Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Teachers Visit
"This is a bit much," Aizawa commented.
He, Present Mic, and Nezu were standing right outside the gate of Izuku's home and were currently marveling at how large it was compared to the average house.
"Not at all Aizawa. To house this many children with quirks like these. It may not be big enough." Nezu half-joked.
The gates opened, and out walked Izuku with Kioku by his side, or more accurately, hiding behind his leg.
"Hello! Welcome!" Izuku said with no small amount of enthusiasm and nervousness. "I-it's an honor to meet you all! Present Mic! Nezu! Eraserhead! Four heroes in my own home!"
Wonderful. A fanboy. Aizawa sighed.
"And we're glad to finally meet you as well Mr. Midoriya," Nezu said. "It's nice to meet the person taking so much responsibility at such a young age."
"And who's this little lady!" Mic said kneeling down to get on eye level with Kioku. "Hi!"
"Your voice is annoying." Kioku growled at him from behind Izuku's leg.
"EH!" Mic recoiled from comment.
"Kioku!" Izuku chastised the girl.
Aizawa smirked from under his scarf. "I like this kid."
"Ah, this is Kioku. One of my daughters." Izuku introduced her. "She's a bit...paranoid of new people."
"I can sympathize with that." Nezu looked at the purple-haired girl with amusement. "You need to protect your family from all the people who want to hurt them."
"Hmph." Kioku didn't like the way Nezu instantly hit the nail on the head. It felt like he was seeing through her with his beady little eyes.
"Well, are we gonna go inside or what?" Aizawa asked.
"Ah, yes of course." Izuku turned around and started walking towards the house. "Let me show you around."
As they walked towards the entrance of the house, they all noticed Kai's room in the distance.
"What's that?" Present Mic asked.
"Oh, that's Kai's room," Izuku explained. "He's uh...big."
"I would imagine considering the size of the room," Nezu said. "I imagine everything else is scaled up to his size."
"Of course," Izuku told him. "I think he has everything he needs to be comfortable. He hasn't complained about anything but he's a very polite boy so I'm worried I might be missing something and he just hasn't told me."
"Perhaps we'll take a look at that later," Nezu said. "For now let's go inside shall we?"
Seven Minutes later
After giving them a tour around some parts of the house, until they finally reached the training room.
"And this is the trai-oh there you are Kiba. And Fu too!" Izuku said after seeing the vampire girl lifting very heavyweights that were twice the size of her body. Fu seemed to be spotting her, and there were some blood and broken arms on the ground implying that his quirk had been used.
"Hey, dad." Fu noticed the three heroes next to him. "Are those the heroes you said were visiting?"
"Heroes!?" Kiba, in her excitement, threw her weights into the, where they hit the ceiling, came back down, and landed on Fu, crushing him and turning him into a pile of messed up flesh and bone.
"AH!" Present Mic panicked, with the other two heroes doing the same, albeit in a more collected fashion, with Aizawa's eyes becoming extremely wide and Nezu just freezing completely.
"Kiba!" Izuku scolded the girl with a very upset sounding voice. "What have I told you about controlling your strength!?"
"Not to show off or let my emotions overwhelm me," Kiba answered sheepishly.
"If that had been anyone but your brother they could have been injured or worse!" Izuku continued his scolding. "Tomorrow's restraint training will be twice as long!"
"Nooooooooooo!" Kiba groned.
"And you'll be cleaning up all the blood and pieces of flesh," Izuku said much to the girl's despair. "Now get those weights off your brother so he can regenerate properly and introduce yourself to the heroes."
Kiba nodded gloomily, before taking the weights off of Fu's regenerating body.
"So I see he has a regeneration quirk," Nezu said, quickly getting over his shock. "And perhaps a pain nullification ability as well?"
"Yes, his quirk practically makes immortal, so long as he regularly eats meat," Izuku explained. "Although because of this the kids tend to get pretty careless with their powers when it comes to him."
"So I guess we won't be seeing any carpet," Aizawa stated.
"Y-yeah." Izuku laughed nervously.
After Fu regenerated, he and Kiba ran to Izuku's side to greet the heroes.
"Greetings he-" Kiba noticed Aizawa. "...That's a hero?"
"Kiba!" Izuku scolded.
"Ahaha. Yes despite appearances Eraserhead is in fact a pro hero." Nezu said laughing at Kiba's reaction.
"He may look like a hobo, but he's more than capable of beating up the bad guy!" Present Mic said, also laughing.
"Ahem. These are Kiba and Fu. You already know what Fu's quirk is. And you've already seen Kiba's."
"Super strength. Extremely dangerous super strength." Aizawa said.
"Strength, speed, toughness, I have it all." Kiba boasted. "An exemplar of power and grace."
"Yeah, it was really graceful how you accidentally crushed me." Fu rolled his eyes.
"An exemplar of power and grace, most of the time," Kiba added.
"Kids, these are the heroes Eraserhead and Present Mic. They're also teachers at U.A." Izuku explained. "And the one in the middle is the principal of U.A, the pro hero Nezu."
"Oh? Well, then I look forward to entering your school, and then quickly surpassing you." Kiba stated cockily.
Aizawa was about to say something, but Nezu raised his paw to silence him. No need to crush a child spirit yet. Wait until she's under our care for that.
"We look forward to having you, Ms. Kiba," Nezu told her politely, but with an unnerving smile on his face.
Nezu expected to find some interesting future students here.
"Are you planning to become a hero as well Mr. Fu?" Nezu asked the young boy.
"Yeah, I'm not too strong, but if any villain tries to kill me then they're gonna be there for a while," Fu said half sarcastically.
"Beating your enemy out through endurance is a decent strategy if that's what your quirk is geared towards," Aizawa told him. "And if you can manage it without putting your life at risk."
"Hmm." Fu nodded, before looking at Aizawa. "I know the other two's quirks but what's yours."
"That's-" Aizawa was about to tell him that he didn't want it well known when Present Mic interrupted.
"Old Eraserhead here can erase people's quirks! All he has to do is activate his quirk and keep his eyes open, and you can't use your quirk!"
Aizawa glared at Mic, who completely ignored him.
"Interesting." Fu pulled out a notebook and started writing things down.
"Oh, and what's this," Nezu asked Fu.
"This?" Fu stopped writing and held up his notebook. "It's my notes. I like to write about interesting things. Mostly quirks."
"Fascinating, may I look?" Nezu asked, receiving a nod from the zombie boy.
Nezu took the notebook and started flipping through it, speed reading through the various blurbs and paragraphs.
These are rather good for someone his age. He's clearly smarter and more perceptive than normal children. Seemingly to contrast the girl's lack of intelligence. If this talent was nurtured I could see his analytic abilities coming in very handy. Nezu deduced.
"These are very good notes. Keep this up and it could be very useful for your future career." Nezu told him while handing him back the notebook.
"Thanks. Dad did this before I did but I thought it was neat, so I started doing it too." Fu explained.
"Oh? You had notebook's similar to these?" Nezu asked Izuku.
"Y-yeah. I-I mostly stopped writing in them after...well I just didn't see a use for them anymore." Izuku stuttered.
"Yeah, but Caretaker's notes were much better than his," Kiba said. "No offense brother."
"Oh no, the older more experienced person's notes were better than mine. I'm shocked and embarrassed." Fu said sarcastically, causing Present Mic to laugh.
"Well we should continue our tour, we shouldn't bother Ms. Kiba any further, not when she has so much work to do," Nezu said, looking at the bloody mess behind them.
"Ughhhhh." Kiba groaned. "The queen of eternal darkness should not have to do such menial labor."
"The queen of eternal darkness should take responsibility for her mistakes, and try to improve on them," Izuku told her.
He's surprisingly mature, especially considering his age and background. Aizawa thought. Still, I can see him being too soft on these kids. Overall not the worst thing, especially considering most of these kids' past, but it could be an issue in the future.
With that in mind, Izuku, Kioku, and the U.A. staff moved on, leaving Kiba and Fu with the mess.
Kiba turned to her brother. "So shall we begin cleaning up this mess?"
"We?" Fu raised an eyebrow. "Izuku only said YOU had to clean it up."
Kiba gasped. "Brother! You would not leave me to toil away at such an arduous task all by my lonesome would you!?"
"You make the mess. You clean it up. Maybe next time you'll be more careful and won't splatter my organs all over the floor." Fu said. "I'm going to eat and then have Shiruku fix my clothes...again."
Kiba pouted heavily as Fu left, before going to get the cleaning supplies.
A few minutes later.
"And this is one of the floors where the children stay," Izuku explained as he moved towards the children's rooms.
"I assume many of these rooms are altered depending on the child they hold?" Nezu asked.
"Most of them are," Izuku said. "Some of the children don't need it."
As they walked they saw Kei sitting outside of Fukunoko's room. Seemingly playing Battleship with the shy girl through the door.
"You sunk my battleship!" They heard Fukunoko yell from behind the door. "Evacuate the ship! Get to the lifeboats! Run! Swim!"
Izuku smiled as a feeling of happiness gripped onto his heart and tightened his chest. I'm so happy Kei and Eri managed to befriend her. It's one less thing I have to worry about.
"I told you I was good at this game! My skill's really, rock the boat." Kei giggled at her own pun.
Aizawa groaned. Catching the girl's attention.
"EAP! Who was that?!" Fukunoko panicked.
"Oh! Dad! Fuku, it's just dad, Kioku and the U.A. heroes he said were coming!" Kei told her.
"Are they gonna arrest me for having a bad quirk!?" Fuku continued to panic.
Izuku sighed. "Fuku, you don't have a bad quirk. There is no such thing as a bad quirk, a villainous quirk, or an evil quirk, and the heroes aren't here to hurt you."
"That's right kid! What he said!" Present Mic shouted, scaring Fuku even more.
"Shsssh!" Literally, everyone but Kei and Fuku shushed the loud hero.
"Sorry." Mic apologized.
Izuku tried to regain his composure. "These two are Kei and Fukunoko. Kei is one with the snakes for hair and Fukunoko is the one on the other side of the door."
"Hello." Nezu greeted them cheerily. "I am Nezu. Principal of U.A. and these two behind me are Eraserhead and Present Mic, it is a pleasure to meet you both."
"Nice to meet you too Mr mouse!" Kei greeted, before giving him a confused look. "Or are you a bear? Or both? Are you a mouse bear!?"
Nezu cackled. "Who knows?"
"A mouse bear!? Is he going to eat me!?" Fuku asked.
Izuku sighed in exasperation. "Please don't take it personally, she's always like this. She's had a...troublesome history and that's caused her to gain a persecution complex. It's...a big issue."
"I'm sorry!" Fuku wailed.
"It's not your fault," Izuku said trying to sound genuine but you can tell he'd been saying that a lot.
It was then that the three U.A. representatives noticed something about Izuku. He looked tired.
If they looked hard enough they could see that Izuku had been hiding the bags under his eyes with some sort of makeup.
Now that they got a better look at his body language, it was clearly that of someone trying to hide exhaustion.
"In case you were wondering, Kei's quirk turns people to stone whenever they see her eyes," Izuku explained. "And Fukunoko's quirk allows her to emit a gas that causes hallucinations of the victims greatest fears."
Hmm. Those two quirks are extremely dangerous. I can only imagine what kind of mental scarring the shy one could cause. It's a good thing they're away from the general populace. Aizawa thought. But the shy one definitely needs quirk counseling. Midoriya is technically a quirk counselor but considering his age and how stupidly easy it is to get that license, I doubt he's very good.
"My what interesting quirks. Would these two also be interested in enrolling at U.A. 's hero course one day?" Nezu asked.
"N-no! I mean! No thank you!" Fuku shouted. "I-I could never be a hero! Villains are so scary and mean! And if I was a hero I'd have to use my quirk on people! And that's bad!"
That's true. Depending on how bad the hallucinations are, using them on villains might be considered too cruel. Aizawa thought.
There were a few cases in history in which a person's quirk caused extreme suffering to a person. So much to the point where using it on even villains was considered excessive, and the people with those quirks were unfortunately barred from being heroes.
"I want to be a zoologist!" Kei smiled brightly and all of them. "And study snakes!"
"Well, I'm sure you'll be wonderful at it," Nezu told her. "And what is it that you would like to be ms Fukunoko?"
"I...I don't know." Fuku answered honestly.
"Ah, you don't have to worry about that right now!" Present Mic quickly assured her. "You've got a long life ahead of you! So take your time!"
"Ok!" Fuku answered, more scared than reassured.
Seeing that Present Mic's loud voice would do nothing but scare Fuku. Izuku decided they needed to move along.
"We shouldn't keep you from your game any longer so we'll be on our way," Izuku told the two children as he urged the group to follow him.
"Ok! Bye dad! Bye heroes! Bye Kioku!" Kei said waving them all goodbye.
"B-bye." Fuku let out a sigh of relief. Happy they were leaving.
And with that, they moved past them and through the halls.
After a few minutes of silence, Nezu spoke.
"I noticed that you may have forgotten to tell us this young lady's quirk," Nezu said, referring to Kioku. The young girl in response focused her glare on the animal principal.
"Oh! Yes! Sorry! I must have been distracted." Izuku apologized. "Kioku can see and alter a person's memories by touching their head."
"Ahhh. I see." Nezu started putting the pieces together. "And did she look at any of the other children's memories? Perhaps some of the more...unpleasant ones."
"A few of them." Izuku frowned. "And her own life wasn't...pleasant before she met us."
Kioku's glare dropped, changing into a sorrowful expression while clutching Izuku's leg a bit tighter.
"And that would explain her extreme distrust," Aizawa concluded.
Izuku sighed and nodded while petting Kioku's hair to comfort her. "Kioku is a good girl, she just has a hard time trusting people because of what she's seen...and experienced."
"Hmmm. Would you mind if I had a moment alone with her?" Nezu asked, much to Izuku's shock.
"I-Uh...That depends on, Kioku." Izuku turned to his daughter. "Do you want to talk alone with Mr. Nezu?"
Kioku was silent for a minute, before looking at Nezu.
She didn't trust the rodent/bear person. Not at all. And she definitely didn't want to be alone with him.
But, her father did want her to trust people more, and maybe if Izuku wasn't there, she could get Nezu to let her look at his memories.
"You won't go far?" Kioku asked her adopted father.
"I won't," Izuku promised her. "We'll just be going to my office and I'll be looking at the cameras the whole time."
Kioku paused before nodding and letting go of Izuku's leg for the first time since the visit started.
Izuku seemed hesitant to leave her, but after shooting both Kioku and Nezu concerned looks, he Mic and Aizawa left towards the office.
Once the others were out of earshot, Kioku spoke.
"What do you want?" Kioku asked rudely, keeping a good distance away from him.
"I just wanted to tell you a bit about myself," Nezu said calmly. "Some time ago I was a regular animal. But at some point in my life, I gained my quirk. My body changed, and I became quite a bit smarter. But I was still an animal. Just a slightly different one. And then, humans found me."
Kioku had a distinct feeling that the story was going to get a lot sadder from this point on.
"They took me to a laboratory and did very bad things to me. They kept me in small cages, and didn't feed me very much." Nezu explained, his smile never dropping. "And after many painful experiments, I eventually changed into what I am now, and...escaped. After that, much like you, I didn't trust humans and hated them for a very long time."
Nezu saw it in her eyes, the words "they're like me" flashed in her mind. How did he know this? Well, unfortunately, there were many people like the ones who hurt him, and they did not limit themselves to just animals. And what better test subjects than children who can't fight back?
One of the reasons Nezu loved this job was because he got to see the faces of those criminals as he put them away for good. (And even more to his delight, many prisoners shared his disgust towards child experimentation, but not his restraint.)
But back to Kioku, it was clear the girl was still not fully trusting him. "Why did you stop?"
"Well...as time went on, I saw many things. I saw that humans were capable of more than just cruelty, and at some points, I found I was the one being cruel." Nezu explained. "And eventually, someone extended their hand to me. Much like Izuku did to you. And that put me on the path to where I am today."
Kioku seemed to be thinking over his words. Wondering if she should believe him or not. "Can I...see your memories."
Nezu had already predicted that response. After all, if you didn't trust someone and could look at their memories, obviously you'd want to do that. Of course, he didn't want her touching him or looking into his memories, but if he didn't then she'd think he was suspicious and lose whatever trust he might have built with her.
Truly a difficult situation to be in. For anyone but Nezu.
"Tell me, have you looked at Eri's memories?" Nezu asked.
Kioku flinched, before giving an uneasy nod.
"Well judging from the reports I've read about her past, we have somewhat similar backgrounds." Nezu saw the girl flinch again. "You're free to look into my memories, but I must ask you, do you want to see what you saw with Eri, again?"
Kioku gave him a very uneasy look, before looking at her hands, considering if she really wanted to see those horrors again.
And like Nezu knew she would, she chose not to.
"You don't need to trust me quite yet. It took me quite some time before I started to trust people. But I want to ask you to open your mind." Nezu told her. "Don't think of any group of people as one thing. Whether that be good or bad. Each and every person is different. Unique. Just when you think one person is one thing, they might be something completely different. Take your father for example."
"Daddy?" Kioku replied.
"Most of the world wrote him off as weak. Simply because he was quirkless." Nezu said.
"But he's not!" Kioku protested immediately.
"Exactly." Nezu agreed. "Many people who've been through what Izuku has been through, don't function as well as he does. And most people his age can't even take care of a single child, let alone eleven. Izuku is strong, in ways most people don't understand. But people judged him because they couldn't keep an open mind. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
Kioku nodded hesitantly.
"Very good." Nezu gave her his least creepy smile. "Now then, shall we join your father and the others?"
Kioku quickly nodded and ran toward Izuku's office.
Nezu slowly followed behind her. It's a good thing she never asked what happened to those scientists.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone