23
Chapter 23Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text1:00 PM, Monday(First Reset)
"Release!"
All of the nausea Ochako had been suppressing came rushing back with vengeance as soon as she deactivated her quirk. If she hadn't been bracing for it, she would've lost her breakfast then and there.
Shit, she'd definitely gone past her limit this time. Way past it. Her stomach felt like it was about to crawl out of her throat and die.
"We actually did it!" Yaoyorozu exclaimed. "We got first place!"
Kaminari flashed two thumbs-up from next to her in his brain-fried state. "Whey!"
"Yeah, we did," Izuku said. "Great job, everyone-"
Emerald-green eyes landed on her and widened in realization.
"-but me and Ochako need to go take care of something real quick. Yaoyorozu, make sure Kaminari doesn't fall over!"
Ochako barely registered the next minute as Izuku hurriedly led her off the field, lost in a haze of nausea. Hallways went by in a blur as the noise of the crowd faded away.
The next thing she knew, she was bent over a toilet and puking out a waterfall of rainbows.
Urgh.
Her arms were hanging listlessly down at her sides. The bathroom stall was big enough for both of them, thanks to U.A.'s accommodations for mutant quirks. One of Izuku's hands rubbed circles into her back as she hurled, while the other gently held her hair out of the splash zone.
Ochako knew that she could've gotten a way worse side effect to Zero Gravity, maybe even something harmful, but feeling this sick and awful and gross every time she pushed her limits seriously sucked.
She flushed the mess down, took a deep breath in-
"...I still don't get why you vomit rainbows," Izuku's voice sounded from just behind her.
-and then let out a surprised laugh. "Are you still on about that?"
He let go of her hair as she turned to face him. None of her disgusting rainbows had ended up on her or her gym uniform.
"It just doesn't make sense, does it? The quirk makes you nauseous based on how long and how much you make things float, yet also transforms your stomach contents into sparkling rainbows. It's bizarre-"
"Thanks, Izuku-kun," Ochako interrupted softly. "For uh, helping me again. You really didn't have to."
Izuku tilted his head to the side. "Of course I did."
But he really, really didn't. Any normal person probably wouldn't have helped her like this every single time her quirk did this- which was a lot- much less always noticed when she needed help.
"I know I've thrown up in front of you like, a million times by now," Ochako continued on in a ramble, words now tumbling out of her mouth instead of rainbows. "But it's still gross to me so I know it's gotta be extra gross for you. You've been training me for two whole years, and yet I'm still so bad at managing it..."
"Vomit is pretty gross," Izuku agreed. "But so are tons of quirks. This guy in my middle school class could pop his eyeballs out of their sockets, and I already told you about that villain I met who was literally made out of sludge. Even cooler abilities like Asui's have weirder aspects- her frog-like physiology can make offensive use of her unique mucus and stomach acids."
Really? She'd have to ask her about that.
"You can't help your quirk's side effect, Ochako. It's a part of you." Izuku paused, then bit his lip. "If anything, it's my fault that you had to force Zero Gravity this far in the first place."
Huh?
"What?"
"I had an entire day to think this through," Izuku said. "And yet we still relied on your quirk way too much-"
Ochako frowned at that. "But going Plus Ultra in the last two rounds was my decision, too-"
"-I should have planned it all better-"
"-I should have been able to handle it-"
"-no, you were amazing, you kept four different people weightless until the end with consecutive quirk activations-"
"-no, you were brilliant, you outsmarted every single other person there like it was nothing-"
The two of them abruptly cut themselves off to stare at each other. Emerald green eyes met her auburn brown ones.
Wait, what were they even saying?
Ochako couldn't help it. She found herself laughing harder than she ever had before- right there in that bathroom stall- probably loud enough to be heard throughout the entire stadium. All of the stress and insecurity that she'd been feeling seemed to vanish into nothing. Her shoulders shook with the emotion that bubbled freely out of her throat, something so much sweeter than rainbows and words.
She looked up as she finally regained control of herself to see Izuku's eyes wide with wonder and his lips parted open to match, before they stretched into a smile big enough to pull at his freckles. His cheeks were tinted red.
"...We're both pretty silly, aren't we?"
"That we are, Izuku-kun."
"I think the stress of the festival might've gotten to us a bit."
"Maybe a little."
"This uh, didn't happen last loop."
"I could tell."
"You always can, somehow," Izuku scratched at his cheek. "I didn't mean to tell you about my theories on Asui's mucus. That might've been something personal."
Ochako bit back a smile. "Do I want to know how you figured that one out?"
"Probably not."
"Glad that you've finally found something more interesting than my vomit."
"We still need to get you lab tested, Ochako."
"No thanks, Izuku-kun. My magical rainbows are going to stay a mystery forever."
"You're a nightmare to doctors everywhere."
"Says the guy who threw himself out of a five-story building."
"It was the only option I had at the time."
"...There are no windows to jump out of today," Ochako murmured. "Nor are there any giant objectives to tag."
"Yeah."
Ochako knew that she'd be fighting Bakugou in the tournament. She was at a pretty big disadvantage against him in an open field- as much as she hated to admit it, Ochako wasn't sure she could beat him.
But Izuku's matchup was even worse than hers.
"What are you going to do?"
"Honestly? I have no idea," Izuku admitted quietly. "There probably isn't even anything I can do. But I'm not going to let Todoroki win this thing."
"Because of what you two talked about?" Ochako asked.
"...Something like that. The story there is a bit more personal than Asui's mucus."
That just made Ochako even more curious.
"Well, no matter the reason why- do your best, Izuku-kun," Ochako held out her fist. "Show that frosty boy who's boss! And everyone else, too!"
Izuku bumped it lightly with his. "Sure. As long as you uh, show Katsuki who's boss."
Ochako grinned wide. "Oh, you bet I will. Can you imagine how awesome it'd be if we took first in all three events of the Sports Festival?"
"That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?"
1:12 PM, Monday(First Reset)
They were given a much longer break between the second and third rounds.
Izuku had taken that into account when planning the Cavalry Battle. There was more than enough time for his best friend to recover from any nausea she might get, so he'd relied on Zero Gravity a little too much in both loops.
And it worked. Ochako had pushed her limits to keep up- said quirk limits now so much higher than the day they met- and then went above and beyond them. They flew through the race with ease and successfully evaded all of the other cavalry teams.
"Don't worry, Ochako, you'll be the one carrying me through the next round."
She really was amazing. If it weren't for her, Izuku probably wouldn't have even made it to the tournament.
In the first iteration of the cavalry battle, Izuku tried and failed to recruit Iida- who of course ended up going with Todoroki. The dual-haired boy also got Yaoyorozu and Kaminari.
So Izuku's team instead consisted of him, Ochako, Tokoyami, and Hatsume. The support student had rather enthusiastically approached him for the attention of the ten million points and well, there was no reason not to accept when she came with her own jetpack.
Her quirk was pretty cool, too! Zoom allowed Hatsume to focus her eyesight and see clearly across up to five whole kilometers. It also boosted her kinetic vision, which was a nice ability to have in a chaotic cavalry battle.
Hatsume's jetpack meant that their Zero Gravity given mobility was even higher, allowing them to get around the field at incredible speed. Unfortunately, though, mobility was really all their team had.
Tokoyami gave them a bit of offense and defense, but Izuku and Ochako were both touch-based while Hatsume had zero combat experience. So they struggled to keep any of their headbands under pressure- only barely managing to pull through in the end thanks to Dark Shadow.
Fourth place was cutting it too close.
In the second and current loop, Izuku traded off Tokoyami and Hatsume in favor of Yaoyorozu and Kaminari- directly stealing Todoroki's plan to use Electricity for his own. It was pretty much impossible for the dual-haired boy to lose the calvary race, anyway, no matter who was on his team.
As a result, they'd taken first, Team Todoroki had gotten second, Katsuki third, and Team Shinsou fourth- before two of his members quit to be replaced by Shiozaki and Tetsutetsu.
Izuku looked up as the new tournament bracket flashed on the big screens to see almost exactly the same bracket from the last loop, with Shoji taking Hatsume's spot. That meant that the matchups were random and independent of the cavalry battle.
"Fuck."
"Language, Sero-san!"
"I mean, can you blame him?"
"Looks like we're up against each other, Aoyama-kun!"
"Indeed we are, mademoiselle! "
"What a mad banquet of darkness."
Three, two, one-
"Midoriya," Ojiro stood in front of him, serious. "Can we talk?"
"Sure."
1:31 PM, Monday(First Reset)
Izuku stepped out of the waiting room and into the light. He'd already been out in the open for most of today and yesterday, but something about the tournament made him even more conscious of all the people watching him.
He took in a deep breath and then let it go. The cheers of the crowd around him faded away.
"Thanks for waiting, everyone! It's finally time for our first match of the tournament! From the left side, we have Midoriya Izuku- our reigning champion who's taken first in both previous events!"
Emerald eyes met purple ones across the arena.
"And the right we have our Shinsou Hitoshi- our mysterious dark horse from the General Education course!"
Shinsou was tall and lean, with wild hair that spiked out of his head and matched the color of his eyes. He was in class 1-C, had an incredibly interesting quirk, and carried eyebags almost as deep as Aizawa's.
"I'll steal your spot right out from under you. Consider this a declaration of war."
And he wanted to be a hero.
"Begin!"
"So you're Midoriya, huh?" Shinsou struck first. "The president of the oh-so-mighty class 1-A. I've gotta admit, winning both the race and the cavalry battle is pretty damn impressive. I can't even tell what your quirk is."
His head tilted to the side. "Some kind of enhancement type I bet. An emitter with agility, speed, and strength, maybe? How far off am I?"
Izuku held eye contact and didn't reply.
One second passed, then two, before Shinsou's face twisted in realization. His hands shoved deep into the pockets of his gym uniform as his features settled into a sharp scowl.
"So that damn monkey went and told you everything then, huh?"
Property of Izuku Midoriya.
Quirk Name: Brainwashing.
User: Shinsou Hitoshi.
Ability: Emitter. By asking a question and receiving a response from another person, the user can then grab the consciousness of that person in a form of mind control. Once the quirk is activated, the user can order the person to perform actions. The person can't resist the effect and does not seem to retain any memories from when they were under it.
Observed Use: Controlled a group of students to make them carry him through the obstacle course. Controlled Ojiro, Shoda, and Aoyama to get him through the calvary battle. The three of them seemed to be capable of dodging, running around as a team, and making complex movements despite their collective lack of consciousness.
Possible Applications: Perfect for hero work- can instantly subdue villains without risking any property damage or harm to civilians. Brainwashing could also be used to calm down panicking victims during a rescue. With careful use and a specialized license to practice, the quirk could be invaluable in helping patients suffering from mental and psychological issues. A different kind of license could let the user of the quirk conduct extremely productive interrogations with the police.
Drawbacks: The fact that the quirk requires a spoken response means that it can be countered very easily if the target knows how it works. The actual drawbacks of the quirk and the exact biology behind its use are currently unknown.
Additional Notes: There are no visible mutations to go with the quirk besides the unrelated purple hair. Shinsou's voice does seem to sound slightly different while Brainwashing is active, but more audio samples are necessary to confirm this. The ethical concerns over the use of the quirk could probably fill the next few pages of this notebook.
Izuku shrugged, casually. It was a little easier to hold in the instinctive urge to defend his classmate this time.
Ojiro hadn't told Izuku that much in either loop, but learning that the tailed boy's memories had instantly ended as soon as he responded to a question and then watching Shinsou blatantly mind-control eight different people had given him a pretty clear picture of the quirk anyway.
Izuku took a step forward, and Shinsou immediately took a step back to match.
"Of course he did," Shinsou said, bitter. "Not only are you blessed enough to carry a heroic quirk, but you even get to know my secret before you step into the ring! Are all hero students disgustingly lucky? I bet you haven't had a single hard day in your life!"
"That monkey, too-
Izuku took another step forward and Shinsou took another step back to match. The boy made no attempt to gain back the space he was losing or get into any kind of fighting stance.
"That monkey, too- I still can't believe that he just threw away his spot like that," Shinsou's voice overlapped with yesterday's memory. "'Honor', huh? What a dumbass."
A third step, then a fourth, and Shinsou was already left with nowhere to run. His back foot stopped at the very edge of the boundary line as his body tensed up like a cornered animal.
Shinsou scrambled for more words, desperation growing with every passing second as the distance between them decreased. "But- but I guess you wouldn't know anything about honor, would you, Midoriya? You didn't even bother responding to my challenge that day, letting that arrogant blondie talk for you, and today-"
"-you aren't going to even acknowledge my existence! Are we General students that worthless to you, just because we can't destroy a few shitty robots? Look at me-"
"-you're cheating your way to the top off of other people's hard work!"
Izuku stopped still. That was new.
Across the field, Shinsou grinned wide as he finally, finally got a reaction.
"No wonder it looked so easy - that girl with the flight quirk has done everything so far for you! She got you through both the race and the cavalry battle. How'd you get her to help you, huh? Threats? Blackmail?"
"Don't worry, Ochako, you'll be the one carrying me through the next round."
"I had an entire day to think this through, and yet we still relied on your quirk way too much-"
She really was amazing. If it weren't for her, Izuku probably wouldn't have even made it to the tournament.
But Izuku already knew how much he trusted and relied on Ochako. He'd accepted it less than half an hour ago. If Shinsou thought he could make him feel bad about that, well, he was out of luck. Even if Izuku didn't appreciate the idea that he would ever threaten her-
"How completely useless of a hero student must you have to be to get manipulated by someone else like that? I deserve that spot way more than she does! I deserve that heroic quirk more than someone that weak!"
Something inside Izuku burned and he clenched his teeth against it with all he had. He'd never wanted to shout something, shout anything back at someone like he did at that moment. To tell them they were wrong to their face.
But he couldn't. He couldn't let himself speak a single word, no matter how much he wanted to, or it would all be over.
Do your best, Izuku-kun.
The impulse faded away as the seconds passed, and Izuku was left stunned in its wake. What was that?
Izuku had his mom's temper- or, more accurately, her lack of one. He could count the times he'd actually yelled at someone on two hands, one of which was when a literal villain was trying to murder his class. So he thought fighting someone who'd be taunting him would be easy- and it had been easy, yesterday, when he'd walked up and knocked Shinsou out of the ring in under a minute.
He could care less about what other people said to him. He'd remember, obviously, but it'd all harmlessly slide off his skin like raindrops against an umbrella. That's how it'd always been before. That's how it was with Katsuki over the past decade. That's how it was with Shinsou two loops in a row.
He would rarely bother to correct them.
So why, he wondered, why was it so different when the words were about Ochako? Why did those raindrops suddenly pierce clean through the polyester and into his heart?
Shinsou probably didn't even mean half the things he was saying to him. He was desperate to win and was just saying whatever he could to get a response from him. Izuku likely would've done something similar if he was in the same position.
"-You would've have even cracked the top ten otherwise! I mean, look at you! Just standing there, speechless-"
Shinsou was still talking, but none of it meant anything.
It was all just words. But while it was easy to ignore words about him, Izuku realized, and tricky to ignore words about his classmates, it was impossible to ignore stuff said about Ochako. He'd have to figure out why that was, exactly, after this was over.
"-are you even listening? Stop ignoring me you piece of shit-"
That instant of anger was long gone, now, but Izuku still felt the urge to do something. He wanted to tell Shinsou that he was wrong about her. That she wasn't useless, weak, or undeserving. He wanted the boy to understand, even if he had only insulted Ochako in the first place to get a reaction from him. Even if the boy hadn't meant it.
How could he do any of that without talking to him?
Oh. That's how.
Izuku kicked off the ground and ran towards his opponent. Shinsou didn't even have time to get another word out before Izuku was in front of him.
Emerald eyes met purple ones once again as Shinsou's hands left his pockets and his arms raised to defend himself. But the movement was so slow, reaction time so sluggish in a way that spoke of total inexperience in combat. The memory of Izuku's very first time at the dojo pricked the back of his mind from all those years ago, and he shoved it away in favor of the memories he wanted.
Knuckles met skin.
Izuku watched from the monitoring room as she effortlessly fought two powerful hero students all by herself, attacking with incredible grace and precision. The floor shattered as she slammed Kirishima into the ground.
Izuku watched her weave through a storm of fists, deflecting everything she couldn't dodge off her wrist guards. The grin on her face never faded as Shoji was forced to take one step back, then another, and then another.
Izuku watched her fight against Eraserhead and force the best hand-to-hand fighter he knew to pull out his weapon.
He didn't want to show Shinsou anything important or anything too precious to him. This should be enough.
"What the-"
Izuku's fist crashed into Shinsou's forearms- and then kept going until it struck his chest, piercing through the hasty defense as if there was nothing there at all. Because all of the boy's limbs were skinny and thin, devoid of muscle in a way that Izuku hadn't been since the day he first decided on his dream. The boy's stance and balance were just as lacking.
A single punch knocked him right off his feet and out of the ring.
Ochako had been way stronger than this two years ago before she knew any martial arts or even how to fall correctly. Back when all she had was quirk control and some strength from lifting construction materials.
Shinsou wanted to be a hero. When Izuku figured out what the boy's quirk was, in the first loop, he'd thought that he was just like him. Someone doing their best to be a hero, to be strong despite being born with an ability that wasn't heroic or powerful enough. Someone who struggled against robots despite all the effort they had put in beforehand.
The boy looked up at him from the ground, laid out on his back in defeat and eyes wide from the vision he'd just seen. No anger or bitterness was remaining in his face. All that was left was complete and utter confusion.
Maybe Shinsou would become someone like that in the future. But right now, he was just his quirk. Nothing more and nothing less.
"That was- She just- those were your memories. You showed me your memories. That's what your quirk is. But no, no that doesn't make any sense. That's a mental quirk. It can't do any damage and is barely even heroic. And yet you're a hero student. You're still strong ."
"How?" Shinsou demanded.
Izuku walked off the field without a word.
Notes:
UPDATE!!! I AM ALIVE!
I don't hate Shinsou at all. In fact, the similarities between canon Hitoshi and canon Izuku are rather interesting. They both are born without quirks that fit in, Hitoshi being deemed a villain for it and Izuku not getting one at all. They both get bullied for this. Both of them very much want to be heroes. Yet, what stands out to me, is that neither canon Hitoshi nor canon Izuku train or work towards their dreams at all until they meet their mentors(All Might and Eraserhead) outside of Izuku's analysis. You could make the argument that Izuku gave up on being a hero after his diagnosis and Bakugou's bullying, but canon Hitoshi has most definitely not given up on being a hero by the Sports Festival. He throws down his challenge, uses his quirk to get through the first event, uses his quirk to get through the second event- including against his own teammates because he refuses to work with them- and then uses his quirk in the third event until it fails. As soon as it fails he is promptly beaten up by Izuku(who has nothing but ten months of strength training and less than a week of actual fight training at this point).
I don't feel like enough people talk about how differently Izuku vs Shinsou should go if one of them has been truly trying their entire life. Of course, if Shinsou actually did manage to brainwash Izuku in this fic, he would've instantly won. Perfect Recall would've let Izuku remember everything that was happening while under the effects of Brainwashing(in contrast to how victims usually are) but he'd still be unable to break free himself.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone