6

Cheat Code: Support Strategist. By Clouds (myheadinthecoudsnotcomingdown)

Chapter 6: Practical

Summary:

Izuku meets with Nedzu for his practical exam.

Chapter Text

Izuku gaped at Nedzu, the Nedzu, principal of UA and tried not to fanboy. He failed, "Oh my goodness, you're Nedzu! One of the few animals with a quirk, although that is becoming more common as animals evolve alongside humans, but High Specs gives you hyper intelligence and…" suddenly, Izuku's brain caught up with his mouth and he realized exactly what Nedzu had just said, "and you caught me trying to hack UA before I even took the entrance exam…"

He really was an idiot, just like Kacchan said, wasn't he? He was going to get kicked out of UA before he even got accepted just because he'd gotten bored and decided to do something stupid! Of course Powerloader wasn't leading him to his practical exam, he was taking him to the principal, who was going to press charges and then he'd get a permanent record and nowhere else would accept him and…

"I'll leave him to you, then. Good Luck." Powerloader said. As he turned his back to leave, Izuku could have sworn he muttered something about the end of the world, but honestly, he was too scared of what was about to happen to pay much attention. He swallowed thickly and looked at the principal, who was still grinning at him. Maybe he was just waiting for Izuku to apologize? Well, apologizing couldn't make things worse, at least. 

Izuku lowered himself into a deep bow, "I am so sorry, P-principal Nedzu, sir. What I did was c-completely uncalled for and inappropriate. I, um, wasn't thinking c-clearly and obviously that's no excuse, but…"

"Oh, there's no need for that, Midoriya!" Nedzu chirped. "In fact, what you did was quite impressive."

Izuku straightened up in shock. The principal's expression was hard to read, on account of his face not being human, but he couldn't see any anger or malice, "W-what? You're not m-mad?"

"Oh no!' Nedzu stepped aside and gestured for Izuku to come in, "In fact, I was quite delighted! It's not often that people are brave enough to try, so it's quite fun to test my defenses against new faces. Tea?"

Izuku nodded numbly and sat in the chair Nedzu offered him. He still couldn't believe that he wasn't in trouble, but apparently Mei had been right about him making a good first impression. Or maybe Nedzu was just getting his hopes up to crush them later. It wouldn't be the first time. 

Nedzu carefully poured the tea and set a cup down in front of Izuku, "So, how long have you been hacking?"

"Um, I think about eight months?" Izuku took the cup and held it while he waited for it to cool. "I only picked it up after I decided to apply to the Support Course. I, uh, I thought it'd be useful for information gathering."

"Oh, I agree completely!" Nedzu chirped and took a sip of his tea. "But I am surprised that you're still so new to it, considering your creativity this morning. Was applying to support a recent decision?"

"I, uh, well," Izuku chuckled awkwardly, "I thought that hero support was just inventing stuff. I didn't think to look into the analysis track until...um, sorry, I'm rambling, but well, since I really enjoy analyzing heroes and quirks, it just seemed perfect, I guess."

Nedzu smiled knowingly, "It's not often that we get young people applying to be analysts. Most people assume that support is simply invention of support items, like you did, and while analysis is an important part of creating those support items, many people overlook its potential in strategy and intelligence gathering. Speaking of your analysis, may I see your portfolio?"

Izuku nodded and dug the notebook out of his backpack to hand to Nedzu, who eagerly started leafing through it. Izuku wondered if he was just skimming his writing or if his quirk gave him the ability to speed read. If it was the latter, then how fast could he read? Was the speed limited by his quirk or could he train himself to read even faster? If he wasn't limited by his brain, then his speed would probably be limited by how fast he could physically turn the pages, but if he was reading something that scrolled automatically, like on a computer, how would that affect the speed…

"I'm not as fast as all that, Midoriya." Nedzu chuckled. "I still have to wait for my brain to catch up before I can turn the page, and while my quirk definitely helps, most of my speed reading is actually a skill I've cultivated."

Izuku flushed red and slammed his mouth shut, "Sorry, I know my muttering is creepy."

"On the contrary, it was a wonderful demonstration of your real-time analysis skills." Nedzu said simply, turning back to the portfolio, "And while it will most likely be useful to learn to be aware of when you are muttering, there is nothing inherently wrong with the habit."

Izuku's eyes widened and he stared at Nedzu silently while he finished the portfolio. His muttering...wasn't bad? That just seemed so weird to him. Kacchan had always said that it was annoying and creepy, but then again, he'd said the same things about Izuku's notebooks. Maybe it was creepy if a hero did it, but was simply an eccentricity when an analyst did, that would make sense. Yeah, an eccentricity, not an annoying habit that he had to get rid of. 

Izuku liked that. 

Nedzu finally turned the final page of his portfolio and set it aside, "This is quite impressive! I am assuming that you have been analyzing heroes for much longer than you've been hacking."

"Yes, sir." Izuku said. "I started analyzing heroes as a hobby when I was four, I just didn't realize it was a marketable skill."

"Would it be alright if I held onto this so I can peruse it more thoroughly at a later date?" Nedzu asked.

Izuku nodded, a weird sense of pride growing in his chest the more the principal praised him, "I already assumed that I wasn't going to be getting it back, since it's part of my application."

"Excellent!" Nedzu clapped his paws together. "Now, you have your laptop with you, correct?"

"Yes!" Izuku dug out his laptop and set it on the desk in front of him. 

"Perfect!" Nedzu said. "Now onto the practical portion of your exam!'

Izuku swallowed nervously, thinking of all the ominous good luck wishes from Midnight and Powerloader, "Um, what will I be doing exactly?"

"As I said, I was very impressed with your efforts this morning, so I simply want you to continue what you were doing then." Nedzu's eyes twinkled with mischief, "I want you to hack into UA."

Izuku blinked away tears of exhaustion and frustration as he limped away from UA, sore from sitting hunched over his laptop for the past few hours. He'd tried everything he could think of, every back door, every little trick, even a hastily made virus, but by the end of the exam, Izuku had barely made it past the first round of defenses. It didn't matter how much Nedzu had enjoyed his portfolio, or how well he'd done on the written exam, he'd completely failed the practical. 

What was his mom going to think? After all these months of her going out of her way to support him, would they grow apart again? Would she be disappointed in him? Where was he going to go to school? What job would even take a stupid, weak, quirkless nobody like him? 

Suddenly, Izuku was rammed into by somebody going full speed. Immediately, he froze and curled in on himself to try to become a smaller target. Kacchan shouldn't still be here, should he? Nedzu had left sometime during Izuku's exam to go monitor the hero course practical and Izuku had tried to use that time to hack UA using Nedzu's computer but couldn't even crack the password. But Nedzu had come back pretty quickly, so Kacchan should already be at home by now. What if it was someone else who had learned he was quirkless and was going to beat him up and they'd never find his body and…

"Whoa, Izu-kun, are you ok?! What's wrong?!"

Izuku jolted from his spiraling thoughts and looked around, but the only person near him was Mei, who currently had one hand resting on his shoulder. Oh, Mei running into him was...actually completely in character, probably. It was just Mei, not Kacchan. And Mei wasn't anything like Kacchan so she wasn't going to beat him up. Probably. 

Izuku forced a smile onto his face, "Nothing! You just startled me, is all!"

Mei frowned like she didn't believe him, "Then what's with the tears?"

He tried, he really did, but he only lasted about two seconds before those stupid Midoiriya tears were running down his face like some sort of stupid geyser. He hadn't even known this girl a full day and now he'd ruined their friendship or their partnership or whatever it was because here he was, crying in front of her and he just couldn't stop.

Mei had started rubbing his shoulder sometime during his breakdown and was probably trying to be comforting, but her muttering about unleashing her babies on whoever hurt him was actually pretty intimidating. 

"No one hurt me, Mei-chan." Izuku finally got out between the tears, "It's my own fault anyway."

Mei looked at him skeptically, "Then what happened?"

That set off the tears again, but thankfully he could speak through them this time, "N-nedzu wanted me to hack UA for my practical, b-but I couldn't do it! I failed."

"Oh..." Mei sat down on the sidewalk and pulled him down next to her, ignoring the weird looks from the people passing by, "Are you sure they didn't just want you to try?"

That made Izuku pause, "What?"

"Well, every failure is just a stepping stone to success, right?" Mei said excitedly, "And you said yourself that UA's cybersecurity is absolutely insane, so what if he was planning on you failing?"

Izuku just stared at her, "If he wanted me to fail, then why did he tell me to succeed?"

Mei flicked him on the forehead, which was apparently her way of getting him out of his head and telling him that he was being an idiot, "A lot of inventions are just about learning the process. Even if they don't work, they still weren't a waste of time because they make the next invention faster! UA's security wouldn't be the best in the business if a first year could ram through it, right? They probably just wanted to see how you approached a problem that you couldn't solve. They wanted to see your process!"

Izuku thought about that for a moment. It made a certain kind of sense, but then again, everything it seemed like everything Mei said toed the line between being reasonable and being absolutely insane, so maybe it was just that she was saying it that made it sound so believable. Still, it might make waiting for his rejection letter a little less painful, just so long as he was careful not to get his hopes up too high. 

"If you say so..." he said slowly, "but what about you? How did your practical go?"

Mei grinned and immediately launched into a story that involved blowing up her workspace three times until she finally got a working prototype of hover boots twenty minutes before the end of the exam. Izuku listened and laughed with her until his tears dried and Mom started frantically texting him wondering when he was going to be home. By the time he started walking home, his heart was a little lighter than it had been, and his phone was a little heavier.

It had a new number in it, after all.