Chapter 24: Afterparty
Summary: A celebration at The Blue Nova after Day 3 gives us some more insight into Katsuki, a confused Jirou, and a bit of internal exposition from Asui to both explain and foreshadow the whys and hows of the dorm system...
Chapter 24: Afterparty
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"I still can't believe neither of you actually won the tournament, since they had to force you to stop before the building collapsed."
Momo, normally the composed one between her and her girlfriend, blushed and looked away as she slumped in her seat at The Blue Nova. This time, they were in one of the restaurant's larger private rooms, properly reserved months ago, before any of them had even started at UA. It was set up buffet style, with dozens of food options and various small groups of students milling around. The members of Group A which hadn't been there for the first visit were mostly busy gawking at the sea of stars and stellar phenomena all around them, even as Jirou managed to make Momo blush with her deadpan observation. The grin tugging at the corners of the punk girl's lips was also the absolute last straw.
Izumi reached out and gave her a head pat.
Jirou's expression of complete confusion was replaced with a blush of her own a moment later as Izumi solemnly informed her that, in exchanged for this unauthorized head pat experience, Jirou was allowed to head pat Momo whenever she wanted. So long as it didn't interfere Izumi's own head pat access. The bewildered rocker stared at Izumi in confusion, even as Momo's previous embarrassment broke down into giggles at the exchange. Mina, oblivious to the previous exchange, appeared next to them with Kirishima in tow.
"Come on, you three! It's time to eat! I bet Yaomomo must be about ready to devour an entire butcher's shop!"
Mina cheerfully grabbed hold of the blushing, sputtering Momo as she dragged her toward one of the larger buffet spreads. Blinking, Izumi shrugged and followed along in their wake. She was starving herself, after all!
... ...
Jirou stared, bewildered and cheeks still stained in a blush, as the trio wandered off. A hum had her looking down and to her left a moment later, where she saw the absolutely adorable child-sized form of 2B that Izumi had introduced everyone too at the start of the party. The Quirk didn't look any worse for wear even after Mina and Toru attempted to hug the stuffing out of it moments after that introduction. This time, 2B's relatively flat expression from that experience had been replaced by a small smirk. Before Jirou could wonder why the android girl had approached her, 2B spoke up.
"You should feel blessed. Izumi is extremely jealous of Momo's head pat privileges. She must really like you to give you carte blanche, instead of just allowing you a single retaliatory head pat. Just something to think about."
Jirou stared, more confused than ever, as the Quirk wondered off to talk to someone else without another word…
... ...
Katsuki was surprised how…content…he was, as he listened to Pickachu blather about something to an audience of Elbows and Invisalign. If you'd asked him even a year ago how he'd feel about losing the Heroics Tournament, he'd have said some version of 'pissed off.' Not like 'murder people' level of pissed off. He'd managed to leave that level of incandescent anger behind in a therapist's office years ago. But there was no pretending he wasn't still his mother's son, with the same wildly swinging emotions. He was just more centered and able to actually swing with those emotions, rather than constantly living locked in on anger.
Yet, instead of angry, for the first time in quite a while, he felt content. Enough so that he'd actually let Horns and Hardhead talk him into coming to this…afterparty thing. It hadn't even taken all that long for him to figure out just why he felt so good. His therapist had done a good job teaching him how to sort himself out, he guessed. Though God alone knows how the man had done it. Katsuki was well aware he hadn't exactly been a model patient when the man had first started working with him.
The answer, he'd realized, was that he'd found competition. Legitimate, serious competition. He might have been a little pissed to lose by ring-out earlier. But he'd never felt so alive as when Spiky-Hair had put him through that concreate column. Katsuki had long since realized that he was a hyper competitive asshole. What therapy has helped him see, helped him embrace, was that the competition was what he enjoyed. He didn't want to lord it over others, not really, and not beyond a little bit of rubbing his victory, at least. No, he thrived on the challenge itself…and up until UA he'd struggled to find that challenge. What had sent him into anger management in the first place had been delinquent behavior, provoking fights and near-vigilantism as he tried to get someone, anyone to actually stand up to him.
The junior kickboxing circuit he'd ended up in on his therapist's advice had done a lot of good for him. Finally, he'd had somewhere to channel that desire to test himself. He'd even found a new second favorite hero, behind All Might, when he discovered that the whole thing was apparently sponsored by Miruko. He'd seriously identified with the story he'd heard, about her putting it together because she herself had apparently been arrested when she was younger, for crashing a bunch of fight clubs looking for that same challenge. It didn't hurt that it had helped refine his fighting style, forcing him to learn to properly use his whole body instead of just relying on his explosive fists and natural combat instincts.
Even so, without the ability to use his Quirk in those matches, something had been missing still. His contentment now, even though he'd lost, made it easy to identify just what it had been. He'd itched to fight with everything he had, instead of being held back to the effectively-quirkless matches the circuit had been legally limited to. And at UA, he'd finally found people who could take it when he went all out. He wasn't entirely happy with what that said about his reasons for being a hero. But, that was something he could take up with Doctor Areefa in his next session. For now, he basked in the feeling of his need to fight having been fully satisfied for the first time in living memory. He knew it would be back soon enough. But for now, this was nice…
... ...
Tsuyu was content to watch. Oh, she'd already participated right along with Ochaco, if not quite as enthusiastically, as everyone gushed over the room. She'd also had a nice chat with Mina and Eijiro before they split off to waylay Momo and Izumi. She'd even had a brief conversation with Dark Shadow and Fumikage, the three of them having made a bit of a connection while they watched the latter rounds of the tournament from the infirmary. But now, as everyone had split up into little groups and started chowing down on the admittedly delicious food, she found herself content merely to observe the group of oddballs that were slowly becoming friends. Koji, similarly seeking a bit of quiet, was technically sitting with her, but the gentlest member of Group A seemed relieved that she wasn't trying to talk to him. She certainly recognized that behavior, an introvert that had been all peopled-out. Not something Tsuyu suffered from, but she certainly recognized it well enough.
No, her own willingness to simply sit back and observe was based on her upcoming need to make a decision. She had carefully brought up a specific topic to a few of the different groups she'd floated between earlier. Specifically, that several emails, pamphlets, and notices had been trickling into her student portal, home, and even social media feeds. All of them promoting the new expansion of the student on-campus dormitory system underway at UA. Up until this year, UA had restricted on-campus dorm usage to only their 4th year heroics and support students. Like nearly every other university in Japan, UA did have more normal dorms available off-site, scattered around the city. From asking around, Tsuyu knew that Ochaco lived in the cheapest, most distant of those dorms, and that several other students lived in one dorm or another with varying levels of luxury and commute. The few on-campus dorms basically existed as cheap, secure housing for students that were running their starter agencies out of UA in their final year. Never before had they been opened up to lower years. Which made perfect sense, given that dorms meant a lot more people coming and going. Creating something of an inherent security risk.
Yet, now those dorms, previously restricted as they were, were being quietly expanded. Every single one of the students that had confirmed they lived in a dorm had been getting the same messages. Which made sense. If UA was bothering to expand their on-campus dorms to accommodate more of the hero course, reaching out to those heroics students already using their dorm system was logical. Tsuyu, however, didn't use the dorms. Neither, as it happened, did Koji, Fumikage, Kyoka, Bakugo, or Toru. All of who responded that they'd been getting the same ads when she casually brought it up. Yet Iida, Izumi, and Momo apparently hadn't heard a word about it. He hadn't shown up to the afterparty, had in fact left right after he'd lost in the first round, but she had a sinking suspicion that Todoroki wouldn't have known what she was talking about either.
She suspected no one else had put two and two together yet. Momo and Izumi almost certainly would have if they'd had the information she'd gathered. Those two were insanely quick. And she wouldn't have been surprised if a few of others, like Bakugo, noticed the pattern too. In fact, Bakugo had been present when she asked two of the others, and she'd seen suspicion light in his eyes. So even if she didn't think he'd worked it out yet, he might well do so soon. UA was preemptively circling the wagons and trying to bring the most likely-to-be-targeted students in where they could keep an eye on them more easily. They were being subtle about it, but the signs were there. The University was worried about students, particularly those that had been at the USJ she'd guess, being targeted well off-campus.
The pattern was, to Tsuyu, obvious. The only students who hadn't been subtly bombarded with news about the dorm expansions and cheap offers to try them out, happened to be the students already living in high security housing of some sort. Iida and Todoroki lived in housing directly attached to major hero agencies. Momo was the heir of a megacorp which likely employed a legion of security. Tsuyu certainly hadn't missed the fact that she and Izumi both arrived and left campus in a private car driven by serious looking people wearing suits. Meanwhile, Izumi had casually complained once, when talking about the Hero Scan Network, that she and her mother had needed to move to high-security housing as a result of her being its inventor. Those handful of students had effective security around the clock. Everyone else was vulnerable.
Which is what left Tsuyu needing to make a decision she'd been putting off until she could confirm her hunch. Samidare was as old as she herself had been when she started looking after her siblings. Not to mention that her parents were actually traveling less these days. Both of them had been promoted since the time where she really had to look after her siblings constantly, even if both were still somewhat needed at various field offices around the country from time to time. Strictly speaking, Tsuyu was in a position to take UA up on their subtle offer. In some ways, it would even be a relief, as being a hero in training was making the commute and occasional need to look after her siblings much rougher. Yet, while leaving her family alone would make her safer. What about her family? Would removing the potential target, herself, lower the danger for them? Or would it only remove the little bit of security her presence and training provided them when she was home?
Tsuyu mulled it over, even as she kept watching her classmates, letting the delicious food and general cheer of the afterparty atmosphere wash away most of her worry over the issue. She wondered how long it would take for this particularly harsh reality to set in for the others. For that matter, how many of them would even recognize it at all?