Chapter 18: First Lesson
While walking down the identical looking hallways that seemed to just lead into more identical hallways, Izuku wondered if the maze-like design of UA was intentional, knowing what they knew about Nedzu, it probably was. Luckily, they had Aizawa with them so they wouldn't get lost, but memorizing the whole place was going to take a few tries. They hadn't really gotten a good look at the inside of the building yesterday, on account of staying inside the teachers' lounge the whole time, and while the place looked like the furthest thing from the alleyways Izuku had called home, its layout was surprisingly similar. Izuku also realised exactly how few blind spots there were in the camera system, after yesterday they were keeping an eye out for any cameras in unexpected places, not just the usual corners, and there were camera's everywhere, ceilings, walls, Izuku could have sworn they even saw one embedded into one of the lights.
By the time they finally got to the rather large wooden door labelled 'Principal's Office' Izuku was thoroughly convinced that there was no corner of the school that didn't have a camera linked to it. There must have been one in the door as well, because it opened right as they got there, opening with an ominous creak that couldn't be real given the pristine state of the door, Izuku was starting to get the sense that Nedzu just liked messing with people's minds. Speaking of the mammal, there he was, sitting in his chair, shuffling through some papers and sipping tea, if one didn't know of Nedzu's reputation, they might think he looked relaxed, Izuku had heard enough to suspect that he was just luring them into a false sense of security. The moment that Izuku stepped into the room his beady eyes locked onto them, and it suddenly felt like they were being dissected, each and every imperfection seen and catalogued, they were being watched like prey, and there was nowhere to hide.
"Good morning Izuku, care for some tea?" It was phrased like they had a choice in the matter.
"Good morning Nedzu-Sensei" they sat down across from the mammal, actually, come to think of it, what was Nedzu? They doubted he was any of the three options he usually gave, they'd have to do some research tonight. They took the offered cup of tea.
Aizawa spoke to Nedzu before leaving to teach his class, "I know your moral compass is completely different to a human's, but keep the unethical tactics out of the lesson plan."
A few papers were surreptitiously put back into drawers, "of course, even if those are effective strategies, I understand that you humans have an aversion to manipulation." Izuku wondered exactly what was in those papers, they would be lying if they said they weren't the slightest bit curious as to what could be so horrible that Aizawa specifically mentioned not letting them learn it.
Once Aizawa left, Nedzu turned those soul piercing eyes back to Izuku, and they had to supress a fearful shiver, there were several seconds of silence. "I brought my notebooks" they had no idea what exactly Nedzu wanted from them, but they seemed to have made the right decision by starting the conversation. They set the notebooks down in front of Nedzu, hand hovering over them for a second of hesitance, despite all the reassurances, they still felt like they were putting their soul into the hands of fate, they knew that if something were to happen to their notes, it would destroy them. And here they were, handing over their most precious possessions to someone who could ruin their life in a heartbeat.
"Excellent" Nedzu flipped through the books rather quickly, Izuku eyed the pages for any damage as he continued reading. "Well, these certainly are impressive considering your age" he said, "but there are quite a few problems in how you would put this information into practical use, for example take your entry on Ryukyu a lot of the weaknesses listed work theoretically, and you certainly take into account the skill level of the hero in both combat and strategy, you seem to forget that there are much simpler ways of executing the plans listed. No matter, we will have time to sort that out later. For now, reading these notes have confirmed my suspicions that if you are to continue improving your notebooks would quickly become dangerous, even now some of your work could cause incredible amounts of damage if it fell into the wrong hands." Izuku was stunned, their notes might have been a bit weird, sure, but dangerous? Then again those pages listed numerous ways to take down some high ranking heroes, they could see how that could cause trouble, but surely their analyses weren't that good, if they were that dangerous, maybe it was a good thing no-one ever took a second to read their notes, they could have accidently hurt so many people. Nedzu continued speaking, seemingly unaware of the minor mental crisis he'd caused "which is why I feel that you should encode your notes, I can help you create a code that is unique to you and thus far less likely to be decoded."
"My own code? I suppose that makes sense"
"Then let's get started."
The next three or so hours were dedicated to setting a foundation for the code, a combination of various ciphers, languages and symbols that they would have to build from, Izuku's head was swimming with all kinds of new information as they dedicated their focus to keeping up with the thought process of the smartest mammal in Japan, and even then Nedzu had to explain things a few times over for them to understand.
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Nedzu was officially impressed, sure he had suspected the child to be smart, and have the potential for more, but he certainly didn't expect how quickly they picked up on things, he was quite used to having to repeat himself numerous times when talking about a subject as complex as encryption, but Izuku somehow kept up well enough that he only had to do so a few times. It was also clear that they should have been at a much higher education level by now given how easily they understood the semi-complex math that he had to explain, he was going to have to investigate some things, namely their prior place of education, and perhaps Aizawa had some answers as to why such a bright young mind hadn't been allowed to grow. He filed that away for a later date, for now, he decided to give Izuku a break from the long process of code making before they got too overwhelmed, seeing as they were already showing signs of distress, perhaps a little practical work.
"Perhaps we should stop here, codes like this can take days if not weeks to create and longer to memorize, until then I would advise that you stop analysing active heroes" Nedzu could see their shoulders sag, he could read humans well enough to know that it was likely sadness at being unable to indulge in their hobby. "However it would be beneficial for you to continue to practice, I believe the third years are having some combat classes in twelve minutes, I would like you to pick two of them to analyse today, Takeda-San is supervising the lesson, just inform him I sent you to observe."
Izuku's eyes brightened and Nedzu was sure that if he could feel the same emotions that humans did he would find it endearing. They immediately got up and started walking off before stopping and asking for directions to the gym where the class was being held. He gave them the vaguest directions he could reasonably expect them to understand and sent them on their way, watching their progress through the cameras, it was amusing, they got turned around quite a few times and had to double check their location more times than that, still, they managed to reach the gym only one minute and thirty six seconds late.
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Izuku walked into the building labelled gym alpha where all forty of the third-year hero course students were scrambling around, and lining up at training mats while Snipe, Takeda, watched the chaos carefully, calling out anyone that got too rowdy as they paired up, presumably to spar with each other. Not particularly wanting to deal with the number of people in the room, Izuku snuck their way to the hero, instinct honed over years of dodging their classmates allowed them to pass undetected. They had also apparently evaded detection by Takeda himself, as when they tugged on his cape he practically jumped as he whirled around with a hand over his gun. Izuku quickly backed off, hands in the air, Takeda just took one look at them and sighed.
"Howdy kid, whatcha doin' here?"
"Nedzu-Sensei wanted me to observe and analyse two of the students" they signed, silently noting that the few closest students had started whispering in curiosity.
"Right then, I'll put you with Igarashi and Haruko, those two are serious enough that they ain't likely to cause a fuss" Takeda looked over at the chaotic group of students and called out "Thundercloud, Flora! Come up here would ya?"
Two of the students walked up to the front, the first was a tall, lean guy with a costume consisting of dark grey leggings and turtleneck with white goggles, 'no obvious mutations, probably an emitter quirk, likely not a physical fighter given the lack of obvious armour, although his clothes could be padded, and the goggles are support gear, so he needs to protect his eyes, likely from his own quirk, his hero name's Thundercloud, maybe his power has to do with the weather, or storms specifically?'. The other was a rather muscular girl with floral patterned pants and a sleeveless green top, she also had a leaf shaped cloak and a belt with numerous pouches, 'there's a lot of plant imagery in her costume, possibly a plant related quirk, makes sense if her hero name's Flora, if that belt has anything to do with her quirk it's probably one that requires existing material to work, but she could probably throw a good punch, she looks scary.'
"Hey Takeda-Sensei, what's going on?" Flora asked.
Takeda stepped to the side so that they could clearly see Izuku "this is Izuku, they're gonna be observing your spar, Izuku this is Haruko Ayame, hero name Flora, and Igarashi Hayate, hero name Thundercloud" Igarashi just nodded at them while Haruko's eyes lit up "hi! Are you new? Look, if any of these punks bother you just let me know alright?" Izuku just nodded hesitantly, she looked fierce, not someone you wanted to end up fighting.
Takeda quickly shooed both of them back to the training mats, and Izuku just took out their notebook and noted down the scramble of thoughts they had noted even before seeing both quirks in action. As both students clashed Izuku's hand flew across the page, noting down every detail they could see. Igarashi went on the aggressive, a miniature storm levitating around him and crackles of lightning striking out at Haruko, 'interesting, it looks like Igarashi's quirk can summon storms, and he seems to be able to control where the lightning it produces strikes but it also looks like the storm itself is stuck swirling around his body.' Haruko reaches into her pouch and tosses out a bunch of seeds that sprouted instantly into vines that grew around Igarashi and bound him in place, but one strike of lightning burnt the vines enough to free himself just before Haruko could land a punch. 'Interesting, her quirk seems to let her speed up the growth of plants, it can't be creation because she needed to throw those seeds, and I don't think it's a kinesis quirk cause she keeps throwing out new seeds every time, instead of controlling the plants to move. But it also looks like she can control exactly how they grow, plus the plants themselves appear to be enhanced.' The two continued fighting, showing both their strengths and weaknesses, Haruko seemed to fall into a pattern after some time mainly using vines to attempt to grapple her opponent, while Igarashi, despite starting the fight aggressively, was quickly thrown into a defensive position, still, it was clear that if Haruko managed to grapple Igarashi the match would be over, same thing for if Igarashi ever got an opening to attack.
The match continued on for a while, in fact it was the longest spar out of the entire class until finally Haruko managed to get past Igarashi's storm barrier by growing a dense bush as a shield, allowing her to pin him to the ground. Izuku took that as an opportunity to take their leave, mostly dodging any questions from the surrounding students, almost being cornered by one student who began asking question after question, before Haruko quickly made good on her promise and pulled them away, giving Izuku a chance to escape. They made their way back to Nedzu's office.
"Well, this is excellent work, although several assumptions have been made, they are all logically deduced, and mostly correct, just like your other notes." Nedzu said as he read their notes, "now tell me, if you were to fight them, what could you use to your advantage?"
"For Igarashi, I'd find a way to stall the fight, hopefully by throwing as many obstacles as possible at him, his storm seems to be concentration based and the more he has to focus on dodging, the less he can use his storm as anything but a shield, as for Haruko, she's a close range fighter, if I could attack her from a distance I would be able to incapacitate her without much danger to myself."
"Good, I'll have to mention your findings to Takeda, hopefully he can work on that, while it is often good to be focused on one area of combat, it can be detrimental if you completely ignore other skills." That seemed to be unprompted advice when the people couldn't even hear it, unless, was he giving that advice to Izuku? They got the sense that Nedzu's teachings were going to be awfully roundabout if they didn't catch on quick enough.
The two of them talked some more, mainly discussing some of the other notes Izuku had made on the two third years, until Yamada showed up to let them know that it was time to leave, they quickly said bye to Nedzu, as well as the other teachers when they stopped by the teacher's lounge to get Aizawa. They ended up telling their mentors all about their first lesson with Nedzu on the way home.
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Hizashi watched in amusement as Izuku went on and on about the two students they'd had to analyse, and the code Nedzu was helping them create. He almost didn't notice his phone pinging with a single message, he checked only to realise he had several more unread messages from Tensei, apparently Nemuri had tattled, and he was wondering if he could bring his little brother over to meet Izuku on Sunday, Hizashi resolved to discuss that with Izuku later, but the newest message was from Nedzu.
What do you know about Aldera Elementary?
Hizashi didn't know if he'd even heard that name before, but he figured that Nedzu wouldn't ask him if he didn't suspect that Hizashi could get some answers. Still, everyone was tired after a long day, surely all this could wait 'till the morning.
Chapter 19: An odd start to an odd friendship.
Tensei wasn't sure how a child like Tenya could possibly be so, stiff, don't children normally take after the rest of their family? But one look at the Iida family would tell you that wasn't the case with Tenya, both of their parents were pretty easy-going, and Tensei himself was always cracking jokes and, despite what his little brother would say, never quite followed the rules to a T. After all, he had become friends with Hizashi and Nemuri, you didn't do that without being at least a little bit of a rulebreaker. But Tenya was always the kind to emphasize the law and duty and stuff, maybe it was because he grew up with three heroes always around him, and that he didn't have any friends his age except for other legacy kids like the Todoroki kids and the Yayorozu girl, all of whom could also be classified as far too grown up for their age. So when he'd gotten the text from Nemuri about how Shouta had apparently found a child while on patrol and decided to take them in, Tensei was at first surprised, then curious, he texted Hizashi (Shouta never responded to texts) and asked to meet them, and if he could bring Tenya along. Not only did he want to meet this kid, but it would be nice if Tenya could make friends with a (hopefully) normal child. Hizashi had texted him back that morning saying that he was welcome to come over, so he now he just had to bring it up to Tenya.
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Everyone had sat down for dinner, and Tensei was fiddling with his chopsticks, Tenya narrowed his eyes at his big brother's behaviour, it was really weird for Tensei not to have made at least one attempt at a joke throughout the dinner, however he seemed to be mumbling something under his breath. Tenya was curious, but it was most likely a particularly tough villain, or whatever mountains of paperwork he had to go through. Despite only being twenty four, Tensei had already taken over running the agency, and the last few months had been really tough, so he was swamped with paperwork for one thing or another all the time. But after dinner Tensei spoke up before anyone could leave the table.
"Is it alright if I take Tenya with me to visit some friends tomorrow afternoon?"
Tenya wasn't too familiar with Tensei's friends, they had visited before but they usually stuck to Tensei, and occasionally talked to him, but he had mostly ignored them. He didn't think there was a reason for him to be tagging along with Tensei, apparently their parents also had the same thought. "Tensei, you know you don't really need to ask our permission for that, right?" Mama asked.
"I know Mama, its just that, Zashi and Shou are apparently taking care of a kid who's Tenya's age and I thought, well, it might be good for him to meet someone he can be friends with."
Tenya straightened up at the mention of that, a friend? But, he didn't know how to make friends, every kid he knew was just, not interested, or they were friends in the way that they met once in a while, like whenever there was a big event, but they weren't friends in the way that Tensei described his friendship with Midnight and Present Mic, and even Eraserhead. He doubted that this new kid would want to be friends with him either, but, if his brother thought it was a good idea, then he would at least give it a try.
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Sunday afternoon, Tensei knocked on the door of his friends' apartment, several shuffling sounds came from inside before Hizashi opened the door. "Hey Tensei! And little Tenya too, I'd say I'm pleasantly surprised, but obviously you told me earlier" huh, Hizashi seemed tired, maybe that was the effect children had on people.
"Hey Hizashi" Tensei stepped into the apartment, the first thing he noticed was the amount of paper scattered on the desk in the living room, all essays written in English, huh, Hizashi must have been grading assignments. Now, where was the kid? Shouta had also been grading something, but now he was watching the three of them with what seemed to be amusement, that was never a good sign when it came to Shouta, if he was amused it meant that there was mischief just around the corner. Hizashi seemed to catch on pretty quickly and started looking around frantically, eventually his eyes locked onto a spot just behind Tenya. Tensei turned around only to see a small child staring at him and writing something in a notebook. It was, actually kind of unnerving, the kid was just staring at him like they could see into his soul, those emerald eyes, vivisecting the very fibres of his being.
Hizashi seemed to be either completely unaware of the stare or was simply ignoring it. "Izuku, this is Iida Tensei, and his little brother Tenya, they're the friends we were telling you about! Tensei, Tenya, this is Izuku." The child just nodded, and added something else to their notebook.
"Yamada, you didn't tell me your friend was I-n-g-e-n-i-u-m" wait, what. How on earth did this tiny child even know that?
"That's, impressive kid, how did you know that?"
The kid stared at him, and Tensei was starting to feel like he had said something incredibly stupid. "You have pipes on your elbows." okay well now Tensei really felt like he was being stupid, how on earth had more people not made that connection before?
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Tenya was a bit confused, this kid, Izuku, had just been staring at his brother, and now was conversing with everyone in what Tenya assumed was sign language, he had to assume because he couldn't understand a single bit of it, there had been no reason for him to learn, despite his brother being quite fluent. But one other thing was bothering him, and that was they had only been introduced by their given name, and Tenya wasn't entirely sure what to do, they weren't friends so it would be impolite to only refer to them by their given name, so the only logical solution was to find out what their family name was.
But first, he had to know what everyone was talking about "excuse me? But, what are you saying?" he asked them. They looked at him and tilted their head, then picked up a different notebook and scribbled something in one of the pages. They handed him the notebook, one of the pages was covered in notes and diagrams about, something, it was a bit hard to tell with just how much of it there was, and the other one just had "you don't know sign?" written on it.
"No, sorry" Tenya really did feel sorry, it wasn't fair to ask them to go out of their way and write down everything they wanted to say to him. They shrugged and wrote down "that's fine, most people don't".
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Izuku noticed that the grown-ups had decided to have their own conversation a little bit away from both of them, but Izuku could see that Aizawa was paying close attention to them, just in case.
They had a bunch of questions, surely Iida had a lot of things to say about his brother, and then their notes would be even better! But, no, they couldn't be too careful, but the idea of information right in front of them had them subconsciously reaching for their analysis notebook.
Then, Tenya asked an unexpected question "what's your family name?"
They had no idea why on earth that was what Tenya asked them, but they answered anyways, writing down in the spare notebook "Midoriya, why?"
"Because it would be rude of me to call you by your given name Midoriya-San" Izuku scrunched up their nose and they could see Aizawa tilt his head towards both of them, ready to intervene if Iida did anything to make them uncomfortable. In fact Yamada and Iida's older brother also looked over at them.
"Why?" They wrote.
"Because we're not friends yet, only friends call each other by their given names! Anything else is just impolite!" Iida said, well, that was true, but, they didn't want to be called by their family name.
Then again, what exactly meant that they weren't friends? Izuku figured that Iida was being really friendly considering that he hadn't even insulted them yet, and he was actually talking to them, Izuku thought about it, they kind of were already friends, weren't they? They wrote "how do you become friends with someone?"
Iida froze for a bit, they could see the gears in his head turning "well, I don't know, I think you just talk to someone, and then they agree to be friends with you?"
"Then do you want to be my friend?" they wrote.
Iida looked thoughtful for a bit "okay, I guess this means I can call you Izuku, and you can call me Tenya! This is exciting, I've never had a real friend before!"
"Neither have I! But now we both have a friend!" Izuku wrote.
"Yay! But, now we have to tell each other about ourselves, that's what I've seen friends do in the movies and stuff" Tenya asked.
"Okay, how about we take turns asking each other questions?" Izuku wrote "I'll go first, who's your favorite hero?"
"Obviously its Ingenium! My big brother is the best there is!"
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Tensei watched the interaction with growing confusion and amusement, leave it to his friends to find a child just as odd as them. Somehow both kids had become fast friends by entirely ignoring the normal way in which people made friends, and honestly? Tensei was beginning to think that this way was much more efficient. He could hear Hizashi laughing behind him.
"I can't believe it, I'm going to be honest, I expected that little Tenya's bluntness would have made things difficult, but it looks like both of them are actually getting along!"
After a while Tensei had to drag Tenya away from his new friend so that they could go home. But on the way Tenya wouldn't stop talking about how smart Izuku was, apparently those notebooks were filled with hero analyses, and they had one on Ingenium. Of course that's all that Tenya would talk about until they got home. And after dinner he immediately retreated into his room, which was unusual, but soon after he approached Tensei and asked if he could use his computer.
"What for?"
"I wanna learn JSL so that I can talk to Izuku!"
Oh, that was adorable "sure!, I can teach you some too."
"Yes please!" Tenya sounded so excited, so they studied different signs until it was time for Tenya's bedtime. Tensei was sure that letting Tenya meet Izuku was one of the best decisions he'd ever made.