The apartment had been quiet since last night.
Naobito Zen'in had walked out of that hospital room less than twenty four hours ago, and Megumi had gone straight home the same evening, bag over one shoulder, more questions in his head than he knew what to do with. He'd stopped by Tsumiki's room on the way, sat with her the way he always did, told her about USJ in the same even tone he used for everything else. The villains, the warp gate, the Nomu. The great uncle he hadn't known he had until a stranger walked into his hospital room and said his father's real name out loud for the first time in years.
She hadn't stirred. She never did. He'd left flowers anyway and gone home to actually sleep for the first time since the attack.
Now it was morning, and the television in the living room was running a follow-up report he only half watched while he tied his shoes.
"Police have arrested seventy-two villains connected to the attack," the anchor was saying, "but the group's apparent leader remains at large. Investigators say individuals calling themselves the League of Villains do not appear in any registered Quirk database, suggesting the use of false identities."
Megumi laced up the second shoe and stood. Seventy-two arrests and the two that actually mattered were still out there somewhere. That tracked.
He grabbed his bag and left.
...
Walking into U.A. he was prepared for whatever this school was going to throw at him, whether it was another assessment or another villain attack.
What he wasn't prepared for was the sound coming through the classroom door when he got there.
"I'm just saying, the size difference alone should've been a problem," Kirishima was saying, loud enough to carry into the hallway. "That thing was built like a tank and he still ran circles around it."
"It's more than that." Yaoyorozu said, "He identified two separate abilities on an opponent he'd never seen before, mid-fight, while outmatched and alone."
"He basically soloed a small army before that as well," Kirishima added. "Fifteen guys, by himself, and then still had enough left to fight that villain after."
"The scariest part is he looked so calm doing it," Kaminari said, and there was something almost reverent in it. "I honestly thought he looked like an pro hero against that villain."
Megumi stood very still in the hallway, ears going warm.
"Honestly," Uraraka said, "I don't think I've ever been that scared for someone and that impressed by someone at the same time."
'This is too much.'
He should have kept walking. He knew that, somewhere in the part of his brain that wasn't currently stuck listening to Yaoyorozu describe his read on an unknown opponent like it belonged in a textbook. Instead he stayed exactly where he was, half a step from the door, feeling his face heat up more with every sentence.
"You gonna come in, or are we doing this through the wall?"
Megumi turned to find Hagakure's uniform standing directly behind him, arms crossed at a spot in midair that presumably matched where her actual arms were.
"I was about to."
"Uh huh." She grabbed his sleeve and hauled him through the door before he could formulate an actual denial. "Guys, look who was eavesdropping on his own compliments."
The room turned as one.
"Oh my god," Kirishima said, laughing. "How long were you standing there?"
"I wasn't standing there."
"You were absolutely standing there," Kaminari said. "I can tell from the red on your face."
"I don't have anything on my face."
"This is so embarrassing for him," Mina said, cackling. "Fushiguro, your face is so red right now."
"Somebody get a photo," Kaminari said.
"If anyone takes a photo, I will end you," Megumi said, without much heat behind it, and the room laughed anyway, and it broke something loose that had been sitting in his chest since he'd woken up that morning.
Megumi found his usual seat, still faintly warm around the ears, and was saved from any further commentary by the door sliding open again.
Shota Aizawa walked in wrapped head to toe in medical bandages, moving like every joint in his body had personally wronged him.
"Morning," Aizawa said.
"Mr. Aizawa, you're back too soon!" half the class said at once.
"You're too much of a pro," Kaminari said.
"So you're all right?" Iida asked, already on his feet like the question required standing.
"Can you really call that all right?" Uraraka said, staring at the bandages.
"My well-being doesn't matter," Aizawa said, dropping into his seat at the front like the walk over had cost him something. "More importantly, the fight isn't over."
"Fight?" Bakugo said.
Izuku's face went through several stages of dread in the span of a second. "Don't tell me."
"The villains again?" Mineta squeaked.
"The Sports Festival is coming up," Aizawa said.
The room deflated into a chorus of that's a super normal school event, which lasted right up until someone, Jiro this time, asked the obvious question.
"Is it actually okay to have a Sports Festival right after villains snuck into a training facility?"
"What if they come back?" Ojiro added.
"U.A. wants to demonstrate that our crisis management holds up regardless," Aizawa said. "Security will be five times what it was in previous years. And beyond that, the Sports Festival isn't something that gets cancelled over a handful of villains. It's too important."
"That's a good reason and everything," Mineta said, "but it's still just a sports festival."
"Mineta, have you actually seen the U.A. Sports Festival?" Izuku asked.
"Of course I have. That's not what I meant."
"It's the biggest event in the country," Aizawa said. "What the Olympics used to be, before the population dropped and the scale shrank with it. Now it's us. Every top hero in Japan tunes in."
"For scouting purposes," Yaoyorozu added.
"I know that," Mineta muttered.
"After graduation, most of you will join an agency as a sidekick," Aizawa continued. "Miss your chance to make an impression here, and you'll spend longer than you'd like as somebody else's backup."
"Some of us longer than others." Jiro said as she side-eyed Kaminari.
"Hey!"
"There's one shot a year. Three total, across your time here. That's it. If you're serious about going pro, don't slack on preparing." He looked around the room once, flat and unimpressed in the way that meant he expected compliance rather than enthusiasm. "Homeroom's dismissed."
"Speaking of agencies," Kaminari said, already twisting around in his seat, "did anyone else hear the Zen'in Agency had somebody here yesterday? My cousin's friend works security on the east gate, said a car with the crest on it was parked outside the medical wing half the afternoon."
"The Zen'in Agency?" Sero raised an eyebrow.
"Probably scouting," Jiro said. "After the attack got this much coverage, every agency in Japan's going to want a look at us before the Festival."
"I'd kill to get noticed by them," Kaminari said. "You know how many sidekicks they run? Getting a internship with them could set me up for life"
Megumi felt something in his chest go very still and very cold, and made sure none of it reached his face.
Chairs scraped back around the room. A few desks over, Uraraka leaned in close enough to make Izuku visibly flinch.
"Deku, Iida," she said, with an intensity that didn't match the sentence at all. "Let's do our best at the Sports Festival."
"U, Uraraka, your face," Izuku said. "It's."
"Everyone, I'm gonna do my best!" Uraraka announced to the room at large, loud enough that a few nearby students actually looked over.
"Your personality's all over the place today," Sero said from further down.
Megumi caught the exchange out of the corner of his eye and decided, on balance, that it wasn't his business.
'Whatever happened between his father and the Zen'in isn't mine to carry.'
He packed up his things for lunch slower than he needed to, turning the thought over.
He'd come to U.A. for one reason. To get his hands on every tool that would make him strong enough to be a hero worth the name, and to make sure Tsumiki never had to depend on anyone's charity to be taken care of. If the Zen'in Agency, the biggest one in the country, ended up being one of those tools, he wasn't going to talk himself out of using it over a grudge that belonged to a dead man.
Something colder sat underneath that thought, one he didn't examine too closely.
'My father kept me away from all of it. Went through a lot of trouble doing it, too probably. Maybe that's exactly why I should take it,' he thought in the back of his head.
He didn't let himself finish that thought either. It wasn't something he planned on saying out loud, not to Naobito, not to anyone.
By lunch, the classroom had mostly stopped orbiting around Megumi's return, which suited him fine. He fell into the cafeteria line a few places behind Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka.
A wall of muscle and confidence dropped into line beside them.
"Young Midoriya!" All Might said, beaming.
"All Might?" Izuku looked, understandably, alarmed. "What's the matter?"
"Lunch! Want to eat together?"
"He's like a maiden," Uraraka said, delighted.
"I'd love to," Izuku said, in the tone of someone who suspected this wasn't actually about lunch.
Megumi watched All Might steer Izuku out of the line entirely, already deep in some conversation neither of them was bothering to keep quiet about, and felt the same low, nagging suspicion he'd been carrying about the two of them since the combat trials.
'There's something between those two that isn't just teacher and student.'
He glanced sideways to find Todoroki watching the exact same thing, expression carefully blank in the specific way that meant he was thinking hard about something he didn't intend to say.
Their eyes met.
Neither of them looked away fast enough to pretend it hadn't happened.
"You too?" Megumi said, after a beat.
"Since day one," Todoroki said.
"Any theories?"
"A few. None I'd say out loud in a cafeteria."
"Fair," Megumi said, and left it there, filing the moment away next to the rest of the things he was keeping an eye on without doing anything about yet.
He moved up in line, and was looking for an empty end of a table when Kirishima waved him over.
"Sit, sit," Kirishima said, sliding his own tray sideways to make room. Yaoyorozu was across from him, already looking up when Megumi actually took the seat instead of finding somewhere quieter.
He'd barely set his tray down before Mina dropped into the seat beside him, tray clattering, with Jiro and Kaminari trailing behind her.
"Nope, don't even think about eating alone today," Mina said. "We're all still riding the 'Fushiguro's back' high. You get to be popular whether you like it or not."
"That's not how popularity works," Jiro said, sliding in next to Yaoyorozu.
"It is if I decide it does."
"So I've been meaning to ask," Kirishima said, once everyone had settled, already halfway through his own rice. "Back in the plaza, that giant elephant thing, and the other one, the huge dog. What even were those?"
"Yeah, same question." Yaoyorozu leaned in a little, chin propped on one hand. "Kirishima tried to describe it to me this morning and it mostly came out as arm gestures."
"It did not."
"You said 'and then it was like, whoosh, but bigger.'"
"That's an accurate description!"
"Wait, what elephant?" Kaminari said, already leaning halfway across the table. "Nobody told me about an elephant."
"You'd know if you read the group chat instead of just reacting to everything with the crying laughing emoji," Jiro said.
"That is participating."
Megumi almost smiled around a mouthful of rice. "The dog one's called Totality. Shiro and Kuro fused into one body. I hadn't done it before that fight, I just needed something bigger than either of them and it turned out that was an option."
"You just found that out mid battle?" Kirishima said, delighted. "That's so manly!"
"It's really not that impressive when you almost pass out doing it."
"Wait, hold on." Mina set her chopsticks down, visibly alarmed. "So are Shiro and Kuro just gone now? Like permanently one big dog?"
"No, they're fine. I dismiss Totality and they're back to being separate."
"Okay, good, because I still haven't gotten to pet either of them and I refuse to let that opportunity disappear into some fusion thing."
"They're attack dogs, Mina, not pets."
"They're dogs. That's the whole category. I'm petting them eventually."
"And the elephant?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"Same deal, honestly. Reached further than usual, something new came out, I aimed it at the villain." Megumi shrugged. "Didn't work. It just caught it and absorbed the impact, so I switched to water pressure instead."
"Wait, you tried to drop an elephant on it and then just, improvised a plan B?" Minia said.
"There wasn't time for anything fancier."
"That's so crazy," Kirishima said, grinning. "In a good way."
"Hold on, you're telling me you have a whole extra elephant nobody's ever seen and you just casually pulled it out because things weren't working?" Kaminari said. "That's not fair. My Quirk doesn't have a secret elephant setting. My Quirk has one setting and it's 'accidentally deletes my own brain.'"
"So how many of these do you actually have?" Yaoyorozu asked, more curious than anything.
"Six as of now. I don't know if that's it or if there's more."
"You don't know your own final boss form. Incredible." Kirishima stole one of his own dumplings back off his tray like the conversation had reminded him he was still eating. "Honestly kind of jealous. Hardening doesn't come with surprise upgrades."
"I'd take a surprise upgrade that didn't also give me a nosebleed."
"Okay but real talk," Mina said, pointing her chopsticks at him. "If you've got shikigami you don't even know about yet, what if one of them is, like, cooler than all the current ones? What if you've got a secret dragon in there?"
"I don't have a secret dragon."
"You don't know that."
"I would know that."
"You didn't know about the elephant."
Megumi opened his mouth, found no immediate counter to that, and closed it again. Jiro snorted into her drink.
Yaoyorozu tapped her chopsticks against her tray, thinking out loud more than actually asking. "It does track, though. If it's all pulled from the same source, then technically you're not inventing new shikigami so much as finding new shapes for the same shadow. Kind of like how I can make anything as long as I understand the molecular structure, except your version's limit is stamina instead of knowledge."
"That's basically it," Megumi said, mildly impressed she'd landed that close on the first try.
"Speaking of shapes," Kirishima said, "wasn't Nue way smaller on the first day? Like, regular-sized. The one you flew us in on could've swallowed that one whole."
"I just put more into it. Same bird, more stamina."
"So you can just make it bigger whenever?" Kaminari asked.
"Within reason. It gets expensive fast."
"How expensive?"
"Expensive enough that I don't want to test the ceiling twice in one week."
"Could you make it, like, house sized?" Mina asked. "Genuinely asking for no reason."
"I'm not answering that on principle."
"That's a yes."
"Okay, actual question." Jiro pointed her straw at him. "Nue does the lightning thing, right? And the elephant did water. Your quirk's shadows. How does shadow turn into lightning and water?"
Megumi opened his mouth to answer and then just sort of sat there.
"I don't actually know," he admitted. "I've never thought about it. It's just something they can do."
"You don't know how your own power works," Kaminari said, deeply betrayed. "This is what I'm talking about. Mine electrocutes my own brain and I understand exactly why, down to the volt. Yours skips explaining itself entirely and just does lightning and water on top of everything else."
"To be fair, that does seem like a lot for one quirk," Kirishima said.
"It's not fair is what it is," Kaminari said. "Shadow dogs, shadow bird, shadow elephant, secret dragon probably, and it comes with a whole elemental toolkit nobody bothered to explain to him either. Meanwhile I have to drink orange juice after I use mine just once."
"That part actually is a little broken," Kirishima admitted.
"Thank you."
"I don't make the rules," Megumi said.
"How's the recovery going anyway?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"Ribs are still healing wrong. Quirk exhaustion wore off yesterday. I'm fine to compete in the sports festival."
"Wasn't actually asking about the Festival, but good to know," Kirishima said, then perked up like he'd remembered something. "Oh, hey, you hear Kaminari going on about the Zen'in Agency this morning?"
"Some of it."
"I stand by everything I said," Kaminari announced. "You think they're really scouting already? Before the Festival's even happened?"
Megumi kept his voice even. "No idea."
"Would be wild. Biggest agency in the country, just casually cruising by U.A. the day after a villain attack."
"Probably just a courtesy visit," Yaoyorozu said. "Agencies do that sometimes when the incident's high profile enough."
"Or they're already eyeing recruits," Ashido said. "Which, if I'm being honest, tracks. I'd scout Fushiguro. Secret dragon energy."
"There's no dragon, Ashido."
"That's exactly what a guy hiding a dragon would say."
"Maybe," Megumi said, mostly to end the dragon conversation before it could go any further, and let the rest of the table drift on without him from there, into who was most likely to embarrass themselves in front of scouting heroes, whether Mineta counted as an actual threat in a straight fight, whether Bakugo would explode literally or just figuratively if he didn't place first.
He finished his lunch before the conversation had fully wound down, and let himself sit in it a moment longer before gathering his tray.
Whatever Naobito was building toward, it could wait until after the Festival, same as promised.
Megumi intended to make sure whatever he saw there was worth the wait, for exactly the reasons he was hoping for.
...
100 PS By Friday = 1 Bonus Chapter on Saturday
...
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