Chapter 32

When Sekijirou Kan, Class 1-B's homeroom teacher, walks outside before dawn, it's to the sight of Aizawa standing in the road, watching the back of a bus as it drives away. There's a coffee mug in his hand, its contents long gone cold, and Aizawa barely bats an eye when his colleague steps up beside him.

There's a moment of contemplation, of Sekijirou looking at his mug, then at the expression on Aizawa's face, then at the slowly disappearing bus, before realization hits.

"Holy crap. So you actually did it."

Aizawa shifts, tries to take a sip, then pulls a face and pours the rest out. "You almost sound surprised."

"You held out pretty long," Sekijirou says. "We were starting to wonder if your entire class might make it through the first year. I think a few of us owe Kayama some money now."

"Fantastic." Aizawa's voice is caustic. "Good to know this is benefiting her and amusing all the rest of you."

Sekijirou winces. "…I'm sorry," he says. "It must not have been an easy decision."

"I don't know why everyone seems to think it is." Aizawa rounds on him. "I don't know why my string of bad luck with students has convinced everyone that I can decide to accept my own complete failure on a whim."

"Aizawa—"

"I let students go when they have zero potential." Aizawa scowls off in the direction the bus has taken. "If they have even a shred of it at the start, then that's something I can work with. I thought I could work with him."

"Who was it?" Sekijirou asks cautiously. "One of the remedial students, I take it."

"No. Mineta Minoru."

Sekijirou's eyebrows shoot upward. "Oh."

"I was planning to place him in the remedial class the moment he put a toe wrong," Aizawa says. "But it wouldn't do anything."

"You sure?" Sekijirou asks. "I mean, you've mentioned him before, and so has Kayama, but… he's a teenage boy, you know. It happens, but it doesn't mean he can't learn."

"That's what I thought. That's what I was hoping." Aizawa shakes his head. "But there was too much I was already letting slide, and this time it led to Sousaki's nephew getting hurt. He's fine," he adds quickly. "But it was a close thing, and all Mineta had to say about it—his response to the fact that his actions put a civilian child in danger—was to call that child a 'self-righteous little shit'." He pauses at Sekijirou's sharp intake of breath. "He probably didn't mean for me to hear that. But I did, and I realize now that I can't help him. And I can't in good conscience allow him to move forward." He rubs his face, looking tired. "Bakugou I can work with, Bakugou's problem is that he's proud and spoiled, but at least there's some part of him that wants to do good. Mineta never wanted that, so there's nothing I can do for him."

"Sounds like it's for the best," Sekijirou tells him gently. "And—hey. There are other promising kids out there. Kids with their hearts in the right place. This just means there's more space for them to move up. Those are kids you can help."

"Yeah," Aizawa says. "Yeah, I intend to."

Shouto doesn't mind early mornings as a concept.

In his father's house, he loathes them. In his father's house they begin with heavy footsteps approaching his door, with sitting bolt upright so he won't be caught lying down, with an ungenerous bare-bones breakfast and whatever basic training his father can fit in before releasing him to go to school. It means closing his eyes through the first hours of the day before he steps out the door and lets himself breathe again.

Today, it begins with Iida's voice booming throughout the boys' dorm, followed by a ragged chorus of soft groans of protest. Shouto sits up with more care than he normally does, because this time he has a cat on his chest. On one side, Kaminari attempts to burrow further beneath the covers. On the other, Midoriya flops over and kicks him in the side. Everyone is groggy and sleep-tousled, and mornings have never felt so bizarrely comfortable.

"I feel really weird," Midoriya says over breakfast, which is simple but far less spartan than Shouto is used to.

"Weird how?" Uraraka asks. She's eating with her eyes closed, too sleepy to keep her eyelids up.

Midoriya doesn't seem to have that problem. "I don't know," he says thoughtfully. "I think I might be dying."

Uraraka lists to the side until she bumps his shoulder. "Deku, nooooo."

"You look fine," Shouto informs him patiently.

"I know. I feel fine, too. It makes me suspicious." Midoriya frowns. "Am I floating? I feel kind of floaty."

Ojiro is sitting near enough to overhear, and lets out a quiet chuckle. "Midoriya, have you seen your face lately? I could swear those bags under your eyes have gotten smaller. You're not dying, you're well-rested."

Uraraka chokes out a sob that Shouto is fairly sure is fake. "I'm so proud," she says.

"I'm jealous," Sero groans. "I always take forever to sleep when I'm somewhere new. First night of camping is always the worst. How do you even do it, Midoriya?"

Midoriya shrugs and mumbles and fills his mouth with food to keep from having to answer.

"Speaking of things that make me lose sleep at night," Uraraka pipes up. "Where'd Mineta go?"

At this question, all the other girls jump. Ashido scoots back in her seat and checks under the table. Jirou lifts her feet up to sit cross-legged.

Shouto glances to his other seat neighbor. "Yaoyorozu?" he asks.

She lowers her chopsticks, lips pursed. "He was sent home, apparently. First thing in the morning—Aizawa-sensei had him get up even earlier than the rest of us. Iida and I were informed last night, but we don't know the details."

"That's weird," Kaminari remarks. "He wasn't even in the remedial class. And I don't think he did any worse in that forest obstacle course than the rest of us."

"Aizawa-sensei will be making announcements after breakfast." Iida pitches his voice over the rest of the chatter. "I'm sure whatever needs explaining will be disclosed then."

By five-thirty, the whole class is gathered outside and dressed in gym uniforms, most of them still rumpled and yawning. Shouto is reasonably awake; it's hardly any earlier than he's used to, and thus far the morning has been much slower-paced. The only others who seem unaffected by the hour are Iida, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, and Tokoyami, though in the latter case Todoroki just can't read his expression past the beak and feathers.

"Good morning everyone," Aizawa greets them. "Your training begins today. This summer, we will be reinforcing what you learned last term, as well as pushing you well past your physical and mental limits." A few of them wince. "The purpose of this training will be to strengthen your quirks, and to prepare you for the examinations for provisional licenses." Aizawa's eyes narrow. "And so, we will be preparing you for life-or-death scenarios, aggressive and hostile enemies, and in other words, real hero work. A provisional license will authorize you to perform that work, so we'll be spending this summer making sure you earn it." His eyes rove over the class. "And on that note—Mineta will not be continuing his training this summer."

Shouto sees more than a few perplexed looks pass back and forth among his classmates.

"Nor will he be continuing in the fall," Aizawa adds, and the confusion turns to shock.

"Wait, what?" Kaminari blurts. "But he passed the final! He wasn't even in remedial training!"

"As of last night, Mineta Minoru is no longer a student in the U.A. Hero course," Aizawa goes on, ignoring Kaminari's outburst. "The behavior that he displayed last night was unacceptable for a hero in training, and has been unacceptable since he began." Aizawa's face is like stone. "Let me be clear. I was lenient in dealing with his missteps—far more lenient than was called for. I will not make the same mistake twice. While you are in my class, and while you are attending U.A., you will show your fellow students, your teachers, and your peers the respect that is due them. You will respect boundaries. You will respect consent. You will afford your classmates common courtesy. If you are incapable of that, then you have no place in my class, in this school, or in this profession."

Yaoyorozu is standing next to Shouto, and he sees her shift to stand taller. A sigh of relief can be heard coming from the empty space above Hagakure's shirt collar.

Shouto shifts his weight from foot to foot, burying his sudden dread deep. Mineta had been unpleasant, and privately Shouto isn't too broken up to see him gone; his social graces aren't the best, but even he couldn't miss how miserable the girls were around his now-former classmate. But in spite of that, Mineta was clever and strong in his own right. He had a good understanding of his own quirk, he was smart enough to make the top ten in academics, and he made it through the USJ attack just like the rest of them. He managed to pass the final while his partner Sero is stuck with remedial training, meaning that Mineta had more or less passed that test on his own. And even with all those qualities and abilities, he's still been kicked out on attitude and character alone.

Shouto knows his strengths; he knows he's clever and strong and skilled with his quirk and good in academics.

He's not quite as certain about his character.

"We'll be upgrading your quirks," Aizawa-sensei tells them, and that's exactly what they proceed to do.

It's grueling, of course, but on the bright side, the other half of the Pussycat team finally joins them. From what Izuku can guess, while Mandalay and Pixiebob welcomed Class 1-A yesterday, Ragdoll and Tiger had been busy getting Class 1-B settled in. But now everyone's together, it's still midmorning and Izuku feels like he could flop down and pass out where he stands.

He doesn't, of course. That would defeat the purpose.

There are forty—well, thirty-nine, now—students in these woods, and only four trainers besides their homeroom teachers. But the Pussycats are professionals, and their quirks are just as suited for wide simultaneous training as they are for mountain rescue operations. Pixiebob's earth quirk turns the landscape into specialized training fields and obstacle courses. Mandalay's quirk is Telepathy, and lets her mentally broadcast instructions over multiple students at once. Ragdoll's Search lets her keep track of up to one hundred people at once, including weaknesses. And Tiger…

Tiger is…

Hm.

Izuku's mouth tastes like dirt and sweat, because that's all he's eaten since breakfast. He's long given up fretting over the sweaty sting in his eyes, because it's been hours since it started and Izuku is quickly learning to prioritize. As a rescue hero, Tiger's quirk lets him stretch and flatten his body to get through narrow spaces as needed. As a teacher, he's like an unholy amalgamation of All-Might, Ms. Nana, and Gran Torino. He's loud, he's strong, and he does not let up.

Not that Izuku would want him to, of course.

Your quirk doesn't need strengthening, Nana had once told him. You do. She's still right. Gran Torino helped him find a way to harness One For All more consistently, but five percent is still a measly five percent. That's a kitten sneeze to the kind of power he's seen All Might wield with his little finger—without breaking it. That's not something Izuku can catch up with overnight. Sometimes he wonders if he'll even reach one hundred by the time he graduates. But that's Future Izuku's problem. Present Izuku's problem is I wonder if I can nudge it up to six.

"Push it to the limit!" Tiger tells him when he lands on his ankle wrong and ends up limping for a few minutes.

"Push it to the limit!" he says while Izuku struggles to get his lungs working again after he misses a block and takes a blow to the gut.

"Push it to the limit!" he says, shortly before sending Izuku sprawling facedown in the dirt for the fiftieth time that day.

Rei helps him up, asks him if he wants her to give Tiger a hard time, and scowls petulantly when he shakes his head. This is good. This is a good thing.

He pauses to catch his breath when Tiger moves on to help Satou. His arms aren't shaking yet, so he activates Full Cowl and drops to do a set of push-ups while he waits. "What do you think?" he mumbles, with minimal lip movement. It's awkward to do pushups with his head raised to look at her, but it's the only way to see what she signs.

That boy is here, she tells him. The one that punched you. He's watching you and some of the others, but mostly you.

"Oh." His chest feels tighter at that.

The one with wings too, she says, and Izuku has to pause before he sprains his wrist by accident. I don't see him all the time. When I do, he's watching you. I don't know why. He won't talk to me. I don't like him.

"He's just scared," Izuku mumbles, then lifts the hand that he almost messed up and folds it behind his back. Adjusting his weight, he continues his pushups on one arm. "You know, you don't have to stay with me. I haven't figured out how to train my first quirk yet. I don't want you to get bored."

Instead of answering, Rei simply frowns and watches Tiger train with Satou. Let me try something, she answers.

"Define 'something'."

I want to try to touch him. Really touch him, I mean. I think I can do it.

Izuku's eyes widen, and he finally pauses and puts one knee down. "How can I help?"

I don't know.

When Tiger comes back to him, Izuku throws himself into a spar. It's not his best, because he's trying to keep one eye on Rei at the same time, but the point of this exercise is raw strength, not fine precision detail.

Rei hovers at the edges of the fight, pacing and circling like she's deciding where to pounce. She reaches out from time to time, clawing and swiping, but her hands go through Tiger the same as they always do.

Izuku keeps One For All activated, reveling in the feeling of lightning in his veins. When Rei drifts close, he feels the hairs on his arm stand on end. The static charge makes his skin prickle, until he dodges a blow from Tiger and steps into Rei's space.

She blinks away, vanishes, and reappears behind Tiger, reaching out with a pale hand for his broad shoulder.

It's a fraction of a second. Just an instant. But Izuku is watching, always watching for weaknesses, just like Nana taught him, and he sees Tiger's split-second glance over his shoulder. Izuku throws a punch and catches him in the side, before he has the chance to manipulate his body around it.

Tiger's roar of laughter almost deafens him, and Izuku is rewarded with another ungentle fall. He glimpses Rei on his way down, and finds her staring at her hand with a wide, wide smile on her face. When he staggers back up, Tiger is still grinning at him, and Izuku arranges his tired face into a grin of his own.

As Tiger's booming voice calls him back to attention, movement catches his eye in the trees beyond their training ground. Kouta lurks in the shadows, half-hidden behind a tree trunk, and meets his eyes with a dark scowl. Before Izuku can react, the boy turns and vanishes into the underbrush with the ghosts of his parents always at his side.

Ragdoll doesn't like to toot her own horn, but she's pretty sure she's keeping busiest for the least reward. Tiger's giving the kids face-to-face lessons, Pixiebob gets to show off and wow everyone by turning glades and ravines into obstacle courses, and Mandalay's talking into everyone's heads. That's how it usually is; Tiger, Pixie, and Mandy are the face, the muscle, and the voice of their operation, and little ol' Rags gets to be the brains and the eyes.

It's a good job. Her favorite job. And the best part about it is knowing nobody else can do it but her. Eraserhead and Blood King brought them thirty-nine kittens, and Ragdoll can keep tabs on them from any vantage point. She is the vantage point. Pixiebob looks to her to know who needs what, Mandy looks to her for where to send instructions, and Tiger…

Well, Tiger mostly does his own thing. That's Tiger for you. But she can give him advice on who needs strengthening and how.

(That's a complicated question, though, because everyone here needs strengthening, in every possible way.)

Ragdoll smiles to herself and taps Mandy to whisper in her ear. "Tell Todoroki-kun he's about to pass out from heat exhaustion," she says. "Ms. Kendou needs to work on her footwork, Shiozaki's never going to last long in a fight if she stays in one spot and doesn't move, Ojiro's sprained his ankle and it's not the kind you can just walk off…" The list goes on. Ragdoll is good with names; she has to be, with a quirk like hers. She has to talk slow, too, or Mandy won't have enough time to transmit it all.

Not that she blames her. Once upon a time, it was all a bit much for Ragdoll, too, back when she was a teensy little kitten-in-training herself. When she was little, one of the happiest days of her life was figuring out where the off-switch was, because without that, her mind wasn't the pleasantest place to be. Even before she got her range up to a hundred, where everyone was and what they were doing and where they were weakest was an awful lot to cram into one head. It left her so busy sorting through it all that she missed things right in front of her nose.

Now? Now she misses nothing.

She's not even looking for him, and she still feels it—Midoriya Izuku, Class 1-A, wandering away from Tiger. He's out of breath with sore muscles and a stiff right hand, and he's sidled away from Tiger while he's distracted with a few of the others.

Ragdoll wrinkles her nose. Naughty, naughty. It's so close to lunchtime, too. If he plays hooky she'll have to tell Eraserhead, and he's been prickly ever since he sent one of his kittens home.

She's just leaning over to tell Mandy so her partner can send him a quick mental slap on the wrist, when she tracks his progress and realizes he's heading straight for them.

"Something wrong?" Mandy asks.

"Hold that thought!" Ragdoll chirps back, and darts away to head him off.

She means to sneak up on him, but he scampers up to her before she has the chance. "Oh, Ms. Ragdoll! I was looking for you—are you busy?"

Ragdoll blinks, narrows her eyes, and squints at his face for a moment. He's not lying. Not skipping out, then. Just taking a break from Tiger, and that's silly. Who would ever need a break from Tiger? Tiger is a delight.

She always shows her teeth when she smiles. "Don't be silly," she tells him. "I'm always busy."

(Tetsutetsu's metal shell is breaking—he's reached his limit, and so early too. Tsunotori stepped on a jutting stone, and now the frog of her hoof is bleeding. Asui's thirsty, Aoyama's about to lose what's left of his breakfast—)

"I was hoping to ask you something," Midoriya says, and wipes some of the dirt and sweat from his face. That's a nice little scar he has—nothing wrong with that eye, though. It's just a mark. "You said your quirk lets you see weaknesses."

"That's right!" she says. She's starting to remember now, because Pixie told her—Midoriya likes heroes, likes quirks, and likes finding answers to questions more than anything else.

"Are there any that jump out at you?" Midoriya asks her. "On me, I mean."

"Hmmmm." Ragdoll taps her chin. Is this cheating? This feels like it ought to be cheating, but then this isn't a test, it's training. And she's supposed to be a teacher right now, isn't she? If she's a teacher and it isn't a test then what's the harm in helping him find the answers? "Weeeell… the biggest thing jumping out at me is that right hand of yours."

He wrings the hand a bit. "It's just a little stiff."

"Well, you know what they say, a little goes a long way, doesn't it?" She taps one of her paw gloves on her chin. "Besides that… you're big and loud and in-your-face, and that's all well and good but you don't have the muscle to back it up yet." She tilts her head to look at him sidelong. "Which is why skipping out on Tiger to ask me questions you already know the answers to might not be the smartest move, don't you think, Midoriya-kun? Pixie says you're smart. You already know your weaknesses, don't you."

He blinks at her. "What about mental ones?"

"Hm?" She tilts her head the other way.

"You're right, I did know that," he admits, a little sheepishly. "I know my, um, physical weaknesses, and I sort of know how I can get past them, too. But what about mental weaknesses? Can your quirk detect those, too?" Before she can answer, he pushes ahead. "Because I know what I have to do, but I don't always know how to go about doing it. Sometimes it feels like something's blocking me, and it's not something like this—" He taps his crooked hand. "—or just how big my muscles aren't. I feel like part of it's how I think, and it's harder to tell what that is and how to get past it. I was just wondering if you could, with your quirk."

Ragdoll hums again, lets it drag out as she taps her foot in time to her thoughts. No one's ever thought to ask her this before, besides Mandy when they were younger. "Mmmmno, 'fraid not. My quirk deals in physical weaknesses only! Bum legs and broken arms and bad backs, you know."

His shoulders slump a little.

"But! That doesn't mean I can't still answer your question. Because-because-because, that's only what my quirk does. But I can do more than that!" He perks up at that, and Ragdoll mentally preens a little. She's getting the hang of this teacher thing. (And Tiger has been wanting to take on sidekicks… maybe they could give it a shot!) "I'm a people person! Anything my quirk can't see, I can learn to read without it. That's how I knew you really wanted my help, and you weren't just hiding from Tiger."

Midoriya looks at her like that's the strangest thing he's ever heard. "Why would I want to hide from Tiger?"

This kitten should be careful, or Ragdoll might start to like him. "No idea! But tell me more about your mental blocks. Mandy might have Telepathy but I'm good with mind things." (Bakugou's wrists are giving out, and he needs a break. Yaoyorozu is hungry, and she can't jump around and make things as fast as she could if she tried just a bit harder. Oh, and there goes Uraraka's breakfast—some of it got on Monoma, and he's hopping now and his balance is just awful—)

"How do you keep it all straight?" Midoriya asks, and for a moment Ragdoll wonders if he's the one that has Telepathy, not Mandy. "It's so many moving parts, isn't it? So many things to keep track of. How do you go through it all and find what you need, instead of being overwhelmed?"

"Practice!" she replies. "Years of practice. There's no quick way around that! But first I had to try. I blocked it all out at first, all those little things, and you can do that too, if you want, and just focus on what's in front of you." She clips the tip of his nose with her glove. "But then you miss all the good stuff, if you block it out. If you don't want to miss it, you have to let it in. That's what I did. I let it in, and my mind grew around it to fit it all in. Practice! Break up all the noisy things into smaller bite-sized things. It's hard and it takes time to get good at it. It's not something you perfect overnight." It's his own fault really, for asking all these questions and knowing things, finding things, learning all the things he can fit into that fluffy little head. But if he's smart, he'll get it all straightened out.

He looks thoughtful, which is good. Thoughtful means he's listening. "That makes sense," he says, and holds up his scarred hand. "What about things like this?" He pauses. "I don't know if this is a question you can answer, but you know weaknesses, right? What about weaknesses that can't be fixed? Because this can't be fixed, and it's my own fault, and—well, like you said, it's just a little stiff but a little goes a long way." He searches her face. "Is there a way to keep it from slowing me down, besides just strengthening the rest of me?"

Ragdoll crosses her arms to keep her hands from twitching. "Oh, that's a tougher one," she says. "But I do have an answer, and it's this." She leans forward a bit. "Not everyone's like me." He blinks at her, and she adds, "Not everyone can keep it all straight. You see?"

He blinks again, and then his eyes widen. Does he have it?

"It's like you, with mental weaknesses," he says thoughtfully. "You can't sense them with your quirk. So you can only rely on what you see. So if they see it wrong, then…"

Clever kitten. Ragdoll smiles until all her teeth are showing. "Lots of people like to pretend they don't have any weaknesses," she says. "And that's all well and good, but everyone knows that everyone has weaknesses, so even if you try that on someone who isn't me, they'll just keep looking and looking until they find it."

"But if they think they've found it, then they'll stop looking," Midoriya says, and the look on his face is sharp and thoughtful enough that he almost looks like a cat himself—all he's missing are slit pupils in his eyes. He wrings his stiff hand. "I can make them ignore this, and go after a weakness that isn't there."

"It takes a good liar," Ragdoll tells him. "Do you think you can tell a lie without talking?"

"I don't think I've tried it before." He smiles back at her with those sharp little cat's eyes, and all bets are off. Ragdoll likes this one. She feels like she could dance with glee, and manages to restrain herself to bouncing on the balls of her feet, but it's quite the close thing. Eraserhead is an amazing hero and a great teacher, and Tiger is her best friend who she loves with all her heart, but they have such one-track minds when it comes to strength because, well, Men.

She's still smiling as she sends him running back to Tiger. Ragdoll has always liked the clever heroes just a bit better than the powerful ones. Won't it be interesting to see one who's both at the same time?

"Lunch!" Eijirou doesn't mean to shout it loud enough to make both Aoyama and Hagakure jump, it just comes out that way. "Most important meal of the day!"

"Pretty sure that's breakfast," Ashido tells him.

"I'm pretty sure it's more useful if you shove it in your mouth and shut the fuck up," Bakugou growls. Eijirou can see his hands shaking from across the table. Aizawa used him in a quick demonstration to show everybody how little their quirks have developed since the first day of school, and judging by the near non-stop explosions since this morning, Bakugou took it a little personally.

Eijirou shrugs and compromises, by putting food in his mouth but continuing to talk. "Seriously though, I was with Tiger for about an hour this morning and I'm pretty sure he tried to kill me."

Ashido pats him none too gently. "There there, you'll live," she assures him.

"At least the food's good," he sighs.

"The food's boring as shit," Bakugou snaps.

"It's not that bad!"

"It's fucking bland!"

Ashido bursts out laughing. "Bakugou, you're talking to the guy who once ate drywall on a dare!"

"Ashido!" Eijirou almost wails, but it's quickly drowned out when Bakugou stops eating to guffaw at him.

"Are you serious! You fucking idiot!" And Eijirou can't be too upset now, because Bakugou's laughing like he actually thinks it's funny. "When the fuck was this?"

"We knew each other in middle school," Ashido says, a little smugly. "We were in our third year."

And that, Eijirou realizes, is a perfect reminder and segue into that favor he promised Midoriya. "What about you, Bakugou?" he asks. "What was your friend crowd like before U.A.?"

A look of distaste crosses Bakugou's face, and he shrugs. "Pff, what friend crowd? I just had a couple of dickheads following me around because I had the best quirk in our entire class."

Ashido wrinkles her nose. "Sheesh, Bakugou, do you even remember their names?"

"No."

"How about before that, then?" Eijirou presses. "Like, grade school? C'mon, you can't tell me you never had any friends. Or was it just Midoriya?"

At that, Bakugou bridles. "What the fuck? Fuck no he wasn't my only friend! We weren't even friends, he just followed me around back then and he wouldn't leave me alone!"

"C'moooon, Bakugou, tell us!" Ashido drums the table lightly. "I wanna know what kind of crazy kids hung out with li'l Bakugou!"

The look he gives her could split rock. "Never say that again." He rolls his eyes. "Fuck, it was long ago and I haven't heard from any of them for years. There was this kid that could regrow his fingernails? Weird little shit. Some kid with wings—Tsubasa or something."

"Tsubasa?" Eijirou tries not to look like he's frantically jumping on the name. "That sounds kinda familiar, what was he like? Maybe we had a mutual friend!"

"He had bat wings, so that wasn't as useless as it could've been." Bakugou shrugs. "Again, he mostly just followed me around, and after grade school he fucked off to a different middle school and I never saw him again." Eijirou's heart sinks, and for a moment even Bakugou seems not quite unbothered by it. "Eh, what do I care. We only knew each other 'cause his grandpa was Deku's pediatrician."

Eijirou blinks. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah, I think Tsubasa wanted to be a doctor too or some shit. Well no, fuck that, he wanted to be a hero, but that was his backup plan. He would not shut up about how smart his fucking grandpa was. It was annoying as shit."

"Awwww." Ashido elbows him a few times. "Look at you, getting all nostalgic. It's kind of a cute side to you!"

"Eat me."

Eijirou turns back to his food, and hopes that this little information will be enough for Midoriya.

Izuku's mind buzzes as he grazes his way through lunch.

Ragdoll was right, for all that she didn't quite know what he was talking about. So far he's been keeping his first quirk apart from his hero training, or only letting a bit of it leak through at a time, and that's due for a change. It won't be as easy with his quirk as it was for hers, because the dead are still their own people, and if he is going to involve them, then that takes convincing.

He stabs his rice with his chopsticks, a little moodily. The only one he can consistently practice with is Rei, because the other ghosts present are either devoted to someone else like Tensei and the Water Horses, unstable and erratic like Tsubasa, or… well, the only one left is Hino. Izuku isn't even sure where Hino is most of the time. How is he supposed to let it all in and learn to accommodate it all if there aren't enough ghosts around when he actually has the chance to practice?

"Everything all right, Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asks, gently fending Mika off from her food.

"Just thinking over training," Izuku answers. "It's a lot to chew over."

Iida pauses, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "Was that a pun?"

"I… guess so? Sure."

"I know what you mean," Yaoyorozu says. Her plate is piled even higher than Izuku's, and for good reason; she looks a great deal thinner than she did that morning. Mika sniffs at it again, until Yaoyorozu lifts her off the table and deposits her on the bench. She must notice Izuku staring at her plate, because she flushes pink. "I have high metabolism," she says sheepishly.

"I-I wasn't judging," he says, embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable—that actually makes sense, with your quirk. That mass it takes to create—I mean, with the Law of Conservation of Matter…" His voice trails off.

"You're, um, right," Yaoyorozu replies, and her blush fades as she pets Mika. "Sorry for getting defensive, I just keep half-expecting Mineta to… never mind. But you're right; the more I eat, the more I can create."

"Is it the same for your quirk?" Izuku asks, turning to Todoroki.

For a moment his friend looks startled at being abruptly included. "Er, eating doesn't really make a difference."

"No, I mean—your right side," Izuku says. "The water has to come from somewhere, right?"

"A lot of it comes from water vapor in the air," Todoroki answers. "But also from me. I can't produce nearly as much ice if I'm dehydrated. So I guess there is some comparison."

From there, Yaoyorozu draws Todoroki into a discussion of quirk biology, and Izuku listens until he finishes his food. He gets up to take his dishes in, then checks the time. There are fifteen minutes left to the lunch period, and fifteen minutes is plenty of time to explore a little more, especially with Rei tugging at him and signing. I found the boy with wings.

Tsubasa lurks further in the woods, a pulsing mass of poltergeist-anger that bleeds into the air like toxic fumes. Izuku isn't nearly as sensitive to it as Rei seems to be, but it still turns his stomach when he gets too close.

With Rei keeping watch, Izuku creeps closer, as slowly as he might approach a wild animal. He's off the path, in the trees, and quite frankly glad of it. It means no one's around when Tsubasa lashes out again.

Only one of his claws catches on Izuku's arm before Rei drives him back. That's good; it's easy to explain away one little scratch.

"Wait—" But Tsubasa is gone.

Frustrated, he returns to the main path and rubs at the angry red welt on his forearm. "He's following me, isn't he?" he says. "He's following me, and whenever I get close, he attacks me. Why? What does he have against me? Is it because he used to bully me? Is he just stuck in the habit?"

Rei pulls a face and twirls her finger by her ear.

"That's very helpful," Izuku sighs.

His frustration doesn't last long, because Mika meets him halfway to the dining hall, and Izuku stoops to scoop her up in his arms. It's hard to stay mad with a cat warm and purring against your chest, even when it's the height of summer and you don't really need more heat.

"He isn't dangerous, is he?"

Mr. Izumi materializes out of the trees, and Izuku adjusts Mika in his arms before he answers. "Tsubasa-kun? I don't know. So far the only person I've seen him get rough with is me."

"We've tried talking to him," the ghost tells him. "But he's…"

"I know," Izuku says, and drops his voice. "He hasn't gone near Kouta, has he?"

"No, but I still worry. I don't like the feel of him. Do you know how he died?" Izuku's stomach turns as Mr. Izumi speaks. "It… it must have been something awful, for him to end up like that."

"I don't know," Izuku murmurs. "I'm trying to find out. If you happen to see him, or see anything notable about him…"

Mr. Izumi smiles. "I'd be happy to help."

Izuku ends up spending the rest of lunch at the designated training area where he's been with Tiger all morning, stretching out his sore muscles. It's nearly useless, because Mika decides that now is the best time to start climbing him like a cat tower, and it's very hard to stretch properly when he can't stop snickering. After a few minutes he gives up and sits down to give her a thorough petting.

Rei tells him Kouta is coming before the boy comes storming through, swinging a long stick in one hand. Izuku sees him first, and sees the look of angry shock when the boy finally notices he's there.

Not sure what else to do, Izuku continues to twirl a long bit of grain grass in front of Mika's nose so she can bat at the seeded end. "Hey."

"Fuck off," the boy tells him.

Izuku has only one play in his book, but it hasn't failed him yet. "Want to get in on this?" Izuku asks. "I don't have any treats you can give her, but she likes people and she likes to play."

"I don't talk to lame-ass wannabe heroes," Kouta says flatly.

"That's fair," Izuku says, heart sinking. "Do you hate cats too?"

Kouta keeps glaring at him, like he's too proud to admit there's something he doesn't hate. Izuku puts down the grass and gives Mika a scratch under the chin.

"If you want to play with her while I'm training, you can," he says, and looks at Mika instead of at Kouta. "She might get lonely, otherwise."

"You want me to watch your stupid cat while you're too busy to take care of it your own damn self?" Kouta's voice burns with blistering scorn.

Izuku winces. "She can take care of her own self, I think," he says. "And you don't have to, if you don't want to. I'm just saying you can if you do." He looks up a moment later, and Kouta is gone. A few of his classmates and students from Class B filter in, and Mika doesn't run off until Tiger arrives to continue training for the afternoon.

Rei taps on his arm at one point, when he pauses for a breather, and points. Izuku follows the direction of her finger and finds Kouta in the distance, running through the trees toward the path, dragging a bulrush for Mika to chase.