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 Chapter 38: Chapter #37 | Arcadian Inception

Notes:

Welcome back everyone for Chapter 37! Two important pieces of news for everyone.

The first is that we've officially broken 150k words! Woop. My editor insists I break the story into multiple but I refuse! We are here for a very long ride.

Second is that we have another piece of fanart right Here! From Hi here on Ao3 or Beginner as their known on tumblr. Apparently, the image of long haired Izuku wouldn't leave them alone.

Thank you for the wonderful piece of art!

Chapter Text

Yaoyorozu shuffled in her seat, even as the rest of the class sparked conversations. They turned to each other and talked of anything that they could think of, ranging from the English assignment that Professor Yamada had just given them to speculation as to who was going to fill the class's empty student slot. None of them, Yaoyorozu noted, were talking about the elephant in the room. What was going to happen with their heroics class?

Professor Aizawa had informed them after Midoriya had left with Uraraka's bag that All Might would no longer be teaching Class 1-A Heroics. The news received a positive, if mixed, response from the students. Most of them didn't hate the man, he was the number one hero after all! But they couldn't exactly excuse his actions or his lack of credentials. Something the professors were clearly loath to admit had become an issue in their very first class.

All Might, the hero, had always inspired a feeling of safety in them as children. Just his presence could lower the crime rates! But the All Might they had seen? He wasn't the man they had been expecting. And isn't that the issue? A voice whispered venomously in the back of Yaoyorozu's mind. We all saw All Might the man for the first time.

Everyone was on edge with the news they had received that morning. The position had been filled. They would be having their heroics class. The door slid to the side with a silent click as it met the wall and Yaoyorozu was one of the first to recognize Aizawa as he stepped through the door frame. Silence spread across the room as the students recognized who stepped through. They had barely known the professor for a week, but they all knew he wanted them quiet when he entered the classroom.

A young woman stepped in behind him before silently taking up a place next to the podium. She was of average height with large dusky green eyes complimenting her dark, shoulder-length, moss green hair. Sharply pointed teeth showed through her nervous smile, but to her relief, the class attention wasn't on her. It was on the young man that had stepped in last after her.

Both Kyoka and Himiko attempted to stand, only for Midoriya to silently gesture for them to sit back down. He closed the door behind himself with a seemingly deafening clack. "I'm sure you all have a good number of questions." Aizawa's gruff voice began as he drew the class's attention back to him. "But Midoriya is going to answer them. Don't wake me up unless it's an emergency."

Midoriya sighed. Not even a minute in and Aizawa was asleep. Midoriya couldn't blame the man with his sleeping schedule, but he could at least stay awake long enough to be the face of the administration with this news. Instead of saying anything to the man, Midoriya instead grabbed one of the spare chairs and dragged it to the front center of the room with a grinding screech, his eyes locked with Aizawa's bland stare the entire way. It was petty, but it made him feel better.

"As Aizawa was saying, I'm sure you all have questions. Let's answer the obvious one first, shall we? This is Setsuna Tokage. Originally a student of your sister class, she is now your fellow classmate. For reasons I'm sure you'll gather later during training, her quirk was deemed unsuitable for Vlad King to train. Take care of her as you would each other. Now, for the next announcement."

There was a dramatic pause as Midoriya directed Setsuna to her new desk and as he took a seat in his own chair. "From this point on, I'll be one of the people teaching the 1-A heroics course." The reaction of shock was immediate, then the confusion and disbelief followed that, and finally, several students had looks of rejection on their faces. "I can assure you that, no, this isn't some elaborate joke by the faculty. The president insisted that I assist the course after finding out about my background."

Kyoka shot a confused look at Himiko, even as Ashido threw her hand in the air. "Ooo! Ooo! What is it, Midori? You seemed really on top of it during… well, you know." The girl's energy tapered off as she realized what she was referring to. "But we know practically nothing about you! You're some big shot inventor, but that's it."

The air that had stagnated at the mention of the battle trial froze at Midoriya's hardened response. "Military."

Another ripple of shock spread across the room. Kyoka nearly came out of her chair, and Yaoyorozu openly gaped. Kaminari looked around the room, confused, and was the first one to speak as if he didn't understand. "What? It's really cool that Midoriya's already served. You know, protect and serve and all that? Kind of like being a hero. Actually, if that's the case, what are you doing here?"

Iida spoke up next, his voice soft even as his face scrunched up. "The issue isn't that he served, Kaminari, it's that he's only eighteen. It doesn't add up. How-?"

Midoriya allowed the conversation to continue for another minute before sighing and cutting it off. "It's something I'm not going to be talking about. Suffice it to say, I have the experience required to help teach this class."

"Or the faculty came up with an excuse to put him in charge." Heads turned slowly to Sero, who simply threw his hands in the air. "What? We're all thinking that this is a load of bullshit. I'm just the only one who seems willing to say it!" The class all shuffled awkwardly in their seats while Todoroki simply accepted it. That amount of bloodlust doesn't just come from nowhere.

"Let me assure you of something, Sero. I am a lot of things, and you can call me whatever you like. But I am not a liar." The classroom sucked in a collective breath as the temperature dipped. Midoriya adjusted his black uniform jacket as he stood from the chair he'd been seated in. "I'll misdirect people. I'll omit information. I'll twist the answers I give them. Hell, I'll even tell you that I'm unwilling to discuss something. But, I don't lie."

Midoriya scanned the class with cool eyes before he smiled and let the tension melt from his shoulders. The atmosphere relaxed, and several students sucked in air while others simply stared at him with wide eyes. "So, that being said, here's the truth of the matter. Nedzu doesn't believe that truth is conducive to the creation of heroes, and frankly, I agree with him. This society is terrible in so many ways. Something that most of you wouldn't learn until your third year at minimum, or even worse, you wouldn't learn it until you're in the field."

Silently, Midoriya picked the chair up, walking it back to its original position as he spoke. "Nedzu considers this class to be his great experiment with retention. Will the knowledge break you? How many of you will make it to the field once you know and aren't trapped in your career?"

Midoriya stepped back to the center of the room, standing at attention in front of a class of men and women that were barely adults. Practically still children. "I say that those of you who would become heroes despite that knowledge are the very kind of people that should be defending humanity. Who will make the better heroes? Those trained like everyone else? Or those taught contrary to the ideals of glitz and glamor?"

"It's been dediced that we'll train you all as soldiers. We'll teach you the truth of this society. The things that the commission would rather no one know, no one realize. We'll train you as field medics and teach each of you how to survive in hazardous situations. You'll be given what you need to succeed, but it will be all of your responsibilities to take action and use that knowledge to become the people you wish to be. The heroes you wish to be."

Silence washed over the room. The weight of Midoriya's words rested heavily in the air, the implications weighing even heavier on the students' shoulders. Everyone jolted in their seats when Shinsou spoke. Both his eyes and voice were hard, but the question was on each of their minds. "And the president of one of the top three hero schools in the world approved this?"

Midoriya's eyes were sad when he spoke. "Oh, Shinsou. The president is one of the most dangerous entities at this school, if not Japan. He practically jumped for joy when I gave him a legitimate way to experiment on humans." Aizawa winced from his sleeping bag. That wasn't quite the truth, but it wasn't a lie, either. He wanted to interject and say that wasn't true. That Nedzu had rebelled against the idea. But he had seen the excitement in the president's eyes when Midoriya submitted his recommended additions to the teaching plan. He'd heard them debating the demerits of their society before, so that wasn't a lie, either. The argument against Midoriya had been token at best, and a piece of Aizawa's mind went back to Midoriya's stiff body and Nedzu yelling at All Might. Just how much did he know about his boss?

"The rest of this week and the next, we'll be working on basic conditioning. Following that, we'll mix in basic combat training and the first of our lectures." Aizawa jolted when Midoriya's hand reached into his sleeping back, and his eyes snapped open to glare at the boy until he caught sight of the stack of papers in his hands. When the hell did he get those in here?

"For those of you that can't stand the idea of being taught by someone your age, or those of you that don't want to be trained in such a way, these are withdrawal forms. Grab one and go submit it to the administration. The rest of you, get changed into your gym clothing." Midoriya's lips twitched into a snarl of a smile. "We're going to be running today. Ah, and Pony, stay behind, please. I'll run through it again with you in English since this is important."

A chill ran down their spines, and Kyoka blanched as it finally sank in for her. Midoriya's going to be teaching us. He was just given free reign to train us properly to his standard. Oh god. Before anyone else could say anything, she was already moving for the doors, mildly ill. Himiko practically skipped up behind her, eyes gleaming and a psychotic smile gracing her lips.

Slowly, painfully, the class made their decisions, and Midoriya had to give them credit. Not a single one of them took the easy way out. Ashido, Kaminari, Asui, and Sero had taken withdrawal forms with them just in case, but that was well within expectations. "Well, Aizawa. We've got a mighty fine class this year, haven't we?"

"Uh, Midori?" Midoriya glanced over and was momentarily confused when he found nothing. It was only when, on instinct, his implants started cycling through imaging layers in his vision that it clicked. There was a floating uniform in front of him.

"Oh. What do you need Hagakure?"

"Uhm. What you spoke of before, training us like that? I'm not really that in shape compared to everyone else, and I don't think my quirk is really all that useful for this."

Midoriya quirked an eyebrow. "Hagakure, we're doing this because no one except for maybe Jiro or Toga is, in our opinion, sufficiently in shape for the training Aizawa and myself will be giving you. You'll all be suffering equally soon enough."

"I'm not really sure if that's comforting or not."

"As for your quirk, you'll never be a frontline fighter like Todoroki or Setsuna. But then again, you knew that already. Trust me, when it comes to stealth training, you'll see why I value your quirk apparently higher than you do."

"Oh. Okay. I guess I'll join the others then… Oh! How is Uraraka? Did the surgery go alright?"

"Oh, she's fine. In fact, she'll probably be joining you all at the start of next week." Midoriya was startled at the sheer decibel the girl was able to reach as she rushed out of the room, assumingly to inform her classmates. "Are we sure that she doesn't have some kind of sound quirk? Ah, yes. Sorry, Pony."

…

The sensation started out innocently enough. A warmth spreading across her skin and spider webs of impression scoring down her back like sharp fingernails dragging across sensitive skin. The sensation stayed like that for some time. Like a mother's embrace, holding her consciousness in a deep twilight. She was there, she could think, but it wasn't quick. Or was it? Time passed so strangely here. One second was an eternity. Or was it an eternity that was but the blink of an eye? A semipermeable membrane of recognition that granted her peace rather than the suffocation of suppression.

Nothing lasts forever, the good or the bad. Warmth turned into burning. Fingernails into razors, scoring her flesh. Deep gashes that seethed in the nonlight. Shadows writhed as an embrace turned into the harsh struggle of strangulation. Suspension became freefall. And nothing became an alien sky bathed in the light of a blue star. A crash surrounded her as glass bit into her back, and the impact of meat and marble knocked her back into slumber.

…

When Uraraka next opened her eyes, what greeted her wasn't the green of medical gelatin that Midoriya had warned her that she would awaken breathing. It wasn't even the polycarbonate of the tube she knew she was to be placed in. Instead, what greeted Uraraka was an unfamiliar marble ceiling and a shattered skylight, lit by flaming wall sconces and a deep azure star engulfing the sky.

Feeling came back to her in waves. The cool, dry air running across her face. The feeling of glass stabbing into her back, and for the first time in days, the feeling of a cool surface against the back of her heels. Then came the sound of humming. A tune low and instinctual that she had heard before. It spurred Uraraka to roll over, out of the pile of glass, and onto her front. Even as she pushed to her feet, she groaned. I feel like I've been hit by a bag of bricks. Wait.

Uraraka's eyes snapped to the ground, even as she took another step down the hallway leading to… well, she didn't know where. I have feet again. My legs are back. I can fee-

Her face scrunched into confusion as her eyes zeroed in on the nearly invisible seams at her joints, appearing only as she took another step. Not her legs, she realized, but something close? She felt as if she'd known these legs practically longer than her real ones that were taken so long befor-

That wasn't right, either. She had just lost her legs, hadn't she? For that matter, what was this place? How had she gotten here? Uraraka sucked in a breath, as she impacted the railing of the stair landing. As she looked down across the rails Uraraka took in her surroundings for the first time beyond the ceiling and sky.

White marble, or something similar to it, gleamed its polished splendor from wherever she looked. The landing, the stairs leading upwards into an endless spiral and down into the ground floor, all shone. Each floor segmented into four… no eight… no twelve… Uraraka winced. The longer she focused on a floor the more corridors of bookshelves seemed to appear, and her head was splitting as it was. Wait.

Uraraka's head snapped around to the hallway she had come from and found that it, too, was lined with books on either side. Ages all seemed to vary and all bound with different materials. The trail of her blood led into the distance, and she couldn't make out where she had originally come from. Had she walked that far?

Humming once again caught her attention. Deep and primal, once again, the tune resonated somewhere in her brain. She could have sworn she had heard it before, but where? She took a step towards it again. Taking a step downwards towards the floor below, the world shifted and Uraraka stumbled. Her hands found purchase on the lip of a stone fountain, and as she looked up, she found the statue of an owl… no, a crane… a crow?

Again, Uraraka winced as she dragged her eyes away from the statue's sapphire ones. The sound of fractals shifting, clinking, chiming, shifted Uraraka's attention and had her spinning and pressing her back into the fountain. In front of her, not but a handful of paces, stood a woman, staring at her. Through her, really. Her features were plain by any standard, but her crisp inhuman silver eyes, like the first frost of autumn, made up for that as they contrasted with her shoulder-length black hair. Down her body was a full-length white cloth, billowing around her. The pure alabaster disturbed only by a spotted pelt shawl of some kind, draped around her shoulders.

She wore no expression and tilted her head as she observed Uraraka. "Who are you? You a-" Fractals of light and sound collided again as suddenly the woman was a step closer. Her head tilted the opposite way. "You are hu- human, aren't you? It has been so long since one of your kind visited here, you know? Wh- what are you doing here, you- young one?"

Uraraka felt her breath catch in her throat each time the figure jilted her words only to restart a second later. "I- I don't know. Where am I? Who are you?"

"How in- interesting, young one. Who am I? I do not really recall anymore. I have been the keeper of this place for so- so long. So many names I have been called. If you must call me anything, though… hmm, call me Nosis."

Uraraka felt her lungs once again seize as the woman's head tilted and her eyes unfocused, as if listening to some distant sound only she could hear. "I am afraid that as much as I would love to socialize with my first guest in so long, it would appear that we are short on time, young one."

The woman appeared in front of her, mere inches between them with a seeming screech from the air around her. Uraraka's brain wanted to shut down, and her instinct shrieked at her to run. To flee, that there was danger. Instead, Uraraka remained frozen as the woman spoke. "An affirmation of who you are, young one. I see the sadness behind your eyes. Know your story that makes me weep for your pride and strength that drives you to be the best you can be. It is that strength that people are drawn to, it protects you, makes you strong. But don't allow yourself to spurn aid, as your brothers and sisters will be the only thing that gets you through the days to come."

Uraraka felt like hyperventilating as the silver eyes bore into hers, as if viewing the depths of her soul. But the air wouldn't come as the woman tilted her head once again. "Do find your way back sometime. You look like you are going to be such an interesting story. But for now," the woman reached up and pressed a finger against Uraraka's forehead and pushed. Uraraka felt what air was left rush from her lungs as her back hit the water of the fountain with an impossible force. Her consciousness slipped away, and as she left that inconceivable athenaeum, she heard the woman's last word like a whisper through her mind. Awaken.