章 2034: 53
"No. Absolutely not." Izuku put his foot down. "You can't bring explosive materials into a hospital Mei-chan!"
"But I want to start testing as soon as possible!" Mei pouted. "It's nothing too dangerous, just a teeny, tiny micro…"
"It's a hospital, Mei-chan." Izuku interrupted. "Everything is dangerous."
"I'm sure they'd let Bakugo in if he came to visit." Mei grumbled. "And he's the definition of explosive."
"He's also a person, Mei-chan." Izuku sighed. "So still no."
"But I already brought it!" Mei whined. "I can't just leave it outside!"
"Make Ocha take it back to the school." Hitoshi suggested. "I think Sero had detention today, so he should still be at school. She can use him as an anchor point, then take whatever you need back to the lab."
Ochako nodded, "Yeah! It'll be good practice."
Mei glared at them before giving in and shoving her bag into Ochako's hands, "Fine! But be quick about it!"
Ochako grinned and Izuku reached for his notebook. He'd really only seen that weird light around her a few times now, since most of the time she was disappearing too fast for him to get a good look, but it seemed to appear whenever she was searching for an anchor, which made Izuku completely nerd out with questions. How did she tell anchors apart? Could she train her quirk to figure out how far away they were or even where? If she used two anchors, could she theoretically jump to a point between them?
There was a beep from the tracking earrings and Hitoshi whistled as Ochako popped out of existence, "I keep thinking that'll get less impressive, but so far, no luck. It was really freaky the first time, though. Now it's just cool."
Izuku frowned, "It's weird that it came on so suddenly. I would have expected her quirk to get stronger gradually, which means there would have been signs and then she could have trained herself to jump, rather than jumping and having to train herself to not."
"Well, she has been pushing her quirk a lot." Mei said. "Would that affect it at all?"
"There is a trend of hero students' quirks changing while they train." Izuku acknowledged. "But those normally happen during the second year when training gets more intense in preparation for licensing exams, not when they've barely started training."
"I think Izuku might be onto something." Hitoshi butt in. "Eraser's been acting super weird about her quirk too, like there's some sort of secret about it or something. But then again, he's also been pretty frustrated with All Might and that seems to be normal, so it might be nothing. I'm kinda still learning how to read him and Mic. What with internships and everything, me and my adults haven't really just had time to hang out at home, you know?"
Mei leaned into his personal space and looked him in the eye, "But it's better, right? They weren't lying about protecting you and making sure you had a better place to live than that stupid foster home, right?"
Hitoshi nodded, "They actually encourage me to talk at home, which is nice, but I never know how to respond when they ask me how quirk training is going. I've never had any adults be genuinely interested before. I fthey asked, they were just testing the waters to make sure I wasn't going to murder them in their sleep or soething."
"Who are you going to murder?" Ochako had popped into the middle of the conversation. "I hope they deserve it."
"They would have." Hitoshi assured her. "But don't worry about it too much. You ready to introduce robo-boy to his new kidnappers."
"Hitoshi!" Izuku squawked. "You can't just call us kidnappers in everyday conversation!"
"Why not?" Hitoshi said innocently. "Mei-chan calls things her babies all the time."
"I'm pretty sure that makes it worse." Ochako giggled. "If you're not careful, people are going to think you two steal people's babies or something."
"I would never steal another person's baby!" Mei said indignantly. "It's much more fun to make them myself!"
The rest of them laughed as Izuku groaned loudly, "Can we just go now? We don't want to keep Iida waiting."
"Yeah! Let's go!" Ochako led the way. "And can we just appreciate that we just talked about Iida and I didn't immediately disappear?!"
"Good work, Gravity Girl!" Mei clapped her on the back. "A little more control and I'll be able to make you such awesome babies!"
Izuku grabbed his notebook again, "What are you doing differently? If we can figure it out…"
Ochako shook her head, "It won't really work that well for everything. Right now, I'm just reminding the stupid quirk that Iida is right there, so I don't need to go to him. That's about it, but I'm not usually close enough for that trick to work."
"Still pretty good practice." Hitoshi shrugged as they arrived at Iida's room. "So...should we just knock?"
Mei was already barging through the door before he could even finish his question.
Mineta may have known exactly how he'd gotten here, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Seriously, how had All for One stayed in power this long if he thought it was a good idea to send a first year hero student against a serial killer? What kind of stupid plan was that?
He wasn't actually going to fight the serial killer. Unlike Shigaraki's beloved Sensei, Mineta wasn't an idiot. If he faced Stain head on, he was gonna end up like Iida or probably even worse, so no thank you. That didn't mean he was giving up, though. There was more than one way to skin a cat.
He looked around the alleyway one more time, making sure all of his traps were in place before taking out his burner phone. He'd stolen Mt. Lady's login information for the hero network during his internship, not that b1ga$$Lady was a very secure password to begin with, but it gave him access to a lot of the investigation files he wouldn't have been able to access as a student and allowed him to make some connections that made him doubt the competency of the Hero Commission.
The police had already picked up on the pattern of four heroes per city. He'd moved on after Hosu and only had one attack so far, so Mineta wasn't too concerned about missing him, especially because of the pattern the police had missed. With the exception of Ingenium, who seemed to have simply stumbled into him, there was usually a call on the hero network a few minutes before the hero was attacked, which meant that Stain was either looking for crimes and chasing them to the heroes or, more likely, listening to police and hero scanners to find and trap his targets. All Mineta needed to turn that tactic against him was a little bit of bait.
He dialed the police and took a few shallow breaths so that it sounded like he was hyperventilating by the time the operator responded, "Please! Please, you gotta help me!"
"Kid, take a deep breath with me, ok? What's going on?"
"I...I don't know!" Mineta choked out. "I was just walking home from school, and i have to pass through his alley…"
"Is it a villain?"
"I…" Mineta looked around the empty alley. "I think so, yeah."
"Just one?"
"I think so?" Mineta answered. "I don't think the guy on the ground is a villain."
"Are you safe?"
"I think so…" Mineta had to pinch himself to keep himself from laughing, "Oh no, he's coming this way!"
"We're sending the nearest hero to your location, stay hidden and stay on the line…"
Mineta rolled his eyes and slammed the phone on the ground, stomping on it for good measure. According to the hero network, the nearest hero was some D-lister by the name of Slugger who had a reputation for leaving the difficult fights to other heroes while he warmed the bench, which should be a tempting enough target to bait his real target.
He used some of his balls to scale the wall and watch the chaos from the roof. All that was left to do was wait for a bite.
Tenya stared at the sheets and tried to ignore Tensei's disappointed glare from the corner. He had just about as much success with that as he had with ignoring his parents' tears the past few days, which was to say practically none. Why had he let his anger get the best of him like that? Why hadn't he talked to someone or thought through how it would affect his parents to have not one, but both of their sons lose all chances of being a hero within two weeks of each other? Why had he been so prideful as to think he could actually take on Stain?
Tensei sighed, "How are you feeling?"
"Strange." Tenya responded. "My arm hurts."
Tensei frowned, "I thought Recovery Girl was able to repair the damage in that one. Maybe there's something wrong. We can call the doctors…"
"Not that one." Tenya cut him off. "I think they called it phantom pain."
"Oh." Tensei said softly. "I'm sorry."
"It is not your fault that my stupidity got me injured." Tenya said firmly.
"I should have been there for you." Tensei looked like he was going to start crying again. "I shouldn't have put so much pressure on you to be the next Ingenium and now…"
Tenya didn't have any response to that. Ingenium was gone. There were no more Iida sons to carry on the name. Generations of heroes, cut short by a monster with a katana. What a legacy.
Tensei opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the door bursting open. A girl with pink hair that he vaguely recognized from the sports festival rushed in, "So! You're the boy that lost the arm! Let me see!"
Another student with green hair ran after her in a panic, "Mei-chan! You can't just say things like that!"
"Why not, Izu-kun?" Mei asked. "If I'm going to be making him a new arm, then I need to see the situation!"
"It's a sensitive topic, Mei-chan!" Izu-kun said. "We don't even know if he still wants to be a hero, much less if he's willing to…"
"Who are you?" Tenya's brain was still catching up as he spluttered. "And your companion is quite right, it is quite rude to burst in here like that."
To his surprise, Uraraka rushed into the room as well, "I am so sorry, Iida. I know Mei and Izuku can be a bit much the first time you meet them, but I…"
Tenya's brain finished buffering and his eyes widened, "Wait, why do you want to know if I still want to be a hero?"
"So we can help you, silly!" Mei had pulled a tape measure from nowhere and Tenya flinched as she started measuring his shoulder. "Are you allergic to any metals? How well do you respond to radioactive materials?"
Shinso walked in and for some reason, in contrast to Uraraka's arrival, his arrival made complete sense. These two must be the support students, Midoriya and Hatsume, that helped him win the sports festival, then. It still didn't make any of this make any more sense, but at least someone was here who knew how to navigate the chaos.
"They want to make you their new project, just like Ocha and I have been." Shinso said. "I'd recommend just rolling with it...uh, no offense, wheelchair guy."
"None taken." Tensei said calmly. "But what would this project entail exactly?"
"Cyborg hero!" Mei shot him a manic grin. "Half man! Half groundbreaking Hatsume tech!"
Midoriya sighed, "What she means is that she wants to make him a new arm. A lot of heroes have managed to continue their careers after losing a limb, Ectoplasm being the prime example, but it'll be difficult, and I'm sure there's a lot of different issues, so don't feel obligated to…"
"I can still be a hero?" Tenya asked softly. "But I…"
"Well, you're still going to get into trouble for the vigilantism, obviously." Shinso said. "But you're still a student, so enough community service and a probation period should be enough to put you back on track, if you can manage to get Nedzu on your side."
"Do you want lasers in your fingers?" Mei asked, then nodded quickly. "I'm giving you lasers in your fingers."
From the corner, Tensei cleared his throat, "Hatsume, was it? What do you know about modifying wheelchairs?"
Mei grinned and Midoriya started scribbling something down in his notebook. Tenya felt vaguely terrified, but also oddly hopeful for the first time since the sports festival. What had he just signed up for?
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