As the sun rose the day after the exam, Aizawa gave the news to everyone of a fight between Midoriya and Bakugo.
They could both be found in the lounge vacuuming, covered in bandages and bruises. Many of the students chastised them.
"You fought?"
"Lockdown?"
"Idiots!"
"Nonsense!"
"The stupidest for sure!"
Uraraka asked, "So... did you two make up in the end?"
Midoriya replied, "Make up? Well... not exactly. It's hard to put into words..."
Most students left for the ceremony; Iida said, "I suppose you two will be absent at today's opening ceremony!"
Bakugo vacuumed faster, "What do you think?!"
"I think this is a good punishment for you two!"
Bakugo turned and gritted his teeth silently. More students left, and Sasuke asked Midoriya, "So did you win?"
Midoriya looked down, "I'd say it was... a draw."
Bakugo smacked his lips, "More like a loss."
Sasuke thought back to what he heard Bakugo say yesterday. He stared at him, "Bakugo, do you know about his quirk now?"
"Yeah... You must have known for a while now, right?"
"I figured it out right after USJ. All Might gave us the talk."
"Mm..."
Sasuke observed their marks from yesterday, "After what happened between you too, do you get what I meant back in that bar now?"
Bakugo's brow twitched, "... Yeah. I get it."
Midoriya continued, vacuuming in silence, 'What did they talk about back then?'
Sasuke turned away, and Bakugo called him, "Hey, Sasuke," he turned off the vacuum.
"After the work-study, spar me, bastard."
"You sure?" He tilted his head.
"Yes, I'm damn sure, asshat! I beat All Might's disciple here, and I'll eventually kick your ass too!" He pointed.
Sasuke snickered, "Hn, I look forward to you trying. Sparring is the best training anyway."
Bakugo's face had the hint of a smile, "You're damn right it is! Now get out, I gotta vacuum where you're standing!"
Midoriya's eyes were stars, 'Bakugo and Sasuke fighting again?! I gotta put that on my calendar! Wait... what's a work-study?'
The students went out to receive an announcement from Principal Nezu, who informed them about their upcoming work studies. While the students were given hero work to look forward to, Hawks knocked on an apartment door.
While waiting he leaned on the guard rails and observed the passing cars on the highway. He heard footsteps approaching, and the door creaked. A woman peeked through the door, but her eyes went wide and the door swung open, "Pro hero Hawks?!"
"The one and only." He smiled and waved.
She blinked, "W-what does the number 3 ranked hero want with me? Did I do something wrong?"
"Haha! No, not at all, Mrs. Hario. I was wondering if your son was home?"
A little black-haired boy no older than 8 turned the corner, and his eyes gleamed, "Hawks?!"
He waved again, 'They both seem pretty positive towards heroes. That'll make my job easier. A ton of these widowed wives are pretty bitter about the work.'
"What did a hero need with my son?" The kid walked up to him and she hugged him.
"I was hoping that your son could help me find a friend."
The boy smiled, "Like hero work?! Hell yeah!"
"Exactly!"
She frowned, "Language!... A friend?"
"Yes."
"A friend that even you can't find?"
He shook his head, "It's... very complicated."
"You must be familiar with my late husband then, right?" He nodded. "I'm sorry sir, but my son's quirk hasn't awakened yet."
"Yes, it has!"
She put a finger on her lips, "Hakari! You have to learn to be quiet about that!"
He crossed his arms, "But it's Hawks!"
"I don't care if it's All Might!" She turned back to Hawks while Hakari pouted against a wall, "I'm sorry, but can you please not tell anyone about this? Shady people trying to recruit my son to search for things is exactly why he's supposed to officially be quirkless for now…" She pointed at him sharply, "And strangers coming to my door about my son falls under shady!"
Hawks put his hands up and drew a zipper over his mouth, "I won't tell. I just came here hoping he wasn't really quirkless."
She awkwardly laughed, "Well now you know… but I'm not comfortable with some hero just swooping away my son to somewhere potentially dangerous."
He waved his hand, "It wouldn't be dangerous at all. You can come too if you want, but he'd be totally safe with me."
The mother stared at him, and the boy pulled on her arm, "Come on, Mom! I wanna tell my friends I helped out Hawks!"
"That's exactly who you can't tell!"
"As if getting made fun of for not having a quirk is better!" He clenched his fist.
She covered her forehead, "Not this discussion again… not in front of the hero!"
"You're worried about shady people trying to use your son, right? I can't give you all the details, but if I find this person, I'll be able to personally make sure your son isn't used for shady purposes. He can be left alone."
She stared at him, "How can you promise something as vague and big as that?"
"Let's just say my friend is a very important person."
She stared at him for a long time. Long enough that her son made audible pouts and groans. "Hakari! Calm down... Fine... but we better receive compensation for this! This is a one-time thing."
His smile returned, "Naturally, if you don't mind. I'd just like to test out how accurate Hakari's quirk is."
She stepped aside, welcoming him in, "... Alright."
Hawks flew the boy into the living room with feathers picking up his shirt. The boy cheered, and Hawks chuckled before he cleared his throat as he set the boy down. He cleared his throat and knelt before the boy, "Ready, kid?"
He nodded rapidly and Hawks plucked a feather to give to him. "I'm gonna hide two of these randomly in the room, see if you can find them, alright?"
"Easy!" He held the feather with both hands and twirled it.
"I hope so, close your eyes."
He complied and closed them. He could hear the feathers whooshing around, but the speed was too fast to track.
"Now open them. Where are they?"
He opened his eyes and stared around the green room. Without thinking, his hand pointed at a ceramic vase. He ran up to it and dug a feather out, "Impressive! One more!"
Next, he pointed at a couch and dug between the cushions, pulling out a second feather. He turned to go back to Hawks, but his leg turned on its own and pointed at a cabinet. He opened it and pulled out a third feather. "Done! Ha, can't trick me!"
Hawks smiled and clapped, "You got me there! That's an amazing quirk you have there." He ruffled his hair and thought, 'He's the real deal alright… he somehow even found the hidden feather somehow… what an abstract quirk… I'll be betting on Hakari to help me find you then, Madam President.'
"Hehe, now let's find your friend!" He bounced up and down, but his mom held up a hand.
"Not so fast, mister, you still have to get ready for school." All the joy drained from his face as he fell. Hawks frowned. "How urgently did you need to find this friend?" She crossed her arms.
"As soon as possible is always preferable."
"Right... alright, give us two days."
The noon sun fell westward until it was evening, Danzo played Solitaire in his bland black office when he received a call. "Hello?"
"Sir... we have bad news."
He frowned and turned in the swivel chair, "What is it?"
A gulp could be heard through the phone as he exhaled. "The guard we set up a plan with to kill Nagant… he has… failed… he was also detained."
Danzo scowled and tightened his fist under his robe, "What horrible plan did you come up with that managed to fail?"
"The guard on our side, Mizuki, set up four prisoners to try to kill Nagant at the same time."
His voice hardened, "And you're telling me four Tartarus prisoners couldn't kill one damn woman? She wouldn't even be able to use her quirk! I should fire you."
"Well... sir... to be fair, she was our top assassin for years. She isn't just any woman."
Danzo's hand slid down his face, "I suppose… How's it looking now? Can it be traced back to me?"
"There's no proof, but Nagant claims that the whole situation is your doing."
He sighed, 'Just when my plan was starting to go perfectly...' "Fine, well, there's no proof; I'll simply attribute her claims to still holding contempt for failing her assassination attempts. What about Mizuki?"
"He hasn't confessed to anything as of yet."
"Good, and he better keep it that way. After all, it would be a tragedy If his mother's life support devices had any sudden errors."
"Did you have another plan for Nagant, sir?"
"No, not now; leave her alone. We'll need to wait until I solidify more control before I can just have her executed."
"Understood."
"Goodbye," he hung up and turned off the computer, sauntering out of the room, 'Nagant, you flea... you can only cause me terror for so long.'
The evening sun fully set west as the moon replaced it. Sasuke could be found in his room standing in front of a mirror. The room was basically a one-to-one copy of his old one. He held up an anatomy chart on his phone and practiced manifesting purple energy inside his body. 'There's my lungs… there's my shoulder bones… there's my ribs… just knowing where they are should be good enough.'
He heard a knock on the door and opened it to be greeted by Mina. "Mina? Need something?"
"Hey, knew you'd be awake. Listen, do you have… training equipment I could use?"
"Yeah… why?"
She rubbed the back of her head as she thought back to when Sasuke stopped that cement shot, "I feel like… for my quirk to get stronger, I gotta get physically stronger. Like how they say improving fundamentals will make everything else better. Does that make sense?"
His face lit up, "Yeah… you're really getting into training, did you have someone you planned on killing?"
"Uh…" She paused then snickered, "Hehe, no. Let me see what you got," she playfully punched him.
He invited her in and he laid out his equipment for her. On the ground were dumbbells, a pull up bar, and different resistance bands and Olympic rings. She put her hand under her chin, "Hmmmmm… can I have them all?"
He raised a brow, "Mina, you're not ready for Olympic rings or the heavier dumbbells."
"I totally am!"
Sasuke sighed and hung the rings over a bar. "If you can do this move, I'll give them to you," He grabbed the rings in a L-sit and performed a muscle-up. Her eyes went wide and he stood normally, "Try."
"Uh… right." She grabbed the rings and hung, swinging a little. "Here we go!" She pulled herself up, managing to get her head above her hands, but she couldn't pull herself up even further no matter how much she tried.
"Ready to give up?" He crossed his arms.
"No! I almost have it!" She grunted and tried to raise herself up again, but failed. Her arms straightened back out and she swung. She got an idea from the swinging and used the momentum to swing up and push, straightening herself up. "Ha! I did it!"
"Using that much momentum is cheating."
"You never said I couldn't use momentum! Suck it!" She stuck out her tongue and Sasuke dead panned.
"Alright… well either way you definitely can't lift a 45ib dumbbell."
She approached a dumbbell and knelt with a smug grin, "Time to prove you wrong again. Humph!"
She lifted it off the ground and held it at waist height. Sasuke picked up another dumbbell and curled it. "Now do this."
She nodded and took a deep breath before trying to lift it; Although, no matter what way she tried, she couldn't even get it at a 90 degree angle. She dropped it and Sasuke asked, "Pretty hard, huh?"
Mina wiped her sweat off, "Why can't I just train for one day and have a physique like Miruko?"
"It doesn't work that way, but you can get there one day."
"Heh, yeah, I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" She winked and made him blush. She picked up the pull-up bar and olympic rings, "So do you need anything for all this stuff?"
"Nah, you can have it."
"Really? Hehe best girl friend privilege."
Sasuke turned red again, "Why did you word it like that?"
Her grin turned mischievous, "Well isn't Midoriya your best boy friend? I'm just differentiating."
He face-palmed, "You're killing me."
"Hehe, well thanks! Help me carry some of this stuff." He carried some 25s for her and they carefully made their way to her room. Once they made their way inside, Mina asked, "So… Can you show me how to do some of this stuff?"
For the following couple of days, Sasuke helped her form her own workout routine and taught her the right form.
By the morning, Sasuke made his way through the UA halls to class; for a moment, he spotted a blonde head staring at him out of the wall, but when he turned, nothing was there but the normal cement, 'What the hell?'
He tried to ignore it and went to class. Midoriya ran in soon after, and Aizawa said, "Now that Midoriya is back, let's talk about work studies for real. Come on in," He gestured to the door, and the student's eyes followed. "Here to tell you how work-studies work differently than internships are some people who've experienced it all already. They've taken time out of their busy schedules to be here, so make sure you give them your full attention. Out of all the students at UA, these are the top three reigning third-years. We call them The Big Three."
The door swung open and three students came in. At the front was a blonde with a stride in his step, next was a girl with long blue hair, and last was a guy who looked like a timid Sasuke with elf ears.
Sasuke stared at the blonde, 'Is that the face I saw on the wall?'
Some of the students looked back and forth between Sasuke and the look-alike. Uraraka asked with a sly smile, "Sasuke, is cloning your second quirk?"
His brow twitched, "No."
Aizawa gestured, "Let's get right to it. Amajiki, please introduce yourself."
Amajiki glared and made most of the students of the class tense up, although he quickly quivered and mumbled to the two other third years before turning to face the chalkboard. "I wanna go now!"
Kaminari's eyelids hung low as he joined in on the teasing, "Sasuke... I'm not sure if I can ever see you the same way again."
Sasuke shot a glare, "Shut it! He only has a similar haircut."
Uraraka thought, 'Is the duck style becoming fashionable?'
The third-year girl waved her hand, "He's Tamaki Amajiki, and I'm Nejire Hado. We came here today to talk to you about work-studies."
She walked up to Shoji, "But hey hey, what's with that mask? Are you sick or is it fashion?"
"Well, a long time ago I"—
—"Heeyyy is that Todoroki back there? How did you get that burn scar anyway?"
"... Well I"—
—Nejire moved on to her next victim before he could respond, "Hey, Ashido. If you broke those horns would they grow back? And Mineta, how do you get a haircut with those balls on your head? Sasuke, why don't you use your second quirk? Asui, are you like a tree frog or a toad?"
She enthusiastically bounced around the class, asking everyone questions. Kaminari smiled, "She's all over the place, so cute!"
Aizawa turned to the blonde third-year, "She's not the most rational person, is she?"
"Not to worry, Eraserhead! I'm the main act here! The outlook is looking..."
He held a hand up to his ear, and the class looked at each other with weird looks.
"Grim! The answer is grim! Well, that didn't go so well!"
Sasuke sighed, "They're all idiots."
Tokoyami stated, "It's hard to tell what they're really made of."
Mirio dropped his smile, "I'm seeing a lot of faces that say "Who cares?" I guess it doesn't make sense for us third-years to come out of nowhere talking about work studies you don't even have to do," his smile returned, "Since our talk here isn't going well, why don't you all just take me on?"
Sasuke smiled, 'Is he serious?'
Aizawa side-eyed him and Mirio continued, "Seems rational to have them feel the full weight of our experience, don't you think?"
"...Do as you like."
Everyone moved to the same training grounds they practiced their special moves in. Mirio stretched with a grin ear to ear; he moved as if he was doing a tug of war with kids, rather than a fight with almost all of Class-1A. On the other side of the training grounds, Tokoyami said, "Wait a minute, we've all fought pros before, albeit with handicaps."
Kirishima added, "And we have real experience fighting villains, so don't take us lightly, or we'll end up knocking that casual smile off your face."
Sasuke crossed his arms near the back of the crowd, 'There's no way he could take us all on, but still... he must have seen us at the sports festival and Kamino. He has a lot of confidence.'
Mirio straightened up, "Whenever you're ready, then come at me."
Midoriya stepped up, "I'll go first!"
"One of the problem children! Of course, you'd step up, you've got spirit!"
Midoriya sparked with green lightning, 'How could I turn down a chance like this to fight the top guy at UA? I've gotta see how far I can go!'
Almost everyone got ready to charge, but suddenly Mirio's clothes fell through him. Jiro screamed and Mirio tried to put them back on, "Sorry! Fine tuning, this is tricky."
Midoriya went for a kick, but it went right through his head. He stumbled on the ground, looking back with wide eyes, 'Some kind of phasing quirk?'
Mirio turned around and every ranged fighter shot at him, but all attacks phased through. "Long-ranged fighters go down first!"
He fell below the ground, disappearing from everyone's sight. Everyone looked around, and before they knew it he popped up out of the ground behind the grouped up classmates that shot at him. He one-shot Jiro, Tokoyami, Momo, Sero, Aoyama, Mineta, Shoji, Mina, and Asui all with gut checks. "POWER!"
"This is a great lesson everyone, so make sure it's beat into you. Because as far as I know, Mirio Togata is the closest to being the number 1 hero. Even among the pros."
The rest of the class, still standing, looked on with wide eyes. Mirio turned to them, "Just the melee fighters left."
Sasuke thought, 'That's absurd. Is he saying he's stronger than all the top ten heroes?'
Kirishima complained, "Oh come on! Phasing is bad enough. But warping too?"
Midoriya replied, "The warping is probably a function of the phasing or the other way around. Either way, he also has to fight melee; there should be a moment when he's attacking that we can hit him!"
"Oh! Good tips!"
Sasuke raised his Ribcage and thought, 'Good idea, but what if he can select which part phases?'
Mirio phased through the ground again and Midoriya kicked at him, although Mirio phased right through the kick and pretended to poke Midoriya's eyes. Midoriya instinctually closed his eyes, allowing Mirio gutcheck him.
After Midoriya collapsed, Mirio knocked out each of the following students the same way until it was just Sasuke left. "One more problem child." He went for a gut check and Sasuke jumped high into the air.
'That confirms it. He can select which part phases, my only hope is if the phasing is completely conscious then.'
Mirio waited for Sasuke where he was gonna land, but a Susanoo arm grabbed the ground farther away to pull himself away from Mirio. Mirio followed, but Sasuke threw a smoke bomb. "You know you can't see either, right?"
Sasuke jumped high into the air again as Mirio got within range, he shot a Susanoo punching glove arrow down at him, turning the grey smoke brown with dirt and dust. 'This attack should be too fast for him to react to.'
He landed with his Ribcage active and looked around rapidly, he sensed a disturbance in the Astral bones and kicked around, but Mirio phased through and punched him into the ground. 'Did he feel me phasing through his ribcage? Nah, that's impossible.' "POWER!"
Sasuke got on his knee and caught his breath. Mirio looked back at him, 'He's fine, right after that? This is a tough one. It would have been really awkward if I took too long to take him out.'
Sasuke rubbed his head and stood, 'It's gotta be nearly impossible to hit that guy unless you have a fire quirk like Todoroki. Did he predict that I'd shoot down at him?'
Mirio covered his private parts with his clothes and offered him a hand, which he accepted. "Sasuke, right? You're quite strong for your age. I guess multiple near-death experiences are a very good teacher, aren't they? Hahaha!"
"... Yeah. How did you dodge that arrow? It should be too fast for almost anyone."
"I figured you'd shoot something, so I just phased under to be safe, good try though!"
He turned around and marched with a pep in his step back to his own classmates. Sasuke turned to look at Todoroki, 'Bakugo likely wouldn't have made much difference, but Todoroki's quirk should have been able to help a lot, well whatever.'
Mineta raised his fist, "Sasuke! You're making us look bad! You're supposed to be the strongest in the class!"
"Weren't you the first one knocked out?"
Kaminari shrugged with a playful smile, "I don't know... I probably could have done more if I was also the last guy standing. Bit of an unfair advantage that you got to see everything he's got."
Sasuke couldn't suppress a smirk and played along, "Well, why do you think I was the last one standing in the first place?" Sasuke squabbled with his classmates for a while until everyone lined up for Mirio to explain his quirk.
While the class was prepared for their future work studies, trouble brewed in a warehouse as the League of Villains made contact with Hassaikai, and at a destroyed factory in Kamino, Hawks was led by Hakari through the night.
Hakari stopped and pointed at the building that was previously used to store Nomu. "This is the place the lady is at! Did I do good, Hawks?"
Hawks stepped forward and stared at the building with intensity. He smiled and turned back to the kid, "You did great! How would you two like a flight back to your apartment?" His eyes became stars, "YES!"
The mother sweat, "I don't know about how safe that is…"
"Safer than walking alone at night, don't worry, I've flown dozens of people at a time across entire islands before."
"Mmm… if you say so. How about the payment?"
He pulled out a stack of yen, "Here you go, 500K. Seriously, thank you for the help."
"Indeed, let's go now, Hakari."
Hakari went for a fist bump and Hawks kneeled and returned it. "Way to go kid!" He whispered in his ear, "Make sure your mom gets you at least two video games. If she doesn't then I can sneak you some."
Hakari snickered and nodded before running to his mom. He waved them off and flew them away. Once he could no longer hear their mix of cheering and screaming, he turned back to the building. He plodded into the buildings and had feathers fly all around the decrepit building. All the remnants of the battle between AFO and All Might remained, save for the machines used to contain Nomu. His nose scrunched, 'Ugh, smells moldy.'
He turned a corner and looked down to see a bundle of blankets in a human shape. 'Aha, I found you. Now please don't try to blow my brains out.'
He knelt down and nudged her body; in an instant, she shot up to point a gun at Hawk's head. Although, he pulled the gun from her before it could meet its target. "Madam President, I never knew you were such a grumpy sleeper."
Her glare softened as she got a good look at him, "Hawks?"
"Yes," his jovial expression switched to stone cold, "We seriously need to talk."
She blinked a few times before sitting up straight and stretching out, "Alright... I'm awake... How did you find me?"
"I got the idea from Nagant to go after Compass Kid's kid."
"The quirkless child?"
"Well, he turned out to not be that quirkless. In any case, how'd you end up here? Was anything Danzo said legitimate?"
She scoffed, "Legitimate and Danzo should never go in the same sentence. He had my information hacked to frame me and get me voted off my spot as president!"
"I see; well, you've done a good job of hiding from everyone since then."
"Of course, directing agents like you for years tends to help in covering tracks. If I didn't then well... I'd end up like how other loose ends of Danzo end up." She turned and frowned.
"Yeah, well I'm gonna need all those loose ends to tighten around his neck soon."
She turned back to him, "What do you mean?"
He stared into her soul, "Within the next three weeks, I'm going to ensure Danzo dies."
Her eyes widened briefly, "If you weren't who I know you are, I would laugh. Hell, I almost still want to laugh, considering how Nagant already failed at that year's ago."
"It'll be different this time."
She chuckled, "Yes, it'll be even harder now. Itachi is dead, and Nagant is facing life in prison if not death... what kind of plan could you have that would somehow make it easier?"
"Sasuke."
"The boy that Danzo wanted years ago? How could he help?"
"Danzo has been pretty secluded for the past few years, but recently he's been going on "walks" since becoming president. The way I'm seeing it, is that because he doesn't have you and Itachi keeping him in check anymore, he must feel safer for making all his moves he's wanted to do. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
She nodded, "Yes… he's likely trying to get in direct contact with Sasuke, if he hasn't already."
"Exactly, I haven't personally met Sasuke yet, but from what I've seen, he's more feisty than Itachi ever was. If he learned the truth, he'd wanna kill Danzo as soon as possible. It'll present the perfect opportunity to finally take him out… the plan is more complex than that, but there's no reason to go into deep detail here."
She processed everything he said, "Where do I fit into this plan? I'm assuming I'll be taking the role of President again?"
"Yes."
"Alright..."
"It isn't that simple though. Frankly, things have to change," he pointed at her.
".... Such as?"
"Well for one, I'm never gonna have a child successor, no more shady assassinations, just all of the corruption has to go. I'll tell you some more once my plan works."
She raised a brow, "I don't have unlimited power, you can't just snap a finger and get rid of all corruption."
"Well, if I have to, then it won't be fingers I'm snapping." He lowered his head, causing the moon to cast a shadow over his face.
She froze for a moment, "You've... changed."
He looked back up with his normal smile, "Yeah, I can't just lay back after what happened… but in any case. Come back here at this exact date," He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote on it, handing it to her. "I'll bring you to the commission to take charge on that day. In the meantime just go do whatever you were already doing."
She accepted the paper and smiled, "You almost sound like a president yourself."
He laughed and stood, "Heh, I'd hate to do something that upfront. I'm gonna stick more to being behind the scenes. See ya, I gotta get ready for the students Work-Studies."
He flew off into the functioning parts of the city in thought, 'Time to set the final pieces in place.'