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Chapter 68: Chapter #67 | Past Is Prologue

Notes:

Sorry for the delay folks! This weeks chapter, next week for you guys, came out... bad, we'll call it real bad, the first time. So I scrapped it. Then I scrapped it a second time over the course of this last week. Finally, after much revision, my editor and I landed on a version that we were happy to publish. Hence, delay. I try not to put out writing that I'm just not happy with.

Last chapter we had:

-Some pre event chatter

-The start of the Triathlon

-More waiting room shenanigans

Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Midoriya rolled his shoulders as he stepped out into the wide-open area U.A. had designated for Sekijiro's wrestling event. The students behind him shuffled forward as the crowd roared loud enough to make Midoriya close his right eye with a wince.

Down below the students, rivers of concrete and wood seemed to undulate around and around, the grass covered quickly by rising stages and perfect circles of smooth wooden rings, purposely grown by Ishiyama's assistant. Gesturing to the participant bleachers, Midoriya wandered over to where the professors were talking amongst themselves.

Sekijiro flicked his eyes over him, saying something to the other heroes in the area before raising his voice to be heard by Midoriya. "Everyone here?"

"Yeah, A and B are taking their seats to wait for their matches to be called. We passed by a couple of the other schools making their way out here, so hopefully we'll have everyone when you're ready to start."

"Good. The refs are raring to see what you kids have got. Wrestling with quirks is a rare treat for them. You guys are checked in. Go ahead back to the stands." Midoriya popped a thumbs up, his enthusiasm mild but genuine. He'd turned to head back when Kamui Woods fell into step alongside him.

They were several paces toward the stands before the man spoke. "I wanted to thank you for what you said back then." Midoriya stopped in place, turning a confused and almost surprised look on the pro hero.

"What I said?" The confusion persisted as Midoriya, face twisted in thought, searched for any time in which he had spoken about Kamui Woods. "Are you referring to when I publicly shamed you to the reporters? Why the hell-"

The man raised a hand to cut him off. "Yeah, I am. Those of us there that day took it a few ways. Backdraft was surprised that someone called us out but didn't weigh in on it since you'd complimented him. Yu, well, she took it as a bit of a backhanded compliment."

"I meant it as one." Kamui winced.

"Perhaps we not tell her that. Death Arms brushed it off, deciding you were just a pissy little quirkless runt."

"Not shocking, since he managed to get me shot before that." Kamui froze, his jaw tightening.

"Yeah, I wish I could say that one was surprising."

"Shouldn't be." Kamui blinked at the distaste dripping from Midoriya's words, despite the carefully neutral expression he wore.

"Right, well, I took it a bit harder than the others. You had the court of public opinion nearly crucifying us with your statements. It was an easy story, and oh boy did they run with it." The man reached up under his mask, scratching his face before letting the hand drop back to his side. He stared at some point behind Midoriya for a moment before continuing to speak.

"I went back home for a while, patrolled there for a bit. Amami is rather peaceful. It's why I came all the way to the city in the first place. I spent some time there, just," he gestured vaguely, "helping, I guess. There wasn't that much crime, really, so it was a lot of menial tasks. A lot more connecting with the people I was supposed to be protecting."

Midoriya shuffled awkwardly in place as the man spoke. He hadn't intended any of that. It had been pure spite at that moment and nothing more. He didn't want to be thanked for nearly ruining a man's career.

"Went back to my alma mater for a while after that. They were more than happy to bring me on as a teacher for a semester. Field experience is hard to come by, after all, especially for smaller schools outside the big ones." Kamui gestured around him to the students gathering in the stands. "I don't know what I was expecting, but the kids, their perspectives on heroism… I don't know. I guess I understand Eraserhead's reputation a bit better now. So thanks, I suppose. Sometimes, even heroes need a swift kick in the ass."

"You see, when I was growing up…" Midoriya clenched his jaw in a smile and resigned himself to listening to this, too.

…

"Ha. Look at that, Toko, Midoriya's been sidelined." Tokoyami and Shoji both glanced over to where Dark Shadow was pointing out from the huddle that they had formed. The look on Midoriya's face was even, unassuming to anyone that hadn't spent the last few months being trained into the ground by him, or that hadn't spent the same amount of time taking classes alongside him. To the students of 1-A, it appeared more like he was sucking on a lemon.

"What the hell caused that expression?" Sero's eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead. The prospect of something that could goad a reaction from his seemingly unflappable classmate almost made him want to sneak over and listen in. They had seen a fairly wide range of emotions from the man, but utterly strained constipation was a new one.

"I don't know, but I kind of want to know. Don't you?" Shoji's response to Sero had Kirishima shaking his head.

"As much as I'd love to, if one of us goes over there right now? Midoriya's vindictive enough to use us as a scapegoat to get away. Do you want to be waylaid by a lecture, even if it's from a pro, until your match?"

"I don't think he's getting a lecture. Somehow, Kamui Woods looks like one of those old grandparents that will talk your ear off until they dissipate into dust. I get your point, though." Sato snorted at the joke, then paused, seemingly horrified at his own action.

"Baaack to what we were discussing. Does anyone have any idea who these people are?" Tetsutetsu glanced up again at the large screen attached to an even larger drone floating along throughout the stadium. The match bracket was displayed clearly for the audience to see. "What the hell'd Midoriya do to get seeded into the second round of matches, anyway?"

"I imagine it was a combination of that," Shoji pointed a blank stare towards Midoriya, who was beginning to glare balefully across the platforms at Vlad King in a silent attempt to garner aid. Vlad King offered him a woefully insufficient thumbs up before turning back to the pro he'd been talking to. "And the fact that he weighs more than all of us combined. It took three of us to lift him off his feet in training. The lack of weight classes causes problems, but the inclusion of quirks minimizes it. There is no minimizing Midoriya's weight."

"He looks rather thin to me," Sato said, confused. "I mean, he's a giant. Six-two? Six-three? And he's jacked." A muttered, tell me about it, came from Dark Shadow. "But it took three of you?"

Sero shrugged. "We asked him about it, and he said it had to do with the density of the muscle, rather than the size of it. Apparently, he's just fucked if you toss him in water. It's why he's avoiding the water events."

The silence following that statement was broken by Tokoyami, who brought the conversation back around again with a noise of realization. "I do know that name." Tokoyami pointed at the board. "Kawata Moriko, your opponent, Sato. Midoriya mentioned to us that they might be able to provide some insight into our recent troubles while they are here. Companion quirks such as my demon aren't common, after all." The malevolent look sent from Dark Shadow to Tokoyami had the other five tensing up. Dark Shadow clicked his beak and muttered to himself about apples.

"So watch out for…?"

"Ah, yes. I'm not really sure. Midoriya called it their 'spirit companion,' but that could mean anything."

"Midoriya could have simply been leaning into Toko's chunibyo." It was Tokoyami's turn to glare at his ever-present consort.

"So watch out for something like Dark Shadow and somehow win in a two-on-one. Easy." Kirishima blinked at Sato's obvious anxiety. When he glanced back to his classmates, he noted their apparent confusion.

"Uh, yeah, sounds great. Just like we've been training for, right?"

Tetsutetsu and Sato stared back at Kirishima, espressions blank. "What?"

"You know, the weeks of hand-to-hand training that we've been getting?" The students continued to stare, and Kirishima shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their attention. With a squawk of protest, a stuttered, undignified response came from Tetsutetsu.

"You- you guys have been getting hand-to-hand training? Like- like, specifically hand-to-hand training? We've just been running combat scenarios for weeks."

"Uh, sure. One-on-one, one-on-two, two-on-two. It's basically been our entire routine since the semester started. Or, well actually, after…" Sero trailed off, his eyes widening as Shoji and Kirishima blinked. Shoji let out a string of expletives as Kirishima's mouth dropped open in understanding.

"Son of a bitch. Ever since Midoriya and Aizawa took over our hero course classes."

Kirishima understood the expectant looks on the 1-B students' faces as silent requests for elaboration, so he began to do so, awkwardly. "Uh, well, our first day of hero classes was a disaster. All Might let a dude in our class have support items that evidently never should have been signed off on, ended up nearly killing a couple of our classmates."

The surprised frowns on their faces spoke wonders. This was clearly the first they were hearing of this. Kirishima continued, "So that dude got removed from the hero course. Last I heard, he was bumped back down to general education, so he's probably, well, somewhere here." Kirishima waved his hand to indicate the festival. "After that, our schedule was done through our homeroom teacher and Midoriya. Or, well, I guess technically Nedzu, since Midoriya is the president's student."

"So that's what's with that fancy black and gold uniform Midoriya wears in classes. The one with the shoulder tassels." Sato blinked. "The president himself plans your classes? That's cool."

Sero shrugged, his face scrunched. "See, that's the thing. We're not really sure who is supposed to be teaching the class. Aizawa's great and all. God knows, after what he did for us back at the USJ, he deserves the respect, but Midoriya seems to be teaching as much as he is."

"That kind of makes sense with his special forces background, whatever is going on with that." Tetsutetsu was biting his lip, his brows furrowed as he thought about that. Sero sucked air in through his cheeks in a quick, popping kind of grimace.

"Yeah, I suppose, in retrospect, it explains it. I still don't like him. He rubs me the wrong way, just something about him, but I don't think any of us can deny that he knows how to fight. Still, our first couple of weeks were just conditioning with some kind of weird water or juice mixture thing. We basically just worked on fighting after that. Like Kirishima said, one-on-one, one-on-two, two-on-two. We spent a bit of time learning to integrate our quirks when we started coming up on the sports festival, and some scenario training. But it's mostly just basic skill training, as if… son of a bitch." Sero's eyes grew wide as he echoed Shoji's realization a moment before.

"What?" Kirishima looked between Shoji and Sero, the two of whom were sharing a dark expression. Shoji responded after a moment.

"It's like Midoriya said all the way back when Setsuna joined the class and we found out about the coursework switch. They are training us as soldiers. Everything so far has been boot camp. Efficient training is the name of the game, and what better way to show how much more efficient the training has been than to have a control group. What better place to show the differences than on a national stage?"

"Nooo," Kirishima dragged the word out nervously. "They wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't just use 1-B to gauge how effective our training is, right?"

"We absolutely would. But in this case, it's just a nice bonus. 1-B is being trained how U.A. has always trained heroes, which, might I remind you, is exceedingly well, looking at their alumni." The men had all nearly startled out of their skin, spinning to find Midoriya standing directly behind them. He must have finally gotten away from Kamui Woods with the matches rapidly approaching. "They are also getting the opportunity to absorb what, seemingly little, wisdom the number one hero has in his brain. Just because I despise the man doesn't mean he hasn't been incredibly effective. If they are the control group, then so is every single hero that came before them."

Midoriya's classmates did at least have the wherewithal to appear admonished as they stared down at their feet. Midoriya glanced over to the refs taking up their positions and then up at the timer lazily gliding along on the drones. "That being said, I suppose I should amend that statement a bit, Sero. We aren't just training you to be soldiers. We're training you to be everything. Soldiers, medics, firefighters, emergency responders. The question that is going to be asked at the end of it all is what your retention is and, of course, what you decide to do with it."

"If that training just so happened to provide everyone with the skills that they would need for a first foray on the public stage, which takes place far too soon for the first years, in my opinion, it could absolutely be by accident. And if the class I was helping teach just so happened to have actual, practical skills to advertise and take into an internship, then even better. Wouldn't that be a wonderful coincidence compared to normal heroics lessons?" Even as Midoriya said the words, his own classmates knew with absolute certainty that it wasn't an accident.

"That is so manly!" Midoriya jerked. He had Kirishima in his line of sight, and that hadn't come from him, so where had it…

Tetsutetsu was practically gleaming as he stood, knees bent, two fists out in front of him, and with a gigantic smile on his face. "Come on, man, you gotta let us get in on some of that. You can't just hoard all the skill training to yourselves." Midoriya quirked an eyebrow as he realized in muted horror that there were two of them now.

"First off, we're not hoarding skill training. You guys just haven't reached it in your lesson plans with All Might." The unspoken insult hung in the air. "As for changes to your guys' lesson plans, you'll have to take that up with your teacher," Midoriya pointed at Vlad as he finished his statement, "after the festival is over."

"That doesn't mean that we can't work out together after classes, though, bro." Midoriya could have sworn that Kirishima had not been standing there a second earlier. He also noted, continuing to be mildly horrified, that Kirishima was now also standing in the same position as Tetsutetsu.

"Bro."

"Bro!"

Gods help him to get through this. Midoriya took a deep breath and snapped his fingers a couple of times to get everyone's attention. "Alright, that's enough of that. Let's focus up." The students registered the roar of the audience again for the first time in quite a while, a count down to the beginning of their event. "This first match is going to be an interesting one. Quirks are a fabric manipulation quirk from Shiketsu and some kind of cartoon hole quirk from Seiai."

Sato leaned over to Shoji as a bead of sweat dripped down his face. "Does he always know about everyone?"

Shoji smirked behind his mask. "I'm pretty sure Midoriya could tell you what color underwear the prime minister is wearing right now."

Midoriya smirked at the whispered conversation and decided to indulge himself a little bit. "Black with gray checkers." Possibly. Who really knew? But the look of abject horror on Sato's face made it a bit sweeter.

Notes:

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