Chapter Text
By the time Izuku made it to the training grounds, All Might had already started.
He nodded to Izuku as he slipped into the crowd of students, hanging near the back to not cause distractions. All Might finished explaining how they were going to sort the class, holding out two buckets filled with plastic balls.
“ALRIGHT, KIDS! LINE UP, PLEASE, SO WE CAN GET THE TEAMS SORTED!”
Izuku couldn’t help but grin as he stepped into the line, adjusting his goggles onto his face before turning them on. Words rush past his eyes faster than he can read, most likely some activation stuff he doesn’t know enough about coding to understand.
Then there’s a ‘ding’, and he has to check quickly to make sure no one else heard it. But Iida, who was in front of him in line, and Tooru, who was behind him, both seemed unaware of the noise.
“Testing, testing, 1 2 3! Izuku, can you hear me?”
Izuku jumped as he heard Melissa’s voice, Full Cowling activating on instinct. Because of this, he got about a second of air-time, before landing, a blush coming to his face as the rest of his classmates stared at him.
“HA HA HA! I APPRECIATE THE ENTHUSIASM, BUT PLEASE! NO QUIRK USE UNTIL YOUR MATCH HAS STARTED!”
Lowering his head and mumbling out something that he was fairly sure was an apology, he placed the lower part of his mask onto his face, clicking it into place around his ears and mouth.
“Melissa? Why can I hear you?”
Laughter came through the other line of the call, and Izuku couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t be chatting in your ear for very long, just wanted to see that the communications device I designed was working properly! This channel should be secure to anything less than Quirk-based hijacking.”
Izuku hummed. He wanted to talk with her more about this because he knew that if she was making that claim, it was most likely true, and that was awesome, but he was also approaching the front of the line.
“Hey, I can hear you mumbling. Don’t worry! We can talk later if you like. Focus on your class. You may have you know what now , but don’t underestimate your classmates! They’ve had their Quirks much longer than you have.”
Izuku’s worried expression softened. “I wasn’t planning on underestimating anyone. There are some really cool Quirks in this class!”
“Ha! I’m sure there are. Why don’t you tell me all about them after school?”
“Will do!”
“Midoriya, right?”
Izuku smiled, nodding his head. “Uh, yep, Yes I am Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya. You’re… Tokoyami?”
His partner on ‘Team E’ nodded slowly, his eyes closed. “Indeed. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Midoriya. Let my bottomless darkness and your emerald light work in tandem to defeat our enemies.”
“Ignore the edgelord! I got a bottom right here!”
Izuku had to quickly duck out of the way as Tokoyami’s Quirk shot out of the boy’s shoulder, shaped very much like a butt. But almost as fast as it had shot out, it was reeled back in. “Pest! Do not conduct yourself this way in front of my classmates!”
Izuku tapped his index fingers together as Tokoyami seemed to have an argument with his own Quirk, something that both interested and amused Izuku. Dark Shadow was mid-way through saying how unfair Tokoyami was being when All Might yelled out.
“ALRIGHT, STUDENTS! FOR OUR FIRST MATCH, CAN TEAM A AND J PLEASE HEAD TO GROUND ALPHA!”
Izuku glanced around to see who had been called up. It seemed like the first match would be Jirou and Todoroki vs Yaoyorozu and… Kachaan. Izuku almost physically sagged in relief. While Kachaan had been weirdly tolerable today and yesterday, Izuku really didn’t want to fight him.
But with it confirmed that he wouldn’t have to, at least not today, Izuku was able to calm down a bit and pull out his notebook and pen. He knew that this was going to be a very interesting match.
“YAOYOROZU AND BAKUGOU WIN BY RUNNING DOWN THE TIMER!”
Izuku hummed as he watched the screen, his eyebrows furrowed as he wrote notes on both teams’ strategies. Or, in Team A’s case, lack of one. Todoroki seemed to have fully believed that his Quirk was going to end the match in a single move.
But the ‘villains’ had spent their prep time well. Yaoyorozu’s Quirk, Creation, was one of the coolest Izuku had ever seen, and he had One for All. The tower heaters that she had spread around the floor the bomb was on had quickly taken care of the ice Todoroki had created.
The bomb room itself was full of traps to an almost home-alone extent, with Momo herself manning a net gun near the ‘bomb’. But while she was on defence, Kachaan was all-out offence, just like Izuku expected.
His explosions had propelled him through the air long enough to not get trapped in Todoroki’s ice, and from there, he was able to slide around with incredible speed on the ice, taking Jirou out.
Todoroki had gotten past him for a moment after Kachaan over-propelled himself, sliding past the boy, and got onto the bomb floor. But with the heaters cranked up to full, his ice wasn’t as effective as it could have been, allowing Kachaan to overwhelm him, the heat actually increasing his effectiveness instead.
All in all, it was an amazing match. If all of them were this cool, Izuku knew his notebooks would be half full by the time they finished for the day!
“WELL DONE TO YAOYOROZU AND BAKUGOU! NOW, WHILE THEY’RE ON THEIR WAY BACK, CAN TEAM B AND TEAM I HEAD OUT TO THE GROUND BETA?”
The second match was less intense, with Kaminari and Asui vs Mineta and Sero.
Unfortunately for the ‘heroes’ the two boys Quirks synergised wonderfully, creating entire floors worth of traps over every surface, meaning that not even Asui’s ability to wall climb was able to get around them.
They both ended up getting stuck at different points, Kaminari to one of Mineta’s orbs after trying to dodge out of the way of a hanging piece of tape, and Tsuyu getting caught by Sero himself, being forced into a corner by the copious amounts of traps in the bomb room.
It was unfortunate for the ‘heroes’, but ultimately it made sense, having two people with trap-based Quirks on defence was an incredible stroke of luck. Although Mineta seemed to be quite upset about something when they arrived back at the viewing station, muttering something about ‘getting the wrong one’.
Izuku didn’t really understand, but he had a feeling that he didn’t want to.
None of the other matches was much different, usually, one team doing something the other had no counter for due to their lack of experience, but words still flew onto the pages of Izuku’s notebook.
He also played around with his suit a little bit, making sure he knew where everything was in case he needed it. Melissa had done a great job with it, and he wanted to perform well in his first lesson wearing it.
“Midoriya.”
Izuku jumped a bit, his hand almost getting snagged on the clip to one of his belt pouches as he yanked it out as he turned to Tokoyami. “Yes! Uh, what do you need, Tokoyami?”
The bird-headed boy sat down next to Izuku, having returned from talking with some of their classmates, and crossed his legs. Dark Shadow Manifested from his stomach and curled up like a cat in Tokoyami’s lap, and it took all of his willpower to not reach over and pat it.
Tokoyami hummed. “While we got to see each other’s performances during the Quirk Apprehension test that Mr Aizawa put us through, I think it would be prudent of us to actually explain to each other the extent of our Quirks, less there be some miscommunication built on an unfortunate assumption.”
Izuku blinked, the wordy sentence playing in his mind as he broke it down, a smile forming on his face as he realised he was about to get a first-hand explanation of Dark Shadow from Tokoyami. “Oh! Ok, yes! Mine is fairly simple, so you can go first if you want?”
Tokoyami nodded slowly, and Dark Shadow grumbled as it rose into the air. “My Quirk is Dark Shadow. Within me lies a creature of pure darkness, that I may call forth and command, so long as my will is strong enough.”
Izuku’s eyebrows furrowed, a frown forming on his face. He didn’t want to write that down in his notebook. Sure it kinda gave him an idea of what Dark Shadow was… but it still left a bunch of questions.
“So, Dark Shadow is sentient, right? Is that why your ‘will’ needs to be strong because otherwise, they might not listen to you?”
Tokoyami rolled his shoulders, and Izuku couldn’t help but picture a bird ruffling its feathers. “That would be correct. Dark Shadow is powerful but unruly, even more so in the dark. While in the light, he is easier to control but ultimately weaker.”
Now that was helpful info! With a smile on his face, Izuku scribbled in his notebook quickly as Tokoyami went on a long spiel about the ‘difficulties of harbouring an agent of the void within his very soul’.
But even though Izuku didn’t understand much of the stuff he was talking about, he clapped softly when Tokoyami finished up, and the boy preened. After a moment of smugness, he tilted his head towards Izuku. “And now, what is your Quirk?”
Izuku swallowed, very nervous about not messing up the very first time someone asked him. “Superpower! I have energy that I can spread throughout my body that increases my strength, speed, reflexes, and stamina. The problem is I have too much at the moment, and if I go over 10%, I start breaking bones…”
He realised that Tokoyami was staring at him, the bad boy’s eyes wide open. He started getting really nervous about not being believed when Tokoyami schooled his face and nodded solemnly.
“I was right to befriend you, a fellow wielder of a cursed power. To have so much power that your human vessel cannot contain it without breaking… truly, we are birds of a feather.”
Izuku had to stop himself from laughing out loud at that, and with the way Tokoyami was grinning while staring at him, he had totally done it on purpose. After that, they watched the rest of the matches before theirs in silence, but a comfortable one.
Izuku couldn’t wait for their turn!