MHA: A Cat’s Way

Since the crowd and probably-Aizawa’s-son-or-nephew seem interesting, I get up so that I can be a part of whatever happens. I’m just in time to hear Bakugou explaining to everyone about how the rest of the first year students are here to ‘scope out the competition’ since we survived a villain attack. Well, most of us, anyways.

Really though, is this short fused blonde serious? Does he really think not dying is an assurance of him becoming a pro in the future…? Or is he just trying to rile them up?

“Move it extras.”

…Probably the second one.

“I’d heard that 1-A was impressive, but you just sound like an ass.” The purple haired guy comments, which is a pretty accurate assessment so far. “Is everyone in the hero course delusional? Or is it just you?”

*Twitch*

“I’m sad to come here and find a bunch of egomaniacs.”

*Twitch*

He continues on to give a speech about how he wanted to be in the hero course, failed, but will get a second chance at the sports festival. “If any of us do well in the Sports Festival, the teachers can decide to transfer us to the hero course. Which means-”

It’s now that I interrupt him, a smile on my face showing just how sharp my teeth are. “Which means that they can find nya replacement for our dead classmate.”

He freezes, the few in the crowd behind him that were making noise following suit. Everyone I can see in the crowd has shocked looks on their faces.

Did… they not know? It can’t be that UA has kept quiet about his death even if they kept a lid on my ‘kidnapping’. His parents at least should have caused a commotion about it!

He takes a deep breath, looking uncomfortable but determined. “One spot might not be enough. There are some students from the gen-ed course who have pretty impressive quirks.”

Seeming to take that as their cue, one of the girls in the crowd steps forward, and my eyes narrow as my tail puffs slightly. Her face is framed by straight, shoulder length hair a dirty shade of red, though her eyes are a more pure dark red. But what has my lips pulling back in a snarl are the two ears on top of her head that match the tail coming out from behind her.

“As you can see,” the unimportant person says, “you’re nothing special.” The girl glares at me, her own tail puffing up. “Menko could replace you pretty easily.” We both step forward, our gazes roaming over the other. I’m a couple inches taller, so I look down at her with narrowed eyes.

“For some, sure, this is sizing you guys up. But for me, this is a declaration of war.” Her lips pull back in a snarl, finally taking a stand. To the others, I’m sure that this must seem like the two of us are having our own declarations. But that couldn’t be more wrong.

For there to be a challenge, someone has to think they can win. She might have thought she could win when she first walked up, but if she did there’s no trace of it now. That’s not the snarl of a predator, it’s the snarl of desperate, cornered prey.

This kitten isn’t challenging me.

She’s terrified of me.

She lacks the will to be above me.

“Mrow.” I say one word, and just like that her tail curls around her waist and she hunches down, tilting her head to expose the side of her neck to me. My dominance has been established.

I reach out my hand, watching as she tenses further. But she doesn’t have to worry anymore. I place a hand on her head, lightly scratching in front of one of her ears. Immediately, she relaxes, pushing her head a bit into my hand as her tail unwraps itself.

Looking around, I can tell that most of the others are confused. Tokoyami and Tsu seem to understand though, as do the other students with animal-based quirks. For us, something like this is a natural part of our lives.

I turn to the guy who gave a lecture during my little assertion of dominance. He looks more confused than the others, as if he doesn’t understand what just happened. Must not have really interacted with the girl before. I think.

“Your declawration only matters if you can back it up. I’m assuming you took, but tailed, the entrance exam?” I don’t wait for an answer, deciding to let the quirk expert finish my taunt.

With my free hand, I snap my fingers and point at him, to which he clears his throat before launching into an analysis. “Considering that the practical exam was against robots, that can mean one of a few things.”

He starts to list them off on his fingers. “Your quirk isn’t suited for combat. Your quirk doesn’t work on machines. It has certain requirements to be used, requirements which were not met over the course of the practical. You have a mental quirk. Additionally, and this can be applied to any of the above mentioned, you failed to train your body to deal with physical combat.”

He’s nervous, just enough that I can smell a bare whiff of it, but it’s greatly overpowered by his anger. “And what would you know? You’re in the hero course. I bet you have some kind of quirk that was great against those robots.”

Iida sniffs, and I roll my eyes as I know what he’s about to say. So I lean a bit closer to my new underling and whisper just loud enough that she can hear with her enhanced hearing. “If you see an opportunity, mess with him.”

She nods happily while the boy shows that he hasn’t learned anything about treating others with respect. “Midoriya is quirkless.” He practically spits out.

The reaction from purple boy… isn’t what any of us expect. Oh, the widening eyes and open mouth are no surprise. It’s how he looks at him with admiration that’s unexpected. “Really? I can admit, that’s impressive.”

Midorinya blushes a bit, and I realize that people haven’t really complimented him on his accomplishment. Getting into the hero course is tough, and given all the hate quirkless people get from society in general, of course they’d try to push them down. I see the same thing with how Iida treats him anytime they interact. So to them, of course it would be impressive.

Which is wrong. The fact that he got into the hero course isn’t all that impressive. We had Mineta here, after all. It’s his brain that’s impressive. He’s not only in the hero course, but also the support course. No one else is, which makes that achievement much more impressive. Still though…

“Tormew is only invisible, and she got in too. So if mew trained, you probably would have been able to get in.”

He looks to the girl in question, who flips him off with a happy smile while waving her hand around. Not that he can see it.

…

Wait, what?

Since when does Tormew flip people off!? Did she get mad when he insulted the class? I guess he did call her delusional and egotistical by proxy.

Unaware of the unexpected insult, he sighs while rubbing the side of his neck. “I guess I should have been better prepared.”

Midorinya, the ever helpful person he is, decides that he can’t leave the person who declared himself our class’ enemy to his own thoughts. “If you want, I can help you train. Oh! Actually, since hero students are allowed one piece of support equipment, gen ed and support students should be allowed some as well. And I was on my way to their studio anyway, why don’t you join me?”

He blinks at the offer before a corner of his lips twitches. “Sure, not like I have anything better to do. Hitoshi Shinso.”

“Izuku Midoriya.” He smiles back.

They walk away just as a guy with dark silver hair and some kind of protrusions around his eyes runs over and starts screaming. “I’m from class 1-B next door to you! I heard that you guys fought some villains and I came out to see if it was true! But you’re just a bunch of brats who think you’re better than us!”

I look around the classroom, meeting the gazes of Minya and Tormew. With a flick of my tail they nod their heads and follow me out. “HEY! Don’t ignore me!”

Proceeding to ignore the loud silver guy, the three of us make our way next door, the sign proudly proclaiming that it belongs to class 1-B. I pause for a moment before nodding my head. I slide it open and walk in, feeling an ear twitch when I see that they’re all gathered together. Must be waiting for that guy to come back and tell them what happened.

While they look at us in confusion, I smirk. “Everyone is declawring war on our class, so I just came to say bring it on. I’ll be the one to win-nya whole thing, so have fun watching-”

“<Catia?>” A soft voice rings out, confusion lacing its tone.

I blink at hearing my name in English, the language itself not that common to hear casually in Japan. The crowd of indignant students shuffles to make way for the speaker with surprised looks, and my tail stills. My ears freeze. My eyes rest on someone I haven’t seen in ten years. A friend from America.

“<Pony?>”