Not powerless

Chapter 24: Representative

Despite Nezu’s ominous statement, classes for the rest of the week weren’t out of the ordinary. Or at least, they weren’t out of the ordinary for UA. Friday was normal classes and then their heroics lesson was being grilled by Aizawa on everything they knew about improving their quirks. What had they done in the past, what worked, what didn’t work, things like that. For Izuku, it was a matter of remembering the times he’d messed up a spell when casting it for the first time. Thankfully he hadn’t suffered any permanent injuries doing so.

He was surprised when Kirishima invited him to an arcade. Apparently he’d invited a few other people in the class but they all had plans. Having never been to an arcade before, Izuku didn’t know what to expect, and when the other boy found that out, he took it as his own personal mission to show him every possible thing there was to do. It was quite fun, and they both had a good time. Nezu didn’t ask why he came home with a big smile on his face. Was this what having friends was like?

If it was, Izuku was definitely a fan.

The weekend passed by quickly with him juggling messages from both Kirishima and Kaminari. Apparently both boys were big texters and had no qualms with blowing up his phone for hours if he didn’t respond. It was a little overwhelming but neither of them seemed to mind if he took a while to actually reply to them. When he asked, Kirishima said sometimes he needed to put his thoughts somewhere and he knew that Izuku was probably busy when he didn’t respond. Kaminari was simply surprised he hadn’t been muted already.

On Monday, Izuku was confused when the rest of the class seemed to be later than they had been last week. He leaned forward and spoke to Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, both of whom always arrived early like him.

“Where is everyone?” he asked.

“There’s a lot of reporters by the main entrance so they’re probably being delayed by that,” Yaoyorozu said, “I only got past them because my driver was given access to one of the UA parking lots.”

“Same,” Todoroki said.

Not long after, their classmates started arriving. Some looked ruffled and stories filtered through the room about everyone’s experience dealing with the press.

“I totally panicked!” Uraraka said, “they asked me what All Might’s like as a teacher and my mind just went blank. All I could think of was he’s super muscly!”

Suddenly Izuku was very glad he hadn’t been caught by the press himself. He probably would have been able to hold his tongue and not publicly berate the number one hero, but it would have been a close thing.

“Glad I got here early then,” he said.

“You must have been really early! Even Iida got caught by them!” Kaminari said.

“Why did those people seem so bored? I was simply answering their questions,” Iida grumbled to himself.

“Because they weren’t looking for answers. They just wanted sound bites they could use,” Izuku said, somewhat bitterly.

While he didn’t have an issue with the fame side of heroics, the press were something he didn’t like all that much, or rather he didn’t like the paparazzi. It was partially because of them that his father kept his family a secret in the first place.

The door to the classroom slammed open and Aizawa stormed in. One didn’t need Izuku’s Sight to see the storm clouds over his head, and the class fell silent and rushed to their seats by the time he reached the teachers podium. He glanced over each of them and seemed to find whatever he was looking for, because he nodded and straightened up the papers he was carrying.

“Today you’ll decide something that could affect your entire time here at UA.”

When the class seemed sufficiently nervous, he continued.