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Izuku gets his injuries checked and accidentally puts his foot in his mouth without noticing.
The First Ripples reach the stadium and the Kwami are the first to realize the depth of their meanings, even if they’re not the only ones who see them washing over the school.
Foreword: Hey everyone! This chapter is both shorter and longer than I’d intended it to be, but I fully blame that on some epiphanies I had while writing it. Originally, I wanted to be right there in the action of the second event but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get it out and it finally hit me why I was struggling so hard with it.
I was giving myself a stupid amount of work for it!
Not only was I changing the rankings of race, I was trying to figure out the points that went to the new top 40, the way they would be divided up and who went to each team, inter-student drama that went on with each team and their competitors, and who would end up the winners at the end and how things would get divvied up for the final tournament.
And that was just- WAY TOO MUCH WORK for my audhd brain to do. (Even without factoring in the way my day-job steals all my spoons.)
So, I decided to step back and find a different way to skim over that so we could actually, like, finish the arc. XD
If someone else wants to try writing the second event, go for it. I can give you my top 40 list and tell you most of the students I’d had on Izuku’s team if you want it. lol
Chapter 20: The Sports Festival (Part 2)
To Izuku’s immense relief, when he approached Kayama-sensei as they waited for the rest of their year to reach the stadium, she informed him that there would time for him to see Recovery Girl. As long as he was quick and came back before the next event actually started, she would allow him to duck out and get his knee and elbow tended to.
Which was fantastic as, now that his adrenaline was wearing off, they were really starting to hurt.
He leaned on his umbrella, following the directions he’d been given to find the small medical room that had been set up for the festival. It was very close to the entrances to the stadium, making the walk very short.
He knocked on the door to the small medical room before he opened the door and stepped through.
It wasn’t as small of a room as he’d thought it might be. It was probably about the same size of the actual nurse’s office on campus, give or take a foot or two. The room had four to five cots prepared for students who hurt themselves, an average sized medicine cabinet that looked properly stocked, a small desk set up with a laptop and a handful of folders laid out atop, and a flat screen TV that was mounted on one wall. The TV was off at the moment, but he was sure it would show a feed from one of the cameras in the stadium.
“Excuse me? Recovery Girl-sensei?”
“Ah, first injury of the festival, I take it? Come in dearie, let’s get you sorted out.” A petite old woman greeted him from the desk inside, giving him a pleasant smile as she waved him in. “What happened dear? Got hit by a stray quirk? Some shrapnel from a Zero-pointer?”
It was pretty common for students to hurt themselves during the festival, from what Izuku had learned when he’d managed to gather up the nerve to ask one of their senpai about the festival. They’d never had any serious, major injuries but that didn’t mean no one ever got hurt. Despite the flash and show of the festival’s events, the school took safety seriously. It was harder to control if a student’s own quirk hurt them, but generally injuries from others were well taken care of.
Izuku shook his head.
“No ma’am. I landed wrong on one of the fall mats and hit my knee and elbow together.”
“Ah, I see! Well that’s much better than what most students come to me for!” Recovery Girl said with a small laugh. She watched as he limped into the room and sat down on the closest cot to the desk. “It certainly looks like you have a limp, doesn’t it? What’s your name dearie? I haven’t had you in my office before, so I assume you’re not a hero course student.”
“Midoriya Izuku, Recovery Girl-sensei. I’m in the management course, class 1-I.” He answered, leaning back where he sat and setting his newest umbrella down beside him. The healing hero nodded, pulling out a clipboard and adding some papers to it. She gave him a grandmotherly smile.
“Alright Midoriya-kun, how bad does it actually feel? Do you think you’ve broken anything or is it just some bad bruising?”
“I think it’s just bruising, Sensei. It feels a bit like when I’ve hit my knee wrong in my self-defense classes.” He was familiar with that, enough to feel relatively sure that he hadn’t actually broken anything.
Recovery Girl nodded, noting something down on her clipboard. “That’s good to know. Do you hear or feel anything concerning when it happened? Any cracking or odd spikes of pain?”
“No Sensei. It just hurts a fair bit, but I’ve been using my umbrella as a cane just in case,” he answered, lifting the umbrella to show her. She looked pleased about that.
“Wonderful! I’m glad you had something on hand to help prevent things from getting worse. I’ve had plenty of students charge ahead after hurting themselves because of the excitement of the race.” Recovery Girl hopped off her chair, coming over to examine his injuries more closely. “Let’s start with your elbow then.”
He offered his arm, letting the school nurse gently take hold and examine the darkening patch of skin there. She noted the small wince he gave when she poked at the forming bruise, letting out a thoughtful hum at the reaction. Her emotions were calm, thoughtful, and not terribly worried by what she was seeing. He hoped that meant he was right that they weren’t actually too bad.
“Would you please roll up your pants leg for me? I want to get a better look at your knee before I use my quirk on you.”
Izuku did as the teacher bade, letting out a hiss as he finally got a look at the blackening bruise forming there. He distantly noted the feeling of pain from someone outside in the halls, approaching the medical room as well.
It was familiar, a dull throbbing ache of an unhealed wound that he’d felt several times before around the school campus. It seemed the sickly man was coming down to see Recovery Girl for something. Maybe he needed medicine and left it in her care instead of risking dropping it in the excitement of the Festival? That would be a logical thing to do.
“My, my, it looks like you did hit it quite hard.” The petite woman gently prodded the area around it, earning another wince from him and getting a small jump from him as she drew his attention from the pain he was sensing. “It looks like you were right though. Nothing seems broken or fractured, just bruised. You probably didn’t need to come here for this, but I’m glad to have a student that takes their health so seriously. It’s far too easy to get lost in the excitement and neglect things…”
There was a light knock on the door, drawing a confused hum from Recovery Girl.
“Come in!” She called, looking over to see if it was another student who’d come. (She likely didn’t know it was the sickly man.)
A head of spiky blonde hair and nervous sunken eyes peeked inside, traces of hesitance and concern coloring the man’s emotions.
“Ah, Chiyo-san, I hope I’m not interrupting but…” He trailed off nervously.
“Can I see Niichan please?” Eri peeked shyly out from behind the man’s leg, her hands squeezing her kitty tight. He could feel Recovery Girl’s emotions warming and he could see her face softening at the sight of the little girl. He could also vaguely sense his mother waiting patiently in the hall. He wasn’t sure if she would try to come in as well, or if she would just wait for Eri.
“Well, I don’t see the harm in letting you come in for a little bit to say hello.”
Eri’s face brightened, even if she was still hugging her toy tightly. His little sister ducked around the man’s leg, hurrying over to where Izuku was sitting.
“Niichan… You did really good! E-even if you got an ouchie,” Eri’s words came out fast as she climbed up to sit next to him. “P-Present Mic said that it’s been a long time since someone in your class did so good!”
“I heard, it makes me really happy. I was worried I’d scared you when I fell.” He kept his voice soft, wrapping an arm over her shoulders to pulling her into a hug. She leaned into his side.
“A little bit, but Yagi-san said Recovery Girl’s quirk is good at fixing ouchies. So- so you’d be okay.”
“Yagi-san?” He repeated, his gaze sliding over to the blonde man who’d lead his mother and sister to the office. He’d stepped fully inside the room, waving slightly with a hesitant smile once he noticed Izuku looking at him.
Oh, that must be the sickly man’s name. Now he knew roughly what to call him. And, now that he was so close, Izuku could better sense the pain he was in. It felt like an old injury that never healed the way it should have, but like a reopened wound as well. (Something prone to agitation?) The pain took up most of his left side, likely extending out further than the actual injury itself, Izuku’s own side aching in sympathy because of the Miraculous.
He hoped the man would pick something up for himself. That felt really bad, and Izuku was only sensing the phantom of it.
It was nice of him to try and help Eri feel better about Izuku getting hurt. Eri had never actually sat in on any of his self-defense classes, so she’d never seen him actually getting hurt before. She’d seen the bruises after, but never how he got them. He really should have considered it when he and his mother had talked about actually attending the festival in person. He’d have to be more careful in the next event to avoid upsetting her even more.
“I-I wanna help Niichan’s ouchie get better…” Eri mumbled, fiddling with her toy. “You said I could help heal ouchies with my quirk.”
He felt a flare of surprise from Recovery Girl, but his focus was entirely on Eri.
“Well, I’m not sure if that would be okay right now. But it makes me really happy that you want to help with it.” He tightened his hug, trying to put all the warmth and pride he could into the action. So that, even if the teachers told her no, she would know that her offer meant a lot to him.
(Eri had been so scared of her own quirk for so long, so afraid she would hurt him or their mom if she tried to use it. The fact that she was able to think of using it to help, that it could be used to help, was a huge step forward for her. He didn’t want her to think that he was against her using it, for any reason.)
“You have a healing quirk, dear? May I ask how it works?” Recovery Girl seemed to pick up that there was something special about this, keeping her tone kind and gentle as she asked. Eri buried her face into his side, her horn lightly jabbing him with the action though he didn’t let himself react to it.
“U-uhm… N-niichan says it better than me.” A red eye peered up at him from behind long silver bangs. “T-tell please?”
“Okay, I can tell them for you, Eri-chan.” Izuku said, gently patting the top of her head. He looked up at the two teachers, his face turning serious. “Eri-chan’s quirk is called Rewind, at the moment. It’s called that because it looks like it’s able to rewind injuries that have happened within a certain time frame, and it only seems to work on living things. We can’t really afford more in-depth testing to be sure of how it does that or what the full time frame is, so she’s only used it on the plants around our apartment and on little animals that have gotten hurt around Eri-chan’s school.”
It was hard to find safe places to practice, especially where others wouldn’t be able to see. He’d brought Eri and his mother to one of his hiding places as Sasakia to practice before. It was well hidden and far from people that could be hurt by accident, which made it a safe place for Eri to use her quirk.
A fifty-year-old, abandoned hospital that was a two hour train-ride from their apartment building wasn’t the nicest place, as far as his mom had been concerned, but it was an effective one.
“Eri-chan can’t do it at any time though, she needs to build up energy for it. The amount built up it is measured by the size of Eri-chan’s horn, since it shrinks whenever she uses her quirk. We’re not sure if it stores the energy there or if her horn is just an indicator.” Izuku gently gestured to Eri’s horn, which was roughly 6 cm at the moment, making it just large enough for her to wrap her hand around it and still have the tip poke out. 10 cm was the longest it had ever gotten before Eri had gotten scared that she would hurt someone with it. “I’ve made a lot of educated guesses about how it works, since I study quirks to get better at quirk profiling. But they’re all just guesses right now and nothing really concrete. We don’t want to risk hurting Eri-chan by pushing it too hard or using it in ways that might hurt someone else.”
That, and if they put more work into learning how Eri’s quirk worked and getting it documented, then there was a higher chance of someone unsafe learning about her. Powerful quirks were noted by people, for good and bad reasons. He didn’t want to risk a Second Overhaul appearing in Eri’s life. Especially one in a position that could force them to give her up.
Like hell he would let another monster like that hurt his little sister. Not in this lifetime.
“Hm… That’s quite an impressive quirk.” Recovery Girl’s voice was calm and thoughtful, thought he could sense a level of interest from her underneath the professionalism. She Gave Eri a gentle smile. “I’ll tell you what, sweet heart, why don’t you help me tend to your Niichan? I can’t let you fully fix his ouchie with your quirk, since that wouldn’t be fair for other students that come by, but you can help get everything ready for me to use mine. Is that arlight with you?”
Eri tilted her head, her lip sticking out slightly as she thought about the teacher’s offer. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“Okay… I don’t wanna get anybody in trouble…” Eri mumbled. She felt a little disappointed, but she’d learned about fairness and how important it was. She pushed her toy into Izuku’s side before sliding off the cot and turning to Recovery Girl with a determined little frown.
Recovery Girl gave Eri some small instructions for things she could get to help. Izuku had a feeling that some of the things she asked for weren’t things she actually needed, but things that would let the six-year-old feel like she was helping. Some bandages and medicines for both his knee and elbow and a little jar of gummies. Yagi stood back by the door, leaning out to talk with their mother for a moment.
His mother must have opted to stay in the hall, though Izuku could sense the glow of joy and pride from her. She must have overheard Eri’s request, as well as how Recovery Girl handled it.
“Here, dearie. Eat a few of these while I wrap up your elbow, then I’ll use my quirk on your knee. Of the two, that will likely cause you the most trouble,” Recovery Girl said, passing him a few of the gummies from the bottle. She sat in a chair that rose up to make it easier for her to reach his arm. “My quirk uses up my patient’s stamina to heal them, so it usually tires folk out rather quickly. Eating these will help you keep your energy up for the rest of the festival.”
“Yes, Recovery Girl-sensei. Thank you,” Izuku said, nodding as he quickly ate the offered sweets.
He probably wouldn’t actually need the help from the gummies, considering how energetic his magic made him on bright, sunny days like there was today. However, it would be rude to refuse them when he was already taking the time to have his injuries checked. More so when it was obviously part of the standard care that every person that visited the school’s nurse received.
Recovery Girl planted a kiss on his knee and Izuku felt the pain from both injuries disappear in a few seconds. She looked him over critically, a flicker of surprise in her emotions before speaking up.
“Ah, you have a passive quirk, dear? That should have only fixed up your knee but it felt like both healed unusually fast…”
Izuku startled. Shoot, it seemed his magic took to the help from Recovery Girl’s quirk better than he’d thought it would.
“N-no, ma’am. I don’t… I don’t have a quirk,” he stuttered out, rushing to think of an explanation that would make sense. He hoped they would think the stutter was from admitting he was quirkless to them. “But, um, we drink a lot of herbal and medicinal teas at home. Maybe the extra vitamins from those helped?”
“It’s possible… Do you have them often at home?” She asked, inclining her head at him.
“Yeah, we do. One of the breakfast tea blends my mom uses a lot has echinacea in it. We also make ginger cookies and fennel-seed muffins pretty often,” Izuku explained.
Echinacea was an herb that helped the immune-system, making it easier to fight off infections and good prevention for getting sick. Ginger root helped with nausea and stimulated the digestive track, it was often used to help with seasickness. Fennel seeds helped digestion and improved nutrient absorption. The threads of magic Izuku and his mother had learned to weave into their baking and brewing helped strengthen those traits. They couldn’t cure people overnight with their foods, but they could certainly cut down recovery time with it.
Recovery Girl nodded slowly.
“Yes, that would certainly make a difference,” she said, smiling at him. “Well, you should head back to the stadium though, dear. I’m sure they’re going to start setting up the second event soon, and you wouldn’t want to be late.”
“Ah! Right! Thank you for fixing me up, Recovery Girl-sensei.” He hopped off the cot, pausing long enough to pass Eri her toy and snag his umbrella. He bowed to the blonde man, Yagi, once he was in the hallway. “Thank you for helping Eri-chan, Yagi-san. You should take something for your side while you’re here, I’m sure it’ll help you feel better too. I’ll keep my eye out for all of you in the stands!”
With that, he turned on his heel and started running to get back to the stadium. He didn’t want to find out if being late to the stadium change-over would result in being disqualified.
Behind him, Yagi jolted in surprise.
“How did you…?” He muttered, staring at the boy’s back before he turned a corner and left his line of sight.
Hidden in Inko’s purse, Nooroo dropped his face in his hands as Duusu struggled to muffle her giggles before Yagi could hear them. After all, a giggling handbag would be strange, even in a world of superpowers.
“Our little fledgling needs to get better at keeping his thoughts secret,” Duusu whispered between her muffled giggles. “Yagi-san didn’t mention hurting today, and certainly not where Izu-chan could have heard him.”
“Izu-bocchan’s usually much better at it…” Nooroo whispered back with a sigh. The butterfly kwami frowned in thought, glancing in the direction of the pain he could sense. “But Yagi-san is carrying a lot of pain with him. Much more than I’d realized…”
“Yes, his pain is rather loud, isn’t it? I can almost pick out where exactly he’s hurting myself, and I’m not even built for that,” the peafowl kwami said. She cocked her head to the side in contemplation. “Should we toss ideas to Izu-chan about it? Between his cleverness and our powers, we could probably do something to fix it. There are plenty of people who care for him enough to accept a Kamiko or an Amok if it meant healing him for good.”
“Hmm… I’m not sure, it’s not our secret to tell. At least, not in this world,” Nooroo murmured. “Well meaning though it would be, I don’t think Yagi-san would accept if Izu-bocchan offered. No matter which name he was using when he did.”
Sometimes, inter-dimensional/reality knowledge was very troublesome. Especially when they couldn’t think of good ways to share it with their chosen. It made giving advice to the humans using their powers much easier, they could Know so much more than they should about how things were. However, sometimes it was very difficult finding ways to share the things they knew that they’d never had revealed to them in a particular world that they instead knew from a different version of themselves. Not to mention the restrictions placed on them by the Order about how much they could tell people…
The fact that he knew this information would matter to his chosen made it more than a little frustrating that he couldn’t share it.
Duusu let out a little hum. “We’ll have to put a pin in the thought for later, then. I’m sure we can figure out a way to drop hints about it.”
Duusu managed to convince Nooroo to slip out of the handbag to a better place to watch the event as Inko and Eri were lead back to their seats by Yagi. His sibling had made a fair point about them not being able to see the games very well from inside it. So, as long as they were careful about where they decided to watch from, they would have a better vantage point from a different spot in the stadium.
He’d told Inko in a whisper about their idea so she wouldn’t worry about where the two of them had gone when she opened her bag later. Then the two kwami had slipped out to find a better place for them to watch from.
Which happened to be right on top of the announcer’s box.
It was a fairly good spot for them, being too high for anyone in the audience to see them and in a place that no one but the staff was allowed to approach. The gravel covered top was nice and big so no one walking toward it would see them sitting atop it.
Nooroo actually quite liked the spot, even if it was further from Izuku than he normally would have liked to be.
Capture the Flag was an interesting choice for the second event, especially since the teams had been split in four instead of the usual two that was normally used to play. It seemed like it had been combined with the American school game flag football with different points assigned to the flags based on where everyone placed.
The top four from the race where made into team leaders, the kids who place from 5 to 12 acting as deputy leaders with a limit of two to each team to keep things decently fair across the board.
1st place had the most points, a stupid high value that had painted a giant target on the back of the girl who’d placed first. (Shiozaki was the girl’s name. He was kind of impressed by her quirk. It was shockingly versatile during the race.) Her flag was worth so many points that her team wouldn’t even need to go after other teams to have enough points to advance to the tournament. If anything, they would just need to focus on remaining on the defensive for the time limit.
2nd to 4th place were all worth roughly the same number of points but far less than first place, making them all roughly even with each other while still motivating their teams to go after the girl in first place. The students in 5th to 12th had fewer points than the leaders, but collecting them together would allow their team to place just fine. Everyone in 13th to 20th places had flags too, but their points were much smaller compared to the leaders and deputies. Though, if his math was right, a team could potentially place in the tournament if they focused on just gathering the lower ranked numbers.
21st place to 40th had flags, but their points were piddling compared to everyone else. Their placement chances hung entirely off of the rest of their peers.
The girl in first place, Shiozaki, had the highest number of points for her flag. Which meant the largest number of students had flocked to her. Her flag’s point value was enough to carry the rest of her team to victory, even if they lost the rest of their team’s flags. He thought it was interesting that Bakugo hadn’t joined her team. Then again, he may have picked a different team for the express purpose of being able to take the points from her.
From what Nooroo had gathered, he was certainly competitive enough to think like that.
“Ooo~ The speedy boy’s joined our fledgling’s team! He looks funny doing that stiff wave of his. Do you think his quirk makes him have to move like that?” Duusu asked, pointing to where Izuku and his friends were gathered around the Bird-Headed boy who’d managed to place in the top four.
(Since they were more in the open than usual they had agreed to stick to nicknames for their chosen in case anyone heard them speaking.)
“Maybe? I think he has the same name as a hero Bocchan likes and their family’s quirk is rather mechanical looking. So it could be a side effect of it.” Nooroo commented. “Oh, the Ice boy is joining them too. He’s been quite impressive so far.”
“Hmm… Yes, but he’s so gloomy about it. It’s like he doesn’t even want to be here. That doesn’t seem like a good trait for someone that wants to be a hero.” Duusu rocked in place with her tail feathers wiggling behind her. “Everyone’s been saying he’s that angry Firey-man’s son, do you think he’s forcing the kid to be here?”
“It’s possible. He could just not like crowds, though. According to Bocchan’s hero course friend, when she talks about her class, he’s usually really reserved and quiet.”
“I hope it’s just crowd-shyness. Otherwise, he’s not going to do too well as a hero. People can tell when someone’s heart isn’t in the work they do, and if he doesn’t really want to be one but is being forced to do it…” Duusu sighed, flopping onto her front as more students split off to even out the teams. “Unless he’s just doing it until he’s old enough to take off without his dad’s permission for it. Letting the guy get what he wants until he’s old enough that the old man can’t get away with telling him what to do anymore. Or maybe he’s waiting until All Might retires? Competing with him is usually the reason his old man makes him do it, right? He can’t do that if All Might retires before he graduates.”
“That would make more sense, if he’s picked up on the way All Might’s appearances have lessened over the past few years. I doubt his parent has noticed that anything’s changed. Or, if he has noticed, I don’t think he’s considered “retirement” as a possible reason for it,” the butterfly kwami said, nibbling at a treat he’d managed to sneak up with them. “All Might’s PR agents have done too well at making him seem more-than-human to the public. I’d honestly be surprised if, when he does finally pass away, the country decided to elevate him to divinity status. Build a shrine somewhere near his Hero Office in Tokyo or in Musutafu that’s dedicated to him so people can leave offerings and prayers.”
They’d done it for a cute and deeply lovable train station cat before and people still visited her shrine today. A hero as praised and beloved as All Might was practically a shoe-in for the same treatment. He was practically already receiving worship as a deity, what with the way people acted about his “Symbol of Peace” title.
Nooroo turned back to the stadium as it began to rumble, the vibrations felt as far as the announcer’s box they were sitting atop of. The giant stadium rearranged itself before everyone’s eyes; turning the area the students were in into a playground for the students to race about in.
Well, that looked more fun than just an open, flat ring for them all!
“How fun! I wish we could play too. Do you think we could talk our fledgling into making the old community center into a place to play? There’s enough trash on the beach that we could make all kinds of fun things,” Duusu asked wistfully.
Nooroo couldn’t remember the last time all the kwami had gotten the chance to just run around and play. The Order spent so much time restricting them and keeping them locked in the Miracle Boxes for when the world needed them, it was really hard to remember a time when they were allowed to just have fun for a little while…
(His feelings about those days were a strange conundrum. On one side, he understood the worry the Sage and Guardians had about people abusing their powers. He now knew first hand how it much it hurt to be used to cause harm instead of helping better the world. On the other, he had wanted to be corporal to be part of the world as more than just another observer. Being locked away and treated like a dangerous tool instead of a living being was just the opposite of why he’d asked the Sage for a Miraculous in the first place.)
“Hm… We could always try. I bet Bocchan and his friends would like a place to run around in too. Treating the beach like a scavenger hunt could be fun.”
Present Mic announced the pregame timer, ten minutes for everyone to talk and come up with their plans for the game and how they would use the space their team was stationed in by the teachers. Then the event would properly start.
He could see Izuku waving his hand as he gestured something to the team he’d joined, two of his friends close by while the third (Hatsume, he was fairly certain) bounced around the group. Likely passing out more of her support gear for everyone to use.
He had faith in his Chosen’s planning skills; he was sure they would do well. His nerves hid just how clever he really was. But he knew Izuku’s friends would listen to him and push for the rest of their team to listen too.
The stadium glitched before his eyes making the kwami jump and squeak in alarm. Duusu chirped loudly beside him. There was a muffled yelp from the commentator’s box beneath the two as well, something thumping loudly inside. (It sounded like someone falling out of their chair.)
Thankfully, it seemed the commentating heroes had turned off their mics to chat for a few moments in private. (Present Mic would have blasted the stadium’s eardrums if his microphone had been on.)
He quickly rubbed at his eyes, blinking at the… Whatever it was he’d seen. It was gone almost as soon at it had appeared.
“Nooroo, you saw that too, right?” Duusu asked, looking over at him. He nodded, looking down at the booth below them. Where they the only ones to see it? Had the humans seen it too?
Both Kwami stuck their heads through the roof of the commentator’s box, keeping far back to avoid being spotted by the two humans inside.
“What on- What the hell was that?!” Present Mic’s voice was even louder without the cement acting as a buffer for them. It seemed that he was the one to fall out of his chair since he was sitting on the floor staring up at the window to the stadium.
Eraserhead was standing, one arm still in a cast but the other was pressed flat against the table as he stared out with his quirk active, glowing red eyes flicking about the audience.
“I… I’m not sure. I can’t see anyone with their quirks active…” Eraserhead muttered, his quirk stopping and his hair falling back over his shoulders once more. “No, it doesn’t seem like someone’s trying to maintain or activate a quirk. And it only happened for a split second.”
Well, that ruled out one possible source then. It Eraserhead’s quirk wasn’t catching anyone then the strange effect probably wasn’t due to a human’s quirk. That meant it was probably something magical, then.
Nooroo stretched out his senses, looking past the material world to the planes that only a kwami could see unassisted.
That was- !
Nooroo shot out of the room with a tiny, barely audible gasp, bouncing higher into the air and spinning in place to see more. (He barely heard Duusu’s frantically hissed “Nooroo, get down! You’re gonna get seen!”)
Ripples like a stone thrown into a still pond, echoes in the fabric of all things, were bouncing through the planes beyond. They were just on the edge of the center-most point. Just enough to see an echo of whatever it was. That’s what they had seen, an echo. But an echo of what?
He squinted, trying to better see which planes were being effected.
That looked like…
The door to the booth slammed open in the same instant Duusu grabbed him and yanked him down behind the only place there was to hide atop the box.
He pressed both hands over his mouth at the scolding look his sibling gave, shrinking in on himself and partially sinking into the roof to stay hidden from the humans in case they tried to look if there was anyone above them. They waited for the sound of hushed conversation and moving humans to stop and the door closing again before they left their tiny hiding spot.
“Sorry, I got so focused on what I was trying to see, I forgot where we were for a second,” he apologized sheepishly.
“Our little fledgling is rubbing off on you, Nooroo,” Duusu said, shaking her head in amusement at him. “You’re usually the one fussing over staying hidden from humans we don’t know.”
He shrugged with an embarrassed giggle.
“Sorry… But I think I figured out what we saw?”
“What was it? I didn’t look through the planes like you did,” the peahen kwami asked, leaning forward curiously.
“Time. We were seeing time ripples. You know, echoes of things that will or might happen,” Nooroo explained. “When I looked through to the planes, I could see them echoing all the way to here. It looks like there’ll be more later.”
Duusu’s eyes widened, her tail feathers flaring out.
“B-but that’s… That only happens when one of Sass’s users overdoes it! Well, not just Sass, but we see it way more with Sass’s hatchlings than Fluff’s little buns. But he usually makes sure they’re super-duper careful to not do that.”
“I know… I think that means something big must be happening soon. Or, at least, something that Sass is willing to let his holder go overboard to fix.” Nooroo drifted back down to properly sit on the gravel atop the booth. “We’ll need to keep our eyes out. If Sass has been using his powers a bunch, then there’s a chance his holder’s found ours.”
“Should we warn our fledgling? It might scare him if he doesn’t expect it…” Duusu frowned down at the students far below.
“I don’t know if we can. Bocchan’s managed to remove most of the blocks so we can talk to him as much as we like but… A lot of the Order’s rules are still in place. Even if they might be gone, it’s hard to remove rules that we can’t even tell him about.” Nooroo sulked for a moment, laying down to peer over the edge more easily. “Unless Bocchan asks directly, we can’t tell him much at all. And even then, we can’t directly tell humans very much about other kwami.”
He and Duusu were supporters; their powers were meant to help and support the other Miraculous wielders. Because of that, they were allowed far more wiggle room to tell their chosen about the other miraculous. Much more than their fellow kwami were allowed to tell.
After all, how could they make champions and amoks to help their fellows if their chosen didn’t know what they might need?
“The heroes in the booth are detective-y so they were observant enough to see the echoes. Though it doesn’t sound like the rest of the stadium did. I guess we’ll have to wait until there’s time to sneak down and ask our fledgling if he saw them. He’s good at asking questions so we should be able to tell him enough…”
The buzzer rang, making both kwami jump.
“Oh, I guess it’s time for them to start.” Nooroo gave a nervous laugh. “Gosh, that timer startled me…”
Duusu let out a nervous giggle of her own.
“We… We should just focus on cheering for our fledgling. We can talk about serious things later.” The peahen kwami laid down beside the butterfly, watching as the students started playing. Dashing around the field to chase each other down and collect the points their team needed to be part of the final event’s tournament.
Izuku’s team seemed to be moving in a very calculated way, from what Nooroo could see.
He thought he could see a divide between attackers and defenders amongst the team, with his chosen taking a higher vantage point to observe thanks to an icy bluff made by the Icy boy. Their team leader took refuge in the bluff’s shadow; which seemed to make his own shadow powers even stronger. The speedy boy and Hatsume looked to be acting as distractions, their loud and obvious natures drawing attention as they went after the flags of other teams. He could spot Shinso, Hagakure, and one of Hagakure’s class friends (Asui, if he remembered right) slipping around in the wakes of other students. The fighting between all the teams acting as camouflage for them to sneak around and steal flags without being noticed.
The kids in their team seemed to be work very well together, much to his delight. A fairly good balance of offense, defense, and subtlety. (He hoped that meant his chosen would be walking away with more friends.)
They didn’t go after the 1st place flag, going after the lower point flags instead. Which was a better strategy in Nooroo’s opinion. It was better for them to just focus on getting the points they needed to do well instead of going after the highest score possible. Unseating the top student was less important than just doing what they needed to progress to the next event.
He and Duusu made their own comments about what they saw being done, occasionally making a slightly sassy joke at something that Present Mic or Eraserhead said over the radio.
(The two were very funny together. Like an improv comedy duo.)
Both Kwami had cheered loudly as Izuku’s team got second place. The team his former childhood friend was on taking 1st because of the blonde’s fierce determination to get the first place flag and netting them the leading spot.
But the fact that it left an even 20 students for the tournament was a little odd.
Three of Izuku’s teammates chose to stand down from the tournament; the bright little inventor, the invisible girl, and the frog girl. The three had, apparently, been quite satisfied with the showing they’d made already and didn’t feel like they needed to take part in the on-on-one battles. One member of the first place team felt the same and also chose to bow out of the tournament.
Midnight allowed it, presenting it as noble to see your own limits and a reasonable choice to make.
Nooroo was fairly certain it was actually because it saved the teachers from having to do a mini-game of some kind to eliminate four of the students from the total to even out the tournament bracket. Or having to do something silly like having the first rounds of the tournament be three person bouts with only one person being allowed to move on. Which could have worked but it would have dragged out the Festival even longer. Something the audience might not have been too pleased with considering how much the race alone had stretched out the day’s schedule already.
“Should we check in on our fledgling?” Duusu asked, looking over at Nooroo. The butterfly Kwami rocked in place, humming in thought.
“I think… You should check in with Bocchan’s mother. She’s wearing your broach, so she may have noticed the ripple and be worried about it. I’m sure learning that it’s harm would put her mind at ease. I’ll check on Bocchan and fill him in as best I can.”
“Ah… Yes, that’s probably a good idea. Knowing she can ask for my help would probably help too,” she said with a nod. “Good luck with our fledgling’s nerves!”
Nooroo let out a small sigh.
Yes, since it looked like Izuku was taking part in the tournament, his nerves were likely quite severe. Well it was a good thing Nooroo’d turned out to be quite skilled at easing anxious minds.
(And, better still for his chosen, it looked like Izuku’s match wasn’t the first one up. So he had time to help his chosen calm himself and not melt into an anxiety puddle before the match would actually start.)
He phased into the stonework so he could make his way to the student boxes unseen.
It was better to start now than wait until later.
Afterword: Like I said in the foreword at the top, the second event was giving me a lot of trouble and I genuinely couldn’t figure out how to tackle it. Also, getting hit by brain fog. Every time I tried to sit down and write. That didn’t help me out either.
But! I’ve managed to share some more information, get characters to talk to each other and interact in this. So I’m pleased with what I have for this part even if it’s not as long or involved as I originally wanted it to be.
My mom started reading my story too, as I’ve been posting it here on Patreon and she follows me. (Hi mom, love you!)
She has informed me that I do a LOT of run-on sentences in my story so I’m gonna work on that. Break them up to be separate/single sentences instead. She has also told me that, if I was able to swap out names for original stuff instead, my story could be an original book if I wanted it to be. Very high praise and it’s definitely planted ideas in my brain and I’m gonna see what grows from them.
See you all in the next update whenever I finish it!
