Saturday, 18:30.
I-Expo's last floor.
Although the place was starting to be filled with people, at that moment Deku could only hear his own heart racing as if it was going to run away. He was sharing a table with Uraraka, Todoroki, Momo, Iida and Tsuyu, but not even their company would be enough to make him relax. "Think of anything else" he told himself closing his eyes.
"Deku? Is everything ok?" he heard.
A few hours ago he was just a bit nervous. Now he felt like this was a final exam for which he hadn't studied at all. However, as soon as he felt the warm and soft touch of Uraraka's hand over his, he stopped thinking about the speech. In fact, he wasn't able to think anymore. Deku opened his eyes and saw Uraraka examining his face so closely she would have had to use her Quirk to prevent him from falling backwards, but there was something that made him stay exactly where he was. He had taken a good look to her dress despite remembering it well, but only then he noticed Uraraka was also wearing a slight touch of eyeliner, as well as lip gloss so subtle it was only appreciable from that distance. Even her skin looked smoother and her cheeks pinker than usual. If someone asked Deku at that moment, Uraraka was the prettiest girl he had ever seen...
"You better remove your hand, Uraraka. Otherwise, my Quirk won't be able to create enough ice to chill him..." commented Todoroki, almost smiling. "Really, Todoroki? You had to choose today, out of the entire year, to joke about a situation?" Deku thought.
"It's perfectly normal to be affraid, Midoriya. But this is nothing you won't handle" told Iida, with not a trace of doubt.
"Yeah, Midoriya! Once you are up there, just imagine all the crowd is naked!" suggested Mineta from the neighboring table. Considering all his friends, including Uraraka, would be the closest ones to the stage, Mineta's advice didn't help at all...
"Man, that trick is older than life..." responded Kaminari.
"So what? It works for me" Mineta proudly said.
"Eeeeew. That means that every time you present a project in front of the class you imagine us all NAKED?" Kirishima grossed out.
"Next time you do a presentation, please look at the wall..." said Toru, disgusted.
"Well, nobody can "imagine" YOU naked, actually..." Koda told quietly to the invisible girl.
When Principal of I-Island Academy announced the beginning of the awards' ceremony everyone present went silent. After some boring lecture, the man announced that a "special guest" from U.A. would introduce and deliver the awards for that year's winners. Deku and the rest were startled. Who in the U.A could be invited as a "special guest" to an invention awards ceremony?
"HELLO EVERYONE!" a figure in an amber dress and fingerless gloves entered the stage from upside using her Wire Arrow.
"You've got to be kidding me..." babbled Iida, totally out of his character.
"It's always good to see people who share my enthusiasm on the field of invention! Of course, I was mostly grateful when the I-Island Academy invited me for this event after the attention my babies received during the Festival. Hi there, Iida!" Mei Hatsume greeted with her signature shameless attitude, causing the Engine user to get rigid and clench his teeth, and most of his classmates to hold their laughs. Deku felt a bit guiltly relieved on the fact now he wasn't the only one facing an awkward situation. After introducing the winners of the minor awards and making some honorable mentions (standing out what a shame it was her own inventions couldn't enter the competition), the moment everyone was waiting came:
"...and finally, the I-Island Academy's Award for the Best Invention of the Year goes tooo..." as Mei read she made a pointless pause for suspense, since everyone knew the rest, "....MELISSA SHIELD'S FULL GAUNTLEEEEET!". Even so, all the people clapped intensively when Melissa went up to the stage to pick up the award. "Well, as this cute baby's mommy, you must be really proud! And from my personal experience, I may add you chose the correct tester" Mei said blinking an eye to Deku, which caused Uraraka to pout.
"Thank you, Hatshume" said Melissa, containing her emotion. "And thank you all for coming. When I created Full Gauntlet I certainly wasn't expecting to..." the girl began the speech, which to Deku was like a countdown. He felt his head empty and his emotions unabling him to move or talk. The fact that Uraraka was giving him a worried look wasn't helping either.
"Take it easy, Midoriya, it won't take very long..." Momo told him.
"I...think...I...need some air" Deku managed to say.
"I'll take care" Uraraka stood up. "Tsuyu, send me a message when Melissa is almost done" she took Deku by his hand and took him to the outside terrace, now everyone was listening to the awarded. Deku thought she would probably have to slap him to make him focus, but instead, Uraraka took his face between her hands and looked him right into the eyes. Whether it was her eyes, her beautiful outfit or her loving nature, it was the second time in less than three days having Uraraka so close to him had the opposite effect it usually had. After taking the deep breath she told him, Deku's capacity to talk started to wake up, and so it did an urgency he had kept uncaged until then.
"Uraraka, I need to tell you something...about what happened last Thursday..." he started, before she put two fingers against his mouth.
"I..I also wanted to talk about that" the pink on her cheeks had become brighter. "But first you must do this. This is nothing more than another hero work. Look at you! You are not wearing that for nothing!"
"She's right" Todoroki's voice was heard. Iida and him and had decided to follow them. "That's the costume you wore when you passed the hero license exam I didn't".
"And that is the costume you wore when you two defeated Bakugo and me when me met. You also wore it when you saved me from being stabbed to death by the Hero Killer" remembered Iida. "We are not buying this is too much for you to handle".
"But right now I can't remember a word of what I practised!" Deku cried.
"So what? When did you back down because things didn't go as planned?" Todoroki asked. "And who cares about a speech just out of a paper?"
"I didn't help you because you needed to learn those lines, Deku. You only needed to believe what you were trying to transmit. We are not here to hear words, but YOUR words" stated Uraraka.
"Precisely!" corroborated Iida. "Um...Uraraka... he said he needed to take some air. He may find it difficult if you hold him that tight..."
"Huh?". It was true; anyone who saw them could easily think she was hugging Deku, so they separated, blushing. It's not like Deku was about to complain, though."Just be yoursef" All Might had said. They were right. This was no Aizawa's homework, but true hero work. No time to think about instructions or feelings, only about what people needed. His friends' support and the trust he had been given were of priceless value, and he wouldn't let anyone down. When they were coming back inside, after Tsuyu had warned Uraraka, Deku's phone buzzed:
Gran Torino: Hey! I asked you a question! Tell me: who are you?
Puzzled, Deku looked around until he saw the former Pro Hero looking at him and sharing a table with a coated and hatted skinny and blonde figure who gave him a thumb up. So All Might did come after all? He felt his confidence returning and texted his answer to Gran Torino:
Izuku Midoriya: I AM DEKU.
The veteran hero nodded in response and even cracked a smile, before taking a new bite of his Taiyaki. When Melissa was done and Deku was asked to come to the stage, he wasted no second. However, once he was up there in front of a microphone and the considerable crowd of people, he felt panic returning and instinctively looked back to his notes. When he remembered what Todoroki had said, he crushed those damn notes in his hands and threw them away.
"Well...first of all... I want to thank Melissa for inviting the whole Class 1A and for giving me the opportunity to share a few words..." that was the easy part. From that point, nothing he would say had been previously written, so he breathed heavily and went on:
"Melissa's Full Gauntlet was indeed amazing and an item...even you, Hatshume, would be a big fan of" he started, making the pink haired bow respectfully her head and some people chuckle.
"But..." here is where the public became really interested, "...I consider that...what makes this invention worth of this award is something that comes from further, far before she even came up with the idea". Now even the disguised All Might was legitimately surprised and curious about the speech.
"When we met, Melissa told me she once dreamt of becoming a hero, but she assumed it would never be possible as she wasn't born with what was socially considered necessary to make a hero...and....this may come as shock to some, but....I think I am familiarized with that feeling" he felt two very specific assistants' attention over him.
"You see...before I started studying in U.A., I didn't have a Quirk...I could use in a proper way...and for that reason, I almost abandoned all hope to fulfill my dream of becoming a hero. Fortunately, I met a person that believed in me when none else did. This person made me train and work harder than ever so I could enter my school. And once I entered I met a class where no two were the same but, whatever our reasons were, we all shared the dream of becoming heroes. I sincerely hope she can find in her own school everything I have found in U.A. And I mean...everything" he added casting a brief look at Uraraka. He didn't dare to check her reaction and hawked before getting to the last part.
"If there was actually only one dream we all were part of, the only thing that supposedly separated Melissa from us were our Quirks. And yet, it was thanks to this invention designed to make a hero's work easier we were able to prevent a tragedy" Deku continued. "What I am trying to say is that...the most important thing I have learned, both from my friends and teachers is that it is not Quirks which make the heroes. And neither do inventions. Villains also have their fair share of both. It was Melissa's dream to help save people that made her work with everything she had to create Full Gauntlet. It was because of her dream, so similar to ours, that we met her and became friends. And it is because of her dream that, in her own right, she's a hero as much as we are. This dream is like a seed you must take care of everyday so it can grow into something bigger and stronger, and later the rest would be able to benefit from it and even be inspired by it. One way or another, dreams are grown in adversity. And whatever grows in adversity, is bigger and stronger than anything yet to be grown. In other words, we can conclude...a dream is never just a dream..."
When he pronounced these last words Deku realized the public had been in absolute silence until then. He returned his sight to the pieces of paper on the floor, wondering for a second if he wouldn't have made a big mistake. But then, the sudden crowd's sonorous and overwhelming reaction was more than enough to know his mission had been successfully accomplished.
End of chapter 11.
There it is...the reason I gave this story its name. This is half of the climax of the story, so now more than ever you have the right to give your most sincere opinions. Now I can only hope I have made it worthy of your await.
I may need a little more of time to post the following chapter, but I'll keep working as soon as I can. And I really hope the speech I wrote makes honor to the title as I planned.
Honest Fiction says goodbye by now and wishes you enjoy this chapter.