Summary:
waxing: (n.) The growing illumination of the Moon (or other celestial body) over time.
Shouto has an interesting first two days of school.
Notes:
Like my other fics, I have this one outlined for the next handful of chapters but updating schedules will be virtually non-existent as I juggle university courses whilst writing. Apologies for the weird schedule, all - and to those who commented on last chapter with encouragement, thank you for your support!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
The thing about Quirks is that they bend the laws of physics. They take advantage of all the equations and rules and theories that scientists have come up with over the years, and then take it one step further to toe the line of suspension of disbelief.
Which is to say that the spiky-haired kid launches his ball by the sheer virtue of recreating the traditional rocket propulsion: explosions.
Where does that energy even come from? It's not fire, or at least, it doesn't look like any fire that Father has used in training. It's too directed, too linear, not enough laminar combustion in the way that true fire consumes any and all fuel available.
I almost miss the number that Homeroom Teacher names for Spiky's throw. 705.2 meters. But whatever he says next is even more blatantly ridiculous.
Immediate expulsion? That's perfect for my plans. Father already thinks that I'm a disappointment, yet he's been holding out that U.A. will be the one to whip me into shape, whatever that means. But if even the homeroom teacher of the class with the most legacy students in the grade expels me, then –
No. Father would still throw his weight around and get me re-enrolled, and after that the teachers will be more reluctant to put me in General Education. I sigh and put away my headphones. The original plan still stands: I'll need to convince the school that I'll make an absolutely terrible hero, not by potential or Quirk use but because I'm just not cut out for it. Which is true.
Everyone else here seems absolutely devastated by the idea that they could be expelled from the school, though, which is ridiculous. U.A. does maintain its name as the most prestigious and elite heroics high school by its low student retention and graduation rate, but even expelled students are the cream of the crop. Any of the other high schools with heroics courses would be delighted to have a U.A. candidate among their ranks.
The homeroom teacher flicks his fingers, and I don't know what it means, but apparently it does to the rest of the class because they, to a student, get upset.
I admit: I get somewhat distracted by the Quirks of the other students here while they're distracted.
Some of them are obvious: engines in legs aren't exactly subtle. Others aren't as much, and those are the ones that are the most unpredictable.
Spiky's use of fire (presumably fire, I'm not exactly sure what it is just yet) is, no doubt, the way that Father intends for me to use my own. But he, and all of the other students, down to the last one, use their Quirks the way that they are implied to be used when they're first introduced.
Which aren't their faults. This is the first time, apparently, that they're allowed to use their Quirks while in school. I think about the rotating cast of tutors that Father found for me – homeschooled, the gossip magazines had said – and wonder at the idea of not using your Quirk at least once a day in training.
And then Spiky tries to physically maul a green-haired kid, and the homeroom teacher intervenes.
The students around me are interested in the confrontation, but I find myself tuning out the confrontation to try and take a closer look at the capture weapon. Is he just throwing his scarf? How does it land with such accuracy? Even bolas need weights to stand a chance against air resistance, instead of fluttering to the ground like a sad tissue paper the moment you release it.
And his hair floats while using his Quirk? Which, wait, could be explained by static electricity generated, because it seems to be an emitter class Quirk instead of transformation or mutant…
Questions for another time. Homeroom teacher walks away, green-haired kid runs off to… somewhere? Probably a first aid kit. I release the energy I'd been sending to my right side, and rub feeling back into my fingers.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes," I reply automatically, still staring after Spiky and trying to pin down his body language. He doesn't move like Father does when he's angry, all straight back and proud spine and fire wreathing his face. He doesn't move like Fuyumi-nee either, grace and hard-earned dignity. He moves like Natsuo-nii, pent up aggression that's looking for a good spar that he can't afford to commit to.
And then I realize someone is trying to talk to me. "I'm fine," I tell them, because this conversation needs to be over.
"Okay then," someone red-haired says to me, before they leave me alone.
I put my headphones back on, after that, no matter how 'rude' Fuyumi-nee calls it and still pinches Natsuo-nii for enabling me, whatever that means.
Homeroom Teacher doesn't expel anybody. Of course he doesn't, logic dictates, but still I'm disappointed.
That green-haired boy did come in last, though, and he's the one that Spiky tried to maim and who threw the ball surprisingly far. So maybe it's good that Aizawa didn't go through with the expulsion threat.
"How did the rest of you not figure that out?" one of the girls mutters, and ah. A like-minded person. She's the one who came in first, one of the others I saw during the Recommendation Exam, the one about whom Father would say How could you let her beat you?
But she took her first place honestly. Just like Yoarashi had, and there's nothing that Father can say about that.
"I could have been expelled from U.A. today."
A pause; then Fuyumi-nee sighs. "You know, coming from anyone else that wouldn't be a good thing."
I don't understand. I hum a little, try to get her to explain.
She doesn't, but she does say, "Remember, you have to get good grades while you're there because universities still look at your grade point average. Even with-" her voice hitches.
I interrupt before she forces herself to continue. "Yes. I meant that the homeroom teacher said he would expel anyone who came in last at the Quirk Apprehension Test today."
This, Fuyumi-nee grabs onto with both metaphorical hands. "Oh? How did that go? Did you make any new friends today?"
Friends? In a class where I'll be transferred out from before long? "It went well; I came in second place. And no."
"…I thought you said you could have been expelled."
"Because," I tell her, dodging the last reporter on my way home, "I did consider it. Doing poorly on the Test. But then Father would visit and make them re-enroll me, and then they would be even more reluctant to move me into General Education."
Fuyumi-nee… laughs? Wheezes. "And we can't have that."
"Mm."
"Well, are you moving forward with your plan then?"
"Yes. The homeroom teacher's name is Aizawa Shouta. Do you know him?"
"No," Fuyumi-nee says, but I can hear the quiet scratching of her pen. No doubt she's going to be asking her contacts and professional networks for his credentials, where he got his certification, where he graduated, the whole works. I'm not sure how useful her investigation will be, considering that Aizawa is a Heroics teacher while Fuyumi-nee is civilian, but she's found a lot of useful information before.
"He's the one who brought up the ruse of expelling students, but his bluff matches up with previous years' retention rates." Though not the entire class, I don't doubt that Aizawa has, indeed, expelled students before.
"So it'll be difficult, but not impossible." Natsuo-nii is the one in college, he always had been closer to Touya-nii than me, and Fuyumi-nee is the one who's always working to keep us together. I don't doubt that she'll live up to her end of the bargain and help me through university.
And with the cash we've squirreled away for emergencies… it'll be enough to pay for a semester's tuition at least, while I find a work-study.
Things will work out. I hold onto that belief while I get myself home, and we go through the old song and dance of parting pleasantries and other conversational nonsense while Fuyumi-nee prepares to get back to work and I start my usual afternoon chores.
And then she says, "…try to make some friends, alright?"
I take my cell phone off my ear and stare at it, but no, there's no voice modulator. Why does Fuyumi-nee sound like that, then?
"Alright?" Fuyumi-nee repeats, and this time her voice is firm. A good trait to have in any teacher. "Promise me, Shouto, okay?"
What defines a friendship, I almost ask her, but that would have her staying on the phone with me for another hour and a half while she tries to explain the concept and it's past five o'clock right now, she needs to get back to work. I can't take up more of her time.
So instead I tell her, "I promise," and resolve my evening to be spent on the internet and the search engine question of friendship.
The internet, I think to myself the next day, makes this out to be an easy task, but it really isn't. Look for opportunities to talk to people. We're in class, and I've been speaking about assignments, but it hasn't worked. Make eye contact and smile. Father only smiles when I've done something well, and none of them have met his criteria for that yet: no draws or wins at sparring, no praise from tutors – which would be teachers, here. Try a conversation starter. Keep it going with small talk.
In this, it seems, the internet is useless. Instead I take my lunch and found a corner to sit down at; at least I have Natsuo-nii's headphones to drown out the noise. I don't know what the punishment would be if they caught me with a lunch tray outside of the cafeteria, and I'm not too fond of finding out by experience rather than previously established rules.
It gives me a moment to go over the class schedule, anyway. English, mathematics, modern literature in the morning; Heroics in the afternoon. I had covered today's English modules with my tutors last year, and mathematics had been straightforward enough.
I do some back of the napkin calculations as I eat, partially to entertain myself. Spiky had thrown the ball 705.2 meters yesterday, rounding off to 700. The ball… I try to remember the heft of it, its weight in my hand. Perhaps nine or ten ounces, which is greater than the official softball weight of seven ounces, most likely due to the electronics embedded within it that would have let Homeroom Teacher make such an accurate measurement.
Not accounting for air resistance, and assuming the ball had taken the eight and a half seconds to reach the ground that I remembered, it would have had, what, a velocity of 41 and some meters per second in the vertical direction? But Spiky had thrown it at an angle, so there would be a force in the vertical direction, too…
"What are you working on?"
"Calculations," I mutter back. The boy who I'd seen coming out of the corner of my eye – You must be always aware of your surroundings, Shouto. Else you will die before you make it as Number Two, let alone Number One – puts his tray down only after I glare up at him from my napkins. And then, because Fuyumi-nee insisted on the pleasantries: "…hello."
"Hello!" Kirishima Eijirou says, because apparently this was my luck with loud people, and promptly sits down across from me with his lunch.
I'd be more comfortable with math. I'd be more comfortable with physics. But, somehow, I get through a conversation with Red without him running away, so at least Fuyumi-nee won't be disappointed at our weekly phone call.
The text message arrives at the end of lunch break, almost like an afterthought: How was your first day of school?? I'm sorry we didn't get to go to U.A. together, but I had a great day at Shiketsu!
Shiketsu, I read to myself, and then I remember. The U.A. equivalent in the west as U.A. is known for having the best Heroics course in the East. Why had Yoarashi have come to the Recommendation Exam at U.A. if he'd choose the school that makes for a shorter commute, anyway?
Unless that's not the reason why he'd chose Shiketsu.
The internet had said that if someone makes an effort to talk to you, you should reach back out.
I had a good first day, I say, unable to think of the interesting conversation topics or interesting facts about yourself that had been recommended. I'm glad you had a good one, too. I hope you enjoy your time at Shiketsu.
And then I put my phone away, because in the afternoon we have the first Heroics lesson of the term. All Might, in his own hero costume, makes everyone else dress up as soon as class starts.
I change quickly in one of the bathroom stalls instead of the changing room. The others are so comfortable letting other people in their space while they changed, and I didn't understand it. I don't think I ever will understand it.
But no one gives me a third – second, yes, but not a third – look when I walk into the bathroom stall in the school uniform and walk out of it in a hero costume.
Initially I had asked the support company for something lightweight and flexible, to better support the fighting style I had been taught, because even though I'll be doing my very best to move to General Education, Father would personally handle any costuming issues if I even implied that I hadn't treated costuming seriously. But Fuyumi-nee, who must have heard from Natsuo-nii who had been the one to ask me about my costume in the first place, had thrown a fit.
"Father taught me how to dodge," I had tried, but that had only made Fuyumi-nee more upset.
The only thing to calm her down had been agreeing to put more obvious protection in the costume. I had trained without armor or protections and anything too heavy would only slow me down, but instead of the original canvas-material shirt and pants, my costume is made of insulating fabric layered with Kevlar weave.
The introductory speech that All Might gives goes by slowly. The rest of the class seems excited, but I find myself settling in, hands in pockets. This, here, is something that I understand. Like math and physics and English, this is something that Father had me trained or trained me himself.
The first group sets up and competes, right off the bat – which makes sense, we have to get through five rounds of heroes versus villains before class is over, and even with a time limit of fifteen minutes per round that's still cutting it close – and then the mood of those waiting for their turn quickly grows…
Sour, I try, but the word doesn't fit. Concerned, maybe. Surprised, definitely.
I don't understand. Why is Spiky the dangerous one? I think to myself. My Quirk relies on heat transfer to create fire or ice. I can raise your body temperature with a press of my thumb into something dangerous, something fatal. I can give you hypothermia without ever drowning you in snow.
But alas. People see the big, flashy explosions and think, ah. That is a boy who would kill. Except for the fact that Bakugou Katsuki doesn't have the cold-heartedness needed to kill somebody. Fight and beat them bloody, maybe. But not kill.
That's the thing that this class is missing in the spar Spiky gives Green Hair, glued as they are to the screen. They're wide-eyed, worried. Even All Might is clutching at his mic, gaze fixated, as though he's mere moments away from running out and bodily stopping the fight.
But they're forgetting that there are two people on each team. "It's the Hero's win," I mutter under my breath, and keep my attention on the screen when the rest of the class startle. "See?"
Gravity Girl jumps over to the dummy nuclear bomb, and All Might seizes the opportunity to call an end to the fight.
And then it's my turn, with someone I've never worked with before.
"Step outside for a moment," I tell my partner, because it's only fair to give a warning. "I'll incapacitate them. Then we can walk in and end the exercise."
Four Arms seems wary and disbelieving, but the look I give him – copied off Fuyumi-nee, though she'd never believe me – convinces him. He steps outside.
I breathe in and step forward, right foot first.
Ice creeps out. It's easier, the smaller the distance between my body and the material, but ice molecules like to be arranged in layers, and practicing large scale freezes like this had been something that Father had encouraged. I reach out with my right hand and flatten it against the wall, and the spread speeds up until I've encased the building.
Four Arms returns carefully under that, but I have my boots and he wasn't in contact when I performed the initial freeze. Neither of us are hindered as we make our way to the room that the Villains have set up in.
"Where is she?" I ask. Four Arms startles, and after a moment of awkward silence I manage to elaborate, "The invisible girl. You can still hear her, right?"
Most likely she would have been walking around as the stealthy half of the team. That's what I would have had her do, anyway. Four Arms turns the ends of his arms into ears and, after a moment of listening to the silence, he nods.
He's still shivering. I frown at him. His arms are exposed, which is to be expected so that he can utilize his Quirk, but it leaves him vulnerable to rapid changes in body temperature. A weakness of mine that I'd covered for with clothing, armor, and equipment, but Four Arms hadn't been expecting to partner with me today.
"You can stay outside if you want," I tell him, and I try to modulate my voice after Fuyumi-nee's when she speaks to her friends. Soft and asking for understanding. Sorry, I can't go out for drinks today, I have work. Sorry, I have a lunch date with my brothers this weekend. Sorry.
"No," Four Arms says, still shivering but determined. "I'm fine. Let's keep moving."
He keeps up, but he's tall and broad, he probably generates more body heat on his own than some of the others who could have been partnered with me. I let him keep his pride and take us on the most direct path to the location he'd indicated was the room that the villains had set up in.
Slowly, steadily. If Four Arms is curious about our pace he doesn't say a word. But the timer hasn't even hit the ten minute warning yet, and we make it to the room in record time.
"Pry yourself up if you want," I tell Tail. "But you'll find it hard to fight with no skin on the bottom of your feet."
Tail tenses – he sets his shoulders, tries to shift his weight, but his feet are stuck – but doesn't make a move as I, then Four Arms, walk past him.
"Your partner is frozen too," I add, left hand outstretched to the dummy bomb. "Good try, though."
I touch my fingertips to cold and already frosted metal, and the timer stops. It's a new speed record for scenario completion.
Four Arms is still shivering, though, so I set out to thaw out the ice and return the climate to its regular temperature. The air warms up – I can feel it on my face, even if the rest of my body is already at a comfortable temperature thanks to the thermal regulation. Tail sighs as his feet unstick from the floor.
"Don't feel too bad about it," I tell him, and Four Arms, too, when his eyebrows – the only visible portion of his face, but that's fine, I'm used to reading minimal facial expressions off of Father anyway – don't go down. "We're on different levels of skill."
That's what Father tells me, every time he escalates the difficulty of our training sessions.
But I tell them what Fuyumi-nee tells me, which is, "You'll get there eventually."
Tense, awkward, silent – the class avoids me after that.
That's fine. I tuck my hands into my pockets, keep my back to the wall, and keep an eye on Spiky as the rest of the class moves on.