"Whhhhyyyyy?????" I whine from my place between Jiro and Kaminari where I'm being dragged. Limply, of course. No point in making this easy on the two traitors!
"Because you need a costume," Jiro points out reasonably.
"And we don't want to deal with Aizawa-sensei making a big deal about how you can't use your villain costume because it's a villain costume," Kaminari points out just as reasonably.
"But I don't wannaaaaa!" I whine in a high-pitched voice, determined to make this as difficult for the two as possible. Even if me needing a hero costume is understandable, it doesn't mean I have to like it! I'm perfectly happy using my villain costume for hero work as well! Just think about how confused people will be! Although it's possible that it would mess with my reputation as Midosagi, I guess. So that's one point towards letting myself be dragged to the support studio.
But is it really that easy for UA to make a hero student's costume? Wouldn't it have made more sense for me to swing by and get measured and tell them what kind of costume I'd like closer to the start of the week? It's already Thursday, so will they really have enough time to get it put together before Internships start on Sunday? Or is Nezu hoping to kill me off next week because he doesn't want to deal with me anymore?
Nah, my first session with Hound Dog is tomorrow, so I doubt that he's already tired of the quality entertainment I provide for him. So it's either that UA's support department actually can work that fast, or not much effort is put into the costumes for the first year hero students.
Not that either option really matters for me. Y'know, because I can un-die myself.
Might as well make conversation while they drag me to my doom!
"So did the two of you talk about how Jiro is always ragging on Kaminari?"
My sudden question causes the girl to stumble a step and her face to go red, though Kaminari manages to adjust without too much trouble and prevent himself from stumbling as well. And being the chill sort of guy he is, he just readjusts his grip and answers the question.
"Yeah, we talked about it. I don't really mind as long as she stops calling me dumb all the time and stops implying that I can't control my quirk."
I nod. "Understandable. But why'd she start doing it in the first place? Because you were hitting on her all the time and she's a tsundere?"
The two of us ignore Jiro's red-faced sputtering, perfectly content to bypass her embarrassment. "Well, yes but actually no" the blonde shrugs. "Mainly it was that she's gay and didn't know that I'm asexual, so she thought I was only interested in her sexually instead of romantically."
Another nod. "Makes sense. Communication is important in all relationships, even the ones where you aren't dating each other." I look over at the violette, who's studiously ignoring us after getting her face back to its normal shade. "So, any girls catch your eye? 1-A? 1-B? Whichever of the support classrooms it is we're going to now?"
She flushes once again, letting go of my arm and letting that side of me drop. Which ends up with Kaminari letting out a yelp of surprise and dropping the side of me that he's supporting and causing me to drop to the floor, my head making a dull thump sound when it hits the ground. "Ow," I deadpan. "I have fallen and cannot get up. Go on without me, but erect a statue in the name of my heroic sacrifice."
"No," Jiro says flatly before digging inside her pockets for a moment before pulling out a pair of earplugs. At my raised eyebrow she explains while putting them in. "The support course is… loud." She grimaces. "The crazy girl especially. She's like a nicer, more excitable version of Bakugou."
"Lovely," I respond dryly before putting my palms flat on the ground above my head and pushing myself into position to crab walk the rest of the way to our destination. "So I'm guessing she isn't the one you're interested in. So, 1-A? I haven't really met anyone other than Monoma from 1-B so I can't make a guess there, but I think you'd make a cute couple with Yaoyorozu or Tsu. Neither of them are particularly loud, so there wouldn't be any concern for your hearing either."
My blatant shipping gets a cute blush to rise to her cheeks, but before she can respond the door we were just about to walk past gets blown out of its frame and slams into the wall on the other side of the hallway. The sound of a man shouting and a girl cackling comes from within while I use only my legs to pull myself back into a standing position, then walk over to examine the door.
Contrary to what one might think, the door is not actually leaning against the wall. Instead it's crumpled in the center around what looks like a cannonball made out of some kind of silvery metal. Weirdly shaped, too. Now that I'm taking a closer look, it actually seems more along the lines of a bullet than a cannonball…
"NO GUNS!"
The sudden confirmation of what I suspected pulls me out of my thoughts, and I turn around and purposefully stride into the room with a smile on my face. Meanwhile, the two hero students exchange glances before doing a one-eighty and walking back the way we came. "Not our business, not our problem," Kaminari shouts before I step into the room. No idea what he's talking about, but I think I'll apply what he said to whatever it is.
"But think of all the ways they can be used by heroes!" A girl shouts, though I can't really see her due to the cloud of black smoke filling the air. I wonder if that's a regular occurrence or something that only happens rarely? But as Melissa likes to say, 'Good inventors blow up something at least once a week!'
"Guns don't make civilians feel safe!" The male voice shouts back, and I start walking in that direction. "We aren't in America!"
"Snipe uses guns! And who cares about feelings!? Feelings are stupid!"
"Snipe only uses guns because of his quirk! You don't see any other heroes using guns! Heroes use their quirks to make people feel safe, not weapons!"
"But quirks are so inefficient!" I take offense to that. It's not the quirk's fault that the person using it is an idiot who can't bother experimenting with what it can do. "My babies can make it so that when a quirk fails, heroes won't just stand around sucking on their thumbs!" I'm pretty sure that babies suck on their thumbs too, but maybe she's talking about mechanical robot babies? Or infant AI?
"NO GUNS!" The words come out just a bit more shrill just as I exit the smoke. I blink my eyes clear enough to see the hero Power Loader waving his finger at a shorter person, probably the girl, angrily. "IF I FIND OUT YOU MADE ANY KIND OF FIREARM AFTER TODAY, YOU'RE EXPELLED!" The man turns around and storms away, not even seeming to notice me as he grumbles under his breath about mad geniuses.
After I can finally see everything, I focus on the source of the man's ire and see a first-year girl with pink dreadlocks standing there with her gloved fists clenched and teeth bared in a snarl at her teacher's back. A pair of steampunk-like goggles rest on her forehead, presumably put there after the explosion given that the area around her eyes is clear of soot. Her eyes themselves are a dark yellow with a black crosshair pattern around the pupils, which are narrowed at the Support Hero's back.
I can't resist the smile that pulls at my lips, because oh do I know what it's like for someone to reject a person's passion. To threaten their dream. To tell them to give up, that it's useless. And I know how inventors get when someone tells them that something can't be done. Especially when they're excited to try it. That's how Melissa got her quirk enhancing device made. The other scientists told her that there was no way she could make something that could boost any quirk without being made specifically for it, and she obviously took that personally.
But this girl? Well. Let's see just what she can do~.
After putting a sympathetic look on my face I walk up and put my hand on her shoulder, pulling her out of probably murderous thoughts, which I do feel bad about, but I want to get to know a bit about her. "Sucks to be him, what was that about?"
She huffs as she looks at me, her eyes…dilating?…a bit as she peers at me for a moment before deciding to answer. "I made a gun baby that shoots different kinds of bullets. PowerLoader," she practically spits the man's name out and I feel my smile make its return, "got mad because guns are 'dangerous'." Her air quotes perfectly illustrate what she thinks of that line of thinking. "There's someone in the hero course who literally has blades coming out of his body, how is a gun more dangerous than that!?" She throws her hands up in frustration before abruptly turning and walking towards what I would presume to be her table, given the gun resting on it.
Well, 'gun', given that it looks more like one of those bulky confetti cannon guns, with a large barrel and small handle. Though as I watch she pops the front off and lets it drop, revealing that it's built similar to a revolver, but instead of traditional bullets there's instead fist-sized balls within, about twenty of them, though there's a clear spot where one is missing.
What I find interesting is that the 'bullet' embedded in the door is much larger than the 'bullets' in the gun. "What kind of bullets have you made?" I ask curiously. She looks surprised at the question, like she's never had anyone ask about her inventions before, but she quickly grows excited and starts rambling about how the gun works and what the different colored bullets do.
According to her: the silver ones grow after leaving the chamber, the purple ones are essentially Midnight's quirk compressed and contained for a ranged sleeping gas, the brown ones expand into a net, and the red ones cause an eruption of flames.
Quite frankly, it's amazing. To get such a variety of uses out of a single weapon is something any villain would love to get their hands on. Yes, they'd require a constant supply of bullets -something that knives will never need, as Himi always says- but these are only the start of what this girl can do. If she can figure out something similar that will work for knives, I can see her being Himi's third favorite person! After Eri and me, of course.
I shoot out my hand, interrupting her gushing over what other kinds of bullets she can make. "I don't think we've been properly introduced, what's your name?"
She blinks at me blankly for a moment before looking down at my hand, then shrugs as she shakes it. "Mei Hatsume, future CEO of Hatsume industries, patent pending."
I chuckle at the confidence in her voice. It's the kind of confidence that tells me that there's absolutely no doubt in her mind that she'll get there one day, regardless of what anyone else has to say. But, well, there's nothing wrong with Hatsume Industries being a bit more… morally grey, then she first intended, is there?
"Izuku Usagi, also known as Midosagi of the League of Villains." I give her a wide smile. "How would you like to make a deal?"