Chapter Text
Hagakure: GUYS
Hagakure: GUYS!!!!
Hagakure : I JUST HEARD THE BEST THING!!!!
Hagakure: this is like. top tier gossip. you better all be present.
Jirou: ooo i love a bit of juicy gossip
Kaminari: spill that tea girl
Ashido: i will literally cry if you don’t tell
Danny: ????
Hagakure: good you’re all here
Hagakure: so y’know how sometimes i strip and hang out in restricted areas of ua
Kaminari: …………..no…….
Jirou: lol ye its hilarious
Danny: does nedzu know you’re doing that? after the break in then usj it could be p suspicious behaviour…….
Hagakure: dw hes known since the first day. i wanted to make sure i knew my way around w/o looking suspicious or dumb so i wandered around. nedzu saw me bc his senses are better than humans apparently and knew i was there.
Hagakure: he said i can do it until the staff notice and if i hear anything suspicious i have to tell him. he has cameras and microphones around the school but i’m an extra layer of security and also a test for the staff if they don’t realise im there apparently nedzu is gonna dock their pay everytime they miss me lol
Hagakure: good training, i get gossip and i can catch anything suspicious lol so all in all great thing
Ashido: so nedzu was legit okay w you running around naked in a high school???????
Hagakure: no!!! my parents managed to work out a deal w the support company that made my hero suit and commissioned some underwear w the same material/properties bc they knew i wouldn’t hesitate to strip if i wanted to
Hagakure: gonna be w/o pocket money for some time but ye
Jirou: the gossip????
Hagakure: oh yeah! thanks jirou!!! anyways. get ready to throw a party bc i heard midnight on the phone to some parents. apparently they wanted to withdraw a hero course student from ua bc of the usj attack.
Hagakure: obvs im like omg i hope its not anyone from our class and then i hear midnight say
Hagakure: “of course mineta-san, i’ll talk to principal nedzu about your concerns”
Jirou: mineta’s going??? oh thank fuck.
Ashido: that is a BIG juicy bit of gossip and i am half tempted to throw a class party lol
Danny: this is the best news of my life. this means there’ll be a free spot in our class.
Kaminari: i drink respect women juice by the gallon but uh why are you so excited danny????
Danny: how would you guys feel abt helping during the sports festival to fill that space?
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“Thanks to UA increasing security due to the USJ attack, the school has decided that students will be using aliases or their seat numbers to protect student identities.” Aizawa announced at the beginning of their hero theory lesson.
“Sir! Does that mean we’re picking our hero names today?!” Uraraka cried, both excited and nervous.
“While I recommend you use this opportunity to choose your hero names, because this will be your first introduction to the world, there will be still other opportunities. That being said, we’ll be using the next forty minutes to workshop your names. I am unqualified for this so…”
“So I will guide you!” Midnight proclaimed loudly as she burst through the classroom door, startling Hagakure in the seat closest.
Aizawa sighed. “Yes. You have to decide on your aliases and announce them to the class. Remember these will be the names you will be known by to the nation, you must be willing to go by this to whoever watches.”
“And that’s why Eraserhead here can’t help you pick which is best.” Midnight cheerfully contributed to which Aizawa grunted in agreement.
“Uh… How come?” Kirishima asked, slightly confused.
Midnight playfully rolled her eyes and answered with a smile. “He didn’t pick out his hero name, Present Mic did, and he never learnt to respond to it because he just used his real name. Mic found out after a couple years as pros and started calling him that instead of his name. Right, Eraserhead?”
Though Aizawa was completely covered and his eyes were near impossible to see, Danny saw the man roll his eyes before starting to shuffle out the classroom. “Remember to give me the list of their aliases.”
“So! Any questions?” Midnight asked as she turned back to the class.
Danny hesitantly raised his hand and when called on he spoke. “What if you don’t want to pick a hero name just yet?”
“Well the default that the staff decided on was to be your seat number. For example, you, Danny, would be A-12. Kendo Itsuka, who is 1-B’s class president, would be B-05. It’s a relatively safe way to refer to you all, without giving out sensitive information. This way if any of you intend to go into underground heroics, you also won’t have to advertise your quirk or skill sets. Keeping an ace up your sleeve as it were.”
Danny felt so much relief at this. There wasn’t much he could do with his face, but in this he would have a good alternative. There was no way he would be giving his real hero name, and he would genuinely rather die again than go by Inviso-Bill. He needed to be as anonymous as possible. It probably wouldn’t work, but he was already planning to sabotage his place in the tournament to make sure that Shinsou got in. Hopefully he wouldn’t make a big enough splash to get any attention.
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Danny spent the rest of his time helping his friends out with their aliases. Mina was bummed she wouldn’t be able to use Alien Queen, it did rule as a name but Midnight said that it was licensed so they couldn’t use it on television. Jirou had originally wanted to use her quirk name, but after Midnight advised against it for security reasons they had to think of something else.
It was actually more difficult to try and think of a plausible sounding reason for Danny to go with the default name. The excuse he ended up on was that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go into underground heroics or not, so would rather not cut his chances for that too early. Also that he wasn’t comfortable with choosing a name in a short time.
He wasn’t sure if any of them actually believed him but they got back to deciding the others’ hero names. In the end, Danny found he quite liked them.
“Okay, we’re going in seat order. Hagakure, you’re up.”
“Prisma!”
“Midoriya?”
“Deku.”
“Aoyama?”
“Starlight☆!”
“Iida?”
“Ah. A-04. I am… undecided.”
“Uraraka?”
“Uravity.”
“Ojiro?”
“Kangarū.”
“Ashido?”
“Cy[ph]er!”
“Kaminari?”
“Chargebolt!”
“Sero?”
“Cellophane.”
“Kouda?”
“A-Anima…”
“Kirishima?”
“Red Riot!”
“Danny?”
“A-12.”
“Jirou?”
“Auxiliary.”
“Todoroki?”
“A-14.”
“Shoji?”
“Tentacole.”
“Asui?”
“Froppy.”
“Mineta isn’t here, so, Bakugou?”
“King Explosion Murder.”
“Yeah, you’ll have to have A-18. Yaoyorozu?”
“Genesis.”
“Tokoyami?”
“Tsukuyomi.”
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“So! Where we going?” Kaminari asked as he finished retying his shoelaces after he’d tripped over them earlier.
“Well, me and Shinsou always go hang out at the cat cafe my cousin works at before we walk home together. He lives in the same apartment building we do and my cousin gets off work in like an hour. We do our homework there. It’ll be a good place to hang out and plot.”
“You told him we were coming, right?” Jirou asked dryly.
“And let him try to weasel out of getting help from people other than me? Uh, no. He’s gonna be a stubborn bitch about it for like a day, then he’ll cave. He already kinda likes you, he’s just got a stick up his ass because he got ostracised growing up because of his quirk.”
“Yikes, that's rough.” Mina hummed. “I mean I kinda got made fun of as a kid because I couldn’t control how much acid I secreted, so I kinda understand there.”
“Mhm. He used to be told his quirk was villainous so he’s always cagey about it, but he wanted to be a hero. It’s just not a quirk that really helped him when up against robots. Got super close to getting in though, I think.”
“Oof. I get that! I don’t think I’ve been called a villain to my face, but people always thought I’d be a world class thief. Y’know since they couldn’t see me.” Hagakure nodded in understanding. “I think I only got so much because I found this metal pole and I just went to town destroying robots. They had thermal vision though, so I wasn’t able to sneak up on them. Pretty sure I just got lucky!”
“Oh here we are!” Danny announced, pointing to the Cozy Corner Cat Café. He smiled a little seeing Kirika by the door and a head of purple hair at a table.
“Oh, Danny. Are these your friends?” Kirika asked, looking a little surprised at the number of people with Danny. This in turn made Shinsou whip his head round to them so fast the cat he was cuddling meowed in protest at being jostled.
“Yup! We’re gonna go talk with Shinsou. Guys this is my cousin, Kamiya Kirika. Kirika, this is Kaminari, Ashido, Jirou and Hagakure.”
His friends gave their greetings, and Kirika greeted them in turn telling them to call her Kirika before telling them she’ll come to their table to take their orders soon. Danny was surprised that Shinsou hadn’t given up on cuddles and vacated the building while they were talking, but it could have been because he had a cat on his lap. Not that he knew Danny would also bring them to his apartment. Could have been either.
“How dare you.” Shinsou hissed at him with a glare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Danny grinned. “Anyways, we come with good news! Hagakure, tell my dearest friend, Shinsou, the good news you heard yesterday?”
“Ooo okay! Hi again! Well sometimes I strip and hang out in the staff areas—”
“Wait what?”
Danny leaned over and whispered. “She has invisible underwear, don't worry.”
“And I heard Midnight talking with a parent of a hero student, and they wanted to pull their kid out of UA because of the attack! And that student was our super gross classmate, Mineta. He actually sits right next to Danny in class.”
“Yeah it's a nightmare, I’ve taken to just wearing an ear plug on my left side so I don’t have to listen to him say gross things about the girls in class.” Danny grimaced. “His comments might’ve made it onto those recordings of class I made.”
Shinsou made a face, likely remembering the comments in question. “Yeah, he might be why I’ve just been reading the notes.”
“Yeah, you seem cool and Danny said you’re trying to get into the hero course. He asked if we wanted to help you in the Sports Festival. If it doesn’t sabotage us, I’m in at least.” Jirou shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant about being disappointed she wasn’t able to attract one of the nearby cats to her.
“Yup!” Kaminari grinned. “A friend of Danny’s is a friend of mine, he’s a cool dude.”
Shinsou narrowed his eyes at him. “Really? You don’t even want to know my quirk?”
“Quirks aren’t everything?” Kaminari blinked at him. “I mean if you wanna tell us, cool, but like. My quirk makes me go stupid if I overuse it, I basically fry my own brain.”
Shinsou looked torn between bewildered and concerned at that statement, so Danny saved him the trouble of figuring out how to respond. “Remind me to talk to you about your quirk later, I have an idea.”
“Oh, cool, I’m always up for some tips.”
“You guys were pretty chill about what I told you about my quirk the other day.” Mina and Kaminari looked slightly confused, so Danny elaborated. “Y’know the overshadowing part, with the noumu?”
“Oh! Yeah, it sounded cool. You single handedly saved Midoriya, Tsuyu and Mineta by overshadowing that villain. I mean, it sucks about your arm. But that part of your quirk is pretty badass and great at stopping villains.” Mina smiled, happily.
“Mhm!” Hagakure piped up, her gloves gliding over a cat perched on her lap. “It was so cool. You should use it against villains when you go pro a lot.”
“Really?” Shinsou said, raising an eyebrow at their reactions. “Then, who wants to volunteer to help me show you my quirk?”
“Ooo! I volunteer!” Kaminari enthusiastically grinned and raised his hands.
“Go over to Kirika-san and give her this note, then come and sit back where you are now.” Shinsou ordered, that glint in his eye made it clear he was using his quirk, passing over a scrap of napkin with something written on it. Without question, Kaminari stood up and followed the orders, his face blank as he did what he was told.
The five of them watched Kaminari follow the order blank look on his face. It was probably pretty funny, since Kirika looked back at them all when she got the note. She looked at it and snorted, giving a single nod then going back to work. Kaminari managed to not trip over anything and sat down. When it was done, he blinked back to awareness.
“Are you gonna show it? What do I need to do?”
Jirou let out an impressed whistle. “Okay that was cool.”
“What? What happened?”
“How’d you activate it?” Mina asked, with wide eyes and a smile on her face.
“I need a response to something. Hey, you’re Kaminari, right?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Untie your shoelaces.”
Kaminari leaned over and did just that, blinking back to awareness as he sat back up. “So, did you like, forget my name?”
“No, you just were my example twice. Still want to help?”
“Sure! Not sure how I’m helping, but yeah.”
“What’s its limits?” Hagakure asked. “Can you make him say stuff?”
“Nah. Hey Kaminari?”
“Yeah?”
“Repeat after me: Danny owes me for this.”
Kaminari stayed blank faced at the order, before Shinsou released him.
“Huh. Well, that’s still a very useful quirk, even if you don’t do anything with it. Clearly it makes them stop in their tracks.” Jirou nodded in respect.
“Um. I’m not against still being an example but whaaat is your quirk man?”
“It’s called brainwashing.” Shinsou shrugged, trying to be nonchalant when it was clear to Danny he felt awkward and didn’t like the conversation. “If someone responds to something I said, I can make them follow my orders. I told you to go up and give Kirika a note a little while ago.”
“Ooooh that sounds so cool! It’s like a verbal version of what Danny can do!” Kaminari grinned.
Shinsou looked at him oddly for a moment and took in their expressions. Well most of them, it was still hard to read Hagakure. No matter how much she managed to express in her body language, there wasn’t much she could do when she wasn’t actively saying something.
“You guys… seriously aren’t freaked by it?”
“Nah, it’s cool. Incredibly powerful, I can see why Danny thinks you’d make a great hero.” Jirou nodded.
“He’s… talked to you guys about me?” Shinsou asked, giving Danny a side eye. Danny felt his ears go warm and he focused on giving the cats attracted to him attention. It had been a normal amount!
“Yeah, he pretty much begged us to help. He said it would mean a lot to you both if you got into the hero course.” Jirou nodded again, proving she was a snitch who couldn’t be trusted with anything.
“Really?” Shinsou turned more to Danny, who’s ears heated up more.
“What?! I think you’re cool and the only reason I’m in UA is because I wanted to go to the same school as you, the only reason I’m in the hero course was because you wanted to be too. You’re gonna be a great hero, and you know I don’t care about the sports festival. We need numbers to help you train, it didn’t hurt to ask!” Danny defended himself.
Shinsou smiled slightly. “Thanks.”
Danny grinned widely at his friend.
“You, uh, really want to help? Danny didn’t like, pay you to help, right?” Shinsou asked, turning back to the others.
“Nope, I think it’s great! I won’t throw away my chances, but I can at least help you train right?” Hagakure chirped. “I don’t really have anything I can do to train my quirk anyways.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Jirou shrugged, twirling an earphone jack around her finger. “I’m not allowed my support gear, so there’s nothing much I can do with my quirk.”
“I don’t wanna overdo my quirk training and fry my brain too bad for the festival.” Kaminari shrugged.
“I still have a suggestion you can try, but later.” Danny cut in, quickly.
“Oh yeah, of course. Still, I wanna help out man! You’re cool, it’ll be fun to have you in 1-A.”
“Same! I mean, I’m working on my skating still, and my capoeira needs some fine tuning, but I could train with you guys. It’ll be fun!” Mina grinned.
“I promise I didn’t pay any of them to help.” Danny reassured. “Look, we’re not sabotaging ourselves to help you, and it won’t be like we’re giving you the spot. You still have to impress Nedzu, right? We just wanna help you do that.”
Shinsou looked at them for a minute before he let out a sigh. “Okay. I… thanks.”
“Oops.” Kirika’s dry voice sounded from above him when he felt something wet slip down the back of his shirt.
Danny sprang up and wriggled to get it away from him. He heard his friends and Kirika laugh and the sound of a high-five while Danny made everything but the whatever intangible so it dropped to the floor. It was a wet slice of cucumber.
“The kid asked me to in his note.” Kirika said when Danny looked at her with a betrayed expression. “So, you guys want anything? I can take your order.”
After the group finished ordering and Danny finished grumbling, they started to make some training plans. Things went much smoother than Danny had expected, Shinsou managing to relax with his interactions after Kaminari got up to use the bathroom and tripped on his shoelaces.
It probably helped that Kaminari laughed when it was explained what happened to him. Shinsou hadn’t done anything too objectionable, but Danny knew a lot of people would have blown a gasket at the harmless prank if it happened to them. The fact that Kaminari had shrugged it off easily, likely reassured him.
It was going to go great. He was looking forwards to the Sports Festival after all.