Chapter 24: Festival Preparations
This had been an odd morning for Ochako, to say the least. It was not unusual for her parents to be out the door before her in the morning, especially now that they had managed to secure several HPSC contracts with the promise of more on the way. However, they rarely had reason to leave quite as early as Ochako had had to today in order to get back to Musutafu for school.
Their absence hadn't bothered her until she had arrived at U.A, running slightly late, only to see her parents slinking away from the remnants of a demonstration looking more than a little conflicted. It was only later, once she was inside the walls of U.A and on her way to homeroom, that she heard what had happened: a gathering of 'concerned parents' accompanied by media from across the country ultimately dispersed by All Might appearing and accepting responsibility for the USJ incident.
That still hadn't entirely explained why her parents had been there. They had told her that Midoriya's mother had called after the USJ, feeling out whether or not other parents shared her same worries about the dangers of hero training. Thankfully, her parents had expressed their complete confidence in U.A's methods and safety to her. Although if they were at this demonstration, perhaps they weren't quite as confident as they had made themselves out to be.
Ochako didn't have time to dwell on the issue right now, though, as she hurried through the halls of U.A in an effort not to be late. With one last burst of speed she was able to slip into the homeroom for 1-A and take her seat just seconds before the bell rang. A quick glance around the classroom showed all of her classmates back and in good health, with quiet discussions quickly cropping up about who their teacher would be considering Aizawa's serious injuries at the USJ.
That question quickly proved itself moot, as the door slid open once again and their homeroom teacher shambled into the room, face completely obscured by bandages. All conversation in the room cut off immediately as every eye was drawn towards their injured teacher. In the end it was Mina who was the first to break the silence, before Aizawa even made it all the way to the podium.
"Sensei? Are you ok? Should you be here today?"
"My well-being is irrelevant." Ochako wasn't the only one who looked like they wanted to object to that, but thought better of it. It had only been a week, but she had already learned that Aizawa was not the type to take to contradiction well. "I have a number of announcements today, and wanted to make sure I was here in person to give them." Announcements at the beginning of homeroom had generally been stressful prior to today, and Ochako saw a variety of her classmates begin to tense up in anticipation.
"First, and most importantly, I would like to offer each and every one of you a sincere apology. It is our responsibility here at U.A to keep you safe through your high school careers. That did not happen last week at the USJ and we are taking every possible step to make sure it does not happen again." Although unexpected, Ochako greatly appreciated the apology, finding herself relaxing just a little bit. It still wasn't pleasant to think of the USJ and the danger she had been in due to the nomu, but knowing that U.A was doing what was necessary to prevent a repeat was heartening.
"However, don't think that means your struggle is over." And the tension in Ochako's shoulders came racing back. "Despite the attack on the USJ, the powers that be have decided that we must still run the sports festival as normal." Aizawa raised a hand to preempt the inevitable discussions of the safety of this decision. "We have quintupled the budget for safety and security, bringing in additional heroes, a significantly larger police force, as well as other, confidential improvements. In addition, we have been working with an anti-teleportation quirk specialist to ensure that their warper is unable to bring them on campus. Trust me when I say that U.A will be the least likely location in Japan for a villain attack" Ochako didn't entirely believe that: it seemed to her that some place like Tartarus was less likely to be attacked, but that was splitting fine hairs at this point.
As Aizawa moved on to inform Jiro that she would be performing the athletes pledge as the first-place finisher, however, Ochako felt some new emotion deep inside her begin to stir. The sports festival was the first step towards becoming a hero, a way of presenting herself to her peers and to the world as an up-and-coming hero. In order to get a good initial internship (something essentially only available to U.A students), she would need to do her best in the festival. The prospect of competition, of struggle, lit a fire of determination inside of her. Ochako no longer felt the need to become a successful hero for her parents sake, but for her own sake, to be the best hero she could be, and this would be her first step.
Ochako blinked once or twice, realizing that she had tuned Aizawa out for a moment and gotten lost in her meditation on competition. To her left, Koda appeared to be leaning away from her slightly, eyes occasionally flitting towards her to see if she was still giving off the same frightening aura as before. She felt her cheeks heat up slightly at the attention and focused her attention back on their homeroom teacher.
"Generally when preparing for the sports festival hero students are given their heroics class periods for independent training and preparation. However, as part of the push for student safety and security during the festival, the HPSC has sent an advisor to provide suggestions to make sure your preparations are both safe and effective." The words were obviously tasting sour in Aizawa's mouth. While Ochako wasn't entirely sure of the pedagogy of leaving first year high school students to determine their own training for two weeks, it was equally obvious that this HPSC advisor probably would not be her best choice for getting suggestions from. Perhaps Midoriya would have some more ideas like he had during her preparations for U.A.
"I would like to emphasize that all they can offer are suggestions. You still have absolute freedom to determine your own training plans, regardless of what this advisor says. He will be available during today and tomorrow's heroics class periods for initial discussion. You are all required to have one meeting with him. Anything beyond that is your prerogative." Aizawa's expression made it clear that he would not agree with said prerogative if it involved them seeking out more of this advisor.
"Finally, due to the attack on the USJ last week, we are requiring that each of you attend at least one session of therapy with our school therapist, Hound Dog." Multiple students tried to speak up at this point, but Aizawa silenced the room once again with a flash of his quirk. "The USJ was an exceptionally traumatic and stressful experience for every person in this room. There is no shame to be had in admitting that, and there is no shame to be had in attending therapy. If you are truly not suffering mentally or emotionally from the attack, then a single meeting will suffice. Those of you who saw more direct action," His eyes briefly flickered between Mina, Midoriya, Todoroki, and a handful of other students faster than Ochako could follow, "Will likely require more time."
Again, her classmates began to speak over each other, and their teacher allowed it for slightly longer this time. Ochako couldn't make out anyone's specific words in the jumble and she found herself watching some of her classmates who weren't speaking. Todoroki in particular had stiffened considerably at the first mention of therapy, and his tension had only ratcheted higher as Aizawa continued to speak. She knew that he had experienced severe quirk exhaustion at the USJ, but wasn't sure why therapy caused such an intense discomfort in him. It seemed like a good idea to her. Confronting death on day three of high school wasn't something that she could come to terms with over the weekend.
Eventually Eraserhead once again flared his quirk to quiet down the class. "Only a very small, unwise, handful of pros go without therapy. No matter what part of heroism you find yourself in, you will encounter highly stressful, traumatic events that are best approached with a trained professional. I myself have a standing appointment every two weeks with my own therapist. Trust me when I say these meetings are just as important to learning how to be a hero as anything else we cover in class."
With that, their homeroom teacher cocooned himself once in his sleeping bag and lay down on the floor to sleep. His point about therapy was a good one. As she looked at Todoroki's back, still tense with anxiety, she hoped that all of her classmates would heed their homeroom teacher's words.
---
After the wave of announcements at the beginning of the day it had been difficult to pay attention in class for the rest of the morning. Yosetsu had always had trouble paying attention in Ectoplasm's class, if only because he had already taught himself all of the material. Yagi's training had shown him how much he could gain from an applied understanding of physics and structural engineering, all of which required calculus as a prerequisite.
Eventually, though, the morning classes had passed and they were free for lunch. Given that Monday afternoon was typically taken up with their heroism class, which had been replaced with free training, they were, in principle, free for the rest of the day.
Yosetsu, however, wanted to get a jump on planning his training even though his scheduled meeting with the HPSC advisor wasn't until tomorrow. Keeping his parents' general comments about the HPSC and their overall culture in mind, he wasn't expecting to get any particularly helpful feedback from the advisor, anyway. While his parents were happy with their jobs in the support division of the commission, they had rather stark disagreements with the general culture that seemed to suffuse the more directly hero-adjacent divisions. Not that they would ever say so where anyone could hear them.
It didn't really matter what the HPSC advisor said, anyway, as Yosetsu already knew what he wanted to work on most: increasing the amount he could weld at any given time. The USJ incident had shown that he drastically needed to up the amount that he could weld with his quirk if he wanted to have any sort of staying power. Given that the sports festival took place over an entire day, assuming that he made it through each round (no point in assuming he would fail, after all), he'd need the stamina. Of course, he would also keep up with his general fitness routine, and likely be dragged into sparring with Sen as well, but those would not necessarily be his main focus.
While his other classmates talked quietly (or loudly, in some cases, such as Ashido and Tokage), Yosetsu instead simply focused on gathering his things and heading to lunch, It was always nice to get to the lunch room earlier than most of the others and have a few minutes of relative peace. If he had waited just a few seconds longer he would have heard Shoji and Jiro inform the class about what was waiting outside. However, he didn't, and as such, he was the first person in the class to see the mob of students just outside their classroom.
"Can I … help you?" The students standing closest to the door flinched back somewhat at his question. Surely he wasn't being too loud or intimidating, right?
A blonde boy with an insufferable smirk on his face began pushing his way through the crowd to the front. He was followed by a pair of students, one with similarly blonde hair styled to the point of excess, and the other with silver hair and a snarl on his face. "Ah, the vaunted Class 1-A finally deigns to show themselves to the rest of us humble plebeians."
"What?" Yosetsu was somewhat lost. Who was this asshole, and why did he sound like he had swallowed a thesaurus?
"I must say that I am not impressed. Any single member of our own Class 1-B would have already realized that the rest of the school is quite naturally curious about the class that survived a villain attack on campus. None of you look injured to me, so it couldn't have been that bad."
"What?!" Now that got Yosetsu angry. Recovery Girl had been quite explicit in telling him exactly how close he had come to dying, and he knew that he wasn't the only one. Just a few small differences in how things had played out and there would likely have been deaths among his class, probably a lot of them, too. Before he could speak further, though, another voice rang out across the crowd of students in front of them.
"Monoma, that is enough!" The smug smile fell off the blonde boy's face as he turned to look at crowd parting in front of a pair of tall students, one with blue hair and one with bestial qualities, both with stern looks on their faces. "Aoyama, Tetsutetsu, both of you should know better than to encourage him!" As the pair approached, the blue-haired boy gestured with sharp, angular arm motions to punctuate his scolding. He turned to address the crowd as a whole as well.
"And as for the rest of you, harassing your classmates is most unbecoming of U.A students. Please disperse and allow them to leave their classroom and get to lunch. Nutrition is of the utmost importance for all students, regardless of course!" There was a moment of silence before the crowd began to slowly disperse. Yosetsu wasn't entirely sure of all of what he had just witnessed, and a quick look back at his classmates behind him showed them roughly as perplexed as he was.
The blue-hair boy whirled around and bowed deeply in front of Yosetsu. "I apologize for the behavior of my classmate. My name is Tenya Iida and I am class president for the hero course Class 1-B next door."
"What?" That seemed to be the only reasonable thing to say at this juncture.
"Ah, Iida, it's good to see you again." Yosetsu was glad that someone else had stepped up beside him to speak with the crazy people in the hallway, but was rather shocked that it had ended up being Midoriya. He'd figured that Kamakiri would have exploded from the insults being leveled at them, or Tokage would have started mocking them. Having the class presidents meet to hash things out seemed like the best possible outcome, however.
"Hello again, Midoriya. I am glad to see that you are well after the USJ. I apologize once again for the behavior of Monoma, but I must admit to being concerned about your class's well-being as well. Unfortunately, I think Monoma is here more to scout out competition for the sports festival, and less to check on your health." The boy in question scowled and stormed off, the two students with him following shortly behind.
"I had actually been thinking, Iida. Would your class be interested in some cross-class training? We're given free reign on how we want to train, and it'd be more effective if we had a larger group training together."
"A capital idea! I will discuss it with my class, and hopefully we can arrange something over the next two weeks." By now the crowd of students had fully dispersed, and only Iida and his bestial companion were left blocking the door. Yosetsu slipped around the two and headed towards the cafeteria, somewhat disappointed that he had missed out on even a little bit of quiet today.
---
Neito set his lunch tray down at the table with his classmates with more force than perhaps was strictly necessary. Aoyama had saved him a seat with the rest of his class, several of whom were looking at him expectantly, waiting to hear exactly what had happened outside of 1-A's classroom. Apparently neither Aoyama nor Tetsutetsu had given them any hints or clues as to exactly what had happened. Thankfully, Iida and Shishida had not arrived yet, so he was able to set the scene and prevent his classmates from getting the wrong idea.
The students in 1-A had not seemed as if they were overly concerned with the spotlight, generally seeming friendly and welcoming, if a bit confused at first. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Neito knew all too well that the more media exposure and coverage they could get early in their careers, especially since they were students at U.A, the better positioned they would be for their future careers. Class 1-A had just received a very early boost to their visibility, albeit at the cost of a frankly terrifying attack. Neito would never admit it out loud, but he was grateful beyond measure that he hadn't gone through such a trial.
Now, however, his class had to make up ground. Neito always knew that without a flashy quirk he'd have to work harder to get noticed than others in his class, those like Kaminari or Yanagi. Much of his persona was affected simply to garner more attention even on a day-to-day level, but that was nothing compared to the amount of media focus his entire class could earn by doing well at the sports festival. Class 1-A had already received said focus, they could afford to not place as well in the coming weeks.
It didn't make Neito happy, and he would much rather their careers be determined by their skills and effectiveness, not by fleeting and luck-based measures such as popular focus. Alas, that was not the world they lived in. It had always seemed easier to adapt himself to the world he lived in than to rage against things that would not change. In some of his more self-reflective moments, Neito had wondered if that philosophy were influenced by his quirk, how he had to be flexible to be able to use whichever quirks were available for him to copy at any point.
Ah, he had gotten distracted, and his classmates were obviously getting antsy for him to let them know about Class 1-A, talking eagerly amongst themselves about what they might be like. Kaminari, Sero, and Fukidashi were making joke bets about what sorts of quirks their sister class had, Yanagi and Asui were listening rather impassively to Hagakure and Komori ramble about anything and everything they could think of about the other class that might be cute, Kuroiro was delivering a soliloquy to no one in particular about some battle between darkness and light, and Tsuburaba and Mineta had descended into a (thankfully) whispered discussion about how many girls were in the other class. Based on the looks on their faces, Neito was glad that he couldn't hear exactly what they were saying. Even the quieter members of his class, like Bondo, and Ojiro were obviously waiting for him to say something.
Neito cleared his throat and conversation died as his classmates turned to him. Their attention sent a brief thrill through him as he began to declaim. "Class 1-A does not seem to grasp just how much of a target they have made themselves." He held his wine glass full of grape juice in one hand and swirled it for good measure. "They may have the attention of the world for now, but have no idea how to keep it, which means that our class, the self-evidently superior 1-B will be victorious at the sports festival!" Neito held the wine glass high in the air in front of him in triumph at his statement.
For some reason, there was no general cheer and clamor at this proclamation. The only one of his friends that wasn't looking at him in confusion was Aoyama, who simply continued nibbling at his meal as if Neito hadn't said anything at all. After a moment of his classmates staring at him, blinking rapidly in confusion, the questions began, all jumbled together.
"Did you even talk with any of them?"
"Isn't Endeavor's kid in that class?"
"Did they look like they were still hurt from the USJ?"
"Is it true that one of them has a zombie quirk?"
"How many hot girls were in the class? You've got to tell me!" Mineta's piercing voice drove an icepick of irritation into Neito's skull.
Before he could respond to any of the questions, however, Iida strode up to the table and spoke over everyone present, arms waving to even more than normal to attract their attention.
"Attention Class 1-B. We have been invited to participate in student-led group training for the sports festival by the class president of Class 1-A. I plan on attending, and I encourage you all to as well." His announcement complete, Iida straightened his glasses and turned on his heel, retreating to dine with Shishida and Shoda.
A half-dozen conversations broke out at the lunch table in front of him, and Neito seethed. Just like that Iida had both wrenched the attention away from him, and proposed providing support to Class 1-A. They didn't need any more support; they had already gotten all of the extra attention they could need for their first year. Aoyama tugged at his arm and Neito reluctantly sat down and began to pick at his food.
"Mon ami, now is not the time to pout, non?" Neito didn't pout, or sulk, or mope. He brooded. He glowered . And none of that was not important because he certainly wasn't doing it now. Instead, he decided to talk about it. Aoyama was perhaps the only other person in 1-B who understood the importance of other people's perception.
"I just can't believe that Iida would agree to training with Class 1-A. We'll give away all of our advantages going into the festival." True, they didn't know much about 1-A, but Neito had plans for that. One of the many benefits of having his quirk was that he had an instinctive knowledge of the quirks that he copied. Not enough to tell him everything that was possible with it, and certainly not enough to grant him the same level of skill as someone who had trained with it for years, but enough to give them a serious leg up in the festival.
The 1-B plan had been to have Neito copy as many 1-A quirks as possible under the guise of quirk training in the lead up to the festival so they would have a plan for how to deal with them. That advantage would be thrown away entirely if they were to train with 1-A.
"Mmm, perhaps. But when did Monsieur Iida say that we had to tell them everything we could do?" Neito turned to narrow his eyes at Aoyama who was wearing a decidedly sinister grin on his face. "Why, they could go into the festival assuming that you could only copy one quirk, for example."
That could work. That might even be better! All of 1-A's planning to deal with their quirks would be worse than worthless. Depending on how exactly they portrayed their quirks, 1-A could be left grasping at straws.
"Aoyama, you're brilliant!"
"But of course, mon ami." Aoyama punctuated his statement with an overly practiced flip of his hair, as Neito stood from his seat once again to get the attention of his classmates. They had plans to hatch.
---
Izuku wondered just how long the silence between him and the HPSC advisor, Taro Yamada, was going to stretch. As he had been explaining himself, Yamada had initially been taking notes, but eventually had tailed off and simply watched Izuku, face impassive. It had made for an exceptionally awkward discussion.
For whatever reason, the advisor that had met with his other classmates had been called away during Izuku's appointment, leading to Yamada taking over. Izuku had originally been encouraged by the swap; every student who had met with the other advisor had come back at least disappointed, and often angry. Even Shoji, who normally let very little perturb him, had come back absolutely fuming.
Now though, as the silence between the two dragged on, it was all Izuku could do to not freak out over what might come of this meeting. Yamada had again started taking notes, seemingly ignoring Izuku entirely. It did allow him a chance to inspect the man, get a feel for the sorts of people that he would hopefully one day be working with. Taro Yamada was notable if only because there was nothing remotely notable about him. Average height, average build, average hair, average eyes. Izuku would be hard pressed to pick him out of a crowd even having committed the man's face to memory.
Maybe that was his quirk? How would that even work? Would it be perception based? Would Izuku see the man's true face if he looked from the corner of his eye, or when the man wasn't aware of his presence? What would happen if Eraserhead used his quirk on him? Or was this some sort of mutation?
"Muttering about a stranger's quirk is generally considered rude, Midoriya." Izuku jumped at Yamada's sudden words, although there was no heat behind them, and berated himself for muttering once again. It was a habit that he'd probably never be able to break.
"Sorry, sir."
"And my quirk is something entirely different altogether." Izuku gulped. He had been muttering about a man's appearance and assuming it was a quirk. How rude could he be?! "Now, there's quite a lot that I think we need to discuss about your 'training plan'." Izuku swore he could hear the scare quotes in the man's voice even if he never looked up from his notes. "But first, you should prepare yourself to present the athlete's pledge at the beginning of the first-year festival." That hadn't been what Izuku was expecting.
"Sir? I was under the impression that Kyoka would be providing the pledge." If Yamada had any opinion on Izuku calling Kyoka by her given name, he didn't show it.
"Normally, she would be. However, this year is the first year in quite some time where the overall top scorer was not also one of the overall top scorers of villain points. Rescue points are purely a U.A invention." Izuku felt his stomach drop as Yamada continued on in a bland, bloodless tone, already feeling a familiar resentment build in his chest. "If Jiro had a more … combat-oriented quirk, or one that wasn't quite so conspicuous, we might be willing to look the other way, despite her dire lack of villain points. You, on the other hand, despite scoring only forty two villain points, have a quirk far more suited for public consumption and finished second overall in the exam, missing first by a point."
"What are you suggesting?" The answer was obvious, but Izuku still held out hope that perhaps Yamada would end up going in a different direction. Yamada finally raised his head from his notes and Izuku suppressed a wince as they met eyes.
"It should be obvious. If and when Jiro makes the wise decision to pull out of providing the pledge, you should be ready to step into her place." Izuku didn't respond right away, matching Yamada's gaze.
"If she makes that decision for herself and with no coercion, then I will. But I know Kyoka, sir, and she won't be pushed aside so easily, and especially not for such specious reasoning." Perhaps this was not the most politic statement to make, but Izuku didn't care much at the moment. The insinuation that Kyoka should step aside for simply not having a flashy, marketable quirk, was infuriating. She poured her heart and soul into training for U.A and had managed to earn first place in the entrance exam fair and square. He saw the improvements in her physical fitness over the course of her training, and knew for a fact that her quirk had developed at least as much over those ten months.
The fact that the commission didn't wish to acknowledge the utility of rescue points was also deeply disturbing. There was so much more to heroism than defeating villains in outright combat that it seemed counterintuitive to limit admissions to only those who could best destroy robots. Combat skills were necessary, true, but could always be taught, or addressed without quirks.
The silence between the two of them stretched well into discomfort, but Izuku would not be cowed. Eventually, it was Yamada who broke both eye contact and the silence. "As long as you are aware that you may be called upon. Now then, your training plan." Izuku let out the breath he had been holding during the impromptu staring contest. This was the nominal reason why the man was even here. Izuku hoped, perhaps naively, that he would have a better training philosophy than heroism philosophy.
"Given the particular details of your quirk, the broad outlines are logical. Strength training is an absolute necessity as is hand-to-hand combat training. I also approve of the steps you are taking to develop your quirk and find exactly what it can stockpile, but recommend a discussion with a trained quirk counselor on the matter. What you described to me was speculative and incomplete. If the counselor tells you that there is nothing in that direction, you should listen to them and not waste time. I see that you already have an appointment later this week. Good."
Izuku had been intentionally vague in describing his desire to train with the Third Holder's quirk, not wanting to give anything away with respect to One For All. If it had been possible, he would have wanted to speak with All Might about his dreams of previous holders and the manifestation of another quirk. Unfortunately, the man had been completely occupied with the fallout from his sudden announcement of moving his hero agency and had had no time to talk at lunch.
Thankfully, Fa Jin was similar enough in concept to their cover story of a strength stockpiling quirk that it would not raise any eyebrows for him to develop his quirk in this direction. He already wasn't looking forward to the day if and when he developed some of his other predecessors' quirks, like Blackwhip. If that had appeared out of nowhere that would have prompted some real questions, ones he wasn't sure he'd be able to talk his way out of.
As it was, though, it was difficult to plan everything related to One For All only having All Might to speak to about the issue. The obvious choice in Izuku's mind was Kyoka. If nothing else, he didn't want to start what he hoped to be a serious relationship with her with any sort of secrets. Izuku made a mental note to find time to speak with the All Might about both that and Fa Jin, and soon.
"However," He shook slightly as Yamada's feedback continued. "You made a significant point in your plan to discuss how you could include others in your training. That is dangerous." Izuku furrowed his brows. How could that possibly be dangerous? Yamada continued as if answering his unspoken question.
"For the strength training portion it is acceptable for safety reasons alone, but in every other type of training you suggest, performing it with others gives them information on your quirk, your fighting style, and importantly your weaknesses. Once you are a full-fledged hero, these pieces of information are things you will need to keep close, lest they fall into villain hands. Spreading them too widely is quite unwise."
"But heroes are public figures. Literally everyone knows about Endeavor, down to his super moves." Part of that was simply due to the man not knowing the meaning of restraint, using his quirk to the fullest extent that he could in each mission, whether or not it was entirely appropriate.
"Ah, but no one knows exactly how hot or how far or how wide a Prominence Burn can reach except him and his sidekicks. The fewer who know that information the safer. But that is not a concern for you right now. You should concern yourself with the sports festival. Each of those that you train with will be your opponents in the festival. You'd be giving each and every one of them a leg up against you. Again, unwise at best, downright foolish at worst."
Sensing that arguing further would be a lost cause, Izuku simply sat back and waited for Yamada to finish his comments. Thankfully, his comments on the danger of training as a group were his only negative points about Izuku's training plan and the meeting quickly wrapped up. If it had solidified one thing in Izuku's mind, it was that he would certainly be training with as many members of his class as possible, and 1-B as well if Iida could wrangle them. He wanted to show the HPSC just how much they could do when working together.
---
One of the best things about U.A and living on campus was that the training facilities were open at any time they weren't under curfew. It wasn't unusual to find hero students doing some supplemental weight or endurance training even slightly past curfew, depending on how lenient their dorm supervisor chose to be. It was significantly less common to find a hero student or two, nearly always a second or third year, practicing sparring late at night, generally going over techniques from class or practicing a new move they wanted to perfect.
All of that made Sen's presence in Gym Epsilon an hour before curfew, practicing his quirk-assisted strikes on a training dummy, quite unusual indeed. Sen neither knew nor cared about the details of who used the facilities late at night. All he knew was that he was angry and wanted to take it out on a training dummy rather than something (or someone) more breakable in the dorms. He wasn't sure how long Yo had been there watching before he spoke up during a break in Sen's routine.
"So was it that dummy in particular that pissed you off, or just training dummies in general?" Despite himself Sen jumped slightly at the unexpected voice and turned to look at his friend leaning against a nearby wall with a withering glare.
"That's the fucking best you could come up with?" He could think of several jokes that would have landed harder than that. "I'll have you know that my mother died in a tragic crash dummy accident and I'd request that you respect my method of coping."
"Ha, you wish she was dead."
"Hm. I might claim to want her dead, but I'd settle for her leaving me the fuck alone." Once, Sen might have just agreed with Yo's claim. His mother's disappearance after his father's death had led to some difficult times for Sen. Even now he still didn't have anything resembling a good relationship with her, but consoled himself with the fact that she appeared to be trying, at least.
"She get back in touch again?" Yo didn't change position from where he was leaning against the wall, but Sen caught a softness, a worry in his eyes that hadn't been there earlier.
"Yeah, she's been calling weekly actually." There had been no call after the USJ, though. Just a text message telling him not to get injured next time. "Today's conversation was worse than normal, though. So I thought I'd take it out on her hypothetical killers."
"Doing a bang-up job of it, looks like." Yo glanced at the training dummy that Sen had been using. One arm hung loosely where one of Sen's stronger blows had broken the internal structure. Overall the dummy listed severely to one side, unbalanced as well. "Wanna chat?"
Sen snorted and shook his head. "Not about her. Nothing new there, just another request for me to visit Deika. You'd think if she wanted to see me so fucking badly that she might just take some time off to come visit me."
"I wouldn't think that. I've heard you talk about her too much to think that." The words were delivered in a deadpan tone, but the corners of Yo's lips turned up at his own joke and Sen couldn't help a snort of laughter.
"Look at you, regular comedian tonight."
Yo pushed off the wall and shrugged as he closed the distance to Sen. "So what's up?"
A grimace crossed Sen's face and it took some effort to smooth his features out. "I was already in a bad mood after talking with the HPSC advisor. My mom just made it worse."
"What did he say to you? I have to meet with him tomorrow." The half of the class that had been able to speak with the man this afternoon had seemed uniformly displeased with their discussions. Even Midoriya had returned from his meeting with a furrowed brow and the hint of anger in his eyes.
"Two things ticked me off." Well, two major things, and a whole bunch of creepy undertones that would be more trouble than they were worth to try to put to words. "First, he said I'd probably have to do the athlete's pledge because I had the most villain points and because he was going to press Jiro and Midoriya to decline. Which is bullshit. They both earned their places fair and square, and either of them could do a better job than I could. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not." The extent of his public speaking skill had gone into pulling Kamakiri out of his shell, somewhat. Sen shuddered at the thought of what it would be like to give the athlete's pledge. It would probably end with the entire first year declaring war on him in retribution.
"You're better at speaking than I am, at least."
Sen snorted again before retorting. "Fucking Koda is better at speaking than you are."
"Harsh, but fair." One thing that Sen always appreciated about Yo was his self-awareness, and strove to match his level of mindfulness.
"That's not the worst, though. The thing that really fucking pissed me off was when he said I shouldn't fucking train with anyone else, and especially not Kamakiri or Ashido, for some reason. That I should spend the next two fucking weeks training all by my fucking self so no one would get a handle on my fighting style or some shit like that. Is that really the level of paranoia they have over at the HPSC?" Yo's parents worked for the commission, although they were generally tight-lipped around Sen about what went on behind closed doors. He knew that they were a bit more open with Yo, as long as he didn't spread too much around.
"Based on how my parents talk about the culture there, I'm somehow not surprised." That tracked, but Sen was just getting into his rant now.
"What's the point of just training by myself? I'll just end up reinforcing bad habits and spinning my wheels. If you or Kamakiri or Kirishima or Ashido or anyone know my fighting style better and it helps them win in the sports festival, then they deserve that fucking win. I don't want to get by on the element of surprise. That only fucking works once."
"Once per person." Yo slipped the comment in when Sen stopped to take a quick breath, interrupting his flow. He shot a glare towards his friend who simply ignored it.
"Thank you, Yo."
The other boy either didn't notice or didn't respond to the harsh sarcasm dripping from his voice. Either was possible with him. "You're welcome."
Where had he been? His entire train of thought had been derailed by Yo's commentary. Ah well, it didn't matter, Yo understood what Sen had been trying to say. "So yeah, I was kinda pissed anyway and then my mother called. Not the best combination."
Yo hummed in acknowledgement, but otherwise sank back into one of his typical thinking poses. Sen knew better than to bother him while he was deep in thought, and so began a cooldown routine, both to wind down from his workout, and to help calm him down further. Curfew would be coming soon, and he needed to get back to the dorms and not explode once he got there.
As Sen finished up his cooldown, Yo finally spoke up. "So, I have two suggestions." This would be good. Yo almost never gave suggestions, but when he did they were generally direct, to the point, and effective. "First, ignore the HPSC advisor and train with others. I know Midoriya has been pushing that, offering to help people with quirk training and the like."
"Seriously?"
"Apparently he was the analyst that provided our quirk breakdowns over the summer, so we've already taken training advice from him." Huh, that made a few things fit nicely into place. His suggestions had helped both him and Yo significantly over the summer. If they could keep working with him up through and beyond the sports festival, who knew what they would end up being able to do with their quirks.
"No shit. That was good stuff, too. Ok, what's your second suggestion?"
"The next time your mother calls, answer, tell her to fuck off, and then immediately hang up. Maybe change your number, for good measure."
Sen couldn't help himself from breaking out laughing, dispelling the last lingering bits of anger within him. His friend was right, on both points. What the HPSC advisor had given was just that: advice. Ignoring it was entirely his prerogative. The same with ignoring his mother. She hadn't cared about him in years; he could try to return the favor.
---
The volume inside Gym Gamma was nearly deafening as nearly three dozen hero students across two classes practiced at their quirks all at once. All of Class 1-A, save for Todoroki, was training alongside the majority of Class 1-B. Those from Class 1-A were mostly performing exercises that had been suggested by Midoriya and Yaoyorozu with little complaint, especially after Midoriya's experience as an analyst had been brought up. A small handful of those from Class 1-B had asked for suggestions as well, but most had been content to work in their own ways or to provide support to those in 1-A with little benefit to their own training.
Juzo, however, heard none of the commotion above. He was busy training with the enigmatic frog-girl from 1-B, Tsu. She had been one of the few members of her class to actively seek Midoriya out for suggestions and tips in training. Apparently she had been actively scouted by U.A and provided with Midoriya's analysis of her quirk in the process. Whatever she'd gotten from him had impressed her enough that she was willing to make herself somewhat of a pariah by going against the rest of her class.
In terms of training, though, what they were working on today ultimately benefited both of them. Midoriya was brilliant at thinking up ways to improve a quirk, but Yaoyorozu was the one who could tie them together into a functional exercise. It was almost scary what the two of them could do together.
For the training, Juzo had reduced a large section of the flooring to a fluid with a consistency just thicker than that of pure water. He already had extensive experience with moving through the material, but Tsu did not. Her goal was to track and tag Juzo through the slurry, and had two points. First, it provided physical training with her quirk for moving through difficult terrain with the intent of providing even more explosiveness in general. Second, since the mud that Juzo made was quite opaque, it allowed her to focus on her other senses and instincts to sharpen them to a point. While other teenagers might have shied away from the more animalistic sides of their quirk, especially one with a heteromorphic mutation like hers, Tsu was open-minded and self-confident enough that she hadn't needed any convincing that this was necessary to work on. Juzo had laughed at how timid Midoriya had been during his suggestion, though.
Juzo, on the other hand, could feel exactly where Tsu was at any moment through his connection with the fluid he had generated. It was a trick he had picked up long ago, once he realized that he wouldn't be able to see deep inside the ground. His training was more how to best use his quirk to avoid and evade someone who physically far outstripped him. He'd been made to agree that he wouldn't use his quirk directly on Tsu to trap her, otherwise it wouldn't teach either of them anything.
It had become very apparent very quickly that he'd also have to work on how long he could hold his breath, because surfacing for a gulp of air was always a certain way for Tsu to lock onto where he was and begin her assault. However, even if he stayed submerged, she would eventually find him, which was his current predicament.
Motion flared through the fluid as she pushed off a nearby edge of the fluid in Juzo's general direction, to his left and above. She must have thought he'd be surfacing soon. His lungs burned, but he knew that if he swam up he'd be caught almost instantly, so Juzo dove, burrowing deeper into the ground. He could feel Tsu reach where he had been floating just a moment earlier and pause, deciding her next course of action.
Once away from solid surfaces, her explosiveness was diminished but she was still a capable swimmer, far superior to Juzo himself, and he could not hope to evade her on his own. In order to dodge her, he had taken to forming platforms of his own inside the sludge to push off of, before melting them back into the fluid. The precision required made this far more difficult than anything he had done with his quirk prior to U.A, and he was still getting his bearings with this new technique. It had the unfortunate side effect of cavitation: whenever he created or destroyed one of these platforms, it disturbed the surrounding fluid enough that Tsu could sense it and follow after him.
The two of them had been going for quite a while already today, and every time she had caught him slightly faster than the time before. The last five times she had caught him by tracking his movements through the cavitation he had been causing. If he wanted to last longer, he had to find a different way of moving.
Juzo couldn't see through the fluid, but somehow he knew that darkness was clawing at the sides of his vision. Tsu was nearly directly above him, paddling with firm, steady strokes towards him. He stood on the current bottom of the pit he had formed, and a crazy idea bloomed in his head. Perhaps he had been hanging out with Midoriya too much, or perhaps he was suffering from oxygen deprivation.
Either way, without taking any time to consider whether it was a good idea or not, Juzo put his plan into action. He jumped off the solid floor aiming himself away from Tsu's current angle of attack. Once his feet had left the ground, he formed himself a platform and pushed off. It took a monumental amount of focus, but as soon as he had some forward momentum, Juzo dissolved the rear of the platform while solidifying its front.
Between the cavitation at the back end and the constant formation of solid material in the front, he was propelled forward and upward at an intense rate. Far faster than Juzo had expected to be moving, in fact. He had already passed Tsu, and had nearly surfaced before he realized exactly what was happening and stopped his quirk behind him, but the remaining forward impulse launched him up and out of the mud, and beyond.
Juzo yelped and windmilled his arms as he flew several feet above the surface before gravity took hold once again and he splashed down back into the fluid. Less than a second later, Tsu had surfaced as well, grabbing onto his back.
"Nice move, but I caught you, ribbit." If she had been surprised at his latest maneuver, she wasn't showing it. But then, so far Juzo wasn't sure if he had seen her emote at anything at all.
"Yup, you got me." Juzo huffed a bit of a laugh. "Let's take a break. We've been going hard." Sensing no argument from Tsu, Juzo solidified the entire area they had been training in, grunting somewhat at the effort. It had always been harder to solidify material than to soften it, and he had worn his quirk out in his training with Tsu.
Now that he had a moment to spare, Juzo glanced around the room to see how his friends were doing. Midoriya was sparring with the tailed boy from 1-B, holding his own just fine despite the lack of green lightning surrounding him. Uraraka was working with Yaoyorozu and Mina, with Yaoyorozu creating complex targets for Uraraka to float and Mina to aim at and destroy with her acid. Shoji was training with Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, currently focused on helping Tokoyami with control and Dark Shadow with finesse. Finally, Jiro was sitting along one wall, apparently focused entirely on writing her speech for the opening of the festival.
"Midoriya's an asshole." Juzo whispered just under his breath, and grinned cheekily as Jiro's eyes whipped up off the page in front of her to lock onto his. She glared at him a moment or two before rolling her eyes, flipping him off, and going back to her work. Insulting her new boyfriend was always a good way to earn her ire.
Midoriya had suggested that she work on multi-tasking for today, training her brain to focus on one task while still taking advantage of her enhanced hearing. If she could pick out his whispered comment from across the very loud room while writing her speech, something must be going well. Although judging by the scowl she was directing at the apparently blank paper in front of her, her quirk training might be the only thing going well.
Stretching his limbs and shaking off the last flecks of mud, Juzo made his way over to the water station where Tsu was rehydrating. She stared at him as he walked over with her eyes wide and unblinking, but then she stared at everything that way, so he tried to ignore it. The fact that she continued watching him even as he poured and drank his water made it difficult. Eventually, she spoke up.
"I'm glad I didn't go along with the plan, ribbit." Juzo, already on edge from her stare, nearly choked on what he was drinking. He raised an eyebrow at her and she explained. "Most of our class is sandbagging, not showing the full extent of their quirks. They think it will give them a leg up in the festival." Tsu turned her unblinking gaze out on the rest of the students training. "I think they're just missing a chance to improve themselves. I tried to tell them about Midoriya and his analysis, but they think they know better. Only a few of us who have worked with his analysis before are actually showing everything we've got."
"That was you, Kaminari, Shoda, um," Juzo racked his brain for the name, and came up empty. "and the, uh, invisible girl, right?"
"Hagakure, yes. Also Shinso, because Kaminari can apparently convince him to do anything, and Tsuburaba, but I think he joined in more for the chance to train more with me than anything else." Juzo raised an eyebrow and Tsu explained once again. "Tsuburaba has a thing for tongues, ribbit."
"I see." He didn't see.
"Everyone else is holding back at least a little bit, hoping to be able to surprise your class. They'd probably be upset at me for telling you this, but with how hard you guys are working, you're going to pull out in front, I bet." Tsu's eyes seemed to settle on one of the blonde students from her class. Some emotion rippled across her normally placid face, but Juzo couldn't put a word to it. "Our time in the gym is almost up for today. I'm going to go get a head start on my homework, ribbit. It was a pleasure working with you today, Honenuki." With a slight bow of her head, Tsu turned and headed towards the locker room.
Juzo wondered exactly what he should do with this new information. He had had his suspicions that something was up, but hadn't been able to put his finger on exactly what. Looking back at his friends again, only Midoriya was currently working with someone from 1-B, pausing his spar with the tailed boy, Ojiro. It seemed as if Midoriya was trying to convince him of something, but Ojiro simply looked apologetic as he shook his head. The two of them returned to sparring, but Midoriya looked notably dejected.
Obviously he had figured out that much of 1-B was holding back, and was running into difficulties in convincing them to change. Juzo sincerely doubted that a small surprise in overall capabilities would be better overall than just training your hardest, especially with Midoriya guiding the training. But if 1-B wanted to test that hypothesis in some misguided attempt at homeroom rivalry, so be it.
---
The lead-up to the sports festival was generally one of Shota's least favorite times of the year. The freedom that U.A provided its students in preparing for the festival inevitably meant that some over eager first-year would go too far and injure themselves or another student. It always happened, usually more than once, and it always meant paperwork in the end.
Last year had been the only year where he hadn't had to deal with the paperwork, and then only because he had expelled his entire class. Given that he still had a full complement of students, whereas normally he had expelled at least a quarter of them, Shota had expected this year to be worse than ever.
He was pleasantly surprised that the first week of independent training had gone by with nary an injury or complaint from any of his students. Suspicious that perhaps they were slacking off, putting forth merely a token effort in training, he had followed his students this afternoon to evaluate their training plans for himself. Only Jiro and Shoji had noticed him, which meant the rest still needed situational awareness lessons, but neither had said anything to their classmates.
What Shota had seen had left him impressed. The vast majority of both his class and Vlad's class were working together in well designed and thought through exercises. Nothing was dangerous in terms of injuries, but the drills certainly pushed them to their limits. Already he had observed significant progress from each of his students, as well as a general increase to class morale that was desperately needed after the USJ.
"Is this your doing, Aizawa?" Vlad King's voice rang out in the teacher's lounge, much to Shota's displeasure. "Did you convince our classes to work together?" Somehow the larger man was able to make that sound as if it were a bad thing. "Or was it the HPSC rep?" Shota gave him a heavy-lidded, uninterested stare.
"You know I didn't do anything of the sort, Vlad. And given the reports on my classes plans for training, I highly doubt it was the HPSC advisor." The notes returned by the man held nothing but scorn for the idea of training together, for some reason. In fact, the notes held scorn for a lot of things, including some of his students altogether. It left a pit in Shota's stomach. Did Vlad receive a different set of notes? Or were his students' initial plans much more solitary? Shota was sure that some of the additional security money had already gone towards improving the cameras and microphones around campus. Perhaps Nezu had recordings of the advisors speaking with his students. If he did, listening to them would likely be enlightening.
"True. It doesn't seem like his style. I guess it doesn't matter who came up with the idea. Thankfully my class is still doing some work on their own. All the better to crush 1-A in the festival. I hope you remember our yearly bet, Aizawa."
"Yeah, yeah, I do Vlad." Shota spoke quickly to preempt his fellow teacher's next words. "And I know we're double or nothing this year because I expelled my class last year." Where Vlad King got his sense of competition from, Shota would never know. Thankfully, that simple acknowledgement was all Vlad was looking for, and he left Shota to his own devices.
In the wake of the USJ, Shota had not been sure why Nezu was willing to let HPSC advisors onto campus, especially after having resisted them for so long. However, now that Vlad had reminded him of the HPSC advisor's suggestions on his students' training plans and how they had actually decided to train, he was beginning to see at least some of the logic in Nezu's scheme. The principal claimed that he did not understand human emotions and thought processes, but stunts like this made Shota sincerely doubt that claim.
After all, what was the best way to make sure a teenager did what you wanted to do? Have a person with purported authority, but no power, tell them to do the exact opposite. Especially when that person was as disagreeable as the typical HPSC employee. Reverse psychology at its finest.