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“ Mido! Wait up, we want to talk to you!” Izuku turns around, to find easily over half the class standing behind Uraraka, who’s waving at him cheerily. Something feels wrong, but these are his classmates, and they’ve been through hell together, so even though his gut warns him not to go near them, he quickly jogs over to the waiting group.
“ What’s up Uraraka?” He asks quietly, shifting his backpack to his other shoulder nervously. She smiles, wide and bubbly, the familiar sight helping Izuku relax. The people behind her aren’t so happy to see him though. Denki, Mineta and Sato are in a tiny cluster glaring at him, and Hagakure is standing next to Jirou who looks about ten seconds away from attacking him. Iida is next to Uraraka, and while he doesn’t look mean, he doesn’t look happy either. Tokoyami and Shouji are in the very back of the group, along with Sero, Momo, Tsu and Ojiro, again not happy to see him, but at least not about to attack him.
“ W-well we were wondering where you got these skills from! I mean, you're really good at this, even though you don’t have a quirk suited for any of the activities, and you’ve never shown them before. You’ve always been sweet and simple Deku! Y’know?” Everyone behind Uraraka nods, and even though something in Midoriya’s chest aches at those words, he can’t help but be relieved that she was the one to say it, and not someone who would have been crueler.
“ I-I mean, quirks aren’t everything-” Jiro cuts him off, venom beginning to spew out of her mouth.
“ So what, you just trained everything except your quirk Midoriya? Because we all saw your quirk control at the beginning of the year and it was horrendous. I mean you were breaking your bones for like a month. What kind of idiot just ignores their quirk. I mean that’s the whole point of being a hero.” Jiro spits out, expression dark. Midoriya finches back, but Jiro’s accusation seems to open a flood of hate from the others, before he can even try to defend himself.
“ Yeah Mido! This was supposed to be the people with less flashy quirks time to shine, and you're just stealing all of our thunder.” Hagakure cries, sleeves waving wildly above her head.
“ You get to show off everyday, why can’t you just let us have the spotlight for once.” Ojiro asks, arms crossed.
“ I’ll admit, it’s kind of rude to just take over the stealth heroes exercises ribbit.”
“ Midoriya, you should just stay in your own lane.” Every word feels like a stab to his heart, but he doesn’t try to stop the words spilling from their mouths, body too numb to even think about it. It feels like it’ll go on forever, but finally Iida’s hand chops down and everyone goes silent, giving him a chance to breathe.
“ What we are trying to say, Midoriya, is that it is not fair to our classmates that you are tanking our grades just to show off. And we want to ask that you please refrain from doing so in the future.”
“ W-what? You want me to stop trying?” Izuku looks at Uraraka in hopes that she’ll speak up, but she just shrugs sheepishly.
“ I mean you don’t really need these skills right Deku? It just feels like you're showing off, and rubbing it in everyone’s faces.” She explains, smiling softly as if it’ll soften the blow. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t. Izuku blinks rapidly, trying to stop the tears from falling. He’d thought they were his friends, that they’d be happy he was doing so good. Why couldn’t he ever make everybody happy? He’s quickly spiraling, thoughts turning to static in his brain. He’s so far in his head, that he doesn’t hear or see the people approaching them, the ones who’d heard everything the class had to say to him.
“ WHAT THE HELL YOU FUCKING EXTRAS.” A scorching hot hand claps down onto his shoulder, and Izuku is shoved behind…Bakugou? His foot catches on a crack, and he almost falls over, but he’s caught by familiar pink hands. Izuku looks behind him to see Kirishima, Mina and Todoroki. “ ARE YOU SO FUCKING INSECURE THAT YOU HAVE TO ASK SHITTY DEKU TO STOP TRYING SO ONE OF YOU CAN WIN?”
The last person he ever expected to defend him was Bakugou. Izuku is about to speak but Todoroki’s hand on his shoulder tightens and Izuku falls silent.
“ You don’t deserve to be a hero.” Todoroki snaps. “ Not if you have to ask your competition to give up.”
“ Yeah!” Kirishima agrees. “ That is so unmanly. Mido is just trying to do his best, and you're here making him feel like crap! I respected you all, but now you're just…being BULLIES.” Mina nods vigorously, leaning forward with a scowl.
“ I’m failing too, but I’m not making a big deal of it, I’m trying to do better. These are LESSONS. We’re here to learn. If you aren’t good enough to take Mido out, then you need to do BETTER. Don't whine because of your own shortcomings. I didn’t become good at dance, by asking people better than me to stop being good. I asked them for HELP. ” Everyone on the other side, has vaguely ashamed looks on their faces, but Iida and Jiro still try to explain their side.
“ He’s not going into the underground-”
“ Midoriya is refusing to give anyone a chance, and-”
“ SHUT THE HELL UP.” They do, to Izuku’s relief. “ YOU’RE ALL FUCKING COWARDS.” He says with a sneer. “ No fucking villain is going to just give up, or not do their best because it hurts your fucking feelings. They’re going to come after you with everything they’ve got, and you’re gonna die, because you didn’t want to put in the work to get better. It’s fucking pathetic.” With his piece said, Bakugou shoves past his shell shocked classmates and Izuku is turned around forcibly by Todoroki, who starts to shove him forward.
“ We’ll see what Aizawa-sensei has to say about this.” He calls over his shoulder, causing cries of outrage behind him. “ Are you okay Midoriya?” Izuku nods, tears finally spilling. But these aren’t sad tears, no they’re happy. The fact that they stood up for him? Means more than they’ll ever know.
“ You don’t have to tell Sensei Shoto.” Said boy shrugs.
“ Yes I do. And please don’t not try your best for the next lesson. We are training to become heroes, the villains aren’t going to go easy on us. The fact that they even asked that, is ridiculous. They won’t grow or become better if they don’t have to try. It’s not your fault.” Izuku blushes slightly, and tries to calm the butterflies in his stomach. Every time he thought Shoto couldn’t get better, he proved otherwise.
“ Thank you for being my friend Shoto, you're one of my very important people.” Izuku whispers, hands clasped in front of him. Shoto’s steps stutter a bit and when Izuku looks up he’s alarmed to find half of Shoto’s face on fire. “ AH! Are you okay?”
“ I-I’m fine! You're one of my most important people as well Midoriya.”
“ Call me Izuku. But are you sure you don’t need to see Recovery Girl? Your hair is still smoking a little bit.” Shoto’s face is notably flushed the rest of the walk to Izuku’s confusion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“ In what world have I ever given you the indication that you are allowed to slack off.” Aizawa snaps. He’s the maddest Izuku has ever seen, and it’s because of him. That makes him far happier than it has any right too, but to have a teacher that finally cares? It’s laughable, but there’s so many here who are on his side that just keep proving him wrong.
“ Let me give you a scenario. You’re all grown up and famous Famous enough to have a stalker who has a stealth quirk. One who wants you dead by his hand. .And because you decided that this wasn’t worth your time, or you found it unfair that someone who isn’t supposed to be good at stealth is good at it so you made him stop trying so you could get a good grade you die. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS. If you don’t learn to hoan your instincts, trust your gut, realize when eyes are on you when they shouldn’t be you WILL DIE.” Aizawa’s words seem to affect everyone, heads bowing down in shame, and even some people crying softly.
“ I’m trying to give you the tools to make a difference while also staying alive. No one wants to see their student on the news dead at 21 because they didn’t teach them well enough. For you to try and sabotage my lessons is infuriating.” He doesn’t say anything, seemingly done. It’s quiet for a few minutes, but finally Uraraka gets the courage to speak up.
“ A-Are you gonna expel us sensei?” She asks quietly on the verge of tears. And Izuku knows he should feel upset, but she was one of the first people he’d expected to defend him. She’d done it when she thought he was a simple sweet Deku , but as soon as he’d shown to be more than that, it’s like she couldn’t handle it. Handle who he really was, and it hurt. So no, he wasn’t upset that she might be forced to leave.
“ I should. I didn’t expel any of you at the beginning of the year, because I felt you had potential. But any potential I saw at the beginning of the year, is now gone.. You’ll have till the end of the stealth lessons to prove to me that you deserve to be here. Otherwise, everyone except Bakugou, Mina, Kirishima, Midoriya and Todoroki will be expelled. Do you understand?”
“ Yes sensei.” the room echoes in varying degrees of tears. All except Mineta.
“ it’s still not fair Sensei, Midoriya has to be cheat-”
“ You’re expelled.” The silence is deafening. If Aizawa-sensei’s anger hadn’t been enough to drill in how serious he was about this, this definitely was. In the corner, Momo looks like she’s about to be sick. When Mineta refuses to leave, crocodile tears pouring down his face, Aizawa simply lassos the crying purple trash with his capture weapon and drags him out of the class. “ I’ll be back in a couple minutes to explain the next lesson.”
The only people conversing amongst themselves are Izuku and Shoto and Kirishima and Mina., Shoto having come to sit in Mineta’s now empty desk and talk to Izuku. The rest of the class sit in tense silence, as they wait for their teacher to get back.
What no one in the class saw coming was for their teacher to leave dragging a purple haired child out, and then to return with a different purple haired child in tow.
“ Hellspawn, this is Shinsou Hitoshi, you should remember him from the Sports Festival. He was due to move up next semester, but due to one of the seats in the hero course opening up, his transfer was fast tracked. I expect you to treat him better than you have some of your other classmates.” Aizawa glances at Shoto for a second. “ Todoroki, move back to your seat. Shinsou, take the seat behind Midoriya.”
Once everyone is settled down, Shinsou looking just a bit overwhelmed, Aizawa-Sensei continues.
“ The game today will be Capture the Flag, one round. While the last team standing will be declared the winners, you will be individually graded on how useful you were to your team, your creativity, and how well you performed overall. You will be divided into teams of three, and two teams of four. We will be traveling back to the campgrounds we used for the training camp and you will be provided with provisions. We won’t be leaving until we have a winning team so be prepared to spend the night. Your goal? Protect your flag, and steal the other team’s flags undetected. If you are caught by anyone with a flag that is not yours, you’re automatically out, and you will need to head back to the buildings you stayed in during the training camp.The only other way to get out, is if you are forcibly restrained or caught by another group. We will be watching to make sure that there is no cheating, or subterfuge. You have three hours until we leave, so after I give out the team placements, I suggest you plan.” Aizawa is expecting the raised hand from Izuku this time.
“ Yes Midoriya?”
“ Um, two things. One may I say something to the class please? And two, are we allowed to bring our own supplies?”
“ Yes, on both counts.” Izuku nods firmly and stands up, shoulders squared as he faces the people he thought had his back.
“ Yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to reply to your accusations, and to your requests of me. Of course I’m sure if I had tried to say anything yesterday, it wouldn’t have come out how I wanted it to either. But, I don’t want you to have any misconceptions here. I will NOT go easy on you, just so you can feel better about your own skills. From this point on, I’m going to give it my all, even if it means you don’t get a chance to show off your skills. And, for those of you who see me as a simple sweet Deku, the guy who’s only worth a quirk? Fuck you. My quirk doesn't define me, or give me worth, even if it took me a while to realize that. And I won’t let you guys put me in a box. I can be a rescue hero, limelight hero, or an underground hero. I haven’t decided what kind of hero I really want to be, so how dare you tell me what skills I’m allowed to cultivate. ” Izuku takes a deep breath, pushing down the burning anger in his gut, the one that makes him want to continue bearing the people who broke his trust. It won’t do them any good, if they want to change, they’ll need to do it on their own. He can’t change how they feel by lecturing them.
Aizawa gives him a small smile, then turns to the class.
“ The teams are as follows.”
Momo, Todoroki, and Sato
Jirou, Bakugou, Kaminari,and Ojiro
Shouji, Mina, Sero, and Aoyama
Midoriya, Tokoyami, and Shinsou
Kirishima,Hagakure, and Iida
Uraraka, Tsu, and Kouda
Aizawa grins. “ Oh, and another thing, hellions?” Everyone looks at him. “ I think you all need some reminding that quirks are not everything, so this will be a quirk free game. Everyone who can’t control their quirk, or who I think will have trouble not using it will be fitted with quirk canceling cuffs. Using your quirk is an automatic failure for the test. Be outside the school in three hours.”
Recently, Izuku would have darted out of the classroom by now, but this time he has to get with his teammates, because he won’t let them cause him to fail, he just won’t. So Izuku stays sitting, his two teammates taking his cue, and staying at their desks, until everyone eventually trickles out, clustered together in their own groups. Once everyone is gone, Izuku turns around, to face the tired purple boy who now sits behind him.
“ Welcome to Class 1-A Shinsou.” Izuku says quietly. He wouldn’t be surprised if the boy is a little wary of him now. After all, he’d exploded in his class on the very first day Shinsou arrived. It would have freaked him out too.
“ What the hell was that declaration for? Everyone looked like you killed their cat.” Shinsou asks, cutting right to the chase. Tokoyami approaches, an unreadable look on his face.
“ That would be partly my fault, Shinsou.” Tokoyami says. “ Yesterday, we acted unheroically and asked Izuku to stop trying during these stealth lessons so we could get our grades up. That was unfair to him, and for that I would like to apologize.” Tokoyami clears his throat and turns to Izuku, bowing low. “ Yesterday, my soul was cloaked in darkness, and I let that darkness leak onto your pure soul. I was nearly pulled into the abyss of my sins, and for that I apologize. It will not happen again.” Izuku gets the gist of it, and maybe he’s a little too forgiving, because he smiles softly and nods.
“ It’s okay Tokoyami, I forgive you. Let’s just move on from this.” But then again, all Tokoyami had done was stand there. He hadn’t been one of the ones to lash out, so maybe Izuku is more easily able to forgive him. If any of the others apologize, he supposes he’ll figure it out. Tokoyami gives him a small smile, and his quirk pops out of his shirt.
“ Thanks! Fumi was pouting all night because he felt bad, so now maybe he’ll actually sleep tonight!” Izuku has to stifle a laugh as Tokoyami turns bright red.
“ DARK SHADOW.” Then begins the tussling to force his quirk back inside his shirt before it gives away anymore of his secrets. Once the quirk has retreated with a cackle, Tokoyami coughs lightly, and smoothes his ruffled feathers before speaking. “ Now that Dark Shadow has retreated back into the mortal confines of my body, I wanted to ask you something Midoriya.” Izukunods curiously.
“ I was hoping that you would…help me. Mina was correct when she said that instead of trying to make you stop trying, we should have sought your help in our downtime to become better.” Midoriya grins.
“ Sure Tokoyami! Besides, it'd be beneficial to me too since we’re on the same team.”
“ Thank you Midoriya. Your soul is far too pure for the putrid and twisted ways of this world.” Izuku glances at Shinsou for help. Tokoyami was nice, but sometimes he just didn’t know what half of what he said meant. Shinsou shrugs in response.
“ I think he means, he’s glad you forgave him and shit, since you didn’t have too.” Tokoyami nods, and Izuku blinks. He wasn’t sure how Shinsou got that answer but….
“ Well, let’s get started! We have a limited amount of time to plan before we leave. How do you guys feel about…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hagakure has to stifle her squeal of delight. She was being forced to wear clothes, since they couldn’t use quirks, but it didn’t really affect her that badly. Her team had decided that even though she wasn’t able to go full stealth, she should be their scout, and find out where in the woods the other teams were, and report back to her team so her and Iida could go and collect the flags. It was a pretty solid plan, Hagakure thought! And here was the perfect time to take out their biggest competition. She hides behind a tree quickly, keeping Shinsou in her sights.
She tenses slightly when he passes by and places a finger to his ear.
“ This is Murk reporting back to base. I’ve lapped the perimeter of our territory three times, and there is no one to be found. I’ll be heading back to change out with Pretty Bird, Copy?” Hagakure blinks. They’d brought comms? That was so smart, she wishes that she’d thought of it! But it didn’t matter now, her first order of business was following Shinso back to the base, so she could lead Iida there! She follows Shinou for about twenty minutes, not noticing how Shinsou occasionally looks back at her position, too excited at the thought of being the one to finally get Midoriya out.
She follows him up a cliff, and to a large cave opening. Standing at the entrance is Tokoyami.
“ All good?” Tokoyami asks
“ Yup,I didn’t
see
a single thing out there.” Again Hagakure misses the slight inflection in his tone.
“ Alright, I’ll be back in about an hour so Midoriya can take his turn looking. If we don’t find anyone soon, we might need to go looking for ourselves for some flags.”
“ Right. Remind me again, are we in the cave on the right or the left? It’s such a mess of caves in there, I almost regret choosing this location.”
“ We abide in the third chamber on the right. Do not let the dark lead you astray, comrade.” Hagakre giggles softly, then tenses, but neither boy looks toward the outcropping she’s under, just continuing on. Soon enough Tokoyami leaves, and Hagakure waits a few minutes to follow and head back to her own camp. She bursts into their own makeshift fighting grounds thirty minutes later out of breath.
“ Iida! Kirishima! I found Midoriya’s base! And I even found out where they are, and where the flag is, so we can take him out before he takes any of us out!” Hagakure screeches delightedly. Kirishima is quick to shush her.
“ Hagakure, we don’t want anyone to come looking for us! Keep your voice down.” Hagakure laughs sheepishly.
“ Sorry Kirishima, I was just really excited.” Iida is at their sides now as well.
“ Excellent work Hagakure! We shall leave at once to take out Midoriya!” Kirishima doesn’t look convinced.
“ You guys…Midoriya is really good at stealth, are we sure we want to take him on? It might be better to target teams we’d have a better chance at.” Hagakure pouts.
“ But they didn’t even see me coming! We’ll never get a better chance than this!” Kirishima is easily overruled, leaving the anxious teen on his own to protect their flag. None of them see the bird perching in the tree lying in wait for the go ahead.
Hagakure and Iida have no trouble finding their way back to the cliff riddled in caves, quickly climbing to the top, making sure to be quiet. (Spoiler alert, they aren’t quiet.) Once at the top, they look around to make sure no one is watching, then creep forward to the opening of the cave.
“ Let’s get 'em!” Hagakure whispers fiercely, cracking her knuckles.
“ Indeed.” With that, they enter the cave that spells out their doom. As they get further from the entrance, things grow darker, until soon they stand in pitch black, the entrance a distant thought in both teens' heads. Hagakure leads Iida to the right when they come to a juncture, going through the first cave and into the second. This is where things begin to go wrong. The further they go in, and the less they can see the more their other senses seem to sharpen. It makes them jumpy, even as they try to be quiet. As they feel around for the opening to the third cave in the dark, they start to hear things.
It’s an eerie humming, a soft pitched voice crooning through the cave. They quickly begin to wish they’d brought a light, searching frantically for the exit. When they finally make their way out of the second cave, and into the third, the crooning morphs into words.
The voice itself is beautiful, like water trickling down from a mountain, clear and sharp but the words warp the tone, turning the tune into what feels like a death march as Iida and Hagakure move forward.
Two little flies,
Hagakure’s breath catches in fear. She may be a hero, but this is starting to feel like a scene out of a horror movie
In a web of their own design
Iida struggles to stop the shaking in his hands. This is starting to feel like a mistake
The threads weave and
Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back.
Wrap around their mind
Both of the teens step into the final cave. Midoriya is sitting facing away from them, messing with something in his bag as he sings. They both relax. It’s just Midoriya, and they can see the flag in the far corner of the room.
Two little flies
They take the final step into the actual cave, and right into Midoriya’s trap. Thin wire is laced all across the floor, leaving very little room for a person to walk. And as soon as you step into it, you're caught.
With nowhere to fly
Iida cries out as the wire snap taunt around his ankle and he’s yanked to the roof of the cave, swinging there at the mercy of Midoriya.
As the spider creeps ever
Seeing Iida be yanked away and into the unending abyss of darkness that the ceiling holds, Hagakure cries out and tries to yank her foot out of the wire.
Closer and closer and closer
Instead she falls, the web sticking to her skin, and soon she’s lying on the floor of the cave, getting more tangled by the moment.
Watch the flies struggle
It shouldn’t be as terrifying as it is, to see Midoriya turn around with a sinister grin.
Till they fall asleep
“ I win.” Midoriya purrs. He touches his ear. “ Tokoyami, your ago.” Hagakure cries out in frustration, at being one of the first ones out AGAIN. At losing to Midoriya AGAIN. At not being good enough. Midoriya simply spares her a look as she thrashes, before pulling out another spool of wire, and a knife.
“ Maybe next time, you don’t wear bright purple clothes to a forest. And don’t just trust the enemy's intel. I mean you fell right into our trap. Lure people here, so there’s less to protect their base, and one person can take them out, stealing their flag.”
Iida sighs from where he’s hanging on the ceiling. It was obvious in hindsight. Midoriya…is just better. And Iida and Hagakure did nothing different from other lessons, unwilling to learn. He owed Midoriya an apology after this, if he would accept it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Present Mic’s mouth drops in awe. Not at the excellent plan Midoriya’s group was executing but at Midoriya’s VOICE. It’d been a long time since he’d heard something so beautiful, even as Midoriya wreaked havoc on the other teams, using his teammates to his advantage, having them lure people to their base and making them think they’ve got the advantage of surprise, only to be caught in his carefully thought out web.
It was sneaky and underhanded, and everything that underground heroics was. It was pure art, but the cherry on top was Midoriya’s singing, as he scared the crap out of them. In fact, he’s pretty sure Aoyama did indeed pee his pants. He had to-
“ Don’t even think about it, Zashi.” He pouts and turns to look at his husband.
“ B-But Sho! His voice…. ”
“ He’s already got like four mentors that want to snap him up, are you really going to try and fight them because of his voice.”
“ Um YEAHHHHHHhhhhh." Hizashi’s quirk cuts off, in a familiar manner as his husband glares at him.
“ Then let’s see if you’ve gotten any better from the sports festival when I kicked your ass.”
“ That was one time SHOOOO.”
Aizawa smiles softly as he stares at the screen past his pouting husband. Night has fallen and Izuku has taken full advantage of that. He’d already taken out several teams with his spider trap plan, but now he was really shining, as he slipped in and out of camps without being noticed. And even better he used his teammates as a distraction, people going to investigate the sounds and being ambushed by Shinso and Tokoyami, so he wouldn’t have to fight all the teammates at once.
It was obvious he was going to win this lesson as well. But…some of the others seemed to be taking it seriously, his words seriously. They were improving. Jirou’s group had taken to perching in trees surrounding their flag and ambushing them from above. Very few people ever thought to look up.
Momo’s group had used her camouflaging technique from hide and seek, and used it to their advantage. They used natural camouflage from the forest to not only camouflage their flag, but themselves as well.
It would come down to those three teams, but Aizawa has no doubt his problem child will come out on top. He was far too smart not too, especially now that he wasn’t holding back. Eventually he tears his eyes from the screen, where Izuku is having a little too much fun, using capture tape to string Sero up among the trees, and takes his leave.
He has a feeling they’ll be leaving earlier than he expected when he first planned this lesson.