Izuku POV:
After our time off, classes began once more as normal. Unfortunately, those of us doing the internships were tasked with catching up on our own missed schoolwork. Thanks to this, the free time we would have is now filled with doing the work that would've been done in class. However, this was only going to be for another week since the internships were cut short due to the Hassaikai incident. "And that concludes what you missed thus far. Next week will be a test for this. Make sure you study."
"Yes sir." We we're dismissed from the class with Kirishima and Tokoyami hanging by the side of me with Tsu and Ochako on the other.
"So Usagiyama bro. How much trouble were you in after the big fight with your mom?" Kirishima asked for it to kinda remind me of my mom's reaction.
"She looked me square in the face, said you did good all things considered, smacked my back, and told me have fun with your harem raging. To a degree, she was right."
"Hey, we were only hard on you because you chose to go and do this on your own." Ochako points this out to me with Tsu looking on as if she agreed.
"To be honest, I see what Nejire meant when she said you didn't have a lot of choices in the matter and handled this the best you could, but that doesn't mean we liked it."
'Rub salt in the wounds why don't you.' I laughed this off a bit before trying to start another conversation. "Anyone have an idea for what to do for a Culture Festival idea?"
"Nah man. My idea got shot down."
"It is quite a predicament our class is in." Since the Culture Festival was coming up, Mr. Aizawa told us to start thinking of ideas and gave us a deadline to figure them out. If we don't, we'll be stuck basically doing a class as a performance.
"Anyone wanna try and talk it out in the dorms?" Tsu asked with it getting an idea for Ochako.
"Hey, that's an idea. Nejire's with her class talking about what they'll do and the same is said with Itsuka, Ibara, Yui, Pony and Kinoko."
"Actually, that would work since I want everyone's input onto what we need. I'm down for it if everyone else is." Everyone agreed with us putting it in the class group text that we'll talk about the Culture Festival at the 1-A dorms and that everyone's welcome to give their opinions. With this, we began heading back to change into something comfy before heading off to the first year dorms and starting a conversation.
Few hours later
'Why is this happening?' Everyone started to argue what we were going to do with each one of our classmates giving something different.
"I'm just saying, maybe do a maid cafe."
"Shut it, jamming yay. You just wanna see us in skimpy outfits."
"Can't we do a big block party? I mean it's fun!"
"Ashido. That is unpresentable as students of UA. You must understand that we are-"
"And you think having a book reading would be something people would want to do? If anyone comes, I think it'd be more to have a nap." Kaachan points this out to Iida for him to get a little annoyed. "If anything, we should have a battle ring where we can kick fucking ass."
"Something tells me that will just end in problems."
"SHUT IT, ICYHOT!"
'Can we please just pick a topic and stay with it.' I held my head while hearing everyone argue before a loud bull horn was heard to have us all stop and turn to Momo. There was a silence before Sero shouted.
"Are you trying to blow our ears off!?"
"Look. This is getting nowhere. We're all just throwing ideas out and not thinking how practical they are or if they'll even be liked. Now, Izuku. what do you think of the ideas thus far?" She turned the attention to me with looking at the ideas written down as a whole.
"Entirely speaking, any type of food stalls will be overshadowed I think since the concessions given by the school are also offered outside of any possible specialty stands made by schools. Any type of expo will be overshadowed since I heard from Hatsume that there is an expo done by the support course. At that point, it'd be more like we're trying to one up them and would give the wrong impression. Adding to this, a fight club or any type of reading won't work because we're not entertaining children or people in a fight club. A dance party could work, but you need more. It's something that in theory works, but it also looks lazy because there isn't more structure to it."
"So then what do you suggest?" Tsu asked for me to think about it as best as I can. At this point, I remembered something Todoroki told me about.
"Sero. How good are you with making designs on clothes? You said you dabble with it."
"Decently. Not gonna brag, but I do good work."
"Mina. If you had a choreography made for certain songs, could you teach a bunch of us how to dance?"
"Awww yeah, boy! You know I can."
"That can work. We'll also need help with some of our quirks and we can do special effects."
"What are you thinking of doing?" Toga asked for me to show for the most part what I have.
"Todoroki, do you still have that video bookmarked you showed me?" He nodded before going to the internet on his phone and showing us a dance concert that someone did. "Todoroki said he did something like this a while back with the remedial lessons for the Provisional and thought it was interesting."
"WHAT THE HECK DO YOU DO AT THESE REMEDIAL LESSONS!?" Mina shouted with it kinda surprising me as well.
"Well anyway, Kyoka knows how to play guitar and so do I, Momo knows how to play the keyboard, all we just need is a drummer."
"OH OH OH! I think Kaachan should be the drummer!" Toga immediately pointed out to Kaachan who started shouting.
"DON'T FUCKING ENLIST ME FOR SHIT!"
"You did say though you had to take drumming lessons as a kid." Kirishima sided with the idea with it somewhat impressing me.
"Fine! I'll be the fucking drummer! But if you can't follow my rhythm then that's not my fucking fault!" I smiled realizing that we finally had something on hand to start making decisions. Fortunately, everything was going smoothly after we had some kind of framework for everyone to start putting in their own opinions. The issue I faced though was....I was told to be the lead singer.
"Ummm. Can't someone else sing? I mean, Kyoka does this really good at singing as well and she'd probably do a much better job at performing."
"C'mon, Izuku. You can do it a lot better than anyone here. You've got a channel specified for it that Yui uploads a lot." Mina turned to Kyoka after this and tried to justify her comment a bit. "No offense."
"None taken. Shrub here should sing personally thinking."
I was for the most part put in a corner. Nobody thought I shouldn't sing with the thought of having to perform in front of a bunch of people being...well, frightening a bit. For better or worse though, I made my decision. "Ok."
"Yay! Alright, we need really good songs to dance to. So Kyoka, you're gonna help Izu do this. When you have the songs, I wanna listen to them so I can make a good dance choreography to it." Mina seemed excited for this with it confusing us all.
"If you put half this effort to your schoolwork, I think you'd easily be in the top 10 of our class."
"Hey, don't judge me Yaomomo." To be honest, I kinda agreed with Momo but chose not to speak as my focus was now with Kyoka for finding songs for the concert we were doing.
"So you want anything special? I know you like to do some with food meaning to them and give people good chills."
I thought about it for a second before getting an idea. "Any chance you'd wanna do something from Imagine Dragons?"
"Dude. Do you have to ask?" I smiled thinking this might be a little fun now that I'm thinking about it.
The weekend after
After we finished up at the dorms yesterday, Kyoka and I continued our work with figuring out what to sing and giving the ideas to Mina. First thing when school came around today was mention it to Mr. Aizawa to just make certain we have the all clear. We did with him saying we'd have enough time to do probably four songs that are five minutes max. I didn't think there was going to be a problem with stating this to everyone and them agreeing. I was though asked after saying this by our teacher if I could open my schedule this weekend. I agreed and went to meet up with him that Saturday to find Mirio. We were led out of the school and went towards a hospital.
"Sir. Are we going where I think we are?"
"To make it simple, she's been progressing well and is almost capable to leave the hospital. We've also been keeping her under strict isolation due to the unease with her quirk. She also hasn't caused any trouble for us where agreeing with the request to see you both not exactly being a problem for us." We checked into the front desk and was led down the hospital towards a room. When it opened, we were met with Eri glancing at us surprised.
"Eri. It's good to see you again." I was happy to see her with Mirio holding up a fruit basket he had.
"We got you a little gift. We didn't know what type of fruit you liked, so there's a bunch. Let me guess what fruit's your favorite. Peaches."
"...Apples."
"I get it. Cause they're sweet like you." He tried to recover with it not exactly sitting that easily. Eri then turned at me with confusion with it worrying me a little.
"Ummm. What's your name? I know Lumillion, but I never got yours."
"Oh, right. My name's Izuku Usagiyama."
"Usa...gi...ya...ma?" She tried to pronounce my last name with it forcing me to find a better name for her to use.
"You could also call me by my hero name, Okamure."
"Okamory?" I smiled a bit.
"You can just call me whatever you want if both are too hard for you."
She nodded before thinking with a hand on her chin and her other supporting her elbow before getting an idea. "What about Mr. Bunny."
"Pfft! Hahahaha! Kinda thought that nickname was gonna come to you, man. But it suits you." Mirio kept laughing at this with it being contagious to me a bit to laugh as well.
"Did I say something wrong?" Eri didn't understand it for me to explain.
"No. It's just a nickname that I was kinda expecting along with Mirio. It's ok to laugh."
She seemed to feel calmer with this before starting on something else. "But, I do want to say I'm sorry. It's because of my power that Lumillion lost his quirk. If it wasn't because of mine, he might still have it."
"It's not your fault, Eri. These things happen. And besides, I'm still who I am. A quirk doesn't make someone who they are. Their actions and what they think is right does. So what if I don't have a quirk right now, I'm all good now and nothing bad is happening. So don't worry about it."
"Mirio's right. It wasn't you that did this. Sometimes people do bad things with stuff that isn't meant to be bad. Your power isn't what took Mirio's quirk away. A bad man's actions are. Take a knife for example. It can do bad things, but it can also make things like these apple slices." I presented the apples to Eri that were cut in a kinda cute way that aunt Ryu taught me to do. "Eventually, things will work out. I just need you to have faith they will."
She understood for her to blankly stare at us before making a bit of a pained look while also pulling her cheeks to worry us a bit.
"I'm sorry. I think I forgot how to smile." This made me feel horrible. Though she is technically safe, the after effects of the time she was tortured aren't gone. This means she's still not saved yet and is still technically a prisoner to Overhaul.
"Eventually she is going to have to leave here and enter back into the real world. But there's still a matter of what to do with her after she's free to leave. For now though, it's just a matter of waiting till the doctors say she's ready." Eri looked scared when Mr. Aizawa said this with genuine fear of the future in her eyes.
I thought about this and realized that if Eri goes back to reality without being saved, it won't change how she thinks of the world. She needs to know the outside world is safe. But the question is, how. "Wait. Mr. Aizawa. Is there a chance that you can allow Eri to come to the Culture Festival?" I got up and asked him for my teacher to seem confused.
"What are you getting at?"
"If Eri can understand the outside world can be nice and full of experiences that she won't get in the hospital, it might encourage her to come out and enjoy the world more." He understood what I was meaning to begin calling someone. "Eri. Do you want to come to the Culture Festival our school is having?"
"What's a Culture Festival?"
"It's a nice thing where people put on lots of things to entertain people like singing and dancing, plays, and there's even a lot of nice food."
"Oh yeah, there might even be candied apples too." Mirio realized this for Eri to look at us confused.
"What's a candy apple?"
"It's an apple with a melted sugar on it that makes it even sweeter than it already is. Basically, the apple is placed on a stick and is dunked in lots and lots of melted sugar to cover it. Sometimes it's even colored and maybe even having other sweet things on it to make it even more fun looking."
"...A sweeter apple?" I couldn't tell exactly from her face at first if she was excited, but a small bit of drool down the side of her mouth proved to me that she was excited for it. "I want to try it."
"Then what do you say, we'll even try and see if you can go around a day or two before the real thing so you know about the area?" Mr. Aizawa mentioned this while walking over to have Eri look at him and calmly nod. "Alright then, we'll be having you get watched by Togata and Usagiyama as you tour the school in the next two weeks."
'I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make Eri understand she can smile again.' I prepared myself to set off to save Eri from what is still plaguing her and open her heart to the world.
And that finishes this chapter. See how Izuku handles trying to help Eri next time. Hope you all enjoyed and thanks for reading.