MHA: Undying

Today has started off so well. I wake up before everyone else and manage to make myself some breakfast before leaving. No one to tell me to save breakfast for Izumi, or for her to hurt me with her quirk.

Since I can’t show up to school early though, I just wander around until I can go. While I’m doing that, I get to see a hero fight! Kamui Woods is fighting against a villain with some kind of enlarging quirk! I get called out for fanboying about him, but I don’t take it personally!

… Much. At the very least the guy looks like he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, and when Kamui Woods is about to use his special move, he seems just as excited as me. But just as he’s about to capture the villain, a loud but high pitched voice echoes down the street.

“CANYON CANNON!”

A giant woman in a white and purple outfit comes flying at the villain from the side and kicks him off the train tracks! But he doesn’t go flying off, instead he falls backwards, unconscious, breaking the wall in the process. I think it’s safe to say that everyone is shocked by the sudden development, Kamui Woods most of all given that his wood is still outstretched for his special move.

Afterwards, the newly introduced Mt. Lady shrinks down and I start taking notes on her. While I’m doing that, the guy who was standing next to me speaks up.

“What’s that fanboy, you taking notes over there? Wanna be a hero too, huh?” I tense, waiting for the usual torrent of ridicule. “That’s great! You can do it!”

My pencil freezes, and I look at him with eyes filled with shock. I see him smiling while giving me a thumbs up. I smile at him. “Yes! I’ll do my best!”

Oh, how I’ll regret those words by the end of the day.

School is normal. I walk in, get tripped, get hit, a few of them use their quirks to hurt me. I quiet the voices in my head telling me to hurt them back, and the ones telling me I deserve it for being quirkless. Though thankfully the two sides usually cancel each other out.

The usual stuff.

But when the homeroom teacher calls roll, I know that the day is going to be one of the worse normals. Shoko isn’t here today. Which means that nobody has to be careful with their bullying.

It starts off with the normal excitement everyone usually has when she’s absent, then Izumi is the one to start off the day. For her to use her quirk on something, she needs to be able to see it. But that’s only for the initial ‘grab’. Once her telekinesis has a hold on it, then it doesn’t matter if she can see it or not to move it. From what I can tell, it’s like the difference between writing and typing.

The former you focus on and gives you more options in how you write stuff down. Size, length, style, all of this is stuff you can easily change depending on how you move your hand. Easy. While typing is basic, and unless you go through a few hoops, it all comes out the same.

Or I guess you could say her moving it out of her sight removes her fine control of the object, if you wanted to simplify it. The difference between fingers and a closed fist, I guess.

Really though, all this is just me trying to distract myself from the fact that she’s using her quirk to repeatedly throw erasers at my ears. I can move my head a bit so they miss, but with how little attention she needs to pay to move things so small, I get hit so much that it eventually turns my ears red as a stinging sensation spreads through them.

By the time the class ends, the back of my ears are raw, and I can feel the air on a few small spots where the skin has broken. But now, while we wait for the next teacher to come in, it’s everyone else’s turn.

A kid with a quirk that lets him take out his eyeballs twists my arm. He likes to hurt me because he knows his quirk won’t help him to become a hero.

Next is a kid who can form spikes on his hands. He pushes my face into my desk so he has a clear shot at my back. He’s hurting me so he can practice his control over his quirk. Normally the spikes go out pretty far, so he has to consciously shorten them. His problem with that is they become dull if he does. So he uses me to test how to make short but sharp spikes. It doesn’t usually go well, but occasionally he’ll open up a previous wound and leave, thinking he’s gotten better.

A girl who can transform parts of her body into fire. She wants to test the change in temperatures.

A girl with wind control. She tries to deprive me of air.

A boy with monster-like, disjointed teeth. He gnaws on my arm, but this doesn’t hurt. I think he actually just does it because it relaxes him, and the others don’t look at him weirdly when he does it to me because I’m ‘Deku’ and it’s normal to use their quirks on me.

This is how the day goes, and my only reprieve is in Ms. Mino’s class. She doesn’t like bullying, and she’s always careful to  watch for any that might happen. Kachan and a few of the other students learned that the hard way when she punished them for it. Of course, nothing ever stuck to Kachan and Izumi’s records. The school makes sure that nothing will ruin their chances of becoming heroes. I’m just thankful that Ms. Mino even applies her ‘no bullying’ policy to me.

But now it’s the end of the day, and soon I’ll be able to find a place to hide and let the voices distract me from my life. Sure, they’re usually saying mean things about me or others, but sometimes they talk to each other and it ends up pretty funny to listen to.

But that’s for later. Right now, the teacher is just watching as the class shows off their quirks after throwing the career aptitude tests into the air behind him.  Kachan and Izumi are gloating about how they’ll be the first ones from the school to get into UA, and I know they can do it. Sure, they’re personalities are horrible, but they’re smart. And their quirks are powerful.

But while all this is going on, I’m just listening to the voices in my head going around and around again.

[Rip and tear, nobody will care~.]

{Just let them hurt you, it’s all training for when you become a hero.}

[Beat them into the ground, let the blood splatter around!]

{Violence is not the answer!}

[Violence is the question, and the answer is yes~.]

{Don’t go putting ideas in his head!}

[Fight me!]

{Shut up.}

[You shut up!]

I’m only pulled away from their argument when I hear the teacher say my name, a fake disinterested look on his face. “Oh yeah, Deku, don’t you want to go to UA too?”

Why? Why would you say that? Do you really take that much joy in my suffering?

I listen to the disparaging comments, nothing new, but then someone says that I can’t get into UA without a quirk, so I feel the need to correct them. I know they meant it more as an insult than a statement of their rules, but still.

“T-they actually got rid of that rule. I could be the f-first.” Suddenly my desk cracks in half when Kachan hits it with an explosive punch and I fall backwards. Before I can hit the ground though, something catches me and lifts me into the air, upside down. Looking in front of me, I see Kachan and Izumi standing there with irritated looks.

“You’re even worse than these damn wannabees you quirkless reject. You really think they’d let someone like you in when they could have us!?”

Izumi nods along with Kachan’s words as I feel her tightening her hold on me, squeezing until I feel like I’m about to burst. “Yeah, Deku, you’d die in the exam! Just accept the fact that you’ll never be a hero and give up. You can’t even fight back against us, can you? So what are you going to do for the exam? Or against a villain?”

Her sneer fills my vision before I’m abruptly dropped, my head making a dull *thud* as it hits the floor. But something like that hasn’t been enough to knock me out for a long time. Once everyone returns to their seats, I dust myself off and sit back down, looking at my now broken desk in pity.

Poor desk, it never did anything wrong.

[But it can do somethin right. Look at that leg, it’s practically fallen off! Just a quick little twist and you can put those ‘special theories’ to the test~.]

{The fact that you sat at it was enough for it to fall. Crushed due to you taking up attention from Kachan and Izumi that they could have devoted to training to become heroes.}

[That’s a stretch, even for you.]

The last bit of class goes by listening to the voices argue about my desk. Once the bell rings to dismiss the class, I send Shoko a text wishing her well and encouragement for pushing through her father’s training. Afterwards I pull out my notebook to write down some more about the fight I saw this morning, a lapse in judgment seeing as it’s suddenly pulled out of my hand by Izumi’s telekinesis.

[𝌡𝌡𝌡]

The collective sound of hands hitting faces resounds throughout the theater as they see Mt. Lady damage the city for the sole purpose of stealing Kamui Wood’s capture.

“Heroes.” Tomura’s derisive snort resounds in everybody’s ears. Nezu simply sighs, remembering the event in question and how certain news networks criticized the then new heroine for her actions.

“This ship is rejected!” Mina crosses her arms in front of her chest in a large ‘x’ while making a buzzing sound when she sees Midori and some random bald guy with three growths coming out of his head having a moment.

“”””OF COURSE IT IS!”””” The collective voices of all the girls (and Todoroki, who goes unnoticed) cause the rest of the audience to flinch at the sudden noise.

“I’ll do my best!”

The smiles they get hearing those  words freeze as the screen goes gray and words appear.

Oh, how I’ll regret those words at the end of the day.

As the screen continues playing, everyone looks at Bakugou, who scowls back at them. “How the hell should I know what he means? I’m not the damn Deku encyclopedia!”

All Might though, starts to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Inko has tears in her eyes as she watches the abuse Midori goes through while at school, while all the kids are glaring at Bakugou, even  Kirishima. Tomura grabs his armrest and clicks his tongue in irritation when his quirk still doesn’t activate. Nezu, Aizawa, and Tsukauchi further resolve to address the matter of Aldera Junior High as soon as they get back.

But when Midori’s teacher throws the career aptitude tests away while saying that everyone in his class wants to become heroes, Bakugou pales and breaks out into a cold sweat. He knows what’s going to happen.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by most of the adults. Their eyes narrow as they watch him out of the corner of their eyes.

The students want to object and criticize Bakugou for the other him’s cruel words towards Midori, but they’re held back by Tsukauchi holding his hand up for them to wait. After the newest round of abuse is over, he turns towards Bakugou.

“Minus Izumi Yagi being a part of it, did this happen while you were in Middle School?”

“Yes.” Bakugou looks away, actively avoiding looking in Inko’s direction.

“Do you know what’s going to happen next in regards to the other you?”

“...Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He looks down, his eyes shadowed. His voice is quieter than anyone’s ever heard before. “Just watch.”

And so they do, feelings of trepidation in their hearts as Izumi and other Bakugou approach Midori.

“... At least we know why Deku is fine with walking around with broken bones all the time.” Uraraka’s words defuse a bit of the tension while making the connection click in their heads.