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Things were too peaceful, for too long. Only so much of the quiet could be attributed to the presence of the Number One Hero being in Musutafu.
But the rest?
It meant a Storm was coming.
Chapter 9: The Unforeseen Simulation Joint (Part 1)
One week before the UA Entrance Exams
Izuku couldn’t decide if he wanted to groan in frustration or melt into a puddle of second-hand anxiety. Both were highly tempting at the current moment.
“Wanaguchi-san, please. Walk me through this, because I’m having trouble understanding your logic here.” He was trying, really trying, not to let his tone get waspish with his contact. But the idea that the crocodile-quirked man had, apparently, come up with between the last time Izuku had spoken to him and their current conversation was… Well, stressful for him. Because he was empathetic and prone to worrying about people whom he somewhat cared for. (And Wanaguchi had grown on him. Like a fungus.)
The man felt just the smallest bit sheepish, but the rest of him felt stubborn and wholly unrepentant for the gray hairs he was giving Izuku.
“I signed up with the League a month ago. They were being too close-lipped to anyone who ain’t with them for me to get info for ya.” The man gave his head a shake. “It was the easiest way to get on their good sides and get the actual useful shit. ‘Sides, I’m just hired muscle for a job they’re planning. Nobody they’d be watching too closely.”
Izuku wanted to scream. That wasn’t the point. The point was that this was dangerous. That putting himself in that position would put him at risk!
Neither of them trusted the League. They were dangerous; they were an unknown to the underground. They kept their information too close, and that made them far more dangerous than any other group on the streets. Because they knew how to hide what they were doing, that implied more experience than the age of their group presented. If they were able to hide so much information, then they must have very good methods for keeping it all in-house.
And Wanaguchi was putting himself right in their path, under their potential watch, and putting himself at far more risk than Izuku would have wanted him to take.
Izuku had to talk him out of this. He had to. He had to at least try to convince the man to do something else.
“But you still don’t trust them, they’re far too dicey for your tastes. You’ve said before that there’s something rotten about them.”
“Oh hell yes, I trust them about as far as someone without arms could chuck a tank! But I couldn’t say what’s wrong with ‘em without getting closer. Besides, you’re gonna be glad I did once I dish the news I’ve managed to get out of them.” Wanaguchi’s emotions shifted to something more smug. Proud of his own cleverness, and proud that he’d gotten something that he thought was very good for Izuku.
“And that would be…?” He was almost afraid to ask, but he knew he was losing ground on getting Wanagichi to bail out while he still could. His emotions were too firm. Too resolved. The crook’s mood took a downturn, becoming far more serious at his question.
“The big plan they got in the works? They’re gonna stage an attack on one of the local hero schools. Not sure which one yet, but they want to freak the city out by breaching the defenses of one of the schools. They got a guy with a quirk that can, apparently, let them past the security and dump a bunch of goons right in.”
“What?” Izuku felt his stomach drop, horror trailing up his spine.
An attack on one of the schools? Full of students? Many of them weren’t even trained for combat in the first place. Only the students in the Hero Courses would have been taught how to use their quirks in a fight. If they could get past the security and unleash a bunch of villains directly into the school grounds…
That would be horrible. So many people could be hurt, or worse. That wasn’t even getting into how the public would react to hearing about a disaster like that…
“Yeah. Personally, I don’t think it’s gonna work out too well. I mean, sure, the brats ain’t trained enough yet but the teachers’ll drop everything to stop it before things can get too far outa hand,” Wanaguchi grunted. His emotions were… Calmer than Izuku expected them to be, after dropping a bombshell like that. “The whole lot’ll probably end up behind bars in the end. I’ve seen a lot of these guys before, and they’re honestly pretty shitty fighters. They’ll go down fast once the pros jump in. That said, I’d be down for a knock-down-drag-out with some of those hero teachers. Sounds like a great time to me!”
Wanaguchi’s fight-junkie excitement, mixed with the oddly level-headed feelings, helped combat Izuku’s anxiety.
“I-I see…” There was a moment’s pause, then the tall man spoke again.
“Look, I know how you are about kids being in danger, but I don’t think it’s gonna be as bad as whatever you’re thinking of. Especially after you tell the schools about it.” Wanaguchi wasn’t soft and would deck anyone who tried to claim he was, but there was definitely something more to his tone. He knew how much work Izuku put into helping kids, into keeping them safe from people who tried to hurt them.
“I… Suppose you have a point. With this much warning, they should be able to mitigate it fairly well.” Izuku let a slow breath out, still slowly rubbing at the head of his cane in a vague attempt to help further calm his nerves. Izuku knew enough heroes that the message could reach all the schools in a very short time. He could make it better. He could give them the information they needed. “Thank you for informing me. But, please, be careful. We don’t know what they might do to you if they think you’re a mole.”
“You got it. I’ll try to keep you posted, but it’s gonna be a little harder for me to slip away now.”
“Alright. I’ll try to send more of my butterflies to the area, then. I can at least make it a little easier to find them without arousing suspicion.” It would lead to more strain, but he wouldn’t leave his contact alone. Not when he was taking such a large risk to keep him in the loop. He needed to make sure Wanaguchi had as many opportunities to talk to him as possible.
“Good. Now go tell the rest of the network about this. The sooner the better.” Wanaguchi let go of the butterfly resting on his fingers, and the connection was cut.
Izuku let himself sink to the stone bench in his current hiding place. It was an abandoned building near Takoba beach, a community center that had long since fallen out of use. Likely just before the beach became a dumping ground for trash and garbage. (It was a shame that the beach had become so thoroughly forgotten. According to his mom, it used to be very beautiful.)
He clenched the cane tight in his hands, resting his head against the top, taking long and slow breaths to help calm his nerves.
This was big. This was a lot bigger than he was used to.
He was used to smaller, more contained cases. Ones where he worked with heroes and officers as just a tipster. Where they were focused on a case that was either solved quickly or required others to carry the brunt of the work. Ones that had much smaller groups at their center. He’d handled gangs, beginner traffickers, and even yakuza. But those had felt smaller. Those he’d had other places he could look to for patterns and calculating their moves and goals. They had standards and clear goals that he could chase. Things that made sense, and he could backtrack their actions to understand what they were planning.
(Eri had been an exception. One he’d made at the pleas of both her and one who saw her suffering and knew they would never be able to save her alone.)
The League, however, sounded as though it was something far bigger. Based on what he’d gathered so far, they had been gathering a tremendous number of crooks and criminals to their cause, whatever it actually was.
And, worse, there was an age to them. They seemed new at first glance, but they radiated too much experience. They had resources that appealed to the people they reached out to. They had tools, weapons, and equipment to suit the people they hired. Whoever was in charge knew what they were doing. And Izuku didn’t.
Compared to them, Izuku was flying blind. He didn’t know what he was looking for, he didn’t know what trails to chase, he didn’t know what leads to follow. They scared him.
They scared him.
He let out the breath he’d been holding.
He needed to calm down. There were more important things that he needed to focus on. Like reporting the potential attack before it could happen. The sooner the schools knew to be wary, the safer everyone would be.
Flashstep worked with Eraserhead, who worked at UA. The chances that he would speak to Eraserhead directly were slim, so he would be better off trying to alert any heroes that had a connection to a teacher than trying to find one himself. If his memory was right, there was another hero whose route was much further out, but they knew someone who worked at Shiketsu. Hopefully, if they listened to what he had to say, they would be willing to pass the information on to the other schools that were close enough to Musutafu to potentially be targeted.
They were early enough in the school years that upgrading their security was possible to do without tipping anyone off. It would be easy enough to do even with the influx of testing students. (At least, Izuku thought it would be easy.) If anything, many of the schools could disguise it as preparing for the tests.
Sometimes adults, like parents or teachers, would accompany a students to the exams. Often as moral support, but Izuku had heard that sometimes those adults would try to help the student cheat. It was rare, but not unheard of, for a desperate parent or teacher who really wanted their kid to get in to attempt to sway the results in favor of their child. So putting in extra security and telling their school boards it was to prevent those tag-alongs from trying to help their student cheat would be a serviceable excuse.
It would take his butterflies a while to reach the hero’s route, so he would have to stay transformed until then. As much as he wanted to drop it and curl up in his bed already, he would have to wait until after he’d spoken to one of them.
The lack of sleep would be worth it.
(As long as the schools took him seriously. Stars, he hoped they would listen.)
Two Weeks after the First Day of UA
It was after Izuku had settled into a new rhythm at his new school, and even made some friends, that something finally knocked the temporary peace off balance. And brought his fears of the League back to roost.
It came in two parts.
The first was because of the press. Somehow, they had broken onto the school’s campus in a desperate bid to interview All Might on his new role as a UA teacher. Not believing, or refusing to believe, the other teachers on the staff when they said that he had the day off and wasn’t there. And terrifying the students in the school with their complete lack of tact or self-control.
(It really made him understand why so many people referred to reporters as “vultures”. He knew their determination was a point of annoyance, but their total disregard of the law in favor of their fifteen minutes of second-hand fame was disgusting.)
Never mind the legal trouble they’d likely gotten themselves into for trespassing onto the school grounds as blatantly and violently as they had. UA was not public property, and only students and people with specific passes were allowed on the grounds. Something many of the veteran reporters had known and had hung back because of. He couldn’t help wondering how the green-horn ones planned to explain to their bosses why they got arrested for illegally entering a location they knew they weren’t allowed in.
He knew one of the more experienced ones, who had been willing to have a normal chat with him after the break in, had held back and not actually gone in after the doors had been broken. She’d laughed and told Izuku that many of them were probably in deep trouble and would be locked into desk-duty for a long time for their stunt. (The woman had given Izuku her business card, saying that she’d enjoyed the chat and would be happy to have more with a business student who actually Got It.)
He’d gotten past them on the first day they’d camped outside the school by saying that he was in management and not heroics, so he didn’t have any classes with All Might. And that he was a minor and it was against the law for them to interview him without getting his mother’s permission.
The second day… The second day, he’d given them a dressing down worthy of both Nooroo and his mother when they’d tried to harass Hagakure and prevent her from getting inside. He was quite pleased with how abashed they were when he’d finished with them. One of them even apologized for being too pushy! Shinso had been relieved to come at that moment, since the scolded reporters held back and let him pass unaccosted.
Once they were safely behind the school walls, he’d told the two that no one was actually allowed to interview them without parental consent since they were minors. It was against libel laws for them to try and force them to answer questions without getting permission first. And that the best way to handle being ambushed by reporters to say “No Comment” and stick to that.
Shinso had commented that, whatever agency hired Izuku, he wanted to work there too. Because then he’d know no one would be able to pull crap with them without getting read the riot act. Hagakure agreed with him.
Izuku felt quite flattered by the comment.
(Behind them, Izuku got to watch as Mei took a group of recovering reporters hostage and pitched her inventions to them. He was fairly sure it was some of her self-defense ones instead of the ones made for heroes. He had thought it was funny to watch.)
The day had seemed fairly normal after that. Class proceeded as it always had for him, even if he was in a different, more tolerant school. Izuku kept his head down and worked hard in class to keep up the good grades he’d always had. Nooroo occupied himself with Izuku’s phone, comfortable in Izuku’s bag as he passed the time. Things had gone as they always had for him, just with Pro Heroes doing the teaching. Until lunch came, and the intruder alarm went off.
And Izuku felt… Something.
The rest of the school’s students panicked, but Izuku ducked into the smaller halls to avoid the chaos and find a place where the wild emotions weren’t as powerful. And to chase the strange, unfamiliar ping that had appeared on his mental radar.
“Izu-bocchan, do you sense that?” Nooroo had left his bag, fluttering through the air.
There had been something. A feeling of something darker, for just a moment, that appeared at the edge of their senses. He didn’t recognize it, but it made his hair stand on end. Something inside him said there was something wrong with whatever he was feeling.
“I do. We should go,” he said, carefully jogging after the strange feeling.
They didn’t manage to find the source before it vanished. Though they’d narrowed down where in the school it had come from. It was the teacher’s section of the school building, which had been empty since they’d had to both corral the panicked students and the trespassing members of the press.
Izuku had been forced to turn back before he could be found by a teacher and interrogated about why he had been there instead of evacuating with the rest of the student body. Even if it had been the press who had set off the alarms and the students hadn’t actually been in danger, he still would have been in a section of the school that he shouldn’t have been.
But Nooroo was able to check.
One of the rooms had been disturbed, the records room. However, he couldn’t say what had been done to it. He just didn’t know enough about what would be in that room to say for certain what was and wasn’t supposed to be there. But a drawer had been left just a little bit open, a chair left out instead of pushed into the desk it was next to, and a set of keys left in the lock of a cabinet instead of wherever they were supposed to be hung.
Things hadn’t been put away properly, but it would have been easily dismissed by anyone else. If not for the residue of that strange, darkened energy left on the objects in question that the kwami could sense.
Nooroo said it felt like something sickly and rotten. It was the only thingthe little kwami could find to describe it. The kind of rot that made your instincts tell you to leave it behind. To bury it, to keep your distance, to move away before the sickly rot had the chance to spread to you as well.
The kwami felt no fear of it, but he knew that was what Izuku would have felt if he’d come into contact with it. His chosen’s magic was younger, brighter, and more prone to recognizing something that would endanger it than someone as old and powerful as Nooroo would feel. Izuku’s instincts would have tried to drive him away from things that might hurt his young, fledgling magic. And, as such, would have prevented him from being able to examine it to find out what it was or what may have made it.
Nooroo wasn’t driven away by the power, but he hadn’t had the time to properly examine what he’d found before he had to hide.
The knowledge that someone had broken in at all drove Izuku up the walls over the following days.
He knew something was wrong. He knew something had been tampered with. He knew that someone had used the arrogant, excitable reporters and the panic they caused as a smokescreen. There had been more than one crime committed on UA’s grounds that day.
But he had no way to tell anyone.
Yes, he could say something as Sasakia. Except that would make people question how he knew that something in the office had been tampered with during the Press Break-In. Because that was something strangely specific to drop so quickly after an event like that. And it would make the staff start looking closer at the students.
Because, surely, his knowing would mean that a student had tipped him off. Eraserhead knew at least some of how his powers worked after all. He would surely tell the other teachers that Sasakia’s powers worked from both sensory and telepathy, and much of his knowledge came from connecting and conversing with someone. As such, a student would have had to’ve picked up one of his butterflies to speak with him. Moreover, it would make them question why a student would feel more comfortable speaking to a vigilante informant about their suspicions than they did one of their teachers.
Or, worse, they could think that he was part of the group that had broken into the school grounds that day. That he had been there and that was how he’d known that something had happened. Being accused of breaking in would damage his reputation and make them question his motives again. And he couldn’t afford that after the work he’d put into getting the heroes of the underground to trust him.
So he was left to stew in his nerves and wonder who had broken in and what they may have taken or looked at. To wallow in worry over what could have been taken and potentially used against the students or teachers later.
It was several days after that that his nerves finally got an answer. And it was worse than he’d ever thought it could be.
He had been working on his homework in the school’s library when it happened.
UA had an impressive library, much larger than any other school library that Izuku had seen or been in. And it was pretty too. With big bay windows that let in lots of sunlight, lots of lush, well-cared-for plants in its lobby, and very nice sculptures and paintings made by students and alumni. The inside walls were bare brickwork, giving the inside of the building a rustic, old academic feel. Like you had stepped into a historic library instead of the library of one of the biggest Heroics Schools in Japan. It stood tall in its own building on campus, much like a college or university’s library instead of a high school library.
UA was large and had far more optional lessons and courses compared to the average high school. As such, the library was built to accommodate the variety of texts to match them. Plenty of books had been added over the years, from students who’d graduated and heroes who had a soft spot for the school and its staff. Izuku had been surprised to find that, tucked away in a back corner, there was also quite a collection of fiction in the library. Some of it was even pre-quirk era!
(He had definitely made a few notes on series that caught his eye for things he wanted to come back and read later.)
Izuku had found a cozy corner that he liked on the second level with comfortable chairs and a table that was perfect for writing and research. It was tucked away, well hidden from the immediate eyes of any other students who came in. With some plush, cozy chairs and a large table that he could comfortably spread out on while doing research or homework, while still leaving room for others to share the space with him. He’d already had some of his new friends come and work on their homework with him in a comfortable little study space.
Izuku was lucky that he had the last period free, at the same time that the Hero Course students had their Heroics classes at the end of the school day. It meant he could retreat to the library and finish the brunt of his homework before he even had to get home! Which left him more time to spend with Eri and his mother after school.
He was doing just that, Nooroo taking the chance to slip out of his bag and sip at the little juice box they had brought for him. The Kwami had settled on the windowsill, listening and offering his thoughts as Izuku quietly read his work aloud. The familiar back-and-forth often helped. Saying his thoughts aloud helped keep him from making mistakes or chasing a bad train of thought.
It was peaceful. Productive. And both of them were perfectly relaxed as he worked. So, of course, that was the moment the world chose to chuck a curveball right at the back of Izuku’s metaphorical head.
The emotions slammed into him like a solid wall. Fast, sudden, and borderline painful.
Panic, Fear, Terror, Vicious Glee, Anger, Bloodlust- a wild cocktail of violence and danger that surged suddenly, the number of people on the school’s grounds drastically rising in the span of a few seconds. It brought Izuku to his knees, leaving him choking on air and gasping in alarm. He wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to fight, he was brave, he was terrified, he wanted to retch, it was all too much too sudden he was so so scared-
Those emotions weren’t his. It was a gasping realization he made from his place on the floor, shaking and trying to stay as quiet as he could make himself be. (Couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be found danger danger danger!)
Nooroo was pressed to his cheek, whispering frantic comfort and trying to get Izuku to come to his senses, to remember where he was, to gather himself together before someone came and saw them. He wasn’t alone, Izuku wasn’t alone, he needed to breathe, he couldn’t pass out here.
He sucked in a sharp, trembling breath. Forcing his lungs to work the way they were meant to.
“That’s it, Izu-bocchan. Keep breathing, I know you can do it. Let the feelings flow over you. Let them move around you; you won’t drown beneath them. It’s a wave, but one you can withstand.” Nooroo’s words were still soft and gentle in his ear. His quiet voice trying to both soothe and encourage his overwhelmed chosen. Izuku shuddered, struggling to listen to the kwami’s words.
Nooroo was right. He’d felt emotions like these before. He had withstood emotions like this before. This was sudden, but it wasn’t something he had never felt before.
But the fact that he was feeling it, so strong and so close, meant… That meant it was very close. On school grounds, even.
Except, this was UA. It was supposed to be safe. The school was supposed to be safe!
“Something’s wrong. Something’s very, very wrong,” he gasped out. The little kwami nuzzled close, their small weight present and grounding against the tide.
“I know, Izu-bocchan. But we can’t act here. We need to find somewhere else, somewhere that we won’t be seen before we can do something.” Izuku squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing back the bile in his throat.
Nooroo was right. He knew the kwami was.
They were in the school’s library. Anyone could see him, anyone could come across him, if he tried to use the miraculous there. Not to mention the risk of being seen on one of the school’s security cameras. If he wanted to find out what was going on, if he wanted to help, he needed to gather himself together and get out.
He forced his trembling limbs to work, grabbing his bag and shoving everything inside before rushing to the front door of the library. He needed to get off school grounds, or at least get to a spot that was outside the school’s security, so he could use the butterfly miraculous to find out what was going on.
(He had to know, he had to act!)
The school’s librarian almost tried to stop him, commenting about how pale he looked. But he kept moving, lying that he suddenly felt very sick and was heading to Recovery Girl’s office. She let him go without making a fuss.
As soon as he was outside the building, he burst into a sprint. He ran as fast as he could to get to one of the areas where he’d felt sure that there was as little chance of being seen as he could. The on-campus forest was gigantic and very far. But it was the only place he could think of in UA that might allow him to transform while still keeping his secret safe. He hoped that the plant life meant that there was very little security equipment that could potentially spot him.
The exit of the school was too far, and teachers would notice if he left campus before the school day had actually ended. The gate security system would notice and record that he’d left when he shouldn’t have, even if he had the last period before the end of the school day free. Which meant, as risky as it was, he needed to find someplace on the school’s campus to change. But the emotions he could feel told him that there wasn’t enough time for him to try and go further.
He was needed now. Sasakia was needed now.
The school’s woods were as thick as he’d hoped. Thick enough that no one would see him properly, and it grew thicker as it transitioned into the training grounds used by Hero students. Izuku didn’t need to reach that area. He just needed an area thick enough to hide in.
His eyes scanned for a place that was thick enough to hide his bag and far enough off the beaten path that no one would stumble across it and look for him.
He found it in a small hollow of a fallen tree, balanced on a boulder. UA’s grounds were grand and incredibly realistic. The forest had been first planted as a large garden during the school’s founding. The original garden had been moved closer to the library and the on-campus dorms used by some of the teachers. The wooded area once connected to it was expanded tremendously by a hero who’d worked at the school many years ago.
The teacher who had done it had wanted to create an area that could be used for forest disaster simulation as well as for training students in search and rescue. It was such an effective location that some law enforcement training camps and agencies were granted special passes by UA to train their officers and animals on their grounds. It was one of the many ways that UA maintained a positive relationship with the local law enforcement despite many of its alumni having to work around the law after graduation. Many students outside of the hero course were encouraged to sign up as volunteers for such lessons, giving them a taste of hero work and tools they could use to help their communities, even if they never tried to get a license. (Izuku was keeping a close eye on when those lessons opened up.)
He dumped his bag in the hollow beneath the fallen tree, praying that no one had seen him racing into the woods and that no one would find the hidden bag before he came back for it.
Now, all he could do was hope that no one saw him and that he had made the right choices.
“Nooroo! Light Wings Rise!”
Nooroo’s power wrapped over him and, for the first time in years, Sasakia acted during daylight hours. He formed his wings and lifted off, scattering his kamiko and butterflies and sending them ahead to the source of the intense emotions. He prayed that he would make it.
He prayed that, whatever was happening, he would make it in time to help.
His wings carried him far and fast. Despite his inexperience with them, he was able to fly quickly and high up in the air over the school grounds. (There was never enough space to safely train his wings where he wouldn’t be spotted.) He kept himself as high in the air as he dared, hoping he was high enough up that the students below wouldn’t see him. He might be willing to suffer a teacher’s notice, but only because he was flying toward an emergency. And leading them to it would surely help, even if it meant people finally had a description for the mysterious Sasakia.
He landed delicately on the glass roof of a domed building inside the school’s campus, carefully positioning himself on the wide, weblike dome of glass and steel that towered high over the ground. Kneeling gently on the steel in a place that he hoped would hide him, he peered through the opaque windows as best he could to see inside.
This was the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ, if he remembered right.
The USJ was one of the many prides of UA’s teaching faculties. He had seen it on the school maps in the student handbook and had read about it online. It was a specialized building that allowed the school to safely emulate various disaster scenarios and teach the students how to act and react to them safely. It was hailed as the most well-thought-out simulation buildings in Japan, able to replicate things like landslides, wildfires, floods, and more. The Space Hero: Thirteen, who worked for UA, was the one to design the building and all the ways to safely use it to its fullest potential.
And, with a terrified lurch in his gut, Izuku realized the building beneath his feet was full of villains. Big ones, small ones, armed and unarmed, physical and emitter, there were far more than he’d thought possible. All of them entered the school grounds without being detected until it was too late.
Wanaguchi’s warning from before the entrance exam rang in his ears as he stared at the plethora of people below.
The attack had come and UA was the target.
Afterword:
Part of the reason that Izuku had such a severe reaction is because of how QUICKLY the USJ attack started and how quickly the League of Villains appeared. Usually, when he senses a villain attack, everyone is already there and there’s an emotional build-up (of sorts) before things kick off. There’s an escalation that he can feel before the action starts properly.
Here, the villains had all been waiting for Kurogiri to open portals to set them loose and hadn’t been on school grounds before then. Up until they got the signal, they had been somewhere else.
So he’s being bombarded by a sudden influx of emotions AND people that hadn’t been there before, in addition to the sudden emotions from Class 1-A. He’s basically been blindsided and that’s why he has such a bad reaction.
