55

A/N: And actual Cultural Festival stuff this time! It's not much though - the beginning scenes are more little scenes if anything. And the last section of this chapter isn't even really about the festival. Oh well. The actual performance will be in… 2? / 3? chapters.

"Alright everyone!" Momo said to the class. "You heard Aizawa-sensei. We need suggestions for what our class shall be doing for the Cultural Festival."

"Let's make this as organized as possible, okay? We'll start off alphabetically. If you have an idea, we'll write it one the board. You can always pass of course, and you can always add or change your suggestions later. That being said, Aoya—"

"How about a maid cafe?!" Kaminiari spouted out.

Momo gave him a look. "A sound idea, Kaminari. But like I said, we're going in alpha—"

"I'll do you one better, Kaminari!" Mineta interrupted, basically jumping from his seat. "Let's have a neko maid cafe!''

Momo sighed. "A sound idea, Mineta. But please, wait your turn."

"Aha! My— Ow!" Mineta recoiled from the sudden strike from Tsu's tongue.

"Anyways, Aoyama." She turned her head towards the blonde. "Any suggestions?"

"My very own sparkling show!"

Izuku wrote down the suggestion on the board, right after the place he had written 'Maid Cafe' with a sub option for being cat-themed. He did the same with Ashido's dance party — a predictable suggestion now that Izuku had seen her hobby firsthand — Tsu's honestly adorable idea of a frog choir, and so forth.

As the suggestions went up on the board, Izuku lost himself weighing in the pros and cons of each idea. A frog choir was rather impractical, but not impossible. They'd need to train frogs to sing, after all' but that limitations could have been offsetted by Koda.

Bakugou's "Deathmatch" was a definite nope, and the food stall would have been rather redundant with Lunch Rush being a presence in the school. However, Izuku was also willing to give the cooking hero a run for his money considering Sato's immense skill in making sweets.

On a similar note, there was no way that Iida's and Momo's ideas would gain any form of traction. Considering that they were in a high school, Izuku highly doubted that students would wish to subject themselves to something that could have been seen as work.

"You really think so, Izuku?"

Izuku looked over to Momo. "Huh? What do you… Was I muttering?"

Momo simply nodded her head. "Yeah. It was kinda weird, seeing as I haven't seen one of your muttering sessions in a while. Can't say that didn't enjoy it though, their part of your charm."

Izuku looked and found the rest of the class sharing similar looks. He focused back on Momo. "Right, um… thanks? Anyways, like I was saying— Uh, w—wait! Sorry, I didn't mean to bring down your idea or anything it's just that I was sorta trying to order the class's ideas in terms of effectiveness and yours was near the bottom of the list and—"

"Hey, it's alright!" Momo interrupted. "I understand. Don't beat yourself up over it."

Izuku gave her a sheepish smile and nodded his head.

"Though, on that note," Momo continued, "I noticed that you don't have a suggestion on the board. Thoughts?"

"Oh, uh…" Izuku said the first thing that came to his mind. "An insectarium...?"

Momo brought a mouth up to her hand to stifle a laugh. "Of course, I should have expected that."

"Sorry, just said the first thing that came to mind." Izuku turned back to the board. "But in that case, we should probably get rid of some of these like... 'Banquet of Darkness.' Sorry Tokoyami."

"Merciless…" the bird headed boy said.

"Same with the hometown presentation and Aoyoma's thing. And all these food stalls are a bit redundant…"

"Why don't we just combine all the food stalls into one?" Sato rang out. Of course, his simple suggestion was only one of many that eventually devolved the situation into a shouting match.

It didn't take long for the rest of the class to get up to defend their own ideas, spouting out rhetoric and counter points that was too much to keep track of, leaving Izuku and Momo no choice but to wait it out.

But after a minute, Izuku had an idea pop into his head. "Maybe I call a swarm into the room so everybody gets shocked into silence?"

"No!" Momo squeaked. "No, Izuku. That's a horrible idea and you know it!."

"Right…" Iida trailed off as he sat on one of the couches in the dorm's common room. "Koda's petting zoo proposal and Midoriya's insect emporium—"

"Insectarium," the nearby swarm clone corrected.

"Right, apologies Midoriya," Iida nodded towards the lazily floating mass of bugs. "Your insectarium and Koda's petting zoo would probably need to adhere to strict hygiene standards, right? So that probably strikes them out of the suggestion pool…"

"Hey, my bugs are clean and disease-free!" the swarm countered. The others that were gathered in the common room could somehow infer a slight whining tone to the voice.

"And I wouldn't doubt so!" Iida said. "Though I'm not entirely sure that the school board would be inclined to believe that just based on your word, Midoriya."

"Hmph." The swarm pouted, somehow.

"Izuku," Momo interrupted from her position beside Iida. "Not that I'm not grateful for your help right now, but aren't you supposed to be in class still? Aizawa-sensei said that the extra work wouldn't be over until eight."

"My bugs are good-ish at multitasking! You guys know that by now. It's fine, I'm paying attention to the board and you guys at the same time."

"I still disagree though!" Iida interjected. "Your attention should be fully on your studies!" Iida sighed. "Unfortunately, you and I both know that the only reason that I'm allowing this is because I know that I can't stop you from listening in otherwise."

The swarm merely shrugged it's shoulders in response.

"We could all just dance," a curled up Ashido said from her spot on a nearby couch. "That'd be fun, don;t you all think?"

"I agree," Todoroki said, seemingly coming from out of nowhere. He walked over to the spot where Iida and Momo had set up their makeshift work station, completely bypassing Izuku's swarm without a bat.

"May I?" Todoroki gestured towards the laptop on the desk. Iida nodded.

"Right,"Todoroki went ahead and typed onto the laptop. "I forgot exactly what it was called, but a whole bunch of people were going crazy on stage… Here."

Momo and Iida leaned closer in, watching the ongoing concert video that Todoroki had pulled up.

"Hmm... " Iida paced a hand on his chin. "Yes, I can definitely see the appeal in this. What do you think of Midoriya?" He turned towards the clone.

"235/37, Ectoplasm-sensei!"

"Let's count that as a yes," Momo said.

A few days passed. During that span of time, Eri had awoken and asked for Togata and Togata only. It made sense; Eri had barely been comfortable around anyone considering all that she had been through. If anything, the only two individuals that she would even remotely be comfortable with were Togata and Izuku himself.

Eri had barely spent anytime with Izuku aside from a few sparse conversations that were conducted via bugs. And even the time they had spent physically together was in short bursts, or with him being semi-controlled as he took a back seat to QA's machinations. Still, Izuku was eagerly awaiting when he'd be able to speak with the young girl.

As for events regarding the upcoming festival, the whole class ended up dividing themselves between either being a dancer, a part of the band, or a member of the special effects crew. Izuku ended up deciding upon the latter.

Part of the decision was partly because he didn't really see himself as a dancer, no matter how much Ashido insisted that she could teach him and make him into a fine student. The other part came from his argument that he'd fare better with his utility in special effects. Once he had explained himself, Ashido was heavily supportive of Izuku's decision — which was what led to the team being dubbed 'Team Butterfly Blizzard.'

That left Izuku with Todoroki, Sero, Aoyama, Kirishima and Koda — an odd gathering for sure, but one that each played a role in the upcoming event.

"That's the problem though. The animal aspect that both of us bring to the table becomes a bit redundant since both of us are part of the props crew. Still, there's got to be something that we could both do in that aspect, right?"

Koda merely shrugged; it was the best he could think of in response to Izuku's observations.

"Birds," Todoroki suddenly said.

Both Koda and Izuku turned towards Todoroki, who was currently cutting away at a piece of cardboard. They both gave a puzzled expression, but Izuku was the one to make an audible proclamation of confusion.

"Huh?"

"UA has a forest in its backyard," Todoroki said nonchalantly. "I've seen a few Mandarin ducks and pheasants loitering around campus sometimes."

"You're not wrong there,"" Izuku muttered. "What do you think, Koda?" he asked, turning to the boy in question.

"S—sure. I can try," he replied.

"Great! That just leaves the support system. Have you checked up on the stage yet, Sero?"

"Uhm… Not yet, Midoriya," Sero replied, rubbing the back of his head.

"Hmm. I'll go ahead and check for myself then," Izuku said. "We need those measurements before we make those supports; make sure that they'll handle our weight and all, you know. See you all in a bit!"

Izuku left the room and roamed the halls, steadily making his way towards the gym that his class had reserved for the festival. It was a calm walk, the halls mostly empty due to the other students being busy with their own attractions for the festival.

Izuku spent the time connected to his bugs, observing his hustling peers from afar through the millions of eyes of his bugs. However, his rather calm and relaxed assessment of the school came to an abrupt stop when a voice interrupted his musings.

"You know, I've never actually been to something like this. School events and big parties were never really my thing. In fact, last I recall the only time I ever actually went to something similar was… Heh. Well, my friends and I crashed that one actually. We made quite the impression that day. Even if the revelations that I came to afterwards weren't exactly what I had in mind."

Izuku's mood was irrevocably ruined, and he acted accordingly. Fuck you, QA.

"What? Izuku—"

You heard me. Fuck you. You haven't been straight with me ever since the day you suddenly showed up in my mind, you know. You've been keeping secrets upon secrets hidden from me! Heck, the last time we talked it was barely a few weeks ago, and it was about those quirk destroying bullets! And that was for barely a couple minutes before you decided to shut me out again! And now you've decided to just randomly pop back in? And talking about parties of all things?!

"Izu—"

No! Let me finish, damnit! I'm sick and tired of your secrets. You could have told me about Kentaro and his group ages ago! Their modus operandi, their tendencies, the secrets to their quirks, anything! But you kept that from me! And now we have over three hundred dead individuals, heroes and civilians alike! And that was just from one attack! There hasn't been a death toll that high from a villain attack since before All Might's debut!

What's to stop them from striking again?! They got away this time, and quite effortlessly too! They'll do it again! So… so just— Please. Why can't you just tell me anything?

…

"You know, a friend of mine had… has… a power that allowed her to piece things together from virtually nothing. She takes the tiniest scraps of information available and builds it up to something—"

Lisa, right?

"Wha— What?"

Izuku sighed. If QA was going to get off on a tangent to explain herself, he was willing to go through with it. Still, he wanted answers, and he wanted them badly. But he'd entertain her for now.

Lisa. Your friend's name. You've mentioned her before.

"Yeah… Lisa. She couldn't turn her power off, not really. And despite her difficulty to read people sometimes… well, she spent a lot of time with us. And she became intimately familiar with all of our personalities."

"She's told me a lot of stuff about me… stuff I never really had time to digest until now. It's only after you've lost everything... and nothing really matters that you come to think about these things."

"And she was right. Is right. I do have problems with authority. I do have problems working with people sometimes. Sometimes I do take too much control over a situation. And I do lack a sense of self preservation. Kinda like you in that aspect, Izuku."

...

"And yet I still lost myself in the end, even if it was for the good of everybody. I kept the burden to myself… and..."

…

QA?

"I… suppose that I can tell you about Jack. It won't hurt, I don't think."

Now Izuku was confused. And he didn't refrain from showing it on his face.

… Jack?

"Jack. Jack Slash. Leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine, bane of the North America continent. They're the direct cause of tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and responsible for hundreds of heroes' deaths. Their death toll was probably reaching towards a hundred thousand back before. And still, that's if you don't consider their indirect hand in killing millions."

You… said something similar to this, when I asked you just after the Twisted Dragon raid. But that was about Kentaro. What's this Jack Slash guy have to do with it? A rival group? And I still want to know how the existence of such a group responsible for such high profile crimes doesn't exist on any public record!

"I— I'll tell you later. Just… for now what's important is Jack. Or as you know him, Kentaro. And let me tell you, if anything, you're pretty lucky right now. With the exception of… let's say Ricochet, the members Jack's gathered so far are pretty lackluster from his previous group."

...How bad?

"Hmm… Imagine a silica-kinetic. Now imagine her with fine control, with her ability being reliant on high frequencies. And then picture her being able to retransmit her influence through glass over and over until her power extends over an entire city. With a simple scream, all of that glass breaks, violently. Windshields break, causing car crashes. Computers go down, stalling business and commerce for days. Eyewear violently implodes while on your face. People like your friend Iida would be dead in an instant. And that's just one member. She was on the team for... a decade, I think."

But the heroes would have cracked down hard on a group committing such high-profile crimes!

"And they did. Members died with varying frequency. But then they'd just be replaced by the next attack. It was a part of Jack's MO. Eventually, he'd stumble upon some individual with a strong power he likes."

So what? He strong-arms them into joining against their will?

Only sometimes. And that's what makes him dangerous. His victims might be villains, might be heroes, or civilians, even. He'll twist them, changing them into monsters. Changing them into shells of their former selves, versions that become enthralled by Jack. And not long after, they become long standing members of the Nine, ones who'll slaughter hundreds, no matter what morals they stood by previously."

But then that just means that we need to strike down hard and fast! Take him down before he builds a powerbase! Like you said, Ricochet's the biggest threat aside from Kentaro — Jack — himself.

"If only it was that easy. The Nine aren't exactly easy to kill. Think of it like this: the entirety of North America mutually agreed on placing the Nine under a kill order. That means that any random citizen going about on their daily business was authorized to lay down lethal force against the Nine. Justice on the spot, no problems with the law whatsoever."

"You'd even get the bounty of whoever you would have killed — a bounty which no doubt ranged in the millions. And yet the S9 still roamed around for years, bouncing back from every encounter no matter how badly they'd been beat before."

That's… that's…

"Yeah, I know. And I'm sorry to tell you, but it's probably worse now. You see, what I know of Jack's power is that he can cut things from really far away. Translate the edge of a knife meters away from him."

So it's like… distance cutting?

"Sorta. The specificites don't matter though, since he likely doesn't have that power anymore, it's not active in his shard. In fact, I'm pretty sure his new power falls under that 'Command Persuasion' thing you guys have named."

You mean he changed his quirk? How did he— Hold on, his quirk! I know about it now! That's great! Now we know that—

"I wasn't finished. When I knew him, he had a second ability. It's what allowed him and I to talk, however brief our conversation was. His shard—"

Wait.

"What?"

That's the second time you've used that word. 'Shard.' What's it mean?

"… Quirk factor then. It's essentially the same thing. Anyways, Jack's secondary ability. He's able to… communicate with other people's shards. As a result, he's able to anticipate people's actions, subtly influence others, and have a general picture of their personalities… so on and so forth."

That's… bad. But, you said he doesn't have it anymore?

"I'm… not sure. The thing is though, is that even if he still does have it, he won;t be able to affect most of the heroes he encounters."

I have a feeling that we're susceptible to this second power then.

"Unfortunately."

But if he doesn't, then we're good, right?

"But now he still has the ability to basically hypnotize anyone he wants."

I… damnit. Izuku sighed. If all of what you're saying is true then... I'm guessing you don't have any insight on the others in his team? Aside from what we already know about them, that is."

"Sorry, Izuku. Wish I could help there. The best I can do is say who their shards used to belong to. Like Pathogen's coming from the Chinese shaker, or Waypoint— Nevermind, don;t listen to me. This info would be useless to you, and it'll just confuse you more than you already are."

Izuku let out a frustrated sound.

Fine. One more question. I scoured the internet, there's nothing about Kentaro— Jack. Or even somebody like you, with direct bug control powers to the extent that we have. You don't exist. This… Slaughterhouse Nine you're talking of doesn't exist. The biggest death-filled incident in America in the past thirty years was a villain attack on the White House. So tell me, why is that?

QA sighed. "Izuku—"

QA. Izuku's standing was firm. He wasn;t going to relent, not this time.

"Fine. Fine. You deserve this much." QA took a deep breath.

…

Well?

"Just—" Another sigh.

"Are you familiar with the Multiverse Theory, Izuku?"