Chapter 66: A Lecture and Plotting
Summary: Ambitious ambitions all around! Good guys and bad guys alike...
-Warning!- Chapters 64-66 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!
Chapter 66: A Lecture and Plotting
"Ow! How does that hurt so much!"
All Might chuckled as he watched Izumi suffer Recovery Girl's ungentle whacks with her cane. He regretted it a moment later as the supposedly-old woman turned on him and threw her cane at his head. He was so surprised that it managed to actually hit him in the forehead, causing his own yelp to echo Izumi's from a few moments before.
"Ow! Chiyo, just because you're younger now is no reason to start throwing your cane again!"
Recovery girl was looking far younger than she should. The result of UA discovering the hard way just what a certain rescued unicorn-girl's Quirk was when she freaked out about a physical. Izumi didn't know much, the entire incident having been kept tightly under wraps. She only knew what little she did due to UA requesting some highly specific QE scans of both Eri and Recovery Girl that only she and 2B could provide. From what she did know, only Eraserhead's presence had kept Recovery Girl from being rewound back out of existence. As it was, the 'old woman' was easily decades younger in appearance than she had been. In truth, she looked barely 40…and was apparently acting it too, being much more the feisty heroine that had been made it as a Pro despite the fact that her Quirk could only heal. She hadn't lost a tick as far as her medical abilities went, but she was much more energetic and unwilling to put up with patient stupidity. As evidenced when she rounded on both of them a moment later.
"You're both idiots! You," she jabbed a finger accusingly at Izumi, "used a self-destructive ability that could have killed you! It was literally tearing you apart! If not for you're healing factor, you'd be out of commission for weeks, since my Quirk doesn't even work properly on you!"
Rounding on All Might, she marched over to him and swiped her syringe cane back, only to poke him with it a second time.
"And you! You pushed yourself badly enough just for a training session that I'm not letting you out of here until tomorrow! If not for how much better the energy transfusions have left your state, you'd have been crippled by some of the hits you took! As it is, your insides are battered enough I was worried I was going to need to do surgery again! Why didn't you stop when you realized she could actually hurt you, you fucking moron!"
All Might shrank under the half-hissed, half-yelled words of the veteran doctor, even as Izumi tried desperately not to draw any more attention to herself…
... ...
Thankfully, unlike All Might who had been forcefully confined to Recovery Girl's domain, Izumi had known what she was doing. After she actually managed to knock All Might out, she'd immediately deactivated her Berserker Mode. Her body had been a bit of a wreck by that point…but well within her own self-healing ability. A few controlled transfusions of QE from Momo and Recovery Girl had gotten her internal repair systems jumpstarted and, within an hour and a half, she'd been completely fine. After another stern lecture to not use such an ability again without dire need, she'd been released from the UA infirmary…and immediately swarmed by her classmates.
While none of them had seen it, thankfully given that All Might had ended up in his half-skeletal form once knocked out, the rest of her team had been informed that All Might had been knocked out by Izumi. That, of course, was far too good a story to be contained, and it had spread to the rest of the Heroics first years. Perhaps understandably, she'd been dragged, half-bewildered, to the dorms and surrounded by Hero students who had demanded a play-by-play.
2B had promptly betrayed her by playing the whole thing out on a holoprojector. Only cutting it off just before everyone could see All Might's detransformation. Predictably, chaos ensued…
... ...
"Okay! Enough terrorizing Izu-chan, everyone!"
The clamor had died down a bit already, but several people from Group B that didn't know Izumi's Quirk as well had still been asking questions. Izumi looked a confused mix between overwhelmed and excited, since she did like talking about Quirks. But she was still visibly relieved as Toru got everyone's attention after climbing up on a chair. After an Izumi-Momo intervention about her Quirk, Toru was getting better at manipulating light. Using that fact, she'd accompanied her half-shout with a few bursts of pink strobe light effect to properly gather attention. Once she had it, she brought up an entirely different topic to the previous discussion.
"Since virtually all of us are in one place for once, I wanted to bring up the big announcement from this morning that half of you might have already forgotten! The Cultural Festival is coming!"
Several faces looked like they had already forgotten. Others looked like they weren't sure why they should care. And a few people nodded along.
"Now, some of us are in clubs! More of us are in Work Studies! Lots of us are loaded down with classes! Buuutt that doesn't mean we can't put something together from the Heroics department if we really want too. There are enough of us that we can work something out around everyone's schedule if needed! The question is if we're interested in doing a Heroics Department entry, or if those interested in the festival will just spread out to various clubs!"
There was a moment of silence, then several voices tried to speak up at once. Toru…somehow produced a duplicate of Midnight's riding crop and slapped it in her invisible palm. The action startled everyone so much that they quieted down again for a moment, which let Toru start pointing to people in turn. Several made comments about being in this or that club, others expressed interest but weren't sure about time commitments. It was only as Toru selected a surprisingly pensive looking Tokage that a new point of view was brought up.
"Guys, I think we're not looking at this the right way. The school's taken several body blows to morale this year, you know? Hell, not just the school, either. Japan as a whole has…and it might not be over yet. The League of Villains is still out there, right? What if we look at this not as just a fun festival or chance to network like our teachers said, but as a way to raise morale?"
Everyone fell silent as they thought that over, several previously disinterested people suddenly looking particularly thoughtful as they abruptly started looking at the idea through the lens of a heroics problem. It was Kaibara that eventually broke the short silence.
"I don't disagree, Tokage. But what could we possibly put together in a month that could have an impact like that? I mean, I'd bet some of the clubs have been planning since classes started. And UA's got some pretty big clubs and cliques. Even just focusing on UA students, could we actually do something big enough to make a splash? And if you're talking all of Japan, that's even more insane."
Several people frowned, but for long moments there was no counterpoint raised. It's not like they could suddenly throw together a rock concert that launched a smash hit single across Japan or something. That would be silly. Just as the mood started to lower, Izumi spoke up a bit tentatively.
"Actually, there might be something? It's…really crazy though. But theoretically possible? I think? A lot depends on what Uraraka's weight limit is like these days and how long she can hold it. I know she's been working on it a lot…"
The entire room blinked, half of them staring in confusion at Izumi, the other half zeroing in on a startled looking Ochako. Said girl managed to get back on balance quickly and tentatively half-raised a hand to answer Izumi's question.
"Um, you and Momo helping me work out some of how my Quirk actually works, with shifting gravity, mass, and inertia around instead of just removing it, has made a pretty big difference. I still can't do a lot with it beyond making things float, but just understanding what I'm doing has caused my limit to go up a lot. I can hold up to 50 tons for a few minutes…or as much as 20 tons for a couple of hours."
There was a low whistle at that from someone in the room, and a few people looking at her with renewed interest. Those from Group A, who knew her original max had only been around 10 tons for even a short period, were particularly impressed. Izumi's eyes brightened and she vibrated in place for a moment, clearly wanting to ask a bunch of questions…but she somehow held it in and focused back on her idea.
"We can totally do it then! At least, assuming Nedzu can keep the JSDF from freaking out or something!"
All eyes abandoned Uraraka at that statement, fixing in a mix of confusion and suspicion on Izumi. It was Mina who managed to say something first.
"Okay, now you've got to explain. Because my Mad Science instincts are screaming and I'm not sure that's a good thing or not!"
Izumi beamed broadly out at all of them.
"Well, how do you all feel about being some of the first humans to go to Space since before the Era of Chaos?"
Within moments, science was certainly afoot. Whether or not it was Mad Science remained to be seen…
... ...
In a mountain clearing, far from significant civilization, a battered and bruised group of villains stood triumphant over the disintegrating corpse of a massive wild-man. With Kurogiri forbidden to help, it had taken a long, slogging hell of a month and a half to force the brute to submit…and then Shigaraki hadn't hesitated to end him. Much to the angry ranting of a certain doctor that had forced them to fight the man in the first place.
In the end it was only the Shigaraki's rage and the inclusion of Muscular that had allowed them to batter the monster down. Even then, had the monster not been demoralized by the very same thing that stoke Shigaraki's burning hatred, they might not have managed it. As it was, the death of All for One brought a second monster low. But as for what would emerge in their place, as the battered league stepped through a portal and into to a dark lab? That was yet to be determined…
... ...
In the dead of night, as the last QE from the fading corpse of Gigantomachia bled into the surroundings, already heavy with the concentrated power of a month and a half of fighting, a tiny pinprick of light formed. The light grew, unseen, over the course of several minutes, becoming a jagged rip in space that would have discomforted any living thing that saw it. A malformed hand reached through and groped around at the edges of the rip, seemingly trying to push them to widen. Unseen by any, the rip widened slowly, stopping at just over three feet in height and a foot and a half wide. A man would have struggled to pass through that rip without cutting himself on the viciously sharp edges of a sheer in space-time.
It was a pity than, that what came through wasn't a man. Instead, it could only be described as a grotesque parody of a canine, landing on four legs that were just as malformed and twisted as the hand that had now vanished. A single beam of moonlight struck the malformed monster, even as two more joined it. If any had been there to see, they'd have noted in that momentary glimpse the way the creature's patchwork fur was broken up by white scales that seemed to irritated the skin all around them, causing the fur to fall away. A hissing voice harshly spoke from beyond the rip in space, giving commands in a language none on Earth would have recognized. The unknown creatures slinked into the night, even as the rip in space diminished, the ambient QE that had been flowing towards it, feeding it, falling too low to sustain its existence…
... ... ... ... ... ...
Author's Note: So...it is with great trepidation that I admit that Eri will...not be appearing as a major character in this story.
*hides from the glares, torches and pitchforks*
Okay! I get it! Everyone loves Eri! Actually, I love her too! She's adorable! And she WILL make a few appearances. She's just not going to be attached to Izumi at the hip. Or get adopted by Izumi and Momo. Or any other such ridiculous thing. Why?
1) The fics where Izuku adopts Eri as his kid annoy the HECK out of me. Even at 18 (let alone 15 as in canon), that's a HORRIBLE idea. Triply so with a heavily traumatized child. Realistically, even in real world cases where an older blood sibling ends up parenting for a younger sib after parents die...doing so usually fucks the older sibling up for life. That's not to say it isn't awesome and wholesome for them to do so. It is and more power to them for being awesome. But there's no reason for a non-blood-related, extremely traumatized, possesses-a-dangerous-and-highly-desired-Quirk, child to be fobbed off on a hero-in-training. It's a BAD IDEA. Fics that have them with a sibling relationship? Much better. Completely reasonable. But...
2) Fics in which Eri gets involved with Class 1A tend to end up forcefully converted into Eri Appreciation Stories. If you read a bunch of those fics, you'll quickly notice that the moment she's routinely around 1A, the story starts revolving around her, not Izuku. Everything becomes about Eri and their relationship, and the main plot of the fic grinds to a halt. I get why. Again, I think Eri is adorable. And once you make someone responsible for a child in any form, a lot of their life begins to revolve around that detail. It tends to kill fics, though. Either by grinding the plot to such a halt that the fic stalls out, or by turning it into an Eri Appreciation story instead of My Hero Academia. Since I don't want my fic to grind to a halt and die...Miss Eri will only have limited appearances in this story. Sorry! (Again, she WILL make SOME appearances, including one in the most recent Early Access chapters)
Author's Note 2: This is the one-per-release that I mention this and my other works have a Page. Currently, chapters 67-71 (roughly 16,000 additional words) are already up in Early Access! Not to mention there are early access chapters of my other stories amounting to roughly another 30-40k words at any given time. If you're enjoying this story, please consider tossing a bit of support my way?