko's smile turned just a little bit wicked. "And I'll be proud to call you my daughter-in-law someday."

"M-Mom!" Izuku exclaimed, face reddening.

Himiko laughed. "See, Izu-kun! I have your mother's blessing!"

"Well, we should really go, or we're going to be late!" Izuku said in a frantic, vaguely strangled tone. "Well be back later, love you, bye!"

"See you!" Eri bid them goodbye.

Izuku practically sprinted away, with Himiko easily keeping up with him. It wasn't until they were almost halfway to the train station that he slowed down, the redness in his face easing.

"I love your mom," Himiko remarked with genuine affection, putting her hands behind her head as she walked.

Despite the embarrassing encounter he'd just escaped, Izuku couldn't help but smile, glad that his mother gave Himiko the affection and validation she deserved but would never get from her birth parents. "She could be your mother, too," he replied. "She'd be happy to make it official, and we know the Togas wouldn't object."

"Oh, I know, Himiko grinned. "But a sister isn't what I want to be to you." She added with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.

Izuku sighed, wondering if the blonde would ever tire of teasing him. He hoped that whoever she actually ended up with didn't find it off putting or get jealous over it.

"Wow, this place is huge," Ochako remarked to no one in particular as she walked through the halls of UA, looking for the 1-A homeroom.

It was a heck of a lot bigger than the middle school she'd attended back home, and a lot more well maintained as well. There was no doubt that this was a high powered place with a fat budget.

She hoped it wasn't immediately obvious to all the other kids that she was a poor bumpkin.

Well, she should worry about finding the room for Class 1-A before any of that, she decided. Not only was UA big, it was pretty confusing as well.

"You trying to find your homeroom, too?" a voice asked.

She turned to see a girl around her age wearing the UA hero student uniform. Her honey colored hair was up in a pair of messy buns, and eyes of almost the same shade sparkled with excitement.

"Yes, Class 1-A," she said.

"Me too!" the blond girl said cheerfully. "I think the homeroom for 1-A is this way." She said, pointing.

"Thanks. Lead the way, then," the brunette said, and the two started off. "I'm Ochako Uraraka, by the way."

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, looking excited. "So you're Uraraka! Izu-kun told me all about you! I'm Himiko Toga."

"Nice to meet you! Midori-kun told me a lot about you, too," she said. "You're his...apartment mate?" She had never been totally clear on that.

Toga nodded. "Yup!" she said cheerfully, not elaborating. "I'm glad we're in the same class! You're even cuter than he said." She added with a grin.

Ochako felt her face heating up. "He told you I'm cute?"

"Not in so many words," Toga said, still with that catlike grin. "He's still shy like that. But I can totally tell. And I definitely agree with him."

"Um, thanks?" she said, sure her face was practically glowing by this point.

Thankfully for her heart rate, they reached the classroom at this point. Opening the door, they found a tall boy with glasses scolding a blond kid with a lightning bolt shaped streak in his hair over not showing enough respect for the desks or something. Ochako couldn't help but giggle at the spectacle.

"If you're here to socialize, you may as well get out now."

The whole class jumped at the sight of an exhausted, bedraggled looking man in a yellow sleeping bag on the floor just outside the classroom. As the students looked on in stunned silence, he climbed out, sucking a jelly packet dry before speaking again.

"It took you lot 16 seconds to calm down," he said. "You're not very rational, are you?"

Twenty pairs of eyes blinked dumbly at the man.

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. It's nice to meet all of you," he said, producing a track suit from somewhere and holding it up. "Now put these outside and meet outside in 10 minutes. We're skipping the opening ceremonies and doing a Quirk Assessment Test instead."

What?

"...and that is why, students of UA, it's important to treat your minds and bodies just like a cherished fur pelt," Nezu concluded.

The assembled students clapped politely, though any actual enthusiasm there was probably just for the fact that the principal's long winded speech had finally ended.

Present Mic took the podium as the mammal of indeterminate species stepped to the side of the stage. "Thank you, Principal Nezu, for your inspiring words, as always," he said, and if the students thought they detected a note of sarcasm there, well, nobody could prove it wasn't just their imagination. "Now for some general housekeeping before you head back to your new homerooms to pick up your syllabi. While UA High is one of the safest places in the country, it's still important for you to know what the various alarms mean, in the event of an emergency..."

Izuku's attention, already taxed by the principal's speech, began to waver. As cool as being in the hero high school was, along with getting to see actual, real live pro heroes, the novelty had worn off a bit since Nezu had begun his speech.

"Also, all students should be aware that there are resources available through the school for food and housing assistance for those who need it. If you believe you may qualify..."

He cast his gaze in the direction of the impossible-to-miss cluster of empty seats where the members of Class 1-A should've been. He knew that Himiko was in that class, and judging by the fact that he hadn't seen Uraraka, he suspected she was part of it, too.

So where the heck were they?

"The student who comes in last place will be expelled."

The Quirk Assessment Test suddenly got a lot more intense.

For her own sake, Ochako wasn't especially worried. Thanks to Midoriya cranking her Quirk up to eleven, she was confident she could do well, but it just seemed so wrong to expel someone for coming in last on a competition on the first day. She hated the idea of losing a classmate before she'd even gotten to know them.

Still, all protests about the unfairness of it to their new teacher fell on deaf ears, so there was nothing to do but give it her best, and be very glad that she'd already banked a literally unbeatable score on the ball throw.

"Okay, next up, the fifty meter dash," Aizawa said. "Uraraka, Toga, you two go first."

The brunette nodded, taking her position at the starting line. In contrast, the blonde took a moment to roll up the legs of her pants as far as she could.

Ochako was debating whether or not to ask why when Toga's legs abruptly began to warp and shift, like they were made from liquid. In seconds, they had become longer, far more muscular, much more tanned, and her feet...

"Are those...Mirko's legs?" she asked.

"Sure are!" Toga chirped.

"No chatter," Aizawa said. "Get on your marks."

With a squeak, Ochako did as the teacher commanded, getting into the ready position.

"Go."

Comet Flight! She thought, tagging herself and then making herself surge forwards as quickly as she dared while Toga barreled toward the finish line with superhuman strides.

The robot at the finish line released a "ding!"

"Uraraka: 1.7 seconds. Toga: 1.6 seconds," it announced in a tinny voice.

The two girls traded a look, with Toga giving her a smug grin. Immediately, Ochako knew with absolute certainty that she wasn't the only one who'd gotten a power-up from Midoriya.

Oh, it is so on, she thought, returning Toga's grin.

The rest of the tests played out with each of the two girls finding various ways to make use of their respective Quirks to cheese the events, while the bulk of the remaining students could only manage to do the same with one, if that.

Both Ochako and Toga easily cleared the sand box for the standing long jump, the former by simply flying over it while the latter used her ability to swap her legs with Mirko's again and easily jumped it.

On the grip strength and ball throw tests, Toga instead transformed her arms into a hulking pair that might have belonged to Death Arms usually, and while she couldn't manage an infinity throw, she got the top score in the grip test; with Ochako lacking the fine control needed to max out the device without breaking it.

The pair were among among the three students who drew for winner of the endurance run around the track, joined by a raven-haired girl who'd been able to use her Quirk to create a motor scooter.

When it came to sit-ups and push-ups, Ochako was able to remove most of her upper body's gravity to allow her to crank out reps at high speed with little effort, while Toga again demonstrated her ability to transform parts of her body into those that seemed to belong to supernaturally fit and strong pro heroes.

For the repeated side steps...neither one of them could quite figure out how to break that.

Only the two recommended students could come close to keeping up, and even then, it was obvious they were fighting each other for third place.

Getting to use her expanded Quirk was invigorating, as was seeing that her training to master her new powers had paid off, but Ochako still felt a pit forming inside her stomach at the thought of somebody getting expelled today.

She liked to think that she wouldn't have been in danger of last place even without Midoriya's help, but the idea that she was sailing past the competition thanks to him still left her feeling guilty.

"All right," Aizawa said. "Going over the specifics of the results would take too long, so here's the final breakdown."

He pressed a few buttons on some gadget he was holding, and it projected a list of students into the air before him.

Ochako noted with some pride that she'd edged out Toga, her name sitting pretty at the top of the list with the blonde's right below it. Yaoyorozu, who Ochako was pretty sure was the elegant girl with the object creation Quirk, had come in third, followed by Todoraki, the guy with the ice Quirk and the two-toned hair.

The brunette felt another guilty squirm at the crestfallen look on the Yaoyorozu's face, plus the annoyance on Todoroki's.

However, they were still better off than the person in last place.

"Oh no," whispered the invisible girl, the position of her track suit making it clear her shoulders were slumped. Ochako's heart twisted; she sounded like she was about to cry.

"Oh, by the way, nobody's getting expelled," Aizawa added, a twisted grin on his face. "That was just a rational deception to make sure you gave these tests your all!"

Ochako and Toga shared looks of shock and horror even as Yaoyorozu noted that she'd thought the ruse was obvious.

"Ah, young Izuku Midoriya, how good to see you."

Izuku blinked. When he'd vacated his guidance session, he hadn't expected to find the principal of UA waiting for him.

"Oh, Principal Nezu, it's good to see you, sir," he stammered, trying to hide his confusion.

"Do you have some time to talk, perhaps have a cup of tea with me?" Nezu asked.

"Um, I'd like that, but I was hoping to find Himi—er, Toga and Uraraka," he said apologetically.

"Those two will be busy for some time yet," Nezu informed him. "Eraserhead's little tests for his class always take longer than the normal day one activities. We've got plenty of time."

"Uh, if you say so, sir," Izuku said, more confused than ever. "In that case, I'd be happy to have a chat with you."

"Splendid!" Nezu said. "I wanted to show you your new office!"

"My what?"

But the rat creature was already making his way down the hallway at a surprisingly fast clip for someone with such short legs. With a mental shrug, Izuku followed him to the section of the massive UA central building that housed the Management department.

"Ah, here were are!" Nezu said cheerfully as they arrived at a large wooden door, removing a key card from his pocket and waving it before a reader next to it. The door's lock disengaged with a beep and a click.

Izuku, already wondering why in the world he'd have his own office in the school, did a double take at what he saw.

The room was surprisingly large, significantly bigger than his bedroom at home. A very impressive and expensive looking desk sat next to one wall, with three high end computer monitors standing on top of it. A big computer tower sat next to the desk, no doubt hooked up to said monitors.

A huge bookshelf sat against the opposite wall, crammed full of books about Quirk science, analysis, and other related subjects. A coffee table and a modest couch took up another portion of the room, with a floor to ceiling window comprising one wall and giving a magnificent view of the UA campus and the city beyond. An electric kettle and a box with an assortment of teas sat on a small table in a corner.

"This is mine?" Izuku asked, shocked, getting a cheerful nod from Nezu. "But...why?"

He'd heard of certain third year support track students getting their own private workshops for independent work and study, but he'd never heard of the same being the case with the other tracks, and certainly never for a first year like himself. And even with UA's massive budget, he was certain that no other student had a private workspace this lavish on campus.

"It's been quite some time since the school had had someone specialize in Quirk analysis," Nezu noted. "So long, in fact, that we no longer have staff in place to teach it. So! I opted to take on the bulk of teaching duties for you myself! I haven't had a personal student in ages, so I suppose I wanted to spoil you a bit."

"...excuse me, sir, but I can't help but think there's a bit more to it than just...favoritism," Izuku said.

Nezu release a squeaking laugh. "Oh, you're a sharp one! A good trait for someone going into analysis," he said. "Yes, I must confess I was also hoping you'd be willing to make use of your unique Quirk in the service of the school."

"Oh, uh, I mean, I'm fine with it," Izuku stammered, surprised. "That is, I was hoping to eventually be able to use my Quirk to help heroes but I've been wanting to ask, is that even, um, allowed? I mean, I don't have any kind of license or anything."

He realized he was babbling and closed his mouth.

"Indeed, and if you intend to make it major part of your career, you'll no doubt need to attain a hero license at some point," Nezu said.

Izuku's breath caught. "A hero license?"

The rodent creature nodded. "It's something the commission likes to keep under wraps, but there's a limited number of 'support' hero licenses they hand out each year to people who have exceptionally useful Quirks, but who don't wish to or can't become 'normal' pro heroes, for whatever reason. The tests needed to obtain one are significantly less vigorous, if they determine you qualify for such a license to begin with," he explained. "It's essentially how the commission bowed to the reality that some Quirks are just too useful to not use, without having to relinquish their position as the only body in the country that can give someone the right to use their Quirk freely. I'd be more than willing to put you forward for such a license, and I have no doubt that the commission would agree you're eligible for one."

"So I'd be a pro hero in name only," Izuku said, not able to hide his disappointment.

"Essentially, yes," Nezu nodded. "While some people with such licenses have adopted heroic personas and monikers and made something of a name for themselves—with UA's own Recovery Girl likely being the best example—most such support heroes are ordinary people who just happen to be allowed to use their Quirks openly for their jobs. Given the nature of your Quirk, and how many people would seek to use it to advance nefarious ends, I'd strongly recommend you to keep it quiet. It could be dangerous if word of what Modify can do becomes general knowledge."

Izuku chuckled weakly. "I can't really argue that's a bad idea. I never exactly advertised my Quirk, and I still ended up with people seeking me out for it," he remarked. "But, um, anyway, you said I'd probably need to get a license eventually. So does that mean it's fine for now?"

"Yes, indeed! You'll be supervised by a pro hero teacher whenever you use it," Nezu said. "Nobody can argue that that's beyond the pale, especially in a school where the hero students regularly do the same thing!"

"I guess that's true," Izuku agreed. "Anyway, I'll be happy to use my Quirk to help the school. I guess that'll mean on the hero students?"

"On the first years, at any rate," Nezu said. "The more experienced students, while not as much as seasoned pros, have already developed set ways of utilizing their abilities, so they would need to start nearly fresh if their Quirks were modified. But the first years have just reached the starting line, so it's an ideal time to power up their Quirks. And it would be so very unfair if only Ms. Toga and Ms. Uraraka got the advantage of having you modify their Quirks."

Izuku laughed nervously. "Ah, you know about that?"

"Quite," Nezu smirked. "And I'm not upset, but as I said, it would be unfair to leave things as they are."

"I need to know a lot about someone to be able to Modify their Quirk properly," Izuku warned.

"And I assure you, you'll learn more than enough about the hero students, in the course of your own studies," Nezu said. "Speaking of which, I've written up a syllabus just for you." He gestured to a few papers on the coffee table that were stapled together, which Izuku picked up.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

"To give you the short version, you'll be having your regular subjects with the rest of your class, but when it comes time for course-specific studies, you'll be spending most of your time with me," Nezu said. "Hound Dog will give you some lessons on psychology as it relates to Quirks and the analysis thereof, while Recovery Girl will teach you about some of the biological science of Quirks and how to ethically utilize a Quirk on a person, especially when it comes to altering them in some way."

"I understand," Izuku said. "I'm looking forward to it."

In truth, a part of him was dreading it; he had never liked being the focus of the teacher's attention in school. He told himself that UA wasn't Alderra, and that it wouldn't be as bad as he feared. He almost believed himself, too.

"Excellent!" Nezu clapped his paws together, the gesture making almost no sound at all. "Now, we still have some time. Hound Dog is quite tied up doing guidance sessions, but Recovery Girl should be available, unless something quite unexpected happened today. So what do you say we say hello to one of your future teachers?"

"Meet Recovery Girl? I'd love to!" Izuku said eagerly.

"Splendid!" Nezu said. "Let's head down to her office now, then."

Izuku followed the mouse-like principal through the winding halls of UA, still confusing to him thanks to its unfamiliarity, until they arrived at the nurse's office, where the tiny "Youthful" Heroine was seated at her desk, working on a computer.

"Good afternoon, Chiyo!" Nezu chirped.

"Nezu, don't you dare tell me that a student got hurt already," the nurse commanded sternly.

"Nothing of the sort," Nezu assured her. "I just wanted to introduce you to the student I told you about, Izuku Midoriya."

"Hi! I'm Midoriya! I'm a big fan! Can I have your autograph?" the student in question blurted out in one great rush, holding his notebook out.

Though briefly taken aback, Recovery Girl got over it quickly, giving the freckled boy a smile. "I'd be honored, young man. Not a lot of people asking for this old woman's autograph, after all," she chuckled, accepting the notebook and signing the page. "Principal Nezu is quite excited about you."

"I, uh, hope to live up to his expectations, ma'am," Izuku said.

Recovery Girl smiled. "Me too," she said. "I haven't done very much teaching in my career, but I'll do my best to pass on the knowledge I have that'll be useful to you, young man."

"I look forward to learning from you," Izuku bowed.

"Well," Nezu clapped his paws together, "I'm pleased to see you two seem to be getting along so well together!"

Recovery Girl harrumphed. "It'll be nice to regularly deal with a student for reason other than repeated injuries," she said, getting a squeaking laugh from Nezu.

"Now, Midoriya, before I let you go for the day, I'd like you to perform your first service for UA by using your Quick on Recovery Girl here," Nezu said.

Izuku recoiled. "What? But I...I don't know enough about her Quirk to do that properly," he protested.

"Come now, I saw that notebook you passed her. You had two pages of notes on her Quirk, at least," Nezu chided gently. "If you hope to get the most you can out of Modify, you'll need to get used to utilizing it without the benefit of weeks of correspondence with the person you'll be using it on."

"I thought you said pro heroes are too used to using their Quirks the way they are, though," Izuku pointed out. "That changing them would force to relearn everything."

"That's for the type of heroes who go out and fight villains," Nezu said. "But as I told you, Recovery Girl is technically a support hero and isn't expected to do that."

"But something could go wrong, if I don't understand everything about how a Quirk works before I Modify it," Izuku argued.

"One can never know everything about how a Quirk works, even the person who has it," Nezu pointed out. "And you claimed in your application that you can revert a Quirk you've Modified back to its original state, so long as you're careful when initially changing it. Was that not true?"

"No, it is," Izuku admitted reluctantly. "But that doesn't mean there won't be unintended effects..."

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Midoriya," Nezu said.

Izuku turned to Recovery Girl. "You're okay with this?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, Nezu told me he planned to ask this of you today, and I agreed," she said. "Don't worry yourself overly much about me and my Quirk. I'm sure you'll be careful, and frankly, even if you rendered Heal unusable somehow, well, it would just give me an excuse to finally retire."

"O-Okay, I guess," Izuku said, still notably reluctant. "Um, this will be awkward, but Modify works best when I can make contact with the part of a person's body that uses a Quirk, and since you trigger Heal by kissing people..."

"You need to touch my lips," she said. "Don't worry, sonny. I've been practicing medicine for decades now. I've done things a lot more awkward and uncomfortable than letting a youngster like you put his fingers on my lips."

He nodded, pulling up a chair across from her, his much lower to compensate for the height difference between the two of them. Then he touched her lips with his index and middle finger.

Activating Modify, he instantly "saw" her Quirk in his mind's eye, his subconscious turning it into an indistinct amalgam of a burning core of pink energy and an elaborate piece of machinery with several modular components that could be moved about and readjusted, as well as additional parts that could be slotted in but weren't currently in use.

"Looks like I can make it so your Quirk will take less energy from the person you use it on to heal them," Izuku said. "I can also make it so you can heal some older injuries, too, though nothing crazy. Mostly just getting rid of scar tissue, I think. I could probably make it so you could supplement the target's energy with some of your own, if you wanted to, as well. Seems like the biggest thing I could do though, would be to allow your Quirk to affect you yourself. I think it would restore your energy a little? Maybe?" He added, wishing he could just have a few hours to grill Recovery Girl on the nuts and bolts of her Quirk before doing this.

Nezu hummed. "If her Quirk both allowed her to spend her own energy to heal and restored her energy, that would greatly enhance her ability to help people with it," he noted.

"Go ahead, young man," Recovery Girl said, voice slightly muffled by the student's fingers still on her lips.

Izuku nodded, going to work, visualizing his own Quirk simultaneously manipulating ethereal energies and moving and inserting pieces into an elaborate machine, like a technician adding sticks of RAM and expansion cards to a computer's motherboard.

Finally, the last "component" clicked into place. Izuku just wished he was more certain as to what the final product would actually do.

"Okay, that should do it," he said uncertainly. "Do you feel any different?" he asked.

"Not so far," Recovery Girl answered. "I'd test Heal on someone, but no one's injured right now, and it would be terribly unethical to hurt someone deliberately for the sake of an experiment." She added, gazing pointedly at Nezu as she said it.

The rodent principal cleared his throat. "Indeed," he agreed. "However, with dozens of hero students constantly going plus ultra in their pursuit of becoming full fledged pros, it's safe to say it won't be long before someone needs your services."

"Hmph, isn't that the truth," Recovery Girl grumbled.

"Well, I'd say this was a very successful start of term," Nezu said cheerfully. "Why don't I walk you toward the gates, Midoriya? I know new students need a little time before they become accustomed to navigating UA."

"Thank you, Principal."

Himiko knew that Aizawa's crazy test had kept Class 1-A later than most of the rest of the classes, including the Management course kids, so she'd assumed that Izuku would get out of school that day earlier than she had. However, she hadn't found him waiting outside the UA barrier for her, and there was also no text informing her that he was going to head home on his own.

She was starting to get a bit worried that something may have happened to him and was about to text him herself when he emerged from the front gates, looking tired but not unhappy.

"Izu-kun!" she shouted, rushing over to him and leaping onto his back, ignoring the laughter and surprise of Uraraka and her other new friends.

"Himiko-chan!" he exclaimed, staggering a bit before regaining his balance. "We're in public! Aren't you afraid the other hero students will think you're strange?"

"Nope!" Himiko said cheerfully.

Izuku sighed. "Hello, Uraraka-chan," he greeted the brunette.

"Oh, you three know each other?" asked...a floating school uniform. Clearly an invisible student, and one who was looking for juicy details, if her tone was anything to go by.

"I'm Izuku Midoriya," he introduced himself. "Himiko-chan and I live together. My mother is her legal guardian," Izuku was quick to add.

"And I met Midori-kun during the entrance exam," Uraraka added.

"You're a Management student, though," remarked a girl with what seemed to be a frog Quirk of some kind, noting the design on his uniform sleeves.

"Yeah," he said ruefully. "I didn't pass the practical exam for the hero course, but I got into the analysis specialization in the Management track. Um, my teacher told me I'd actually be working quite a bit with the hero first year students, so we may see each other more than you'd expect. I, uh, probably shouldn't say exactly what that's about yet, though."

"Is that why you were out even later than we were? Discussing things with your teacher?" Himiko asked.

"Yeah," Izuku answered.

"Neat!" Himiko said. "Anyway, these are my classmates, and my new friends! You already know Uraraka, of course. This is Tsuyu Asui..."

"Call me Tsu."

"And this is Tooru Hagakure."

"Nice to meetcha!"

"And this is Mina Ashido."

"Yo!"

"He's single, ladies," Himiko told them with a grin.

Izuku sighed heavily, then bowed to the girls as best as he could with the blonde still clinging to his back. "I apologize in advance for her," he said. "Himiko-chan tries to ship me with every pretty girl around our age we meet."

"Oh, so you think we're pretty?" Ashido asked with a big grin, causing Izuku to turn crimson and devolve instantly into panicked sputtering.

"Seems like she's already staked her own claim," the invisible girl remarked, sounding just as amused as Ashido.

"I can share," Himiko singsonged.

Uraraka giggled. "Oh my gosh, she's trying to make you into a harem protagonist!"

Izuku sighed. "If I have anything in common with any harem protagonist, it's only because they tend to be written as aggressively ordinary guys," he muttered.

"Hey, this is hilarious," remarked Asui, who hadn't come close to cracking a smile so far as any of the rest of them could tell. "But we should probably get to the station if we don't want to miss our trains."

There were murmurs of agreement, and the group headed off.

"Mush!" Himiko said.

"Himiko, they're not going to let us onto the train like this, and people will stare," Izuku grumbled, even as he started to make his way toward the station.

It was approaching evening by the time Nezu was finished with his duties for the day.

As much as he enjoyed the excitement and the feeling of fresh beginnings that accompanied the start of a new school year, Nezu would be the first to admit that they tended to generate a lot of paperwork, while simultaneously pulling him into the pomp and ceremony and thus limiting how much time he had during the day to handle it all.

This being the case, he was very much looking forward to heading home, fixing himself up some nice tea, a plate of cheese and crackers, and relaxing for a bit before going to bed so he could tackle the next day.

However, there was something he wanted to see to before departing.

"Hello, Chiyo," he said as he entered Recovery Girl's office for the second time that day. "I'm surprised to see you here so late, considering there were no students injured or otherwise needing your assistance today."

"If you really didn't expect me to still be here, you wouldn't have come here," the healing heroine pointed out. "And I want to make sure I have everything in order for tomorrow. The hero classes always hit the ground running, which inevitably means injuries, and I suspect it'll only be worse this year, with All Might running a hero class. I still don't know what you were thinking, cajoling him into the position but not even assigning him a TA to assist him."

"He's the number one hero, Chiyo," Nezu said. "In any case, that's not what I came here to discuss. How are you feeling?"

"Quite well, actually," she answered. "It's probably just the placebo effect at work, but I'd say my old joints are feeling more limber than they have in a while."

"Splendid, I'm pleased to hear it," Nezu smiled.

Recovery Girl hummed thoughtfully, finally locking her computer and turning her full attention on the rodent principal. "You're really buttering up that boy," she said. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Nezu asked innocently.

"I saw the office you gave him," she said. "It's nicer than what most of the teachers have. Yamada will be griping for weeks if he sees it."

Nezu tittered. "I dare say he will. He'll get over it, though."

"You also pushed him to use his Quirk with less information about the target Quirk than he's comfortable with," Recovery Girl said. "You're trying to endear him to you while also working to get him accustomed to using Modify to enhance other Quirks with less data than he'd currently prefer. It's not difficult to figure out what you're probably after."

Nezu shrugged. "I wasn't particularly trying to conceal my motives," he said. "If I can ensure that UA graduates hero students whose power far outstrips those of other heroes for a generation or more, I won't hesitate to do so. It's a goal I'm sure young Midoriya will be happy to help with, though I'm certainly willing to do what I need to in order to make him happy as well."

"A generation or more," Recovery Girl echoed. "You clearly don't intend for him to depart when he graduates."

"UA could use a Quirk analyst. Or a Quirk counselor. Or even a strategist. There are many positions I could offer him once he completes his education," Nezu said.

"Hmm, I suppose I can't object to a plan to make future heroes less likely to fall against villains," she said. "Still, Nezu, Midoriya's a young man with his own hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Not a piece on a game board. You'd do well to remember that."

"With a Quirk like that, there would be many people who seek to use him," Nezu said. "At least if he's in my employ, he can be safe and happy in UA."

"Hopefully," was all Chiyo said in response to that. "Good night, Principal."