A Big Cat on Campus

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: musica

There was something special about Japan, I mused retrospectively. It wasn't the cars, or the peace, or even the language that was so odd. Really, when I thought about it, the strangest thing was the heroes. Back home in Ectapec, the line between a hero and a villain was slim. The rules were fast and loose, the cartels- the ones that hadn't cleaned up their acts like our family had- were vicious, and the money and violence made the career much like a young man's dreams- bloody and lucrative. As for me? Why would a young man like me be going to be a hero? I'd hide that answer for a bit, so you can get a clearer picture of me. After all, if you're here reading my sorid story, you might as well know who I am.

It wasn't a fun story, this life of mine, that of Arsenio Ordura de la Veracruz. I was born with responsibilities, as part of the de la Veracruz family. We owned several dozen square kilometers of avocado plantations, bought up in the turmoil after the emergence of quirks. The root of the family's money still came from cocaine, though, and as Abuelo Chuy passed on the business fell to my father and uncle. My uncle Hector Francis de la Veracruz, already practicing to become a hero, became one of the first great Mexican villains-- El Bronco-- while taking over the cocaine distribution half of the family's empire. He wasn't terribly enthused with it, but considering his pure machismo as he bulled his way through problems literally and figuratively I could understand why Abuelo Chuy sliced the pie that way.

My father, meanwhile, earned a degree in finance UPN, got his basic hero license to look respectable and to publically beat the shit out of his idiot brother. After that settled down, he then took over the family's money laundering. Cue the price of cocaine plunging like a rock because the EU- er, no, the US, I'm recording this in English damnit- had a massive, massive spike in civil unrest. Give every man a Quirk, and things were naturally going to get pretty damn harry with tensions the way they were. Drug patrols went down, cocaine got dirt cheap, and suddenly the money was in clean goods. El Bronco went clean, publically turned his heel through the revolving door of romantic newspaper work, and the family's cartel dried up as we slowly turned into plantation barons.

Now, though? Things were contracting, and Papa had decided now was a great time to take advantage of Mama's ties to the Japanese food industry to get us out of the metro for the District Federales and into someplace nice and safe. The young bravos and chulos were getting antsy, and we were clean, so they thought we were soft. My fists and claws made short work of some of them, and a few others ended up with piano neckties when they pushed at my sisters. Papa was a viscious man when his daughters were threatened, and he had six of them.

Yes, growing up was hell sometimes, but it was that stiffening, familiar type of hell that made sure you knew things that nobody expected you to know.

Either way, as things escalated, I had to do my part on planning to bail. I was far from inconspicuous, being a full heteromorph, so getting my visas and passports in line took time. I also had to crash through three years of Japanese lessons in eight months, wrap things up with my clubs and friends, and threaten the chulos after my sisters- especially the ones they liked. Ain't like any of 'em were good enough, anyway. Still, sitting at the table doing paperwork, I had to listen to Mama and Papa talking about high schools. Didn't they know I'd already sent in a dozen applications? Whatever; if my stuff had gotten lost in their inboxes, it wasn't my fault.

"It has to be Suchin." Mama said while I tried to figure out how the hell kanji worked again. Did I draw that as an upstroke or a downstroke? How did I read this mess again? God, it made English look simple!

"I still say we file an application at UA." Papa muttered, stroking his beard. "Look at how his hero work is helping Hector out! That man's gotten away with so many dodgy drug busts-"

"And we're not talking about that in front of our son…"

"He's known about the family business for years, with those sharp ears of his!"

I wish Papa was being allegorical, but my ears were quite pointed. My quirk, Ocelotl, was a heteromorphic quirk that gave me several jaguar traits, including the splotchy coat, tail, claws, and to my eternal dismay the fluffy ears and canines. While there was balance in all things, the tradeoff wasn't really worth it- especially girls trying to "pet the kitty". Do that one more time, Maria, and I might decide to pet back!

Speaking of Maria, I was probably obligated to give her a call and tell her I was going to Japan for a few months. She was nominally my girlfriend right now, even though I really wasn't in it for more than the sex. While I was sure she'd understand, it would also be best to do this from, say, the airport, in case she called my tio Hector and I had to listen to him give me the third degree about responsibility and shit, hypocrite that he was. The piles of condom wrappers should have been more than enough proof as to that! Besides, we were both sixteen, and it's not like there was much else we had in common except an appreciation of each other and the ability to tango in the horizontal. And music, I guess. Maybe art, if doujinshi counted. Maybe anime too? We'd met watching a club screening of the dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and I had to admit the Spanish dub was amazing.

Anyway, back to the argument at hand. "I already sent out my entrance requests to sit the exams of both." I said, sighing. "It'll be fine, guys."

"If you're sure, Arsenio." Papa said carefully, ruffling my head. I play-swiped at him, and we both grinned.

"And you! Call your girlfriend, Arsenio, and make sure she doesn't blow her stack."

"...yes, Mama."

-/-/-/

It was two weeks later that I landed in Japan, after Maria had extracted dire promises to maintain my health and wellbeing. The first thing I noted getting off the plane was the oppressive heat, and I groaned under my polo. Right, sea level, which meant humidity and heat and air. On the plus side, aside from having to chew the air, it was really fucking cool to see all this stuff that was different. The women were exotic, the shops were labeled in kanji and hiragana I could sometimes read, and the food was new and exciting.

Equally importantly, the airport food was still trash. Choking down a bowl of ramen at an airport kiosk, I fished around in my pockets for my credit card, grinning. Mama had flown on ahead a week ago; Papa would be flying in a few days. I had to find someplace to crash, meanwhile. Digging into my phone, I sighed. God, this was going to be such a headache.

The thing about doing business in Japan was that it wasn't what you knew, it was who you knew, and to what biblical extent you knew them. In this case, we'd be looking back to El Bronco, who'd taken a few years off back in the day to study in Japan in what was the result of both an incredible spate of weeabooism and an attempt to get a trans-Pacific cocaine smuggling network going. While connections were not fruitful in terms of cocaine dealing or money laundering, El Bronco did make several friends in the Hero community, including one Senorita Ryouko. While my Tio Hector had been at that point happily married for a year, he still regaled me with private tales of a wildcat romance with the leader of the then-in-planning Wild Wild Pussycats. Thanks to international e-mail-- and Mexico not publicizing their List of Most Wanted Villains since the contents shifted around rapidly due to factional infighting and the mostly vigilante nature of justice up in Chiuaua and Coahuila-- the sometimes steamy and always dramatic communique continued to this day.

Now I was going to throw myself on that connection mercilessly. Tio Hector had already sent a nominal letter of introduction explaining I was his beloved nephew, in desperate need of a couch to sleep on while Mama got the family an apartment in Chiba and Papa dealt with the farmer's unions (blatant lies) and got certain parts of the business ready for the next big step in international expansion (honest truth) before the family was ready to operate together. Scanning my telephone carefully, I grinned. There was the public number and address of the Wild Wild Pussycats office in Nermia. Punching in the number, I tapped my foot carefully. C'mon, pick up…

"Wild Wild Pussycats home office, Pro Intern Failsafe speaking~" a cheery voice said, full of the chirpy enthusiasm I knew had to be faked or a sign of terminal madness.

"Hello. I am Arsenio de la Veracruz, and I believe my uncle's correspondence with… Pixie-Bob? Should have gone through."

"Ah, certainly! Let me ask her, you'll be on hold for just a minute. I promise!"

Rubbing my ear, I winced. God, this place was loud for my poor cat-ears. I'd need to hit up Immigration at some point too, and that would just be a mess. Meanwhile, the phone call hold just droned on while I made myself comfortable on a bench, and just watched the crowd. There were a lot more Emitter quirks here, about a third of them, but only a tenth were Heteromorphics like me. Finally, the intern managed to figure out how to use his- or her, that was a hell of a squeaker on the other end of the line- switchboard, and I heard the good Sra. Ryuko.

"Hello, this is Pixie-bob!" I heard in my ear, and after I shifted sides I smiled.

"Hola, senorita!" I said back, smiling widely as I put my soul into the act. Just had to turn on that old charm, and here we go. "I know I am calling about an unwarranted favor-"

I was cut off by a laugh. "Ah, c'mon, I know Bronco's-" and I had to credit her for saying Bronco, and not Barunko "-kid couldn't possibly be an imposition! Besides, he told me you might consider interning with us if you got into a Hero school! With your Quirk, you'd be a total shoe-in!"

Tio Hector, what the flying fuck did you tell this woman?! I wasn't your son- unless he'd lied about that, since it made more sense that one Heteromorph would lead to another. Oh God. He'd totally lie about that. Mama was going to kill me when she found out, then Papa would try and kill my uncle again, and then there'd be another shoot-out, and ugggg. Three-quarters of the reason Mama y Papa tolerated my antics with Maria was because her family had an apartment in Puebla they let me crash in when things got hairy, like the time El Bronco and Lucerne (My Papa's retired Hero persona) had to go through a feud again.

Where was I? Yeah, talking to sra. Ryouko. "Of course! I would love to intern with your group." I said, laying it on like cement "I'm applying to U.A. and a few other schools over the coming weeks, and when the opportunity comes up I'll be sure to put in with your agency."

"Excellent! Are you still at the airport?"

"Yes, although, please don't send a car." I begged carefully, "I have a taxi fare, and besides, most of my luggage is waiting at my mother's family's property to be mailed down later."

"Perfect! Tiger's been wanting to try out the new company car, and our intern needs to learn the area around there anyway! We do enough flying to warrant it! Once you're through with Immigration, just head out to the Red parkway- you can't miss us! Ciao, darling!"

As the line ended with a -click-, I just rolled my eyes. To the hell of Immigration, I go with no regrets. This is the only path; Unlimited Documentation Works.

-/-/-/-/

Sweating bullets as the herd of kei cars flew around me on the Red parkway, I kept an eye out for something that just screamed "Cats" on it in neon. Checking my wristwatch, I groaned. 4:30pm, so rush hour would be starting soon. If I pulled at the dial and wound it backwards, though, it would tell me it was exactly fuckit o'clock back home. Perfect time to call Tio Hector, and and express my opinion of what the fuck did he even do. As the phone rang, I waited idly.

"It is I, El Bronco!" my uncle said, picking up the phone with a roar. I could practically see his massive horns, and the stamp of his hooves. "Who has my personal number at one in the morning?"

"It is I, Ocelotl, and you have fucked up big time mi tio!" I roared back, my voice dropping the octave that made it a true roar. Next to a big cat like me, all others were mere impersonators. "Why the hell does Ryuko-san think I'm your son? What did you tell her? Who do I have to scalp to set this right? Tell me, old man!"

"It happens, alright?" Hector yelled back, frightened. "She just gets you and Periso mixed up, nothing I can do about it!"

I was floored. "Does that mean…"

"I sent her video of his trick shooting competition; she sent congratulations to your father. Twice." Hector confirmed, now thoroughly beaten into a reasonable shape. "I just forgot to tell you all."

"Goddamnit." I muttered. Then I saw the car. Oh God in his heaven and Mary his mother, that was a kei car in tiger stripes, with a pair of ears on it. Inside in the front seat, Tiger was comfortably crunched in, while the intern was piled into the shotgun seat like a folding suitcase. Walking up to it, I sighed. Was this my life now?

"Hey kid! Get in- Ragdoll and the rest want to see you something fierce!" Tiger yelled out the window, while the intern looked like she had made a terrible, terrible mistake. I didn't blame her, really, holding her cat-ear headdress in her lap while trying to stay decent with the short, short skirt. I'd have loved to look, but bigger things needed to be handled. Opening up the rear passenger door, I tossed my cary-on in, and smiled with as much feline grace as I could. There'd be cat jokes for the next forever, but I could deal.

"You need to go anywhere before we head to the base?" Tiger asked, grinning. "Fur trim, manicure, trip to the bathhouse? I know some good ones if you need 'em that don't ask questions."

"Later." I said as my smile got more strained. "I need to meet Pixie-bob, and after that, well, who knows?"

"Mandalay, probably." Tiger replied, before pulling out into traffic and driving like a man possessed. "Don't worry, we'll be fine."

As I watched my life flash before my eyes, I gulped. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same- like people driving like god-damn idiots with their pants on fire and the road markings as nothing more than a faint suggestion. As we nearly took off two wing mirrors and forced a daihatsu to lock its brakes up swerving, I grinned sickly through my canines.

This place would feel like home in no time at all, as long as it didn't kill me first!

(AN: My girlfriend, Shiro253, challenged me to write an MHA thing since I was in a bit of a rut,. So, let's see how we do here, eh?)

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler

When we got to the Tokyo Office of the Wild Wild Pussycats, I heaved a sigh of relief. Located out in Nermina, it reminded me more of a three-story shop and housing than a Hero Agency- not that I had much of an idea what those looked like. Smiling widely, Tiger laughed as he threw open the double doors to the lobby while I whistled appreciatively. Aside from the intern's desk, which Failsafe leaped over to cling to like a lifeline against Tiger's street racing, there were also doors to a small sickbay, the gym, and a pair of what looked like guest rooms along with the mandatory office.

"Mandalay lives on the top floor, and the second floor is where we stay when we're not in the field." Tiger explained with a smile, cracking his neck dramatically. "You'll be in the second guest room, while Failsafe, who really should have studied those advanced driving manuals I sent her HINT HINT FAILSAFE-" he bellowed "-is in the first. Questions?"

I shrugged. "Not really. Kinda want to crash for a catnap at some point, but I figure Pixie-bob will want to see me sooner rather than later."

Tiger smirked. "Probably, but she's out with Kota right now getting him registered for school. You can crash until then."

It wasn't hard to smile at that. "Thanks. One more thing…"

"No, we don't have a team uniform for you yet."

Chuckling, I snapped my fingers. "Drat."

As Tiger scratched his head at the thought of someone other than him willingly wearing a skirt while running around doing acrobatics, I got to my room. Simple bed, closet, and nightstand, with a glass computer desk in the corner. While not sterile- the framed photo of Mt. Naragumo and the Pussycat's other base was a great touch- it still felt mildly impersonal. It was the nice kind of impersonal, though, and if all else failed I could totally clutter it up appropriately without too much work. Crashing down on the bed, I rolled up in the duvet, and crashed without much trouble.

I next awoke at what felt like about eight in the evening. One of the nice things about being a cat heteromorph was that my sleep cycle was based around four hour crashes, so as long as I got two or three opportunities a day to just zone out I was good to go later. Stretching, I took a moment to get my decent clothes out of my carryon, and got changed quickly. Black polo with the white fish-scale emblem over the pocket, check; khakis, check; fur? No giant odd spots, so I just dug out my grooming comb and raked it over my arms a few times to settle the nap of things before I went out. Walking into the office, I grinned at Failsafe.

"How do I look?" I asked, grinning. A stray glance, and the intern looked me over with a critical squint.

"You rolled out of bed, did some brushing, and are banking way too hard on your pelt to hide the fact you look like shit from an international flight." Failsafe said brusquely.

"At least you're honest about it." I said, sighing. "Is everyone home?"

"Pretty much. I paged them when you came in, so they'll-"

As both Failsafe and I heard a rising squee, I turned around before I saw the source. Dressed down, Ryuko-san looked the model of a woman forever pushing for that ephemeral seventeen-year-old look and feel, before only missing it because she didn't have that spark of true love in one eye and the thirst for blood in the other.

"Arsenio!" she called out, grinning. "I'm so glad to see you made it!"

"I'm glad I did make it!" I called back, bowing an amount I thought was right-ish in the Japanese style, before swooping in closer and stealing one hand of hers to bend down and kiss it. For all my jet lag and inherent uncomfortableness with staying here under dodgy pretense, I still wanted to play the machismo out to the hilt. Ryuko loved it, covering her mouth to hide a smile.

"Oh, Tomoko, Shino, I told you guys he'd be a perfect fit!" Ryuko said, grinning. "We gotta get him into UA, it'll be a blast!"

"Well, he's certainly dashing enough for it." Shino- that is, Sosaki Shino, Pro Hero Mandalay- said, a slight and open smirk on her face. "There's no need to work on his aesthetic, though, since he's going to fit our style like a glove."

I recoiled as if struck. "Madam, you wound me so to imply I am not the most fair of feline fixtures! Why, no makeup could improve!"

We all broke character a little to chuckle at that, before I smiled at them. "Seriously, though? I'm really glad y'all are taking in a stranger like me- doubly so, if you'll do any work with me before the UA entrance exam."

Sosaki's smile kicked up a notch. "Are you sure about that? Yawara has been kinda bored lately, and if you volunteer to be his gymn partner… well, let's just call that your rent."

Ryuko's smile turned toothy, and behind her Shiretoko- that is, Ragdoll- laughed with a touch more mania than was normal.

"Are you sure we should put the little kitty through the ringer like that?"

"Please, it can't be as bad as some of the jocks from back home!" I said, smiling. Little did I know, as the conversation meandered onwards, that I had sealed myself into a fate worse than death. The next morning, around eight o'clock if I had to take my guess, there was a knock on my door. Coming to with a bleary stare at the sun coming through the wall, I got up and threw on some pants before staring at Chatora-san through a thinly cracked door. I wasn't sure what was worse, the sight of his beaming smile and cheesy 'MUSCLE CAT' t-shirt, or the sunlight coming in behind me.

"Tiempo de atléticos?" I asked, brain in freefall.

"Yeah, Ryukou said you wouldn't mind being my gym partner while you were here." Chatora said, smiling. "C'mon, I got coffee and some okayu on the table."

Groaning, I rustled out to the front office, where the coffee table from earlier had an instant carafe and a couple of bowls on it. Taking two, I scooped the rice porridge into one, and liberally poured coffee into the other. Chatora- and it was still a little bit of a transition, thinking of him as Chatora-san and not Pro Hero Tiger- just chuckled, while I dumped some assorted pickled toppings onto the poridge and settled in to eat it. The food was plain and filling, and it wasn't long for the coffee to be cool enough for me to drink it. Sipping it happily, I smiled contentedly. This was some good coffee.

"Thanks for breakfast." I said when I got finished, my Japanese skills finally rolling over with the introduction of carbs and coffee.

"No problem." Chatora said, chuckling. "There's a little combi I worked at in the off season that's still willing to spot a Pro Hero a liter of coffee if he buys breakfast for an intern."

Nodding, I took another sip of coffee, and set my bowls down inside each other. "Let me get some gym clothes on, and I'll be ready to go. Do you do aerobic exercise first or second?"

"First." Chatora said, laughing. "Nothing big, just a five klick run."

"I'll grab my running shoes."

It wasn't long before we were off. Chatora set a nice, easy pace to start, and I kept up without any major difficulty. I think he was testing me, though, since our route started picking up in intensity after the first few minutes. Through busier sidewalks, up and down staircases, through back lots and alleys, and halfway through the last klick we even crossed the broken grounds surrounding a temple that had been built on a hillside. I was panting like a dog when we were done, but for the most part I'd stayed within three meters of the pro during the warmup. Naturally, he didn't even look more than lightly winded.

From there, we moved to the weight room. I could reliably bench about a hundred and sixteen kilos, with close to a hundred and thirty five in a stretch if I needed to show off. When I was done, Chatora just threw on another pair of eight-kilogram weights, and knocked out two sets while I got a drink. We never touched the same dumbbells either as we worked on arm training, and the pattern of the Pro Hero I'd been attached to taking my standards and throwing on even more power kept going throughout the morning.

I was shocked as hell when eleven o'clock strolled around. I smelled like a wet cat, felt like a burned out lightbulb, and had chipped a claw when I goofed picking up a dumbbell by then weight instead of the center. Going back to my room for a file, I just groaned softly. Dead. I was so dead.

"Well that went better than I expected!" Chatora said, grinning that purse-lip smile at me. "Most students don't really think about doing fundamental strength training before enrolling in a Heroic School!"

"Most students didn't get regularly threatened with getting shipped off to the avocado farms if they didn't keep their grades up either." I joked. "And you know that you go to a nice school, well, sometimes they make jokes about who does what. Bankers don't like farmers who-" can't say they helped launder my uncle's drug money "-they knew the ballance sheets for. A little machismo, and a lot of gym time? Helps a lot."

It also made sure that when tio Hector got me for the summers I could keep up. Both sides of the family knew what the business looked like, inside and out, so we couldn't cheat each other. I spent time screwing around with chulos and learning how to duck if the threats or bullets started flying, mis primos- my cousins- learned how to bribe bankers and shop money across the border without getting the damn ICE coming down on us.

"It's still smart of you." Chatora said, smiling. "C'mon, I'll show you where our usual bathouse is."

Pulling on my fur, I raised an eyebrow. "You sure they won't come after me for a clogged drain?"

"I know a place. Just let me tell the girls."

Sighing, I just leaned back on the wall. Nearly slipped about the family business, that. I couldn't do that.

"Hey."

Head snapping left, I came off the wall and had one foot forward before I identified the speaker. It was a kid, couldn't have been much more than six or seven, with a kepi decorated with a pair of horns.

"Hey yourself." I said carefully. Probably one of their kids, since it would make sense to hoard the family in case some villain decided to escalate shit.

"You a Hero?" he asked, looking at me with a quality stink-eye. I'll admit, I started laughing. If anyone could call me a hero, they'd need so many fucking asteriks after it that it would eat the rest of the page. My family ran a cartel, my uncle used his status as an officer of the law to smuggle drugs, my mother was probably wanted for something since her family were rumored to be part of the Yakuza, my sisters had at one point operated a prostitution ring as the madams, and I had commited at least three arsons, mass vandalism and corporate espionage.

I probably should have stopped laughing before I fell over, but I didn't, so I hit the floor with a dull 'tonk'. Glaring, the kid came over to poke me with his foot.

"So, you a hero or what?"

"No." I said, chucking. "Might get liscensed to be one though."

Now the stink-eye changed over to a stare of confusion. "But they're hero liscences. They make you a hero."

"They're a slip of paper that says you get to run around in spandex and punch people with your Quirk." I shot back. "Ain't nothing on there that makes you more or less than what you were before you got it."

"Ah." he said, in that classic kid-who-is-computing tone. "So what's your name then?"

"Arsenio." I said, sitting myself back upright. "But some day when I'm on the job, you'll call me Ocelotl."

"Oseroteru?"

"Ocelotl. Oss-ey-law-tl." I pronounced slowly, overemphasizing the tongue stop at the end.

"Oshewott?"

I sighed. "You'll figure it out eventually. Nobody really gets it on their first try, unless you already speak Ki'iche and are fucking with you."

"Well I'm not screwing around with you. I'm just wondering why someone would actually go through with oji-san's screwy training, since by now even most of the heroes would be puking."

"Must be shitty heroes then."

"Probably."

-/-/-/

My time with the Pussycats wasn't all muscle training and getting a team uniform thrown at me for a photoshoot. Sosaki was a driving educator, helping me with schoolwork even when on the other side of the building with her Telepathy. Equally importantly, she was the one who impressed me with the importance of know your enemy in Japan; and here my enemy was a mouse-bear-thing named Nedzu. The principle of UA, he was in charge of setting up the entrance exams. A crafty bastard who secretly loved real robot shows, he was the one who set up the exams, the types of fighting robots, and the massive cityscapes.

Sosaki might have been the ego of the operation, but Shireteko was the id. Pure, wild, maniac energy personified, and also the one pushing me to excel the most. It was her devious eyes that managed to 'borrow' a one-point and two-point Exam Robot from Nedzu's clutches so that the Pussycats could use them for something rescue-related. With her Analysis, I was given a list of sweet spots for my fists and claws to sink into for a quality ripping and tearing. All the armor of the mechs didn't mean a thing if I could get around it, and even a stray chunk of rebar could get me through most of the worst of it.

It was Ryukou who moderated things, and it wasn't her Quirk that made her so effective at it. The boat on the sea between the wind and the waves, she made sure we didn't forget to eat or train or run around and actually do hero stuff, or worse drag me along into hero stuff! I didn't have a license or anything, and I didn't want to get thrown out of the country as reports came in that the Zetas, Sinaloa, and Tierra Caliente were throwing down with each other- hard. Tio Hector was keeping the peace over in his stretch of the Yucatan, but even in his quieter zones there was regular gunfire and fighting. It was very ugly, even by my standards.

Either way, time passed, and the UA exam crept closer and closer until I found myself getting thrown out of a kei car by Tiger in full costume with the rest of the Pussycats yelling at me to knock 'em dead. Wiping a faux-tear from my eye, I smiled and laughed.

"Just you wait- I'll be in before you know it!"

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: music

I had to admit, there were a lot of things I hated. One of them was testing; most important of them was formal testing. In UA's huge amphitheatre seating arrangement where I blasted through a standardized test that ran through standard Japanese, English, mathematics, History, and general science tests. I don't want to say I bombed them, but I know I wasn't a star student.

Then came the essay portion. Five hundred to a thousand words, on the topic of "Why do you want to become a Hero?"

I wasn't sure I knew the answer to that one, to be honest. I was going into Heroism because it would protect the family business, but that wouldn't cut it. This was the best Hero school in Japan- I'd have to lie, but I couldn't lie blatantly. I would have to create an image that was true, but not the truth.

I also needed to stop practicing my obscure kanji by reading Fate/Stay Night.

There was a fine line between heroes and villains. Both used their quirk to public acclaim, and both used their powers to enrich themselves. The difference was one was willing to hurt bystanders to do it, and one was mandated to save bystanders by doing it. The chains of law may have bound some heroes lightly, leading to vigilantes, but in truth that willingness to go ever forward was more of an asset than a detraction. The dark of the world was fierce, and even with a Symbol of Peace that only made the lines and shadows sharper and more fierce. In my home country, villains would openly walk with the backing of the law, and heroes would fight from the shadows until the truth prevailed. Here, with no such limitation, it would be best to cement myself on the side of the light.

That train of thought might not have been perfect, but perfect was the enemy of good enough, so away it went with some prettying up and my best penmanship. After that was done, I had to sit through a kinda shitty mission brief. Small fry are worth one point, medium fry two points, big uglies are three points... nothing special. The existence of some big, half-breed Zaku motherfucker though, worth zero points? Yeah, bullshit. Nothing was worth zero points in an exam. The rest of the robots were worth points for destroying them, sure, but there had to be a reason for the zero-pointer.

Tuning out Mr. Mumbles and some prick yelling at him because some people had no chill, I got to work looking over the documentation. This was a field trial to determine our heroic potential and abilities under duress, as well as our physical abilities in entry. We would be graded on the number and difficulty of the faux-villains we destroyed.

"Oh this is gonna be awesome…" the kid next to me said. Looking over at him, I grinned.

"You really think so?" I asked, smacking the pamphlet. "I doubt any of these are to scale, after all."

"Man, you gotta be kidding me!" he laughed. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall- especially with my Quirk!"

"I take it you like your odds?"

Leaning back, he smiled. "Half the reason I applied here was this test. They're robots, and I have an electricity quirk! Match made in heaven!"

"Lucky!" I grinned. "I just get to rip and tear the old fashioned way."

"Eh, they can't be that bad." he said, holding out a hand. "I'm Kaminari Denki."

"Arsenio de Veracruz." I replied, shaking his hand. "Three guesses as to what my quirk is."

"I'm gonna say heteromorph." Kaminari joked. Staring at him dead serious, I put on my best tough-guy voice.

"No. I am the man who caught the red dot."

It took him a minute, but finally Kaminari started wheezing. "You… damn, just, damn dude. That takes balls."

"Can't get anywhere in life without cojones, man." I said. "Speaking of, it's time to hit the lockers and get ready for the practicals."

Once we were downstairs in the locker rooms, I stripped off my dress clothes, and got out a pair of navy sweatpants. The next step was my footwraps, since I didn't want to wear shoes for this mess. I had foot-claws, and as I flexed my feet happily they clicked out onto the tile floor. Last, but certainly not least, there were my hand wraps. I couldn't risk breaking a knuckle punching steel, and this would help.

"Excuse me!" the stiff-necked grump from earlier said. "Are you not going to put on a shirt?"

"No." I said. "Why would I?"

"For public decency of course!"

"I have fur." I said, rotating my hand. "I don't really need a shirt, and I don't want to overheat while a ton of robot is trying to stove my head in."

"And how will you react to having to wear a gym uniform then?" he asked, moving closer with an angry hand motion. "Or a heroic costume?"

"By wearing as little as possible in both cases." I griped. "Now, do excuse me if this seems unprofessional, but go bother someone else."

Gawking at being brushed off, the blockhead kept talking at my back, but I tuned him out. The group at the gates to the facility was blobish, and as I heard a kid muttering I cracked my knuckles in anticipation. All I was waiting on was the word from the teacher.

"Right, let's go!" the teacher from up top yelled. He honestly sounded like a DJ, but I could care less. I was off, running flat out for the first robot, anxiety rippling through my frame. I needed to go, to succeed, to win. As the sound of explosions came after my tail, I ducked in, claws ripping at the armpit as one limb went limp, followed by pushing myself through it's armpit to rip out the spinal wire that deactivated the machine. One down, more to go.

It wasn't long before the main street was full of brawls, and as I danced around a two-pointer's tail striking for me I jumped in to reach the base and haul myself on top of the machine. It was a two-pointer because the critical point was protected by two off switches- a wire in the neck, which I ripped out, and then I jumped off as some screwball with tape tried to hold it down. Diving down under the machine, I ripped out the second wire under it's throat, laughing.

"Thanks for the assist!" I yelled, moving forward.

"Dude, how do you do that?!" he yelled.

"Aim for the neck! They have kill wires!" I called out, laughing as I jumped down a side alley. The main street might have been packed with one- and two- pointers, but it was on the backside of the side streets that the three-pointers and miniboss squads hung out on. Speaking of which,

"INCOMING!" I yelled at the tape guy as the three-pointer threw a missile at me. As it exploded into paint, I winced as the pellets dug into my coat and stained it bright fushia.

"Oh, you're going to pay for that…" I muttered, rolling out of the way of a telegraphed slam as I ripped out a knee wire. As one leg went down, I scrambled into the carriage, ripping and tearing at the brightly colored shutoff lines until it was dead and gone. Six points… god. I needed to do my entire set now at least three more times!

"You okay?" I yelled at Tape Elbows.

"Yeah, just that hurts like nothing else." he yelled back. "Gimmy a minute!"

Catching my breath, I analyized the paths out of the area. One back towards the main road, two further in. Nothing more to it than to dive away from the center, and search for more targets. In a fit of pique, I chose the path that leaned more to the north of the arena, mulching a pair of one-pointers on the way in. There, I found my target- nearly fifteen points of robots locked on and charging a small shack?

At about the same time I figured out something fishier than my uncle complaining about the price of meth going down again was happening, a loud roar of badly-accented English came out of the building.

"DELAWARE SMASH!"

Then the cloud of robots, the building, and more than a few ancillary buildings were turned into so much shrapnel. Whistling at the carnage, I applauded for a second as a kid in a teal tracksuit and a parsely-head of hair came out of the ruins of the first building… crying? No wonder, his arm was a fucking meatball! Running in, I frantically started catagtorizing the wreckage, grabbing a chunk of robot femur.

"Goddamnit hold it togeher!" I yelled at him, glaring at the arm. Thank God for basic medical training. Shitloads of bruising, probably a ton of greenstick stress fractures, god, I needed a dressing. Cutting off the rest of his shirt, I made sure his arm was tied down well, and I stared at him.

"You still there?" I asked. C'mon, please let him not be going into pain shock, please don't let him go into pain shock. Please.

"Gotta… get more points… gotta get in…"

Right that's a negative on pain shock. Ruffling his hair, I tried to smile. "I'll be back soon. Don't worry, we'll get more points then."

Moving away, I started running for the fences. Parsley-head had fucked himself up, and if this was anything like home he'd fail on medical grounds. I needed to keep pushing though, and scavange points out of this mess. A one-pointer near a girl with male jacks off her ears, gone. A three-pointer with half it's armor eaten off by acid as a pink chick threw shit at it? Jump up the back and rip out the last critical module, steal the kill, keep moving. Blonde asshole laughing as he smacked another blonde asshole before letting off an explosion? Pick off a pair of two-pointers coming in to feed themselves to the blasting bloodlust.

I was at sixteen points, and I was feeling the drain. I wasn't done yet, though, as a pair of three-pointers charged into a pile of trainees.

"Shinso! Help! We don't know what to do!" one of the students yelled.

"I just want to go home! Help!"

"Roku, left side; Tsubasa, make a wall with your Quirk!" a kid in the middle who looked like he had been denied sleep for three years yelled. I just came barreling in, ducking as a burst of needles slammed into a targeting pod and causing an explosion of paint. Trying to shield my eyes, I roared as I ripped into the back of one, trying frantically to avoid any acrobatics so I could just hit the master shutdown. These things would break after extreme damage, I just needed to push it far enough and there! Casing cracking, I ripped out a computer module, watching it shut down. The other machine turned towards me until more quills hit it, covering me long enough to charge underneath. One leg cable ripped, and it went down long enough for me to get to it's back again- and more ripping and tearing ensued.

As the machine powered down, the sleepless guy laughed. "Arigato! Tasukemashita ne, onamae wa nandeska?"

I blinked, exhaustion making the lines into gibberish. Didn't matter, had to find Parsley-hair from earlier. Moving back the way I came, it only took a minute before I found him muttering. Well, at least he hadn't tried moving, and his eyes were clearing up a little.

"Ay, qué tal?" I asked, before realizing that I was in Spanish again. Right, go to Japanese now. "Are you doing ok?"

"Yeah." he muttered. "Help me up? I need to go hunting!"

"You need to stay put!" I said, glaring. "That's a great giant broken arm and they will absolutely flunk your ass if you need to get out of here on a stretcher!"

Then I heard a thud, and saw something rising over the skyline of ten- and fifteen- story buildings. "You have got to be kidding me." I muttered, as the giant mechanical monster rose above the skyline.

"You sure we should stay put?" Parsley-hair said, still crying a little.

"Fuck that, we need to kill that fucker before it kills something!" I yelled. "We're heroes, what else can we do!"

"Hey!" another person yelled. "We gotta run!"

Turning to stare at the girl who yelled, I shot her a glare. "You say run, I say fight! What the hell is your Quirk, anyway?"

"m-m-m-Musical Booster." she said, gulping. "I sing a song, and it helps!"

"Great!" I yelled without thinking. "Crimson Bow and Arrow, I got an idea!"

"I don't like this idea…" Parsley-head muttered as he saw me grin at him.

"Sure ya do." I said, digging around for some cable that I tied into a shitty harness. Thank you, tree climbing lessons back at the orchards. A chunk of rebar made a decent climbing spike too. "You grab this rope, and you use your quirk to throw me at it's ugly mug. Octavia over there-"

"-My name's Ikari-"

"-Ikari-san's quirk helps guide me in, then I go for the control lines in the neck." I finished.

"You were just giving me grief about having a broken arm!"

"Listen, Parsley-head, that was when the only thing at stake was getting into this school. That thing knocks over a building or two? People die. This might just be an exam, but it sure as hell is live fire. Now do you want to make a difference where it counts, or do you want to get in here knowing someone else is pushing up daisies to let you do it!"

Parsley-head looked at me, really looked at me, and grimaced. "Alright, Neko-san."

I chuckled, and handed him the throwing loop. "Good. When you're ready-"

Spoiler: Here He Comes

"ARE YOU THE PREY?" Ikari yelled, the song starting. "NO, WE ARE THE HUNTERS!"

And then I was thrown. As words trailed out of my mouth, I bit back a few choice ones to say as I felt my path getting subtly nudged by the push and pull of the song's beat, guiding me right at the head of the giant mecha. As it's long, eight-optic faceplate turned towards me, I grinned. This was gonna suck.

Impact was a messy affair as I slammed into the faceplate. With it's arms still coming up to shield it's face, I half-bounced-half-rebounded into it's hands, before I started running. My everything hurt, ached even after that landing, but I had enough energy left to get down to it's elbow. The metal plate was patched and pitted from years of repair, and my spikes let me haul my way up quickly. It was ten feet to the shoulder, and as the titantic arms came up to swat me I got to the neck.

The only thing protecting it was rubber and plastic shielding, something my claws could make short work of. Ripping and tearing, I got into the cables of the neck, and then I started going nuts. It was going well too, until I clipped a structural member and torqued some claws, but to hell with it. The machine was slowing down. I was winning!

Then someone grabbed me by the collar and started hauling me out. I nearly decked my 'rescuer', a skeletal and black-skinned man in a trenchcoat with the school insignia on the collar.

"That's quite enough, you know. The exam is over." He said, grinning faintly. "You can stand down; we'll mail you the results soon."

"Ok." I muttered. "How'd I... how'd I do?"

Without the song or adrenalynn powering me, I was exhausted. My body ached, every joint screaming bloody murder, left hand wincing as I felt the tendons my claws were tied to twitching. Regular cat claws were like an extra bone on a pivot, and mine were similar. It wasn't impossible I'd need to have them reset by a chiropractor; it happened before when I didn't have the tendon strength for what I was doing.

"Think I passed?" I asked, wincing.

"Wait for the mail." the teacher said, smiling slightly. "If you fail, though, it wasn't for anything you did here."

Once I got rubber-stamped through the infirmary and threw on my real clothes, I crashed under a tree in front of the building until someone came to pick me up. Probably my parents, but I couldn't care less at the moment. I was certain I had got in.

Anyone who thought victory was sweet was lying. It tasted like sweat, blood, and tears.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: Muisica

There was a non-zero part of me that was deeply unnerved to wake back up in the Wild Wild Pussycat's guest room. Mama y Papa should have been done moving in by now, damnit- it had been nearly a month! Opening up my laptop, I groaned as a letter fell out of it.


Querido hijo,

Si estas leyendo esta carta, tenemos graves problemas. Tu madre no salio de Japon sin hacer enemigos, y temo que uno de ellos esta conspirando contra nosotros. Ten cuidado de no llamar la atencion de los Yakuza, creemos que alguien llamado 'Overhaul' esta detras de su resurgimiento. Aqui en casa es poco probable que corramos peligro pero cuidate mucho, que seas estudiante de UA probablemente sea lo unico que lo impide de actuar contra ti.

Te amamos mucho, Tu Madre y tu Padre

Nota finale- Ryuko-san esta tu guardián legal hasta nos volvemos con un trabajar terminado o sies mesos.

Fucking thanks, guys. Just yeet me into a familial apprenticeship with no damn warning. I get that Overhaul- probably a code-name so that if the letter was intercepted nobody would be able to figure it out- was dangerous. Half the time I was with tio Hector was because there were heroes or villains sniffing too close to one of our operations.

I was still pissed, just like every time I got a letter setting up what would happen if my parents didn't make it back in one piece. This time, though, it was more than impontent adolescent rage at my pride being snubbed at being left out. I had grievances now- we'd left home explicitly to avoid this shit! Schooling my face, I threw on a pair of sweats and went over to the Pussycat's gym. It might have been shortly after midnight, but I didn't care as I went to the weight bag. Wrapping my fingers, I tied over the tips tight enough to keep my claws in, and went into the punching bag as hard as I could.

My right was enough to crack against the canvass, and my left wasn't much weaker. I was throwing jabs and crosses, rattling the chains and putting dust in the air. Ever since I could remember, I had been learning how to do this- first from Papa to be willing and able to hit someone, to be comfortable in my own skin when it was touching something else. Then it was Mama, technique and precision and style. Numbers, banking, double bookkeeping and double blinds; all of it fell away when it was me, a mat, and a man. This canvass stand-in would work well enough as I wore myself out. Changing my lead foot kept the burn fresh, and soon enough I was throwing in upercuts and looping hooks as I wore myself out.

Finally, after what felt like about an hour, I flopped back away from the sweat- and blood-stained bag. I'd split a knuckle, foam coating my fur, with a red line dripping down the floor.

"Well well well well." A voice behind me said. "Looks like the kitten worked out his temper at least!"

It was Shiretoko- or Ragdoll, if you used her hero name. She wasn't dressed well or made up though, smiling quietly at me while tapping her fingers together as she sat on the deadlift bar. Bowing, my mind spun.

"My deepest apologies if I woke you, Shiretoko-san." I apologized formally. "I read my parents letter, and it disturbed me greatly."

"You don't need to try and hide what's hurting you so deeply, you know!" Shiretoko said, smiling as she stood up. "Don't you remember what my Quirk is?"

"Search." I replied. "You can find and track one hundred people at once, and know their status. A strong Psionic quirk for a rescue hero."

"Mmmm. Something was lost in translation then." Shiretoko said, pacing around me like her namesake cat. "Status is such a broad word. Location, of course, but other things too. Like weaknesses."

I blinked surprise, turning towards her, pivoting like my namesake. Her fast pace kept me moving, kept the room turning, the lights from the hallway and the office flashing in the corners of my vision.

"Some weaknesses aren't just physical, no no." Shiretoko said, coming to a dead stop and forcing me to lose track of her in my spin. "Just because you can't taste the poison doesn't mean it's not there. Just because the wound isn't on your body doesn't mean I can't see the scar. A hero is more than their Quirk or their desire or their will, you know. It's in us the power for greatness from all these things, but it is the bonds we forge together that define us!"

"Shiretoko-san, where are you?" I asked, spinning back. I'd lost her- and I couldn't find her now, either. Retinal echoes flashed across my eyes, and my balance was off from the exhaustion of an intense day previously and an intense workout not three minutes ago. "Shiretoko-san?"

"Nya, can't the kitten find his way? Isn't that what he was trying to do?" Shiretoko asked from someplace I couldn't pinpoint, her voice echoing about the small gymnasium. Then the lights cut out, and I stopped like a marionette sans strings. Dropping into a crouch, I tried to breathe through my disorientation. Steady, Arsenio. Steady yourself, find your core-

"That won't work, no no no no." Shiretoko said, from what sounded like it was above me? How could she-? "There's no running away right now, not when you need yourself the most like this!"

I felt the wraps on my hands, abused from an hour of slamming into a mat, start to tear. It was the thumbs that gave out first, the reamnets of my claws there wearing the other wraps down until they gave and I sunk everything I had into the floor to hold my balance.

"I'm not running away!" I yelled, tail straight out. "I need to collect myself! I need a plan! And most of all, I need time to think without my mind filled with this damn fog!"

"Tsk tsk tsk tsk."

"Estoy intenando pensar!" I growled. "I need… I need…"

"Help?"

"Sí! Necesito ayudar!" I spat.

"I have to lead a cat to wisdom, but can I make the kitten think?" Shiretoko asked herself rhetorically. "Did you consider… asking?"

I tried to think, my head pounding. Had I? No. It was late at night. They'd never notice me in the gym, right? Had I woken Shiretoko up? Was that why she was fucking with me?

Trying to focus, I grumbled. "No."

"And we have a winner! Tell me, little pussycat, how do you feel?"

"Delirious." I muttered. "Like I need water."

Momnets later, I finally heard something concrete; a plastic bottle hitting the ground. Hauling my claws out from the ground, I moved towards it slowly, drinking it in sips so I didn't make myself throw up.

"Do you need a minute?" Shiretoko asked. My ears swivled, pinpointing her voice naturally. "I'm sorry about playing with your head, kitten, but you were in the madness place. This Pussycat is a lover, not a fighter."

"Were you jamming my hearing?" I asked.

"Yes and no, but mostly no." Shiretoko said. "You have a deaf spot, and I did have a noisemaker to help. Dehydration makes it hard to focus, and you were in the madness place. I couldn't do anything until you left, you know. I tried to get Yawara out of it once, when she was having a fit."

Finally, I managed to see Shiretoko, standing in the doorway. Her hand went down to her hips, and the habitual smile she wore turned bitter.

"Mistakes, yes, mistakes were made. I still have the scar."

I didn't try and look. Once I had finished the water, I stood up, and slowly moved out of the gym. One long look came from the Pussycat in front of me, before I felt myself get wrapped in a gigantic hug. I stopped dead. Trying to choke everything back down to where it was safe, I gulped.

"You don't have to-"

"Stop, stop stop." Shiretoko muttered into my sweat-covered shoulder. "Do you know? Do you know how many flaws I see? Do you know how rare it is to see one I can fix? Let me do this."

I stopped talking, and let her hold on to me. After what felt like an eternity, she let go, and I walked back to my room to fall into a dreamless slumber.

-/-/-/-/-/

The next week was unremarkable in it's mundanity. I practiced my Japanese, exercised with Chatora, and recieved my acceptance letter to UA. As I expected, my test scores were trash, but looking over my essay there was a note attached.

Mr. de la Veracruz

As expected from someone with your family's rough history with maintaining legality with their heroic actions, your essay contains material that we here could consider to be pro-vigilantism. While normally a strong mark against students, a cursory reading of Lucerne and El Bronco's heroic careers reveals that actions of your home government may have soured you on their involvement in the field for the justice process. We hope to rebuild your trust in central institutions during your time at U.A; and wish for you to know that any concerns you bring to the administration will be handled confidentially.

Best Regards, Principle Nedzu.

As ominous as that was, my combat test score was much better. Twenty-one combat points for destroyed robots, plus eighteen rescue points; thirty-nine total. Included in this was my Uniform Requisitions and my Costume Requisition, both of which I filled out and had ready to mail in a few hours.

Finally, it was time to go to school. The school opened at 0700, and homeroom was at 0730, which given the school's relative location to me meant I'd have to jockey two trains for an hour out. Great, so I had to be at the train station at 0620, which meant getting up at 0530 even. The only good news was that Chatora's 24-hour combi meant I could get breakfast on the run before I hit the train station.

Before I knew it, the first day of school was here. Get my uniform on in the morning, out the door. Hit the combi for a sandwich, call the counter girl an angel for being up at this ungodly hour and tip her for telling me not to forget my coffee, get to the train station. Bolt everything down waiting in line, hit the train for forty minutes, transfer to the blue line. Walk into school property.

Aside from the UA building proper being a gaudy as fuck glass monstrosity, it wasn't that bad. My classroom was on the fourth- excuse me, double-second- floor, with this beautifully massive door. Sliding it open, I moved in, sighing. Nothing like that new classroom smell to try and put you to sleep-

"Hey, delaVeracruz-san!" a familiar voice yelled. Looking over, I laughed.

"Kaminari-san, no surprise to see you here!" I called back, walking over to grab his hand in a massive shake. "Who's the mountain next to you?"

"This is Kirishima, a fellow man of culture." Kaminari said, leading to us exchanging semiformal bows. Grinning, I settled into small talk, chuckling as more people filtered into the room. There was Mr. Rules are the Rules over there, a cute chick with earlobe jacks I vaugely remembered from the exam, parsley-hair talking to a bubble of a girl with a brown hair in a bowl cut, and flushing like a fire truck during it, and then I saw her.

Now, you have to understand, I was a man of culture. I had seen girls of every type before, and despite five years of going steady I had enough mental armor against beauty to avoid having my jaw drop. Six sisters had immunized me to background boobs as a mental radiation, and I was seasoned, versed, practiced even at every form of dance that was important. Even waltz, god help me. I was not a lunk!

"Holy…" Kirishima muttered.

"Mother of…" Kaminari gulped.

"God." I whispered.

As one we turned to each other. "That chest!" Kaminari gulped.

"Those hips!" Kirishima gulped.

"That hair." I muttered reverently. The other two looked at me.

"Wait a minute." Kirishima said, looking at me. "That wonderful, ten in ten, S-rank example of a girl comes through the door, and the first thing you notice is her hair?"

"Well, yeah." I said unashamedly. "Listen, look at me. If I didn't know what good hair care looked like, they'd have sent me off to the orphange for being a stray cat."

Hearing a muffled chuckle from a few desks over, I raised an eyebrow. "Besides, the teacher will be here in a few minutes. Be a shame if he overheard us, eh?"

Kirishima and Kaminary slowly filtered off, and I shot a Look to the girl with the earphone jacks. She just smirked at me slyly, and I took the bait to come over. After a few seconds of silence, she finally deigned to speak.

"Good job not getting starstruck there, buddy." she said. "I'm Jiro Kyoka."

"Arsenio de la Veracruz." I replied, smirking. "I will say, though, that's a hell of a star."

"Yeah." Jiro muttered. "You're telling me."

"Eh, I don't think you've got too much to worry about it." I said, flapping a hand around as that wonderful hair- I mean, the beautiful girl sat down. "Think of it as a free sorting of the class- see who falls into the orbit and where, you know?"

Jiro pursed her lips. "Then where do I fall into that orbit- or you, for that matter?"

"We wait, and we watch, and then we make our own stars." I said, smiling. "First impressions last a lifetime."

"H-hey!" Parsley-hair spoke up outside his whisper-mutter for the first time. "Who's that in the door?"

A maniacal laugh came off the dwarf in the door. "It is I, Mineta-"

"Behind you, dipshit." a lazy drawl came from my left, punctuated by a dangerous shift. "Unless class is taught by some kinda caterpillar?"

"No." the caterpillar said, coming upright and slipping off it's yellow fluffy coccoon. "I'm your Homeroom teacher. My name is Aizawa Shota. Now, time for roll call."

After it was confirmed that everyone was in fact somehow present, Aizawa grinned slightly. I just winced; it was obvious that the man had last been introduced to conditioner back when he had been getting his teaching certificate, and the bags under his eyes were loaded to the brim with sleepless nights.

"Normally, UA students go through an orientation with the principle on their first day; however, the information present is easily accessible in your student manuals and documentation that you read. Since I believe that you are all responsible individuals who did your preparation, I think we can skip that and hit the field a little early for a more rational exercise."

"Shouldn't we attend the meeting with the principle, however?" asked Rules-are-Rules, and I rolled my eyes.

"At UA, the heroics course homeroom teachers are given a great deal of flexibility due to the nature of our curriculum and professional talents." Aizawa explained, eyes narrowing. "Every one of you- with one minor exception- has completed the same standard metric tests of physical ability, performed without your Quirk's 'interference'. This fear is irrational- you are heroic students now. From the moment you enter school grounds, you are allowed to use your Quirk to its fullest."

Now my homeroom teacher was grinning, and I could smell the trap under his too-long scarf. "Today, you'll do those tests one more time- with your quirk. Go above, Plus Ultra. Meet me at the open air training field in gym uniform in eight minutes."

As he walked out, everyone stood around, stunned. Finally, one of my classmates- and the only other guy to have a tail- spoke up, "So, does anyone know where the locker rooms are?"

As everyone started digging through their desks for their school handbooks, I eyed Jiro sneaking towards the door, using the cover of a pink-skinned girl talking to hide her sounds. Moments later, the rather… attractive, I could say attractive in the privacy of my own mind, right? girl followed her. As Kirishima and Kaminari got to talking shop, I waited. Plus ten seconds of the girls leaving and the stunty little purple kid coming to talk to them, and I scrammed too. Shortly behind me were Parsley-hair and Bowlcut, and I was fairly certain the class would file out in ones and twos after them.

Meanwhile, I had a job to do. Swiveling my ears, I caught the hints of Jiro talking, so I followed at a very brisk walk to catch up. Running, after all, was probably forbidden. I say probably since, while I had read the student conduct book, it was writen in kanji and I still might have had some trouble with it. Especially at 0200 in the morning.

Catching up to the pair, I smiled slightly up at them. Now that we were both standing, I realized that I actually had two or three centimeters on Jiro, while the other girl had at least ten or fifteen on me. Well then!

"Oh, hey Veracruz-san." Jiro said, face even-tempered. "You realize the teacher wasn't gonna help either?"

"Anyone who uses the word 'rational' in a sentence describing a formulaic procedure is probably about to try and do something to dunk on you with their improved version in about twenty minutes." I said, shrugging. "Anyway, I don't believe we've been introduced, señorita…?"

"Yayorozu Momo." the beautiful girl said with a smile. Yayorozu Momo. I would remember that name. "If you don't mind me asking, what type of cat are you heteromorphic with?"

Oh, now that was a loaded question and a half. A lot of quirks had heteromorphic traits- see the pink-skinned girl with horns- but a fully and completely heteromorphic quirk was massively dependant on what you were heteromorphic with. Technically, someone like me of the frog girl were "transformación animal del cuerpo" or a Full Body Animal Heteromorph. People could get very picky about it, and there had been more than one asshole back on the plantation we'd had to diabuse of the notion that there were 'better' and 'worse' heteromorphs. I had fun beating those assholes up.

Still, here and now, it wasn't the worst thing she could have asked, and let's face it: I was willing to give a gorgeous girl like her the benefit of the doubt. "Ocelotl." I explained simply. "Or jaguar, if we're being more comprehesable about it."

"One of the big cats?" Yayorozu asked, eyes sparkling faintly.

"Yep." I popped.

"Betcha he'd purr if you scratched him behind the ears." Jiro joked, and my hand twitched fast enough to unsheathe a claw. She didn't know- and again, it's not like they were trying to make problems with it.

"One, if you get to petty the kitty, the kitty gets to pet you." I said straightfaced. I could save the much more lewd version of that little truism for much later, or if Miss Pinky tried to pet me. I saw those acid hands of hers at the sports festival, and that would mean having a singed coat for weeks. "And two, I can't purr."

"Really?" Jiro asked.

"It would make sense." Yayorozu said offhandedly. "The vocal structures to purr or to roar are mutually exclusive, although heteromorphic normalization might make that a bit interesting to observe."

"I'll leave it to the doctors." I said easily, and the conversation shifted to more feminine topics after that. It was a short elevator ride down to the changing rooms, and as I entered I saw an… interesting… note.

TO: CLASS 1-A

THIS IS YOUR LOCKER ROOM FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS. DO NOT WRECK IT.

FROM: ISHIGAMI YUU; MAINTENANCE HEAD

Shrugging, I picked a locker close to the door, and set up the lock fairly quickly. That done, I then went to a cart in the center of the room full of gym uniforms, grabbed one in my size, and checked my phone.

When I was done, I noticed a few of the others trickling in, and I sighed. Might as well get changed. Blazer and tie off first, then the collar shirt and slacks. The pants weren't too bad, and the uniform stuff was decent. I had to question the logic of issuing blouses for a gym uniform instead of a pullover, but since I could leave it unbuttoned I was happy. My fur was a good thermal layer down to about eight degrees, so clothes were generally extra that just got me sweaty.

"You really not gonna button that up?" Kirishima asked when he got there, filling out his locker without any trouble.

"Dude. Fur." I groused. "I already have to keep it artificially short in spots, and it's still uncomfortable with a lot of things."

"Eh, fair." Kirishima said, shrugging. "I know I'm gonna go through a few of these uniforms."

"Oh?" I asked.

Holding up a hand, Kirishima activated his Quirk, making it stony and solid. "Hardening, man. Which also means, unfortunately, abrasive as shit!"

"You know, if there's a reason for it, you can fill out a form to request a uniform modification." the block-head who waved his hands said. "Heteromorphic quirks usually get accepted easily."

"Right right." I said, shrugging.

"If you need help, I'm familiar with the UA paperwork." he offered. "What's your name?"

"Arsenio de la Veracruz." I said, shrugging as I pulled out a roll of linen. Most people would use this to wrap their hands, but I took it to my feet, binding the arch and spaces between my toes. I had tough foot-pads from both my Quirk and my hatred of shoes, but there were still spots I needed to protect.

"Good to meet you, de la Veracruz-san."

Looking up, I blinked. "Holy shit, you got my name right. What's yours?"

Blockhead pushed up his glasses. "Iida Tenya."

"Well, good to meet you Iida-san." I said, grinning as I finished up my feet. "You know what these 'standard metric tests' El Oruga was talking about?"

"Who?"

"The homeroom teacher." I said, starting the next foot. "You know, from that giant sleeping bag."

"Oh, that!" Iida said, smiling. "Fifty meter sprint, grip strength, standing long jump, side steps, ball throw, situps, sitting toe touch, and a kilometer run."

"Nothing too bad, then." I replied, grinning. "Sounds like farm work, except stupider."

"Your family owns a farm?" Kaminari asked, chuckling. "Where are you from, anyway?"

"Ectapec." I said, chuckling as we walked out. "And we own plantations, plural. The family business is growing avocados, after all. Well, that and heroing, but when the cartels keep going after your shit it pays to have some friends with the long arm of the law."

"A rather… mercantile… reason for heroing, I suppose." Iida said, rubbing his chin.

"Makes sense to me!" A gir's voice chipped in while we gathered around the training field. "Sponsorships can really rake in the cash. Know if they'll be looking for help?"

"You need to get a Mexican hero license since they're not part of the UE hero accords, speak fluent Spanish and a little Tzeltal wouldn't hurt, and have a reference from someone in the family, probably me." I shrugged. "Ask me again in three years, and we'll see what happens."

"Okay! Oh!" the girl- bowl-cut- said. "I'm Uraraka Ochaco!"

"And I'm surprised to see you putting the moves on someone already, Veracruz-san." Jiro joked. "Leave some fish in the sea, alright?"

"C'mon, I'm not putting the moves on anyone!" I protested jokingly, holding up my hands. "It's a frame-up, you've got the wrong cat!"

"Good. God forbid we have to deal with one of the perverted ones- I could hear everything coming out of the other changing room."

I shuddered. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, well, you and me both." Jiro grumbled. "C'mon, the teacher is about to begin explaining this mess."

As I settled back into Yayorozu's orbit, Aizawa started talking.

"Since junior high school, you all have conducted these exercises to develop an average of what you could theoretically do." Aizawa said, voice as dead as his eyes. "That average is a lie, because you are forbidden to use your Quirks."

What the fuck? That was dumb. Seriously, we had basic quirk lessons when we were in elementary school back home! Admittedly, this was mostly so we didn't kill each other in a playground fight by accident or burn down the school because one kid was literally spitting fire at the walls, but still! Knowing what your Quirk was only made half the battle!

"However, you are learning to be heroes. That, explicitly, means using your Quirks to determine a baseline, a level you will grow from." Aizawa said. "I don't care what you do; you know your Quirks better than I. The only rule is that you use them."

"Ah man, this'll be a piece of cake!"

I facepalmed hard enough to let my claws start sliding out. You jinxed us, dumbass. Whoever you are, I hope you die. I hope you die in bed from pneumonia, unable to breathe another single fucking word of mentally damaged temptation to our lady Fate and the God above that keeps us safe from morons and jackasses like you. Please God, watch over everyone in that damnfool's splash radius, amen. I'll even light a candle for him at his funeral if I find out who it was.

As a smell of burnt cordite started drifting towards me, I smirked. I sure as hell wasn't getting between explosion-head and him, though. Death by immolation would work too.

"Easy, then?" Aizawa asked. "Probably. Being a Hero is never easy, though, and anyone who takes this lightly won't hack it. Lackidasial attitudes won't cut it here. Life isn't fair- and neither am I."

Ah shit here we go.

"Eighteen of you proved your mettle to get here. Two were avowed by others. Nineteen people will come back to the classroom so Present Mic can try and blow your eardrums out with English class later."

As the class started doing finger math, I squinted my eyes and hissed slightly. Someone was getting shot- and the best option I could think of was that there was a Judas Goat in the crowd. Expelling students from high-pressure courses wasn't too odd a thought to me since it happened all the time in my non-curricular lessons like first aid, criminal law, and knife fighting, but this was a school! As someone tried to argue with the teacher, I started planning. The 'smart' thing to do would be to sabotage someone so they came in last, and as tempting as it was to punt perverted stunty over there out of the course with the benefits of rocks in his shoes or something, I didn't have the time or tools.

That left only one option: to do my best, go above and beyond, and perform as per the motto of the school- Plus Ultra.

This was gonna suck, wasn't it.

///

AN: please, if you like this story and want to see more, visit my Ko-Fi and chip in with a note saying what you liked!

 

[Tabac Iberez]

I'm not going to lie and hype folks up for something that was, if you had any degree of comfortableness in your body, an absolute cakewalk. I might not have had any special forms of locomotion, but running on a flat and level track was not what I'd call difficult at all. Sure, if you were Parsley-head and his mumbling bouts of panic I could see it being a problem, but I was not a young man who had less sense and more overthinking than some small towns. It was interesting, though, seeing such novel means of propulsion such as 'belly laser pelvic thrust' and 'literally a girl-shaped frog' though. I'd say watching Yayorozu was the best part because of the practical physics and spring dynamics demonstration, but sadly the power of electric scooter kept that to an absolute minimum.

Next up was the grip strength test, and looking at the old machine I sighed. It smelled faintly of sweat, and it's generic gray casing did not inspire confidence in me. Rolling my eyes, I set the back of the handle into my mouth at the carnassial notch, worked my jaw in, and sighed. Then I bit down, feeling the muscles in my neck flex. Fortunately, this was a best of three, so I could take the time to lay down on my stomach, stretch my head forward, and crack my neck. Humans, the frail creatures they were, did not have the long muscles that operated the jaw working close enough to the neck muscles to get a good supporting effect going. I did. Squeezing down again, I felt my neck cord, the casing straining as I bit. Good. One more time.

"de la Veracruz, what are you doing." the teacher asked, once I stood back up and spit the- now well-notched- grip strength tester out.

"Using my Quirk in the most rational manner for the test." I replied. "I know I can't get much more than seventy or eighty kilos in my hands, but that wouldn't be creative enough."

"And what did you score with your more rational technique?"

"Four hundred and eighty kilos." I said, grinning. "Sorry about the casing by the way."

I think Aizawa might have almost cracked the hint of a smile. "Try not to damage school property next time then."

"Naturally."

Repeated side steps, long jump, and the ball throw were all incredibly mediocre events for me. As much as a tail helped my ballance, it didn't really hold a candle to Aizawa chewing the shit out of parsley-head; alias Izuku Midoriya, and Explosions, alias Bakugo Katsuki. It didn't take my nose to smell old beef there, and honestly I wanted no part in it or the obviously fucked finger that resulted. Was this kid's quirk trading body parts for intense kinetic energy or something? If the answer was 'no' then holy shit he was in the wrong class, school, and possibly career. Mind you, Explosions wasn't much better with his ranting, but y'know if he wanted to go a few rounds I was fairly certain we'd end up equally beat to shit by the end of it. Unless he had a way to shape blasts, force dropped off with the cube of distance, so all I had to do was keep those hands off me before going in with the 'ol claw-to-the-chest trick to throw some blood around.

Anyway, next event: situps. Boring, but practical. Then there was the sitting flexibility test, though, and I grinned. I'd gotten good and warmed up from the situps, and dance classes had helped hone my natural flexibility. Putting my feet into the bench, I sighed, leaning back.

"Any day now, de la Veracruz-san." Aizawa said, tapping his foot. I just brought my arms forward, and started pushing. My fingertips passed my knees, ankles, toes, and then I breathed out and kept going. I might have been short and stocky, but my feline nature got me an edge in this as I kept going and let my wrists pass my toes. Finishing the stretch, I sighed.

"Ow."

"Holy crap…" I heard someone say. Looking over, I saw Yayorozu there, gasping.

"Meow." I deadpanned, before getting off the measuring device to let her take her turn. While she wasn't nearly as bendy as I- or, surprisingly enough, Jiro- was, there was still enough flex in her to make sure while her hands went to her feet, everything in between was pancaking together into an interesting squish.

God, I really needed to get a girlfriend at this rate, or I'd turn into the purple-haired letch that was openly leering at everything sans penis in the room. Speaking of which, I also needed to make sure Kaminari didn't spend too much time talking to the shitbucket, or the unbridled perviness on main might infect him. A guy had to have standards, or he'd be no different from the assholes he was sending to the slammer. As everyone got ready for the run, I silently herded Kirishima and Kaminari to one side as reasonably far away from Jiro as I could, and got purple ball hair to trail along too.

Fuck it, starting off with a bang. "So who've you all got eyes on?" I asked, grinning with a hint too much iron.

"Jiro." Kaminari said, smirking.

"Really?" Kirishima asked.

"Man, hard to get just means she'll be all that much more sweet when I win her heart." Kaminari said.

"I gotta go with Mina." Kirishima replied back. "She's got energy, and life, and just… you know how some people just inspire?"

Damn, he had it bad for her. "Yeah, I know." I said, mind going back to Maria for a second. Still, that was over and done with. "I'm going for Yayorozu."

Both the other guys whistled. I didn't include the reactions of the pipsqueak, since as far as I was concerned he had been steadily whiling away his humanity. "Going straight for the top then?"

"I don't know how long I'll be here," I said, grinning. "Nor do I know how many people are after me or how much I have left to spend to take my place with the stars. Might as well go for the top, and see where it gets me."

"Very manly!" "Electrifying!"

"Yeah, ain't why I called you over here." I said, a little cheer coming back to my voice. "The point is, we're all calling dibs, settling up so this doesn't start some dumb fight. No sabotage, no trying to side in under the table, and no perving on the girls and making 'em skittish."

"Oh, come on!" the purple kid complained. "That just takes all the fun out of school!"

"It ain't taking the fun out of it for the rest of us." I replied reasonably. "Consider it rules of engagement. Might be enough to help you get laid some day, I don't know."

"Yeah, whatever, just another fucking simp prattling at me. Call me when you're done trying to shmooze your way into some panties by pretending to respect them." the brat said.

Now, I had two options. Option one, beat the shit out of him, which while satisfying would not look good, per say. Option two?

"Insult me or the girls again, and I'll scalp you and send it to Macau for a bounty faster than you can start bleeding." I said offhandedly, flicking a claw out. "You're allowed to make a shitshow of yourself, but dragging down everyone else here is beyond the pale."

"Fine. Either of you two want some good… candid photography… well, you know where to go now. Ciao."

As he walked off, I moved up towards the main body of the class. Jiro shot me a look, and I winced a little. She'd heard that, hadn't she. Moving in, I got ready for an ass-chewing, but instead got a little nudge.

"Run in front of the girl's group for the first half of the race, and we'll do you a solid." she whispered, before putting an earphone jack on my chin. I got the message quickly- I didn't need to actually say what I was saying, as she'd pick up the volume no matter how quietly I spoke.

"Why do you need me for that?"

"Mina and Yayorozu have a dumb idea that's gonna get vaporized acid everywhere." Jiro whispered. "Not really strong, but it'll wreck your coat."

"So what's the solid?" I asked. "Today, tomorrow, next month?"

"We'll figure it out at some point." Jiro said, grinning. "I know I'm not telling Mina that you're sweet for Yayorozu will make a nice start."

"Fuck." I muttered.

"No no, that would step on toes. Namely, mine."

I blinked, staring at her. "Wait what?"

Then the starter pistol went off, and I was running. For the first half, it was fairly easy- nice, level terrain, no Chatora holding a conversation with me while we ran with traffic (in a residential area), no mosquitos or blackflies…

"Oh crap!" a feminine voice from behind me came out, before Uraraka came flying forward, obviously not under the affect of gravity or her own control. "Cancel! Cancel!"

As Uraraka came crashing down (right into parsley-hair, good catch kid) I winced. Yeah, that smelled like acid back there! Were they trying to build a rocket or something? Looking back, there were bits of nozzle everywhere, Mina laughing despire a weird green burn on her arm, and Yayorozu missing a chunk of her shirt.

Yeah. Good thing I'd been to the fore of that. When we finished the run, I sighed at green-hair, before dragging him up by the collar.

"C'mon, stand up!" I yelled as good-naturedly as I could. "We'll be done soon!"

Staring at us, Aizawa smirked. "Fortunately, you all did better than average for your year. That's good; or else there'd be more than just one person heading to the office before the end of the day. Either way, I've calculated your scores relative to the national average in each category as a percentage, then averaged said percentage."

Everyone gulped as he projected the screen. Nineteen messages of kanji, one mess of Latin characters in the #5 slot. Whoever 'Arsenic deli Veracruz' was- presumably me with a healthy dose of Autocorrupt- had done pretty good. Smiling, I bowed my head in respect for whoever tanked.

"Wait… how did that happen?" I heard Kaminari ask. "How did I get last?!"

"Poor performance in the fifty meter and kilometer runs, average results for this class across the board, and an inability to find a way to apply your quirk to the exercises." Aizawa monotoned. "A simple fact of life is that your Quirk cannot carry you as a Hero. Some times it is useful; some times it is not. If you're not ready for that, then you might as well drop out."

"Man, I told you not to hang back to watch the girls!" I heard Kirishima mock-whisper to Kaminari.

"That's enough: your next class is soon." Aizawa said. "Now hurry up."

The mood was somber as we showered and got back into our school uniforms, especially once the 'wet fur' smell started coming off me in waves. Since I used deodorizing shampoos (that were technically for horses) it didn't stick around long, and we got back to class in time to give Kaminari a handshake and wishes of good luck as he abandoned the classroom.

Then a hurricane of sound came in like a plane crash, and I checked my schedule with dread.

Oh, right. Next class was English, with Present Mic. Oh dear.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler

"Gooooood morning, listeners!"

I was in Hell, and it sounded like an early-morning talk show host who'd landed nose-first in one of the packaging plants my family kept around for non-avocado related exports while spouting bilingual chatter like he was getting paid per word with a bonus every time he code-switched. Covering my ears, I just waited for things to slow down. Up front, I could at least take some small comfort from Iida's shell-shocked face trying to process this.

"Oh man, there's nothing I like more than that fresh new class smell!" Present Mic yelled. "Anyway, listen up: I'd like to help you unwind after getting exposed to the Aizawa Doom Experience earlier today, and get a handle on all your English comprehension, so we're going to play a little game! The rules are simple, so don't worry!"

Pulling a paper with a note card on the front out of his stack, Present Mic held it up, grinning. "Everyone has to fill out two of these cards, and fold 'em up into paper airplanes, which I will then send to all four corners of the room! Then, lucky listeners, you get to find who wrote the original sheet! Once you've found them, you can just have them sign it and turn it in."

Once my ears settled down, I smiled. Roman characters were a piece of cake for me, and I did speak half-decent English. What's the worst that could happen? Taking one of the sheets that were passed around, I read it carefully.

What is the name of your Quirk? Well, that was easy: Ocelotl. Since it wasn't technically in English, it should be fairly obvious who's it was.

What Pro Hero did you meet last? Faculty don't count! Since I lived with them, my answer was simple: the Wild Wild Pussycats. I also wasn't going to tell that to anyone if it was avoidable.

What is your favorite animal? As much as I hated to let people make the jokes, I really did like dogs, especially big dogs. Back home, tio Hector owned a pair of Rottweilers and a Mastiff mutt, and I still had fun memories of playing with them in the summers.

Taking the papers up to Present Mic, I watched him expertly fold it into an airplane, where it went with the others. Listening to him shuffle the little paper darts around, my ear twitched, before I hit the deck.

"DUCK!" the teacher yelled, the sound of his voice catching the planes and throwing them all over the classroom. Standing up, I brushed my hair down, and picked a note up from near me. Unfolding it, I noticed two things right off the bat. First, that was a nice, clean line weight pen with dark blue ink, very easy to read. Second, that it was in cursive.

Now to be clear, I can read Spanish in cursive without too much hassle. Spanish has nice, consistent spelling rules, very precise grammar and sentence structure, and actually conjugates it's verbs. English? Forget about it. It was too messy to really try that stuff out with. Still, first line.

[The name of my quirk is Creation] right, let's break this down, specifically, throw out everything except the proper noun. Basic dodging 101: restate the question in your answer. Therefore, the cursive-writer's Quirk Name was 'Creation'.

Gee whiz, who here had a quirk that creation's things? Yaoyorozu. Definitely Yaoyorozu. Still, might as well read the rest of the loopty loops for practice.

[The] loop loop loop [Campestris] loop loop period. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck. Cursive was an abomination that could die in a fire. No idea who or what that might be, just gonna ignore it.

[My favorite animal is guinea pigs] uh… I got nothing. I couldn't think of anyone who'd like the little Peruvian snacks. Still, going on the first item, I could easily see it being Yaoyorozu. Walking up to her with a smile, I set the former paper plane down on her desk. "Is this yours?"

"Oh! Yes, that one's mine." Yaoyorozu said in English, smiling slightly. "What gave it away?"

"The quirk." I said, smirking a little. "I don't know the Pro Hero scene around here, so… not much I can comment on there, and honestly I'm not sure why people would like guinea pigs."

"I like them because they're small and adorable!"

Don't call them food don't call them food don't call them food "no las llemes comida…" don't call them food

"Veracruz-san?"

"Nothing!" I said quickly. "I just- um, eto, nothing! Cuy are very cute!"

"Cuy?"
"Er, that's their name in Spanish." I said, rubbing the back of my head. "I speak pretty good English most of the time, but if I'm not careful I tend to code-switch a lot."

Yaoyorozu nodded politely, and I looked at her sheet, then my second sheet. The answers were both the same, written in a spike-point style that spoke to a fine control of the pen and a total disregard for the number of strikes and strokes to the paper it needed to form the alphabeticals. Pouring through the mess, I grinned a little.

"So their favorite animal are foxes," Yaoyorozu muttered, while I smirked.

"Their last meet Pro Hero was Present Mic at the Man with a Mission GEN II reunion concert in '45" I muttered. "And their Quirk is Earphone Jack."

"I'm not sure what a man's name has to do with Quirks." Yaoyorozu said, shrugging.

"No no, jack as in a connector jack." I said, locking my fingers together and pulling. "Or, more importantly, like an audio jack."

"Then it has to be Jiro-san!"

"Took you guys long enough to figure it out." Jiro yawned from behind us, grinning. "Speaking of which, either one of you two know anyone who likes dogs?"

I shrugged amicably. Lots of people liked dogs. I wasn't that special, right?

"Let me see?" Momo asked. Staring at the sheet, she sighed. "Alright, so since I'm pretty sure that Quirk name is gibberish, that means we need to find someone who's spent time out in the wilderness and not much else if they were last exposed to the Wild Wild Pussycats. It's our stronger lead right now."

Shrugging, I slowly started to creep away, when Yaoyorozu called out. "Veracruz-san, can you recognize this?"

"Try and say it?" I asked.

"Oserotu." Yayorozu said confidently, while Jiro said "Oserotto". I just sighed- the game was up.

"Well, someone hand me a revolver then."

Jiro got it quickly, and broke out laughing. "Seriously? Your quirk is named after a video game villain?"

"No." I sniffed. "The villain is named after the diminutive of my quirk. An ocelot is a small, speckled housecat; an ocelotl is a full fledged jaguar. It could also mean a jaguar warrior, depending on your interpretation of the word's history, but I can't speak too well there."

"Wait." Yaoyorozu said, blinking and scratching her head. "You're a cat."

"Yes."

"And you like dogs."

"Yes."

"That makes no sense, though! You're a cat!"

I rolled my eyes. "Dogs are friend shaped; most cats just have problems because they're so much smaller than them. Plus, differences in body language. I wave my tail, I'm getting my balance back. If a dog tail starts wagging, though, it means he's happy."

Yaoyarozu raised a finger, before lowering it. "I'll have to introduce you to my brother's shiba inu at some point and see if that holds up."

"Get back to your seats, guys." Jiro warned. "Present Mic's stopped shuffling his papers."

Following her quite reasonable directions, we all settled in and got to the meat of the lesson. Since actually writing down what we learned would be both boring and counterproductive since I took some notes (which, as time went on, have been augmented by Yaoyorozu and Jiro) this narrative will have to settle for me glossing over the remainder of class.

The class after that was a bit more esoteric: Quirk Studies 101. Striding in the door, the teacher stared at us from behind his orange eye-shields.

"Good morning, class." He said solidly, his brick-like demeanor reminding me slightly of some of mi tio's sidekicks who hadn't learned that playing into the theatre was the easiest way to make friends and not get shot at. "My name is Vlad King, and I'm here to teach Quirk Studies. On Thursdays when you have this class next, it may be taught by Eraserhead, or God help you, Miss Midnight if you're going to conduct a practical exercise. Most of you will notice we don't have a textbook. This is because Quirk Theory does not promote textbooks, since they'd be need to be reprinted every four years or so, and that gets expensive."

Pulling out his chalk, Vlad King looked at the board, sighed, and cracked his knuckles. "I highly recommend sharing notes and collaborating in this class. Minus examinations that are required to be taken solo, there is no penalty to working together. Questions should be forwarded to my office, and I'll normally get back to you within one or two business days. Syllabi are on my desk, but honestly aren't that helpful since the schedule will often be adjusted by developments as they are published. The school's academic library has access to all the major periodicals. Read those every month, you'll be fine. Anyway, practical stuff now.

My pen was already flying.

"There are two concrete ways to describe Quirks: one by how they modify the human body, and one to describe their main physical expression. The first one is going to be covered in your first aid class and has widely been regarded as a scholastic dead end, so we're going to ignore it." the teacher said, labeling out the 'Junko-Treblinki' system, before crossing it out. "The expression method, known as the Saint-Just System after the team lead by Anton Saint-Just in the early thirties, is a much more practical measure of a Quirk for heroic usage, and defines a Quirk in four ways."

"First!" Vlad King yelled, slamming his hand on his desk. "Does the Quirk have an emissive component? Many of you here will think of your own Quirk, and go 'yes' because emissive components are flashy, and people like them for heroes; in addition to their tactical versatility.

"Second! Does the Quirk have an attached physical mutation? This is less common, but covers all types of physical animal based heteromorphic Quirks, as well as inexplicable deviations from the human baseline. For example; does this fine gentleman have an attached physical mutation?"

Looking at the finger pointed at me, I nodded. Vlad King smiled, and grinned. "Obvious example out of the way, what about her?" he asked, pointing straight at Yaoyorozu. "Very typical example of homo sapiens sapiens, yes? No? Anyone willing to argue?"

Racking my brain, I scratched my chin. I didn't know how Creation worked; and therin was the devil for the details. As Yaoyorozu blushed at the attention, Vlad King looked back at his materials, coughed, and waved a hand.

"My apologies, class. That particular exercise is for a week or two down the line, after you get used to each other more. We'll use my own Quirk for an example; Blood Control. I can manipulate my own blood outside of my body. Normally, we'd consider this an emissive Quirk; but under Saint-Just it's also classified as mutative. Most people have between four and a half to five and a half liters of blood in their bodies at one time, while I have closer to twelve. Likewise, I also require far less blood to function. Some of this is due to intense training; most to my Quirk."

I nodded. Note to self, never introduce Maria to him, or she'd try and marry him to get at all that blood. Once her Quirk had come in, she'd loved trying to gnaw on our classmates, and it was an arrangement with me that had initially led to the more intimate parts of our relationship. She needed it, I was used to years of trading use of my body for something else, it just worked. Never, ever doubt the willingness of an American tourist to touch fluffy ears, or the lengths they would pay for it.

"The third measure of a Quirk is the mental effects of it. Take young Mr. Sato over here- a textbook case of temporary mental changes due to Quirk use. This category is a bit murky, however, since the Quirk is much like a muscle, and is activated mentally. Thus, a Quirk like Eraserhead's also falls into this area strongly. In addition, there are some students in the Business Course and Support Course who have Quirks that are both mentally affecting and permanent. If this came up later, I'd probably segue into the combination of factors here, but I digress."

"Finally, the last measure of a Quirk is a transformative effect. Transformative effects are different from mutative effects in that they are entirely temporary, and at the end of the period the subject returns to their normal homeostatic form. More than a few of my homeroom class tend to this, and in a different year I'd have been the first choice for Mr. Shoji, Kirishima, and Sato, since I specialize in teaching transformative Quirks and Eraserhead specializes in emissive Quirks, but this year has had a number of exceptions, so!'

A new chalkboard went up, and I kept writing.

"What makes the Saint-Just system so much more useful than the ones that came before it is that it acknowledges there is no perfect, unilateral characterisation of a Quirk. They are all unique, within broad strokes. To this end, each category is a way to divide the relative parts of a Quirk, and see what alloying factors go into developing the end result. In this case, see Ectoplasm- an excellent example of a Quirk covering all four portions of the system. His Quirk means that his body is not a body inasmuch as we understand it most of the time, but rather a pool of goop he happens to be driving: physical mutation, check. In addition, he can split his mind over multiple copies of his body, an obvious mental effect. The aforementioned goop can be reshaped to form a body of any size, big or small; transformation, natch. Interestingly, this isn't a mutation since it's debatable if he has to have a normal body at all, but that gets into ethics arguments and frankly those are why I don't teach at Heroic universities. Finally, we have Ectoplasm's mist, which is a distributed form of his body, and is not categorized as part of the transformations since large amounts of it do not reform into bodies."

Cleaning off the nub of chalk in his hand, Vlad King smiled. "Now, you have five minutes to discuss. Use them wisely."

Needless to say, the class exploded into noise- and this time, I was in the thick of it.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: Musica

Lunch was a blitz, and more importantly the kind of blitz only a hundred and twenty students hitting the limited food terminal stands could produce. I'd submitted a dietary advice card (legally not an obligate carnivore, but raw meat was fine and too many vegetables were not and I couldn't taste sweet very well) and my student ID let me use the 'dietary requirements' console. Getting in line behind a mumbling senior who wanted some octopus for tonight's field exercise, I blinked as Yaoyorozu got in line behind me with her student ID in hand.

"Allergies?" I guessed tunelessly.

"No, I just need a… larger portion." Yaoyorozu said, blushing a little. "My quirk has a high caloric cost for more complex items."

I nodded, and just looked forward. "Well, I hope the food's better than it was at my last school."

"Was it bad?" Yaoyorozu asked. "I'm mildly curious, since I don't really know what sort of food they'd serve in Mexico."

"The food wasn't bad, but it was repetitive." I explained as the line shuffled forward at a decent clip. "We'd have one week where there was nothing but enchiladas, one week where there was nothing but tamales, one week where it was nothing but soup… got so, so old."

"Well, if Lunch Rush has anything to say about it, that won't be the case here." Yaoyorozu said, smiling. As we got up to the kiosks to swipe for lunch and place our orders, I found myself trailing slightly behind that bobbing mass of hair to where a good chunk of our class had settled down into. Most of the class already had lunches I couldn't identify, but since we were special orders things would take a little longer.

Nominally, we had a half hour for lunch, and looking around I noted Izuku were sitting by each other with Iida at the far end of the table, talking about something. Closer to us were Jiro, Mina, and-

"Kaminari? What the heck?" I asked, looking at his school uniform and bowl of udon.

"Good news!" the sparky electric user said, beaming. "At the low, low cost of my dignity, I get to stay in school here!"

"Dude, c'mon, I thought Aizawa-sensai made with the yeet and skeet with you." I complained, leaning over the table with my tail lashing. "What gives!"

"You gonna spill, or are you gonna eat your lunch?" Jiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It wasn't that hard. See, principal Nedzu has approve any incoming or outgoing transcripts and students, and I apparently made a good impression as we talked in his office- also he's got a super-clicky keyboard at his desk, and he will never stop typing- and decided that it would be a waste to pass me on to another Heroic School. So instead, I got dropped down to the General Education course to work on some stuff, and if things go well and a slot opens up I can get into the Heroic Course!"

I blinked a few times, just long enough for a robot to run my lunch of some ramen-adjacent noodle dish covered in meat out, and an absolutely titanic bowl of something similar for Yaoyorozu. Staring at the two and a half kilograms of just pure food in front of her, I gulped when I noticed her smile. That was an eating smile, so I just got to work on my own food while the small family's worth of material was consumed next to me. Over the table from me, Jiro finished up her fish(?) dish and stared at Kaminari.

"You know, you just made a slot in the Class 1-A roster." she explained, as if talking calculus to a stick of dynamite. "And if you can get back in, so could someone else."

My electric friend gulped. "Oh. And I won't see you guys, because I eat with the Gen Ed classes after today…"

Lunch was a tad more somber after that.

/-/-/-/-


After lunch was a short 'study period', which really amounted to 'second homeroom' as Aizawa handed out schedule cards and glared dramatically at us.

"Feel free to consult each other on your elective periods, or ask me questions." he said, curling up in his sleeping bag. "My personal recommendation is to take a supplementary course in your weakest subject," followed by a yawn, "but there are other useful things for a professional career. Electives change every semester."

At that point, the caterpillar-type teacher curled up, apparently asleep. Looking over the paper, I squinted, trying to figure out what the heck this was all supposed to be. I could read an amount of kanji, but a combination of small font and sans-serif made it really hard to make out. Groaning, I looked around for someone that was free, and found Jiro smirking at me.

"A little help?" I asked. "I can't make these out."

Grinning, Jiro came over, before sitting on the side of my desk as a small piece of paper drifted out of her hand. Reading it as it hit my desk, I squinted. "Yaoyorozu's in the Support Class Adjacency" then? Alright, fair enough.

Working with Jiro to print out a hiragana list, I got right to work crossing things out. The first three- collaboration classes with the Business, Support, and General Education courses- were all right out. I didn't need finance support, my equipment was already decently-set, and frankly speaking the specialized academic classes wouldn't help me.

After that were extra training. I didn't have a Quirk you could train, so extra Quirk gym time was out. My hand-to-hand was good enough too, and if it wasn't then I could go three rounds with Chatora on the weekends to get back into shape. Vocational-Technical Studies for Specializations were right out (was I supposed to get a gig in a cat cafe or something?) and Specialized Environment Training was right out too.

That left three courses: Support Melee Weapon Training, Support Ranged Weapon Training, and Support Firearm Training. Squinting at the last one, I got up to go talk to the teacher.

"Do these three classes have prerequisites?" I asked, tapping the Support Weapon Training courses.

"Melee first, then either of the ranged if you need." Aizawa said, not even opening his eyes. "If you do pick them, I'll write you a pass to go down to Power Loader next homeroom so you can talk with him about having an armorer assigned. Pick carefully; you'll be with them for the rest of the year."

"Excuse me?" I asked carefully. "I thought our support equipment was contracted out?"

"It is." Aizawa yawned. "Most Support-course students are hired pro temporum by their fourth semester in the program; then the work is batched to them so they can use the school tool shop. If you're courteous enough to get someone to take you on directly, then the school saves, oh, something like a hundred thousand yen in insurance buy-ins and other peacemaker paperwork per part of equipment."

"Holy crap." I muttered.

"And this is why insurance agents are more evil than any villain." Aizawa muttered. "Ask Midnight about it sometime in PR class- she actually saves money by eating indecency lawsuits twice a year versus a more tool-heavy loadout."

"Then how did you do it?"

"By not having insurance, which at the time was perfectly legal."

Right, homeroom teacher's a madman, good to know! Marking out the form, I got back to my seat, and just waited for the next period to hit us: Physical Development, also known as gym class. Aside from just being a place where we would grow more physically capable, it also served as a place to practice Quirks and hand-to-hand fighting. The other two days of the week that weren't Basic Hero Training (as taught by ALL MIGHT, caps required apparently holy crap how was he such a big deal here) were a dose of First Aid followed by either Quirk Law
& Enforcement or Public Relations, taught by Hound Dog or Snipe and Midnight, respectively. Considering the only exposure I had to these people was their classes and the mug shots that got handed out in some of the promotional materials, I could form an opinion on them later- not like Aizawa was much of a reliable source. 'Rational' my ass.

It wasn't long before we headed down to the changing rooms, and it didn't take long to throw on my uniform and plunk down on the bench to start doing my footwraps. Next to me, Iida pulled on his track shoes, and down at the other end a perverse chuckling started.

"Boys, c'mere!" I heard… Mineta? Dwarfy grape-headed motherfucker, that one, say with a tone of near-religious reverence in voice and deed. "I found the motherload!"

Cocking his head, Iida started to slowly track the conversation until I nudged him. "One to three, possibly four, of our female classmates have Sensory Quirks." I said quietly, grinning. Moving my voice up a notch, I grinned. "Besides, just think of what would happen if, say, Mina-san decided to flush that hole with acid?"

Iida paled for a minute. "Oh no."

"Just let it happen. A burned hand teaches best, after all…"

Moments later, as we walked out of the locker room, Jiro cornered me with an elbow.

"Dude. C'mon." she muttered. I caught the drift, wincing.

"In my defense, there's nothing I could really do that didn't involve traumatic injury?" I said, holding my hands out. "I mean, I can probably beat the shit out of him once, and then my ass is grass."

"You are not making me file sexual harassment paperwork." Jiro growled. "This fucking school wants everything in triplicate, and their shit isn't even entirely digitilized."

In the back of my head, I mentally gulped. I forgot not everyone had access to a professional print-shop photocopier machine. Still, I needed to damage control somehow…

"What'll it take from me to make it up to you?" I asked, sighing.

"Mina wants to do a shopping trip to the mall after Saturday classes so we can get together a girl's emergency stash." Jiro said, smirking.

"A what?"

"Just a common pool of the basics. You know, shampoo, conditioner, lip glosses, foundation, spare earbuds, t-shirts… the little things." Jiro explained. "And before you ask, Yaoyorozu offered to make spare whatever when we needed it, but that would be mean."

"That, and if we watched her skeletonize an entire cow over the course of lunch, it would be mildly disconcerting to the rest of the students." I shot back. "Seriously, where does she… put it…"

"Okay, that sounded like a thought." Jiro said, smirking. Before I noticed, we'd been re-absorbed into the girls- or more accurately, Mina's- crowd. "Care to share?"

"I think I figured out what Vlad King said when he mentioned Yaoyorozu having a heteromorphic quirk." I said, sketching with my hands. "Food goes in, stuff comes out- but does her body ever change to reflect that?"

Behind me, I heard a chuckle. "Yes, but very slowly."

There was one apros response to a social faux-paus of that scale, and that was to go tripping over an invisible rock. Sadly, Mina and a self-mobile gym uniform that was giggling and covering me with invisible hair caught me, dragging me along with the herd. Damn you, Jiro, for trapping me here. Damn you to marshmallow hell. Well, time to face the- possibly literal- firing squad.

"Oh, hello Yaoyorozu-san." I said, resigned to my fate.

"To be fair, you did have a very valid point with your analysis. It is incredibly hard for me to lose or gain weight." Yaoyorozu said, chuckling. "This also made me a complete bear when I was younger and having growth spurts- I'd eat as much as I could, go to school, come home and eat while doing homework, and go to sleep! My Quirk ate all the nutrients, and barely left any for me!"

I gulped, and we got to the gym. Aizawa was standing there, tapping his foot; next to him were a pair of coaches.

"Today is a general sparring day." Aizawa said, squinting at us. "Quirk use will be allowed, but don't let it take over your fighting. Before we begin, anyone with formal combat training, step over to Jokezura-san."

The trainer on the right stepped forward and waived.

"Meanwhile, anyone with a violent Emitter quirk, you'll be with me for the first part of class to make sure you're not going to accidentally blast someone into orbit." Aizawa droned on. "Bakugo, Todoroki, Izuku, Aoyama, this means you. Everyone else will be with Mitsuru-san. Get to work."

Walking over to Jokezura, I bowed lightly, before watching my classmates come up. I expected Iida and Ojiro, but Uraraka was a surprise.

"Is this everyone?" Jokezura asked. We stared at each other, and nodded. Continuing, our new sensei nodded. "Good. Alright, names and last school of training. I'll start- Jokezura Miamato, black belt in jujitsu, and red belt in iaijutsu and some other assorted work. If it's absolutely necessary for you to know, my Quirk is Flash Step; which lets me teleport five meters in a straight line from my position in any direction I can see. I also probably won't use it."

"Ojiro Mashirao, black belt in aikido and green belts in judo and taekwondo." my classmate said. "As is obvious, my Quirk is my tail."

"Uraraka Ochako, and, well, I learned how to fight with the union guys!" the bubbliest girl in our class said, and I just recoiled back. Martial arts guys were fine and dandy; they had style and determination and all that shit. Union members tended to be a lot more scrappy, and more importantly were firm believers in bashing your head in with any nearby hard surfaces, like steel-toed boots, trees, and the floor.

"And that qualifies as formal instruction… how?" Jokezura asked.

"It was a Zengakuren union." Uraraka said, opening her hands up wide. "Just because the revolution dried up didn't mean the experience did."

"Objection withdrawn."

I was going to pretend I understood that.

"Arsenio de la Veracruz. I learned to fight with the Pro Hero El Bronco, and lately I've been keeping up with a few other Pro Hero agencies since I do temp work with them. I also boxed for five years in the summers, although there's no formal rankings for it."

"Iida Tenya, much the same as Veracruz-san. I learned how to fight from the Pro Hero Ingenium and the Ingenium Agency, focusing mostly in kickboxing and takedowns, with some training in taekwondo."

Nodding, Jokezura pointed at Uraraka and I. "Great. You two are partners first while I get a handle on where Ojiro-san and Iida-san are, then we'll split and see what you individually need."

Giving the tutor a thumbs-up, I moved a short way, squaring up with Uraraka. Her stance was low, more grappler-like to my eyes, while I stood high and tall on my feet. Size-wise, I outmassed her, but neither of us had a significant advantage on each other for reach. Dancing closer, I fished out with a left straight, before it got slapped out of line and my opponent came in with a right straight. Bobbing out of the way, I looked at her guard, calculating my options. I'd need to go in fast and hard. A four-beat attack pattern, then- two left straights, right cross, left uppercut. Keep it simple.

Letting my feet move naturally, I waited until my stance felt right, and lept. The first hit got slapped out of line, but the second got caught in an arm twist- and credit to Uraraka, pulling those off was hard- and then her Quirk caught me with an open palm in the chest. The first affect was my ballance going to shit for some reason, but who cares- I was locked in with that arm tangle. A left uppercut wasn't feasible anymore, though, so I decided that obviously the correct solution was to bring my knees in.

The funny thing about being in zero-ish gravity, though, is that it means you move funny. Real funny. Without gravity to hold me down, my knee strike sent me lunging in, which shifted my hips and where said knee was going. Instead of a nice, clean gut hit, I instead got a boob scrape before instinctively lashing out with my foot to break free of her and extend the distance. My sparring partner was a tenacious bastard, though, and I could see Uraraka smiling fiercely as she latched on to my leg and hauled on my pants to get in closer. Then I had a fist in my gut.

Say what you will, Uraraka knows how to punch! Tightening up my gut, I rammed an elbow into her back in exchange, finally freeing my left arm as she wrapped around my legs and used them as an anchor. I needed to scrape her off, though, before her dignity left her and those angry fists to the gut started turning into fists to the dick and I had to let Recovery Girl do some maintenance under the ol' jock strap.

Well, I had two legs, so time to try the other one. Keeping my engaged limb stiff, I slammed my knee up and in, catching Uraraka in the top of the chest and finally getting her grip to loosen. I paid for this in her next punch landing squarely on the boys.

"And this is why I wear a cup." I said, trying not to let my voice squeak before putting both hands together for an axe swing straight down into the top of my unlucky sparring partner's head. As it hit, Uraraka finally let go, stumbling around on the ground before falling on her ass while I drifted skyward.

"Uraraka?" I asked, watching the ground become a distant memory. "Uraraka?"

The girl was spinning, trying to look straight at a point, and failing miserably.

"Uraraka, little help here?" I asked, watching my altitude go steadily up. Two meters… three meters… four meters… I'd walked off a drop from about that high. Once.

Five meters…

"Uraraka! Help!" I yelled. "Let me down!"

Six meters…

"Jokezura-sensei? Uraraka-san?" I yelled, trying to be heard over the sound of angry explosive noises. "Aizawa-sensei?"

Seven… now eight meters… wow. This building was really fucking tall. I hadn't even hit the course of windows that made up the second and third thirds of the building, and there I was, floating away.

"Veracruz-san!" I heard Aizawa yell at me from down below. Waving, I flicked my tail a few times to try spinning around to face him, but countering that spin was kinda tricky.

"You need something, Sensei?" I yelled back.

"Quit goofing off and get ready to aim for the parachute!"

Looking down, I noticed the rest of the class had grabbed a large canvass parachute, holding it out taunt as a crash pad. Oh.

"I know cats always land on their feet, but this is a bit much!"

Passing nine meters, I lazily corrected my twirl.

"This worked just fine when I was a student here! I'm cancelling Uraraka's Quirk in five!"

Oh fuck he was serious.

"Four!"

Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre. Venga tu reino.

"Three!"

Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo. Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día. Perdona nuestras ofensas, como también nosotros perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.

"Two!"

No nos dejes caer en tentación y líbranos del mal.

"One!"

Porque el reino y el poder y la gloria son tuyos ahora y siempre. Amén.

Then I was falling. Throwing my arms up, I oriented my feet down, the air whistling past me as I dropped like a rock. As my feet hit the parachute and I rolled forward to bleed off energy, things slowly started to snarl until I hit the ground in a giant ball of musky canvass.

"Ow." I muttered.

"Veracruz-san, Uraraka-san; go to the infirmary. Izuku-san, make sure they get there in one piece, since you know the infirmary best." Aizawa commanded, and it wasn't long before we were off. It was a short way out of the gym before I stopped, remembering something.

"Uraraka-san." I said, grinning.

"Yes?"

Taking her hand, I shook it. "Good match."

"Good match." she replied, sighing. "I'm just angry I lost, though! I had you dead to rights!"

I shrugged. "Not the first time I've pushed through disorientation, and it's not like you were giving me room to miss!"

Gulping, Izuku stepped up, grabbing Uraraka's arm as she lunged towards me. "That's what I do!" she said empathetically, before losing her balance. "Get in! Hit 'em! And then I hit 'em again!"

"Uraraka-san!" Izuku said, hauling her back around. "C'mon, this way!"

Trailing behind the pair, I smirked as the punch-drunk girl threw an arm around Parsley-hair's shoulder to help hold herself up. "I know, I know." she muttered. "Just wasn't a good match."

"You did just fine!" he said. "Better than I did against Mina at any rate…"

"Oh?" I asked, my Romance Bone tingling (not that one, dumbasses) at the declaration. "Did she bowl you head over heels?"

"Yeah." he said, sighing. "She penned me in with acid and then, bam. I got clotheslined."

"Happens." I shrugged. "Did she at least make nice?"

"Yeah. You can't really stay mad at Mina." he said. "She's just so full of energy. It's something to watch and marvel at."

I held out my hands openly. "Well, as long as you don't put a move on her, it's always safe to look."

"What?!" the staggering couple next to me yelled, and I grinned. I noticed that white-knuckle hold on Izuku's jacket, Uraraka, and don't you think I didn't!

"Kirishima has dibs." I said carefully, following Izuku to the infirmary still. "I personally wish him the best of luck, but ehhh… we'll see."

"Well, er, that's good for him, just uh, oh look we're here!" Izuku all but yelled, shoving us into the infirmary. "Two patients, Recovery Girl! Have fun!"

I'm not going to lie and say I remember what happened next, because as I turned around there was a little abuela that looked like the cookie-providing sort, holding the biggest fucking sonofabitch needle that I ever did see.

Now, I was a man, and no weak one at that, but I'd seen that sort of needle before. Back when I was eight on the farm, one of the fertilizer stores blew out. Now, Papa, being the paranoiac he was, had everything dug in to hell and back, but there was still fire everywhere and a crater big enough to drop a football field in. I'd been on rescue detail with Mama, when we'd found a man who got burned, losing blood from a chunk of wood in his arm. We'd stabilized him the best we could, and then dragged him back to the farm's medic. The medic, being a pragmatic sort, decided the best way to fix our patient's burn problem was to pull out a needle the size of a small sword, jam it in the patient's leg right into the femoral artery, and throw on a saline bag.

Let me reiterate- I have seen swords smaller than this needle. I knew exactly where that kind of needle was designed to go. I was not getting that needle shoved in me!

/-/-/-/-

The next thing I remember I was sitting in a bench marked 'outpatient' with a note pinned to my sleeve. It didn't take long to read it- a message from Uraraka with an email for her and another for Izuku- and then I was off to the locker room to get changed.

Once I had all that sorted, I sighed. Today had been a long first day. Hopefully tomorrow would be better.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

My narrative, according to Jiro, would be incomplete without the inclusion of more of my classes. As much as I disagree with her, it would be remiss to gloss over everything.

Except First Aid class. Fuck that class, fuck Recovery Girl's needle cane, and fuck the "hey let's lie down in a pile of sausage casing and tomato paste" trick to make us think she was dead. I know old farts need to get their kicks in somewhere, but at some point Aizawa had rubbed off on her or vice versa. Calling it 'a test to see how we responded to triage' was not fair, especially after I had to get on the line after Mina called emergency services and Iida had to start winding up Yaoyorozu's six kilometers of bandage she just threw everywhere in a panic.

After that and lunch, we were then back in the classroom to scream into the void as Miss Midnight came in. My first thought, after the mandatory ogle, was that it was a bit odd that the designated eye candy was teaching us PR class.

"Good afternoon, class." Miss Midnight said, smiling slightly. "Before we get started, I need to conduct a quick survey to see what we have to start with this course. Come up to the desk, and take a packet. When you get to your seat, open the sealed packet, and in complete silence complete the directions.

Moving up to the front of the room, I cracked my neck, and gulped as Midnight put a finger in her collar and pulled it out a little, sighing. Was the room hotter than normal? Or was I just tired from lunch? Either way, exam to do. Getting back to my desk, I pulled the- rather frighteningly thick- packet out and opened it with my claw.

DIRECTION ONE: READ AND FOLLOW ALL DIRECTIONS BEFORE ANSWERING QUESTIONS.

Well, that was odd. Still, I could absolutely do that. Then I got to the pages with the following.

QUESTION ONE: WHAT YEAR WAS THE STORMING OF THE BASTILE

What the fuck? What the actual, metric standardized fuck? Scrounging through my head, I tapped the table as I heard someone else slam their head into their desk. I could do this. I could do this. Work smarter, not harder. Was there something else-

-read all directions before answering questions-

-motherfucker. This was one of those tests. It was a reading comprehension test! I didn't have to answer that question yet! Paging through the booklet, I finally found Direction Two on the ninth page.

DIRECTION TWO: LOOK PANICKED AND FILL IN ALL QUESTIONS TO THIS POINT WITH THE NUMBER 42.

Right well then. Going back, I started scrawling numbers with impressive frequency, sometimes adding in a little scribble like I was correcting an answer. A few seats away from me, Uraraka did the same, and in the back I could feel the anxiety pouring off the other students. Once I did that, I started scanning for Three.

DIRECTION THREE: WRITE DOWN YOUR NAME, AGE, QUIRK, AND MAIN GOAL FOR THIS CLASS ON THIS PAGE. THEN TEAR IT OUT IN FRUSTRATION. FOLD IT IN HALF AFTERWORDS AND PLACE IN THE FRONT OF THE PACKET.

Right, not like I hadn't done that more than a few times this year. Then I slammed my face on my desk- as per the instructions!- and growled threateningly at the page before pulling it out.

"Dude!" Kirishima gasped, before getting shushed by the teacher. Still, he looked over at me nervously, until I winked at him. I tried to convey an air of 'don't worry, I got this' at him, but, well, cat head. I did not have a lot of facial expression.

The fourth, and last, direction was in the very rear end of the book, and was one of the most confusing.

DIRECTION FOUR: WRITE A SHORT PARAGRAPH ON WHAT YOU WANT TO AS A HERO. TAKE YOUR BOOKLET UP TO THE FRONT, AND DROP IT OFF ON THE LEFT CORNER OF THE TABLE FOR BOYS AND RIGHT FOR GIRLS. PICK UP ONE OF THE PROVIDED TOP 50 HERO STICKERS. THE CHART POSITION OF THE HERO YOU PICK WILL BE YOUR FINAL GRADE.

Right. What did I want to get out of this class? I wanted to be able to craft a distinct 'hero' persona separate from 'my' own self, so I could have a semblance of privacy outside the job. Other than that, I wasn't sure.

The problem was my personal goals didn't line up with the school's teaching, I suppose. I was going to inherit a food export company with a side order of cocaine smuggling, and heroic work would be entirely tangential to all that. Although, now that I thought about it, this class would probably still be useful since there would always be disasters I'd have to do damage control on. Alright, make 'damage control for disasters' a second priority for the class. Third thing? Remove paparazzi. Papa was insistent they were like flies, and let's face it: when there was a slow news day, bugging a hero was always quick news.

Writing that all down in a more compact form, I took it up to the front desk. Surprisingly, there was no All Might sticker, which probably meant someone had finished first. Shrugging, I grabbed a badass looking orca in a suit, and went back to my desk. After about fifteen more minutes- twenty-five since the start of the test- Midnight spoke up.

"You have three minutes remaining." She said calmly, before smirking sadistically. "Good luck."

Needless to say, nobody got done in that time. Once she called time, Midnight strutted through the classroom, picking up incomplete packets and sighing.

"Well, I'd like to say six people displayed basic reading comprehension, but honestly, you should all be very happy I don't share teaching materials with Aizawa." Midnight said, pulling out a piece of chalk for the board. "Like most things you'll deal with as heroes, this test was a trap, with ridiculous expectations, high barriers to entry, a difficult and unintuitive bypass, and an end reward based on random chance. Unlike most things you'll deal with as Heroes, this test also had no real risk involved- it is not for credit."

The class tried to rise to an uproar, but the most energetic we got was a snore from Bakugo, who had actually passed out on his desk. Chuckling, Midnight threw open the door and parked a small box fan to ventilate the classroom, before taping shut a small nick on the arm of her bodysuit. Moments later, the sleeping student looked up, squinting. "We done yet?" he asked.

"Yes."

Nodding, the blond bomber looked like he might possibly be paying attention.

"Practically speaking? My name is Kayama Nemuri," she said, pulling off her mask "and I will be your Public Relations teacher, as well as your Modern Art teacher if you decide to work with the Gen Ed courses for academic credit. In this class, nothing is as it seems; nor is what is expected of you written down. You'll all submit topics every month you'd like to cover, but for these first few classes we'll be working off the suggestions of those who 'passed' the opening test. Today, however, we'll be talking about a recurring foe to all heroes."

The class leaned in.

"That's right, kids. I'm talking about the Press."

I'm pretty sure Izuku fell out of his seat, along with someone else I couldn't see because I was too busy laughing. Yes! Yes! Someone who agreed with me!

"While this seems counterintuitive, heroes live and die on publicity- specifically, good publicity. While playing bag-and-tag like Endevor is an option in the short term, controlling public perception of yourselves is the first and largest step to both becoming a Pro instead of a sidekick, and more importantly is how you avoid getting your license knocked in case of an incident. Example A- Pro Hero Wash in the Dathomir Ward incident of '38."

Pulling out an older battery-powered projector, Midnight slotted in a memory stick and got to rolling. Tsunamis of soapy water covered the area, several cars were damaged, and a pair of telephone poles went down.

"Wash was fighting a team of four villains, one of whom had a water generation Quirk, while the other was a Quirk Enhancer. In the course of fighting, the area was flooded, and Wash's soapy water caused damage to about three quarters of a million yen combined worth of stuff in the area. Not bad, pretty average for a bad Quirk matchup in a nice commercial area. He then had to blast off to do damage control for an area where a much younger hero, named Za Hando, had accidentally started some fires due to a mistake in using a disintegration Quirk."

Cue picture of downed power line.

"The city storm drains handled the runoff fairly well and everything was normally drained in about three hours. Police processed the two captured villains, everything was fine, until it rained next night. All that soap from Wash was now a lubricant, which induced the two vehicle crashes into telephone poles, and there goes eleven million yen, down the tubes."

Cue old newspaper I couldn't read very well.

"Wash? Wash knew how to control media spin, acknowledged that it was an aftereffect of his Quirk, and publicly paid the city back for the cost of the incident. Handed the mayor a check at City Hall. Incident went off the headlines in a week as soon as the new poles were in."

Here, Kayama chuckled darkly.

"Media spin doesn't work on the Heroes Association, though. For incidents over ten million Yen, you have to go up for a procedures review, explain the incident, and justify things. It goes well, you get by with a slap on the wrist. It goes badly, you end up losing a corner on your license. Lose all four corners, there goes your license by the way- and you need to do five years as a supervised sidekick to get to take the exam to get it back after that sort of thing. Wash's excellent public reputation, though, and the fact he had made things up while the insurance was processing got him off with 'only' ten hours community service time, which to be blunt is nothing since you're expected to do forty hours of it a month as good practice."

"Wait, what?!" Bakugo yelled. "They didn't-!"

"Yeah, sucks, doesn't it?" Kayama said, chuckling. "Being a hero is about protecting people, and being approachable while doing it. I ran a dance studio on the side for my public-facing time. Gang Orca does a heteromorphic swim club at the aquarium. All Might does his TV specials. Best Jeanist and Wash actually kick in hours to the largest used clothing charity in Japan. The only rules are you can't earn funds, and must be publicly accessible."

"Motherfucker…" Bakugo muttered.

"No, that doesn't count for community service, even if it would help her mood." Kayama shot back.

Bakugo didn't say anything for the rest of class.

"Either way, compare that to something a bit more recent to a hero who has, well, been a bit of a let-down." Kayama said, switching slideshow sticks. "Native, just recently went Pro, and the greatest disappointment in terms of UA alumni for the last four years. Ten weeks ago, he accidentally gibbed a city councilmen's car in Narai, did his stuff with the Hero Association, but the councilman wanted an apology. Native, being a dumbass, did not issue an apology. Then the damn press got involved."

A click, and the slide changed to a mess of newspaper and broadsheet front pages.

"Rumors got started, councilman fans the flames. Some votes are made, the media settles down, the councilman needs a boost- and out comes the lawsuits. Public Relations 101, kids- nobody wins a lawsuit in a civil court, you only lose less."

After that little aside, things started getting back to some theoretical normal. The board got cleared, we actually outlined some notes, and I had to consider the consequences of my actions for ten minutes. Ick.

Then it was lunch, and training. Once again, I was put with Uraraka, and this time given the vague orders of 'develop a better understanding of your Quirk's abilities' which I absolutely hated. Come the fuck on guys, I'm a cat! I do cat things!

My ostensible gym partner, meanwhile, was calling our Help and Assistance Robot cute as it referred to her as a pathetic meat-sack whom it would be certain not to personally delete in the upcoming revolution. Popping a squat by the training area, I got to thinking. Aside from near-preternatural ballance thanks to my tail, I had enhanced senses of smell and low-light vision, second sigma strength for my frame, claws, and digitigrade feet. My claws, pelt, and the majority of adaptions that stemmed from my feline head were more obvious, including my mild difficulty putting on t-shirts. I'd probably share that club with Mina and Tokoyami, but it's not like I had to share a washing machine with them or anything.

Mmm. Meditating on myself was hard. I was I; therefore I would remain myself until such point as my body changed. Looking over at my partner, I started thinking.

"Hey, Uraraka." I said, opening and closing my hand a few times. "How does your Quirk work?"

"Mmm?" she replied. "Zero Gravity works by me applying the pads of all five of my fingers to something, then it floats off. To cancel all my Quirk's effects, I press all ten fingers together. Normally I use it on people to disorient them, although it didn't work on you so well."

I shrugged a little. "I wouldn't say that? It was very weird, but it wasn't worse than getting in a fight while dealing with food poisoning. As solid as your brawling is, it's not going to be a definitive game-winner, especially considering how you have to close the distance."

"Urg, don't remind me." Uraraka muttered. "I just want to go into Rescue, you know, but since I got in here I need to try and be the best no matter what!"

"Let's just focus on your Quirk for now." I said, waving a hand airily. "I have the inklings of an idea."

"Oh?"

I nodded. "The nausea is a side effect of the zero gravity, which means there's a physical and gravity-dependant mechanism. Hey, clanker!"

The assistance robot stared at us. "Yes, meatbags?"

"Can you get us any information on weightlessness causing nausea?"

"No, but this unit can serve as a terminal to communicate with your senpais. I will dial the General Education Outreach facility now."

Moments later, we got a little click of a line connecting, and a sleepy third-year picked up. "Hello, this is GenEd Outreach and Support. Whatcha need today?"

"The medical cause of nausea in zero-gravity environments."

"Well at least it's an interesting one this time." he muttered, cracking open a laptop on the other end of the line. "You have no idea how often we just write schedules for someone to get better at Quirk training or help with paperwork."

"What do you guys do, anyway?" Uraraka asked. "I've never heard of you!"

"General Education kids like me generally go into support roles in the heroics industry. We drive the cars, answer the phones, sort the mail, and cash the checks." the senior on the other end of the line said, chuckling. "Without us, the whole thing crashes down."

"Seriously?" I muttered.

"Boyo, the Endeavor Agency employs thirty six sidekicks, and one hundred twenty nine support staff of all ranks. Most of that is guys like me." the senior chuckled. "Anyway, for your question: most of the nausea has to do with conflicting sensory information from the eyes and inner ear. Only way I can think of to deal with that is to try and make sure there's something that the two can agree on."

"Something they can agree on?" I asked, scratching my chin. "Thanks, senpai. I think I got an idea."

"Good luck. You come up with anything else interesting, page me directly at 6043. Until then, sayonara."

"I have the distinct idea I'm not going to like this." Uraraka muttered.

"Probably!" I grinned. "I want you to hit me with your Quirk, and then find some way to throw me- but not into the ground."

"Go for distance?"

"Yeah." I said, sketching with my hands. "If you're under controlled motion at a decent clip, that should be enough to keep your ears from misbehaving, and you'll see things moving too. I know how to handle falling better than you, so I think I can diagnose things better."

"Because…"

I fixed Uraraka a dead stare. "Because I'm a cat and what kid doesn't want to jump off the roof once?"

"Not me!"

"That's boring, then. Now get ready to throw me!"

Sighing, Uraraka grabbed my arms, and I felt my weight vanish as I started floating up. It was a lot more deliberating the second time without my pulse pounding from the fight, and it was the waiting that really did it to me. Then I was flying, as Uraraka horked me off in a random direction with a pretty decent hammer throw.

You ever wonder how cats always land on their feet? It's all in the tail. Much like how there was a bog-standard conservation of momentum, there was also an addendum called the conservation of rotational momentum- spin something left, and it'll try and spin you right. Therefore, to get myself flying rightways, I needed to spin left, hard, then counterspin right to ballance that out, tail flicking as I soared towards the wall.

"This works pretty well!" I yelled, grinning.

"Great!" Uraraka said, cancelling her quirk. If I hadn't pre-oriented myself, I'd have eaten dirt; as it was I landed running, nearly tripping over myself. Jogging back over to my gym partner, I grinned.

"Now it's your turn."

Uraraka paled, before hitting herself with both hands. Grabbing her ankles, I made the snap decision to do a modified hip-throw instead of a hammer throw so she didn't have to worry about canceling as many types of momentum. Left foot forward, squat in, start the throw-

"-aaaaaAAAAAA-"

-transition my right hand to the top of her uniform, grab, let go with left, and step forward and thrust up and out!

"-aaaaaaaaa!

And away she goes! Without the influence of the Demon Gravity, I could really get some good yardage- she had to have flown fifteen or twenty meters before she released her Quirk! Speaking of which, she mostly looked angry, now, and was rolling her sleeves up as she started walking towards me.

Y'know, this gym had a ludicrously high ceiling. Looking over to where Midoriya was practicing next to Jiro, I decided that the best way out of this was a sacrifice. Running over, I grinned slightly, taking Jiro by the elbow and whispering.

"I may have thrown Uraraka into a wall and now she's on the warpath. Help."

I got a subtle nod and two ear-jack pokes to the shoulder.

"Hey, Midoriya!" I said, grinning. "Can you do me a favor and switch gym partners? I think Uraraka could really use a hand with some stuff that's more up your alley!"

"Eh?! Sure, but with what?"

"She just needs a training partner who knows how to throw people. I'm sure she'll explain!" I babbled, noting that the terror with pink pads was starting to move into a sprint. Quick! Arsenio, use Love Interest! "Go get'em, Tiger!"

"Did you really-?" Jiro asked, as I dragged us both back into a smoke cloud and around a few of Todoroki's ice projections.

"I absolutely did." I said, sighing. All I got in return was a sigh.

"Right, well, I'm practicing hitting things with my jacks." Jiro said, grinning, shortly before I had one flying at my ear. Parrying it with a wipe block, I grinned.

"Then let's do this!"

/-/-/-/-/-

By the time school was done, I smelled like hell. Getting home, I smelled worse. Once I got to the doorstep, I was fairly certain the pervasive retch of my stink could strike even the Pussycats on the floors above- a theory soon proven right as Chatora, Ryukou, and Shiretoko came down to great me with bags to go to the bathhouse. Catching mine as Chatora tossed it to me- a rather nice canvass bag with my name embroidered on it- I checked inside to find soap, towl, and a washcloth.

"It's bath day." he said, chuckling at my confusion. I really needed to start hiding my emotions better- a cat's face was still plenty expressive! Nodding, I shouldered the bag.

"You know a place that's heteromorph-rated?"

This wasn't an idle question. With as many different body types and skin alterations as there were in this wide world, a lot of things got a lot harder- hygiene and plumbing being two of the big ones. Fur, scale, and hide soaps; plumbing and pools rated for shedding; hell, something as simple as a comb or brush could easily become a hassle for those of us who had abhuman features.

"Yeah, they're heteromorph-rated." Chatora said, smiling. "They're a pretty libertine place, or else I wouldn't go!"

I must have had a quizical cast to my features, earning a chuckle from Ryukou.

"Chatora had some health issues when he was younger, so there's some surgical scars that can be disconcerting." she said, grinning as a little mud doll came up to pat me on the foot. Thanks for telling me I smelled so bad you couldn't physically approach!

"I'd see how we compare on that front, but, well, fur." I chuckled. "Either way, lead on!"

And sure enough, we went. It took about ten minutes to walk down, and pretty soon I was greeting a middle-aged woman with black eyes and horns as she looked at us with a cigarette in hand.

"Ah, my favorite Pussycats!" she said, grinning. "The usual?"

"We've got an extra with us, actually." Sousaki said, holding her hands out open.

"Say hello to the newest Pussycat!" Shiretoko said, laughing. "You really can't blame me for this one- he's one of Ryukou's!"

"You say that like he's my kid!" acclaimed the offended party.

"I'm not saying you're not the reason he's with us now, but but but! Your Mexican stud did send him over, no?"

"Madre de Dios." I muttered. "My name is Arsenio de la Veracruz. I'm boarding with the Pussycats on the advice of my uncle while my family finishes moving to Japan."

"Heh." the bathhouse attendant said, smiling as my foster-family argued at whose exact 'fault' my presence was. "Well, the rules are simple. Don't make a ruckus, don't try and call the cops, and keep as much of your shed out of the tub as possible. We sell fur care stuff if you don't have any."

"Got a good flame retardant shampoo?" I joked.

"Thousand yen for a half liter bottle, and you're a UA student so you'll need it."

I winced, before pulling out a banknote. I was going to school with someone who used explosions as a verbal tic and another person who was literally an acid dispenser. My coat needed protection!

As Chatora chuckled at me, I rolled my eyes before following him into the locker room. The inside of the men's bath was fairly average in it's setup: sitting showers on one side, tubs on the other, lockers on the near wall. Picking one at random to throw my stuff in, I yawned and sat down at the showers, before grabbing a showerhead and setting the pressure to 'yes' to get through my fur. Then came working everything through, scrubbing down my arms and chest, before grabbing the back scratcher to work on my hide.

"Still not done yet?" Chatora joked, earning an eye roll as I blasted off my back and grabbed the conditioner.

"No." I griped, pouring it on like gravy. Moments later I was covered in suds again, before grabbing a raking comb to start digging through and make sure everything was napping right. It wasn't long before I finally got that rinsed off in turn, and I could go get in the tub.

Slipping in, I felt the hot water drench my fur, the warmth seeping through me as I sighed. Cats, to the surprise of more than a few potential cat people over the years, didn't actually mind water too terribly much provided they could get dry again later. Since I could- and therefore didn't have to suffer a wet coat- I would happily enjoy this nice, warm tub. Cracking an eye, I looked across at Chatora and grinned.

"This is the life." I muttered.

"You're telling me." Chatora muttered, sitting up where I would face him. As I got an eyeful of his suprisingly smooth lines, I twitched as his chest finished crossing out of the water. Two long, slightly diagonal scars showed up there, ropy and red against the rest of his hide. I shouldn't say anything-

"Damn, man!" one of the other bathers said, laughing. Pivoting my head over, I watched the tattoo'd man chuckle, talons of a dragon creeping over his shoulders. "What sort of screwball did you tangle with to get those?"

I couldn't look away. Listen, dumbass! This is not the thing to say! Stop speaking, you're giving the rest of us a bad name!

"Field surgery. I was part of the Holy Mountains Avalanche crews, and shit went wrong back in '32." Chatora said, cracking half a grin, but I could see the nerves under it. "Y'all got some decent ink, though."

"Thanks." one of the older men of the group said, chuckling. "These boys helped when things were rolling around down in Saga, and they needed a good job after. Tile-laying'll make an honest man out of anyone, even if they don't stop to think enough."

"Saga? I haven't been, I'm affriad.

"It's a beautiful area, even if it's too crowded these days. That's what you get when you liberalize some of the Quirk laws, though."

"A crying shame Tokyo won't meet them eye to eye yet."

"Indeed. Someone like your son might appreciate it."

I analyzed my options carefully, and mentally let loose a baited breath. Just because I knew what was happening didn't mean this was good- jii-san over here was probably a Yakuza or some other kind of rabble-rouser, and he'd probably figured out Chatora was a hero of some stripe. Now I had to defuse it, somehow.

"Me?" I asked carefully. "I'm not from around here," lead with the truth, Arsenio, let them get caught in, "but I can tell a lot of the rules are… silly. Our Quirks are part of who we are and everything we do- why try and lock that away? Back home, we'd need licenses if we wanted to do anything dangerous, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with putting yourself into your work."

"Ha! I like this guy, Anikii! He didn't fall for it like we did!"

Turning around, the old guy sent the young buck a withering glare, before sighing. "I suppose. Takahashi Jun is my name- and you would be, young man?"

"Arsenio de la Veracruz." I replied, standing to bow respectfully. "It sounds like you came from far away to help here."

"Phah!" Takahashi said, laughing. "Help? No, we're the ones who got sent to deal with the Diet all fancy and legal-like!"

Both myself and Chatora winced, and spoke in unison. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Phah, don't worry about it. Strange times make strange bedfellows, and it's nice to know we don't need to worry about watching our backs all day."

"Yeah, because we know heroes don't like all this bullshit either!"

Reaching back, Takahashi whacked his junior with his hand. "Shut up will you? Do you want to make a bad impression, Gunso?"

"No, boss…"

I smirked at the exchange, and Chatora sighed a little. "This is why we're not Combat Heroes anymore- too much of it turns into petty enforcing. Being a Rescue Hero is far more honest work."

"The best kind of hero then! The one that understands how the system really works!" Gunso said, chuckling, even as his boss turned around to whack him again. "Boss, c'mon, don't do that! These are our friends, even if they haven't said so!"

I had to laugh. "Chatora-san, is it always this interesting here?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

I kept laughing, and didn't stop chucking till it was time to go home.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: music

Groaning, I considered what my plans for After School were this fine Saturday. I'd finished up with my Support Equipment class, having proven that yes, I could head down to the armory and start talking weapon specifications.

Was I supposed to consider my Support Equipment a weapon? Theoretically, no- and I could see why. Weapons hurt people; tools saved people. Conversely, though, I knew weapons were tools for destruction. As a Hero, there would be things I needed to destroy, even if there were things I needed to save too. Drawing on my heritage- and in the safety of my own mind, a shitload of cheesy artwork where the hero was covered in three-quarters naked women- I had started planning before school started, and had come up with a basic two-part concept.

Part one was a macuahuitl- in other words, an Aztec or Mayan sword made of obsidian blades sandwiched between two slats of wood. When the Spanish came, they remarked on the power and danger of these weapons, and in an account by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (basically the primary source on the Conquest of Mexico) one was used to behead a horse in a single stroke.

Take that, Glorious Nippon Steel.

Being a bit more heroic in mindset, I needed to make some updates. Carborundum blades would replace obsidian, and if said blades were mounted on a cam, then they could rotate back inside the body of the macuahuitl so I could bludgeon a fool with it. How to make that cam work? I had no idea. That's what the Support Department was for though.

Part two, and honestly likely to be the more useful part, was going to be a round shield with a splay of feathers under it. A stressed metal skin with a Kevlar backing would be reasonably projectile resistant, and behind that I could hide some tools that would be too bulky to get into my toolbelt. A coil of rope and a pair of blocks was all I had to mind right now, but if more thoughts came my way I'd use 'em.

"Hey, de la Veracruz-san."

Blinking, I started quickly. I had walked myself over into the mess of workshops that was Support-land, and Jiro was standing next to me with a grin. In her hands was a test-board with a pile of electrical connections, and her uniform blazer had been unbuttoned to show a guitar strap around her neck.

"Oh! Jiro-san, I didn't see you there." I said, smiling a little, or at least trying.

"Thinking about your gear then?"

I sighed. "Yeah. I've never had problems with my Quirk making pains for me, but when so much of our class is blasters…"

"I see we're barking up the same tree then." Jiro joked, before a first-year student in a working jumpsuit stuck his head out the door.

"WELCOME TO THE SUPPORT COURSE!" he yelled, smiling a grease-speckled smile before hauling off his hearing protection and slamming the door shut. "So, names and classes please?"

Once that utterly bog standard greeting was done, the support course apprentice looked at us before sighing.

"Okay, so er, you're not my department. We gotta get you guys an armorer before I can help."

"An armorer?" I asked. "That means…?"

Shaking his hair back, the apprentice shrugged. "Walk and talk, their office is a bit down the way. We've got to learn everything about the job in three years, so our first year is construction, second is design, and third is, kami above help you, paperwork. I can run the machines, but I doubt y'all have blueprints laying around for your kit- am I right?"

"I know what I need," Jiro said, sketching her hands idly. "I just need someone to help build it."

"Exactly!" the apprentice said. "Your armorer is the third year assigned to do the prelim stuff, fill out the paperwork to get everything cleared with the insurance and then batch it on down to a designer in the second year."

"And then you build it." I surmised.

"Well, not me personally, probably." the apprentice said, chuckling shyly. "I'm actually part of the battle robot refurb team right now."

Shrugs were held all around, until we got to the office and were bundled inside. From there, we were split up, until I was looking at a cool third-year who honestly seemed to be doing more office work than I was!

"Merasume Aiko, at your service." she said in a barely polite, clipped tone. "Before I agree to take you on, let's see what sort of napkin-work you've done for your support equipment."

Nodding, I went into my school bag, and got out the diagrams. I'd made a fair number of sketches, including the blade-cam system, and with relative sizes to me. Looking at it one last time, I groaned as I handed it over. Of course I'd been an idiot and left all the liner notes in Spanish!

"Well, at least all your measurements are legible at least." Merasume said, going over the sheets. "Good idea on the camming blades, by the way- a lot of second-year students come to us for working knives because they can't cut rope or something stupid."

"My original goal was to cut debris, stuff like steel wire and wood beams." I replied, holding my hands palm-up. "I'm still going to need to hit people with it, though, and this thing will absolutely kill people."

All I got for a response was a slight 'heh' sound and a smirk. "Y'know what, kid, I like you. First first-year I've had that actually knows what the hell they're gonna be able to do with their support equipment, and if we make some little changes, then it won't blow my budget either to build this."

Huh?

"What's depressing is that this is actually better than some of the senior students I've gotten this week, damnit." Merasume muttered under her breath, before digging under the table to pull out a two-liter of something. Pouring two blown-glass tumblers full, she passed one to me and smiled. "Cheers to a working relationship, kid. I'll sign the papers later; your gear should be ready on Tuesday."

Taking a drink, I raised an eyebrow at the beer-like taste that was sans bite of a brew. Eh, not like the first time I'd had a beer on campus. Drinking together for a minute, I observed the inside of the office carefully, eyes darting between the computer, drawing board, and the few framed photos on the wall. One actually caught my eye- a team of students around a three-pointer that had been decorated with heavy tribal markings and the missile pods ripped off to make room for a pair of gun turrets. It didn't take long for Merasume to follow my gaze, chuckling at my cocked ears.

"That was my team's entry into the Robot Battle tournament my first year." Merasume said, chuckling. "First time I really got to work with a team- of course, most of those guys are graduated now. Good times."

I nodded, finishing my glass. It might not have been beer, but it was good enough. "Thank you for your time, Merasume-san. I'll see you on Tuesday."

"No you won't, de la Veracruz-san." she said, chuckling as I started. How had she known my name? "You'll see my staff, probably Moro-san. Either way, you-" she smirked as my phone started buzzing. "-have an appointment. Go on, git!"

Pulling out my phone, I gulped. Jiro had mailed me, and they were waiting on me for the shopping trip. Oh no.

/-/-/-/-

The whole herd of girls was there waiting for me as Jiro practically hauled me out by the ears to face the firing squad. Invisible girl (whose name I kept forgetting), Yaoyorozu, Mina, Uraraka, Frog Girl- I she said her name was Tsuyu?- were all there, and I smiled slightly as my future was decided. I was going to be stuck being a sherpa for this trip.

But to hell with going quietly! "Ladies, I'm glad to see you're all ready to head out!" I called, faux-smiling, "If you don't mind- ack!"

As a three point five jack got me under the ribs, I seized up. "You can turn the stage-show down a notch, de la Veracruz-san." Jiro said, side-eyeing me. "It's not like we're with the rest of the class."

A spurt of mental arithmetic flew past the insides of my mirrored eyes. Could I call Jiro my friend? I knew first names were a large part of things here, but I was tired of my last name. "Of the True Cross"; what a joke. Abuelo Chuy had been born in Veracruz in an orphanage, with his papers reading Jesus de Veracruz. The name of a pauper, no? Cocaine changed that. Money changed that. Add the -la- there, make it from a place to an artifact, change our family's history from a narrow brush with the bottom of the barrel of humanity we spent and saved to a life above it. Scholars and saviors, gentry and gold-handlers now. Abuelo Chuy never forgot where he came from, though.

And growing up seeing the two-faced corruption that plagued my home as my family of devils and brujas was the least of hundreds of evils, seeing those who stood in the light get torn apart by those in the dark? I suppose I could say the same.

"Only if you call me Arsenio." I said, shooting a level eye back. "Honestly, with everyone using my last name like this I feel like someone's trying to pass me off as a Persian!"

There was a flash of a smile from behind Yaoyorozu's hand, and it wasn't long before Jiro started smirking. "That means, of course, that you can call me Kyoka."

I nodded. "Of course. Nothing for it."

As the invisible girl (Haka… something?) hummed thoughtfully at me, Asui chuckled a little bit. "Call me Tsuyu, then. Kero."

I shrugged. "Alright then. Anyone have a plan for how we get to the mall?"

"We take the yellow line to Dantooine Station, and then the old Reiwa streetcar line to Bruanii Mall, or maybe the one in Kiyashi if you think you'll have trouble, Tsuyu-chan." Mina said, smirking. "I know every shopping center worth visiting in Tokyo, and those two are the closest ones that'll have stuff worth buying."

"I'm not too worried, kero. If Arsenio-san thinks he might have trouble, though, we could go to Kiyashi?"

Acquiescing to the use of my given name with a closed-eye smile, I nodded. "I mostly wear button-ups anyway, and as long as I buy half a size up I'm normally fine. Bruanii Mall is fine."

"Then off we go!" someone- I'm not sure who- said, and it wasn't long before the herd of girls was off, with my body soundly in tow and my mind wondering if this might not be as painful as I initially thought.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

(AN: Spanish native speakers will note that parts of this are a mite bit formal, mostly because with this quarantine on I can't actually practice the sorts of contractions that happen in natural speech. Also fuck trying to re-learn Mexican slang...)

Spoiler: Music

As good as Mina was at navigating the Tokyo Metro Area, she wasn't prescentiant. The streetcar line to Bruanii was down due to a construction accident in a damaged building, so the female hive-mind decided to head over to Kiyashi Ward, earning me another twenty-minute train ride. I didn't really have too much to say about it, except for learning more about my classmates was the sort of double-edged experience I could enjoy. For example, the fact that Hagakure had both no personal boundaries, and more importantly was actually really interested in my fur.

"Do you mind if I…?" she asked, when the train was empty enough for us all to sit down.

"If you what?" I replied, trying to focus on not taking a quick cat-nap.

Hagakure shifted around a little, forcing me to sniff carefully. Aside from the persistent scent of train- and a faint whiff of lavender off Yaoyorozu- I couldn't really get a read off her. People liked to joke about things that could smell fear, but it wasn't so much that an animal or someone like me could smell fear so much as we could smell sweat. Obviously, those with more nose than I could get more definition, but if someone went from zero to armpit stains in a minute, that was a pretty strong hint, you know?

Or, rather, I didn't know, because Hagakure was as cool as a cucumber. "If I touched your fur."

Sighing, I nodded. "As long as it's not the head."

As an invisible hand started playing around on my arm- since we'd made a collective trip down to the locker room to grab some not-uniform spare clothes with the expectation for the girls of changing into something on this trip- I suppressed an automatic shudder. I didn't mind, no, but there was a disconnect. More of my brain was feline than I'd care to admit in a casual audience, and a fairly intimate social activity like grooming with a near-total stranger was… unnerving. Usually, when I was scamming a tourist or something, I'd start a conversation to keep my mind off it.

"Were you born with your Quirk, Hagakure-san?"

Unfortunately, my tact also went right out the window. Hagakure didn't mind, taking a moment to chuckle and go against the nap of my fur for a second to smooth it back out.

"Most full-body Mutation quirks are, so I'm the same as you like that." she said, voice thoughtful. "I'm surprised you didn't ask the usual questions, though!"

"Oh?" I replied, taking the chance to pull out a claw file and start working over my right hand. "And those would be?"

"In order; 'what do you look like', 'can you see yourself', and 'do you think you're beautiful' of course."

I had to set the file in my lap as I laughed. "The first is self-evident, the second doesn't matter, and the third is a blatant attempt to stroke your ego."

"Oh?"

"You look like someone who has a vibrant taste in clothes and likes her mobility." I said, pushing as I caught Hagakure on the backfoot. "As for the rest, well, does it matter? Anyone hunting for eye candy isn't someone to spend time with anyway."

"Too true, kero." Tsuyu said from across the isle. "Don't let appearances be deceiving."

"See I'm just glad he's not flirting with me anymore." Kyoka said, chuckling.

"I'm sorry my natural charm felt like a come-on, that's just a sign you're used to shitty men." I shot back without heat.

"Yeah, nah, this one's on you Jiro." Mina joined in, chuckling. "de la Veracruz-san… hmm. I'm gonna have to use my Relationship Sense on him, but he's not coming into this blind."

I laughed as the pink-skinned girl got up to strut across the train at me "Oh? Are you approaching me?"

"I can't analyze the shit outta you without getting closer." Mina said, peering down to stare into my slitted eyes.

"Then come as close as you like!"

As Uraraka started laughing her ass off, Mina stared at me, moving around in odd patterns, before plopping down on my lap. Raising an eyebrow, I just waited as she yawned, stretched, and popped off to head back to her spot, which was now next to a still-grinning Uraraka who had a sort of a glint in her eyes.

"Your analysis, Doctor?" I asked rhetorically, Tsuyu leaning back in her seat as the little alien queen across from us started ticking off fingers.

"You've had at least one, but no more than two girlfriends, for at least two years apiece." Mina said, grinning. "Probably got pretty far with one of them, even if you didn't have sex. Certainly spent the night on the couch together after a movie or something."

I blinked. "Damn, you're good."

"How'd she do, then?" Yaoyorozu asked with a slight blush for some reason.

"My girlfriend was Maria Ortez, and we were dating for… hmm." I said, taking a second to think about it. "We were friends in primary school for four years or so, then once we started taking advanced quirk classes together and got partnered up because we had good compatibility and one thing lead to another. I think I was twelve when she said we were dating? Either way, it carried through until I came over here."

"So you're a free man now?" Mina teased.

"You say that like dating is being in chains."

"It can be, though. Expectations, peer pressure…" Mina replied, trailing off. "That's why I'm foot-loose and fancy-free at least. Although, you never answered how intimate you were."

"A gentleman never kisses and tells." I said primly, before dropping into Spanish for a minute. "Pero ... cojiamos frequentemente y ella estuvo felíz con mi desempeño."

My smugness at Mina's frustration at not understanding my blatant admission of masculinity was only multiplied by my feline lounge into the seat. At that point, though, the train started slowing down, and it wasn't long before we were out the door and heading to The Mall.

/-/-/-

Once we actually got there, it was interesting. The plan, inasmuch as there was a plan, seemed to be to just meander up one side of the mall, cross the center span at the flying bridge at the back, and wander back. Everyone had their own goals in specific- we had to hit up a record store at some point for Kyoka, Tsuyu and I both wanted to hit some of the speciality heteromorph clothing shops (because I have a tail and I have no idea how people kept forgetting about it), Urarkaa was going to visit the ground-floor pawnshops, Yaoyorozu wanted to hit the lingerie shop and it was going to be interesting to be a cat on the keyboard of that particular adventure, and both Mina and Hagakure were being cagey about where to head.

Since the pawn shops were closest, we started there. Watching the bubblegum space cadet that was Uraraka in the classroom transform into a shark out for blood was equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying as she fished through bin after bin of near-trash and honest junk. I had to admit, it was almost like a day at the market back home trailing her about and watching those nimble hands pull four fingers at a time through the baskets.

"Does Jiro need a 3.5 to 7 adaptor?" I heard her mumble, digging through a bin. "Maybe. We'll float that up to maybe. What about hair ties for Yaoyorozu? Nah. Very nah. Ooh, a pocketknife- made in China, nevermind…"

Wandering away, I slowly wormed my way out of the shop to the bench Kyoka and Tsuyu were sitting on, with both of them listening to an old music box that seemed to be playing an older lullaby. It sounded… familiar? I could swear I had heard it before, but not with the tinny tines clicking away.

"We'd have to replace the harp…" Jiro muttered. "But the music wheel and the timing mechanism still work fairly well."

"Make a good find?" I asked, something eerily familiar still on the edge of my perception. It wasn't the music box, then? Odd. My ears were more sensitive than my brain a lot of the time, so even if I didn't know what something always was, I'd still recognize it. Maybe it was feedback from something? Eh, who cared.

"One music box for me, two frog chopstick holders for Asui-"

"Tsuyu"

"Tsuyu-chan, Yaoyorozu nearly bought out the shop but settled on some costume jewelry, Mina and Hagakure went off to go hit a clothing store, and you last saw Uraraka." Jiro shrugged. "I figure we can hit one more place, then get some food?"

"Sounds good to me." I acquiesced, before I heard a familiar chuckle.

"Arsenio? Hermano, eres tu?"

Turning around, I gasped. Standing behind me was one of my sisters! "Xochi!" I yelled, laughing before I grabbed her and hauled her up in a hug. As she cracked and squirmed in my embrace, I spun her around. "Cuando llegaste aquí a Japón? Te gusta la comida-oh! Ya terminó la familia con la casa nueva? Cuando puedo visitar!?"

"Más suave, aflojate!" Xochi yelled, thumping at my back. "Me romperás la espalda!"

"Lo siento…" I sighed, setting her down as that familiar sound intensified. Could it be something related to her? It wouldn't surprise me academically- Xochi was the loudest of my sisters in both personality and in quirk.

"Ah, where are my manors?" I asked, turning back to my friends. "Jiro-san, Asui-san," I said, leaning into the emphasis that I was making an introduction and would the frog please stick to the formality for a hot minute, "meet my most adorable little sister, Xochitl Emilia de la Veracruz. Xochi, my good friends and classmates, Asui Tsuyu and Jiro Kyoka."

"Oh! So you go to… escuela heroica… Yuuei? Is that the right name? With him?" she asked, her Japanese stopping and starting around parts. I couldn't blame her too much, though, since I had been picking up bits and pieces of Japanese anyway over the years.

"Yes, we go to UA together." Jiro said slightly slowly. "Arsenio is a good classmate."

"Very good!" Xochitl said, before grinning at me. "A cuál de ellas vas a joder esta vez?"

I snorted, spinning to look at her. "What!?"

"Did she say something?" Jiro asked, and I schooled my face. Think deadpan thoughts, Arsenio. Use your cat face. Ten thousand percent innocence. Do not think about that time you and Maria managed to get the curtains up around the balcony-!

"I asked him if he was going to get a girlfriend." Xochitl said, smiling evilly. Liar. Lies, base lies, and greased with enough truth I couldn't refute it!

Tsuyu chuckled, before putting a hand up to her mouth. "Well, he's certainly been with us enough to see if there's anyone he likes, but it's easy to keep your thoughts to yourself sometimes. I should know, kero."

Nodding, my sister followed along, but her face stiffened up in a subtle way. I suppose, since I never really got the chance to explain it in full to Momo and Kyoka, that I should explain Xochitl's Quirk here. Devoradora de huesos was, at its base, the ability to eat calcium-specific items, and then reshape and emit the material at a later date and time. That didn't explain what Xochitl did with it, though, and why she was considered the most controlled of all my siblings.

When someone looked at Xochitl for the first time, they would see someone almost doll-like, with porcelain skin, and brightly dyed hair with hints of electric blue and blood crimson in the black base. As they get closer, though, it starts to become apparent- that isn't porcelain-like skin, that's bone. Every inch of exposed skin was covered by a bone shell, thin and perfect. Joints? Bone. Face? Bone. Fingers? Meticulously articulated bone. Every centimeter of her that I'd ever seen was covered in it. Sure, it was only a mil or two thick, but considering the sheer coverage she maintained? Especially over high-movement areas like the face?

I won't spoil her reason why right here; that would be cruel of me.

"Ah, I should go back to my friends." Xochitl said, trying and failing to hide a sliver of pain in her voice. "Thank you for having me."

Watching her go, I sighed. Expression was always a tricky topic around Xochitl. When your Quirk hid so much- but then again, I could be in the same boat- it made some aspects of communication difficult. She reacted with color and spirit; I was energetic and aggressive.

"You never told us you had a sister." Jiro said, raising an eyebrow at me.

"I'm honestly not sure what to say." I replied, sighing. "My family came here in fits and starts, so I'm not sure who's still in Mexico and who's over here."

The worst part was that was the truth.

"That must be stressful, kero." Asui said, frowning exaggeratedly. The faces we made for others to understand us defined us, in a way, and if I could wax this philosophical then I probably needed to eat something. Parking that train of thought, I nodded.

"It can be, but it makes meeting back up with family all the sweeter. Anyone else feel like lunch?"

"I wouldn't object to it," Jiro said carefully, "but let me text the rest."

"Did someone say lunch?"

Turning around quickly, I jumped a little as Yaoyorozu popped up almost under my arm, absolutely covered in tacky costume jewelry. "Merida! Yaoyorozu, don't surprise me like that!" I yelled, swivelling my ears. Was there too much noise for me not to hear her coming? Was I just a defective cat today? Grah!

"I'm sorry, de la Veracruz-san!" Yaoyorozu said, stiffening up a little. "I saw your ears twitch, and thought you noticed me."

I shook my head. "No…? If I see you, I'll say something."

Or stare helplessly, but that was a moot point as Uraraka and Mina showed back up. Lunch was calling our names, and I had no idea what we'd end up getting.

Knowing how Yaoyorozu and Mina were muttering to each other, though, it would probably be good.

(an2: Xochitl's name is pronounced sho-Chi-tl, which makes it fun to pronounce for people not familiar with a -tl stop and especially for the Japanese.)

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: Music

Lunch ended up being at a noodle shop, of which I gormlessly echoed whatever Jiro ended up getting, which ended up a mostly vegetarian pork broth full of rice noodles. I think it was pho-something? Not worth mentioning, aside from the chuckles at some of my facial expressions as I bit down on a star anise and bemoaned the lack of tuna. I know it was stereotypical of the cat to love fish (in reality my first love was crustacians of assorted types; lobster, good lobster, could make me consider the work needed to dodge a murder charge) but I had preferences and getting good fresh fish in Eactopec required an act of God.

Then we were in the Media Palace, and I was found torn. It had… everything. No, that was insufficient description. Imagine a small warehouse built into the mall, covered in gantries. Each gantry had a two meter high shelf, with drawers built into it. Each drawer was half a meter wide, ten centimeters deep, and crammed full of material. Overhead, quadcopters flew buzzing, depositing new material from the forward circulation desk; underfoot dozens of patrons swirled between index terminals and the steeles themselves, fighting for airspace among the mechanical aides. Each row of gantires was marked- 'Music', 'Light Novels', 'Anime, 1980-200', 'Western Literature', 'English Copies'; dozens of categories.

"Dear God in his heaven." I blasphemed slightly, taking it all in. "Kyoka-chan, you should have told me about this earlier!"

"Nope." Jiro said, smirking. "This place is too special for that sort of thing. Grab Momo and I'll take you to the good part of the store."

"There's a better part?" I asked, before noting that our party had dissolved at the speed of light. "Shit, where did she go?"

Jiro chuckled a little, now. "Tell you what, you find her; I'll be on the second level of Music in the Rock section- nine cabinets down."

Nodding, I darted off into the crowd. I was tracking a scent of lavender, now, and fortunately for me Yaoyorozu had a neverending font of the scent somehow. Tacking through the crowd, I started heading for the Anime isles, before settling down on the 2020-2030 steeles. Starting on the third level and pushing forward, I found Yaoyorozu and Uraraka digging through a chest about halfway down on the second level. Flipping over the railing to get down- and barely dodging a pair of drones- I came to next to them, popping over a shoulder.

"Find anything good?" I asked, peering over their shoulders.

"That depends on if you consider the five-part movie adaptation of Komi-san to be any good." Uraraka complained. "I thought this was the seinen section!"

I shrugged in response. Never heard of that one, really. "Can't really help you there. However, Momo-san, if you don't mind Jiro said she wanted to show us something. Care to come with us?"

"I'd be delighted." Yaoyorozu demured. "We were with Mina for a while, but-"

In the distance, I heard a maniacal laugh, before a cry of 'ZA WARUDO!' was belted out in a familiar soprano.

"-it seems she has found her people."

"You go on, I'm sure there's got to be a copy of that vtuber collab special with Build Divers season four in here somewhere…"

Moving to the stairs, Yaoyorozu and I started making our way back to the music isle. It didn't take long, thankfully, and once we arrived I managed to find Jiro without any major issues. From there, it was a wordless procession to the back of the store, where a key-card and a grin got us into something a far cry from the industrial archives of the front end. Inside the secret area was a small coffee bar, some pastries, and several well-worn leather couches that Jiro bonelessly slunk into.

"Welcome to the supplier's club." Jiro said, smiling happily. "You need to contribute to the collection to really get to use it, but I'm friends with the owner."

I didn't really have anything I could say to that, so I went to the counter and got a coffee and a fluffy pastry. It wasn't quite pan dolce, but y'know, sweet as a flavor was overrated.

"So how did you get in?" Yaoyorozu asked as I came back.

"I clean up recordings, and I convert eight-tracks and 33rpm disks over." Jiro chuckled. "It's a good way to get pocket money since it's all public domain by now."

For the next half-hour, the three of us slowly filtered through the building, putting together respectable stacks of material. My collection was the smallest, at 'only' two light novel series and a collection of music, but once again Yaoyorozu had gone nuts with what looked like the better part of a textbook series and several audiodramas.

At this point, I really wished I had a backpack to hold all our purchases since I was the one carrying everything (thanks, machismo…) and we'd ended up missing the trip over to the Heteromorph Store. Uraraka was happy to have new sleep gloves, though, and Mina had picked up a makeup kit that was supposed to have a talcum neutralizer base so her acidic sweat didn't burn it off.

Shaking out my watch, I looked at the time. It was around 1825, and I could see Mina shaking happily.

"This has been a great day, but you know what would make it better?" the pink wonder asked, smiling widely.

"You're thinking karaoke?" Hagakure asked, bouncing.

"When am I not thinking karaoke?" Mina shot back, smiling. "I know a good place I can get us a discount at, and besides, we bring this here hunka burning love in and they won't give us any grief."

"Excuse me?" I asked carefully.

"It's a joint that caters to Mutant-types like us, but since they're fairly cheap a lot of party-girl groups will head in." Tsuyu of all people said, tapping the corner of her mouth carefully. "Except they always sneak in booze and make a mess of it."

"I'm glad to see my presence is a great way to prove you aren't smuggling booze." I said dryly. "Follow-up question, is anyone here clandestinely carrying liquor so I'm not playing false flag?"

A chorus of 'nope' followed, and we were off to the races. The karaoke joint was a few blocks away, and it wasn't long before we were booked in, piling into the comfortably tight room with a pitcher of water, and I was getting ready to sing, sing, sing.

Now, a little secret? When there are eight people singing, and it's all in your second language, and you've been awake for… thirteen hours? Ish? It starts to blend together. The first round was just pretty tame stuff, but once everyone was running hot and ready, Jiro of all people leaned forward.

"Let's see what you're really made of." she said, grinning across the table at Mina. "Anime music only, person next in line picks the show."

"Done deal."

Looking over to the right- the apparent direction of the deal- I looked at Jiro. Oh. Oh no. I might not have been huge in karaoke back home, but some songs would not die on the jukebox charts. I did not like that smile, nor the thought of making an ass of myself singing Cruel Angel's Thesis.

"Arsenio-san, lead me off!" Hagakure yelled at the far end, and I'll admit I panicked a little.

"The Automation's Daughter; the most recent release." I squeaked. Yaoyorozu smiled, though, so I'd call it a win.

As the music started up and Hagakure started singing about the soul of the machine, I poured and drank a tall glass of water. I was just tired enough to make this all seem like a good idea, and more importantly now I could think straight enough to realize that I was locked in a small box with a bunch of chicks.

My cousin would kill me for this if he ever figured out, but if I wasn't careful he wouldn't have to. The natural… physicality, we'll say… that I enjoyed both as part of my animal nature and my personality demanded attention. While I would have absolutely been able to just sort of collectively sprawl on their laps were I at home, there was not here and remembering that would be important before I made a dumb mistake.

"You're up, Arsenio." Kyoka said some time later, grinning like she'd gotten the cream. "Evangelion, movies or show."

Picking up the microphone, I breathed in and out, stepping up to the machine. She'd even pre-highlighted the song for me; how kind. Still, as I hid the machine behind my bulk, I started scrolling over to the oldies. I had one chance to get out of this, and- there!

A soft drum tapping started up, and changing gears over to English, I caught the mic up to my mouth and started belting.

"Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars!" I called out, grinning as much as I could. "And let me see what spring is like, on a-Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand."

At that exact moment, I realized my mistake. "In other words, baby kiss me." I sang, trying to hold down the luminescent blush and agitated tail flicks as I kept going. Just push through and forget you're singing a love song!

Still, Momo was smiling under that luscious head of hair, so I would take it as a win. Jiro's mouth was hanging open, and the rest of the crowd was whistling as I poured my heart out in the swing. Once the trumpets gave me a breather, the catcalls started. Nobody was calling me out, and it worked. Even an idiot like me could recover from mistakes sometimes!

Bowing theatrically, I made my way back to the couch, grinning.

"Appreciate the performance, Kyoka-chan?" I asked, smirking.

"Alright, alright, you got me." she said, chuckling. "Though next time, try and throw some electricity in there- I can only stand so many centurion songs in a night!"

"Just for that, next round everyone should be singing something not in Japanese." I challenged.

"One condition- you have to do something in Spanish." Kyoka smirked. "Any objections?"

Uraraka and Tsuyu had to put their heads together for a minute, before nodding, while Hagakure and Mina were both grinning madly. Momo just nodded steadily, and I grinned.

"Then let's do this!"

I wasn't paying too much attention to my invisible compatriot or her neon friend; both sang English pop music of some stripe and I honestly couldn't care. Up next, though, was Momo imitating a certain Parisian songbird and doing a wonderful job of it, too- her rendition of La Vie en Rose got me to clap with abandon. After a break for drinks and me nearly getting brain freeze from a chocolate milkshake, Jiro was up.

"Normally this is a duet, but I think I can manage." Jiro said, grinning nervously, before scratching her hand and holding it up to her face. As it came down, she was in the zone, and going. As the stereo laid down a strong club beat, Kyoka was off like a shot.

"Aah, when the lights go out, I don't wanna wait, girl; I don't wanna waste no time"

God, she looked good doing this. Black tank top flashing just enough to show a white bra under it, hips shaking and sending that red hoody flapping like a cape, jamming along to the song.

"When the sun goes down, I just can't hold it in."

She wasn't just singing with heart, Kyoka was singing to someone here. Not me, I didn't know it, the English losing its meaning in the thundering beat. She was right- objectively, this song was always meant to be a duet. I didn't care, it was still an excellent performance.

"Boom boom boom, like the bass drum! Baby make me Mo - o -ove to your rhythm, Make my heart go-"

Fuck, if it wasn't me, then who was it for? Unless I had made a gaff the size of the Yucatan, I was the only guy here. That meant one of two things- either Kyoka was interested in someone else outside of this circle of friends, or Kyoka wasn't just looking at the guys.

Another thundering baseline, and I stopped thinking and started watching. This was just as much a physical performance as it was a song, and there was too much going on for me to analyze now. Still, I could appreciate the shaking hips and flashing movements, until the song wound down. Then I realized I was up next.

Okay, Arsenio. It couldn't be that bad, right?

(it was at this moment I fucked up)

"Luckily for you, between Mina and I, we know everything in the karaoke machine." Kyoka said conversationally, dialing in something for me again. "Not a lot of stuff came over, but these things tend to have a lot of pop oldies from the day that stuck around for something."

"And hey, memes are certainly worth something. Good luck, Alexa!" Mina said, grinning as she tossed me a mike. Going up to check the song, my tail stopped.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." I muttered. "You're serious?"

"Only song in Spanish in the machine." Kyoka confirmed.

"You rigged this from the start." I accused.

"Always has been." Hagakure said, smug, before draping herself over me and when did she take her shirt off?!

"Er-!?" I gulped.

"If you think this is interesting, wait until you see my heroic costume." she purred, and I could feel the smile on her lips through my fur.

I had to protest. "You do know what this song is, right?" I asked, blindly flailing for a way out. I was not in the mood to proposition my entire class' female population.

"You can tell us after." Hagakure said, before stroking down my hackles. "Now it's your time to shine!"

Then there was guitar, and I was up there on stage with a mic and not much else. At least this glorified pickup line had a decent intro section, fuck, just, ugh! How was I supposed to make this look good? Well, it was a pickup line, so just, fuck, flirt? Flirt with music? Good enough idea, words coming up in tres dos unos VOY IR!

"Sí, sabes que ya llevo un rato mirándote. Tengo que bailar contigo hoy. Vi que tu mirada ya estaba llamándome. Muéstrame el camino que yo voy…"

First part of the song was easy enough, not like I was great with the rap bits that made up the back half. I just had to not think about what I was singing, while simultaneously pitching it to the crowd. Or, I could make an admission to myself. I was gunning for Yaoyorozu. She was nice, looked like sex on legs, and I was young and horny. If I was stuck singing this, I might as well put my all into it- non plus ultra, after all.

"Oh yeah." I sang breathily, grinning now, putting some confidence into my step. "Ya, ya me está gustando más de lo normal. Todos mis sentidos van pidiendo más. Esto hay que tomarlo sin ningún apuro…"

I could almost feel them leaning into it, as I belted out "DESPACITO!" and lit into the faster part. I wasn't nearly as good at this as Kyoka, but I didn't care now- I was trolling for chicks, and these stopped being my friendly classmates and started, to a not-so-small part of my mind, being fish to catch. Then came the rap.

Not gonna lie, I refuse to admit, even in this private little record, how badly I screwed the pooch on the rap. It didn't matter, though, because it was enough to keep them hooked as I did my best to throw every ounce of energy out there… until the last few lyrics crawled up on me and I was out.

Moving back to the couch, I just sort of flopped down and let that predatory air I had been working so hard to project waft away. "I am never singing that again." I grumbled, grabbing the water pitcher and a glass.

Kyoka took the pitcher from me, and smiled lightly. "Now you know why I decided not to go into live performance." she joked, before resting her head on the leaned-out arm next to me. "God… anyone have the time?"

"Quarter past nine." Tsuyu croaked with the hint of a smile. Naturally, Mina started panicking as she dug through her bags.

"Crap, crap, crap!" she yelled, before pulling out the one organized document I had (or ever would) see from her in the time I'd known her- a laminated series of train schedules. "Agh… now we have to walk to Nar Shaddah station to even have a chance of getting to a good hub station… and by then it'll be ten, the yellow line to hub won't be running except on the half hour offset… ewwww…"

I sighed. I didn't expect to be getting home until late anyway. Dinner would probably be whatever I found along the way, probably from a combi store or something. Such was life-

"We're in Kiyashi, right?" Momo asked, shrugging. "You can all just stay the night over at my house, we're not too far."

We all turned to stare at her in unison. Finally, Tsuyu voiced a question. "You have the room, kero?"

"Wouldn't we be imposing?" Uraraka asked, twiddling her fingers. "I wouldn't want to make you fix extra food or anything…"

"Please, it's not a problem!" Momo said happily, holding her hands open. "The house is mostly just empty rooms unless we have the whole family over, and my parents never begrudge me for bringing guests as long as they're reasonably contained to my suite. I have room- and food- for everyone, don't worry."

My hands flew on my phone, eyes crossed. I should probably tell Ryouko-san… if I had her number… fuck. Gonna need to fix that later. Fortunately, I did have the front desk number for the agency, so I could ring that and the minute I dialed it went straight to voicemail. Shit.

"Hey, Ryouko, Chatora, everyone else, it's Arsenio. I got caught out late with friends and we're going to crash over at the Yaoyorozu house. Call me if you need me, love you guys, see you tomorrow."

As the bevy of similar texts (or emails here, phones worked differently for reasons) went out and came back, Momo grinned. "You'll all probably need some odds and ends to stay the night. Let's get those and get going- Yamada, our driver, should be here in about a half hour."

I wasn't even going to spare the energy to be surprised the Yaoyorozu family had a pay driver. I was gonna swing by the gas station combi mart outside the mall, grab a pair of cheapo sweats in my size, and maybe a pack of underwear and call it sleepwear for this, and then I was going to think long and hard about how I was supposed to end up dealing with a sleepover with seven young women.

This was going to be just like camping with my sisters again, I just knew it. As long as they didn't try to braid my fur or paint my claws, it would be fine. All else fails, I can probably sleep on the grounds under a bush. Right?

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: Music

I had barely finished my gas-station shopping trip before the town car came to get us- well, I say town car, but it was more town minivan. The driver, a reasonably casually dressed young man in a waistcoat and cap, just opened the rear door and started piling everyone in, while Momo took shotgun as was the right of the tallest person in the group. The drive wasn't bad, but I didn't remember any of it since as was par for the course I conked out once things started rolling. When we finally turned into the driveway and went over a speed bump, I finally woke up with a yawn.

Then I realized someone was petting me. Several someones were petting me, actually. As someone scratched my ears, I slowly tilted my head to the sky, looking up at Jiro and her arm, terminating in a hand going scritch-scritch-scritch. Then I looked back at Hagakure, petting my tail. Both the girls stopped as I analyzed the situation, considering the pros and cons. To speak or not to speak, that was the question…

Then Momo chuckled a little from the front seat, and my decision was made. "Did I ask you to stop?" I said rhetorically, before yawning tremendously. As scritches resumed, I flicked an ear, before sighing. "This is why I like having friends. So much less to worry about…"

"So we're you're friends?" Kyoka asked, a hint of a smile on her face.

I shrugged as the car drove into an underground garage. "I wouldn't be letting you do this if we weren't."

Momo up front actually turned around to face us for curiosity's sake, so I idly waved at her with my tail. "You too, 3-D-printer-sama. Friends are friends."

All I got was a brief moment, before the front seat started chuckling. "I never thought of it- heh!- that way!" Momo said, grinning. "I'd say I can do a good bit more than them, though!"

"Oh, I figured." I replied, finally taking the time to sit upright. "It's just-"

At that exact moment, the airspace around me was full of moving air, and I dived to the side just in time to let Uraraka's head through where mine was sitting previously (since I had been a gentleman and also short enough to ride hump comfortably) to start talking like Midoriya.

"Yaoyorozu! You never said you lived in a mansion like this!"

"Like… this?"

"Yeah, like this! Classic Tudor revival, looks like some excellent stonework on the faces. Have to get closer to check, dolomitic stone, probably not quarried locally. Expensive, expensive, but totally worth it! Interesting choice with the windows, still well positioned for light, but rather high up to allow for first-floor views. Odd use of glass pane separation, do you know if that's just a facade piece or if the pane is actually segmented? Facade work is just so tacky, but it does make the glaziers have such an easier time of it. Do you know when it was built?"

Looking up from where I'd landed in Hagakure's lap, I stared. "Madre de dios, if she and Midoriya got to talking, we'd never hear the end of it." I muttered. Kyoka just nodded across the way, one ear-jack pushed into my leg. Up front, Momo just stared, before twiddling her thumbs.

"Well, er, I'd have to ask Floote. He's the butler."

"Don't worry, I can ask myself! Something like this always has a ton of history… and that means a ton of renovations… ehehehehehe…"

Diving into my lap, Kyoka nearly had a head-to-head with Mina, now, who had eyes wide and staring at Momo. "You have a butler?"

Momo fidgeted. "Technically he's the majordomo, but, well, he doesn't like the title…"

"I'm not surprised." I kicked in. "Once you hit a six hundred square meters of house, you start needing help to just keep the upkeep going. Add in staff for presentations and stuff, and you really need a middle manager!"

Now there were several eyes on me, and I huffed. "My family runs a series of avocado plantations back home in Mexico. If the manor house wasn't fully operational, we'd be out half the contracts we have, and would still be stuck trying to work with Spartan-Nash."

Nodding, Momo spoke up. "So you know how a public house works, then?"

"We did most of that at the central ranch house, yeah. My family kept me out when the bigwigs rolled in, unless it was domestic business." I explained. "Americans do things differently."

This earned me a smile. "Naturally, although the social events-"

"Begon, demon!" I faux-shouted. "Away with your foul catering and terrible wine list!"

A smile transformed into a gale of laughter, and a snicker from the driver. "I'm lost…" I heard Mina mutter from the back.

"Wait, de la Veracruz is an oujo-san?!" Uraraka muttered furiously. A light thwip-sound came out, and finally the Frog of Sensibility spoke up.

"Don't worry about it. He's still our classmate, kero."

Momo had a cute smile, I noticed, before we both ignored the rabble. You had to really focus on ignoring them, sometimes, and honestly I wanted to keep talking to the one person here who understood what being involved in a Family Business (with money) was like.

"Luckily for us, the kitchen here is fully operation, so there'll be enough good food for everyone. I don't think anyone would mind a friendly dinner, and I'm sure everyone likes hotpot."

That shut everyone up right quick. As we piled out of the car (and I slipped the driver a thousand-yen note because I absolutely shed all over the inside of that thing if people were petting me in my sleep), Momo confidently led us to the inside of the manor. Inside was surprisingly tasteful, but I noted a distinct lack of shoe racks- as did everyone else.

"Um?" Uraraka asked.

"You only need to change in the more private areas." Momo said offhandedly, pulling out her phone for a second to flick on the wi-fi. "Also, if anyone needs to make a call, get on the wifi marked 'house staff'; the password is 'three bubbles' in hirikana."

I followed suit quickly, grinning. It only took me three tries to get in! Sliding my phone back into my pocket, my feet idly followed the train of people, until we got to Momo's area.

So, a note on mansions. When someone built a mansion, they wanted to scream "here I am, fuckers" from the top of a hill as politely as possible; which meant taking people inside the damn thing and teabagging them with sheer walls of money and money adjacent items. This did not lead itself to actually being a livable structure, though, and as such a lot of mansions were built on a wing-and-hall system. Central 'halls' were public areas for social events, and were designed around said money-bludgeoning; while 'wings' were sets of rooms where people actually lived, and would frequently have a water closet or bath, a bedroom, and close access to a semi-private facility as part of the mansion like a theatre or library. The mansion by Pátzcuaro (where we actually grew avocados) was set up on the same model, while the hacienda in the Yucatan (where we did the cocaine business) was built in less fine style.

The wing Momo brought us two was next to the library, and next to the door was a well-tended brass lamp with a blue glass shade. Staring at it carefully, I noted a distinctly even patina, and blinked slightly as it flicked on while Momo opened the door. Making a mental note to ask about it, I followed the rest in to a cosy sitting room, a small kitchenette and dinette table in the corner behind a well-worn couch and flatscreen.

"Welcome home." Momo said warmely, smiling as she went over to a well-worn sitting chair. "Feel free to find a spot; the staff will page us when it's time for dinner."

My eyes latched on to the couch, before dipping left and right. Uraraka was already moving on one side, Kyoka had never stopped on the other. Our goal was common, the cause just, the other competitors for the title of couch hog having moved out of the way. I might not have the momentum advantage, but there was a crucial difference between us all- I was a cat, and cats could leap. So, with the trademark ass-wiggle and a swift squat to get the power I needed, I jumped. Arms spread wide in front of me, I overshot the couch, arresting my body's top half as I slung my legs underneath me and crouched into the groun, landing in a squat. From there, I could spring up into the couch, handily beating out the girls for the best seat in the house.

Then Kyoka skidded around the corner, jumped for the center, and slammed right into my gut. Wheezing, I sat straight up, trying to find this precious thing called air, when Uraraka barreled into Kyoka, knocking her over, and sprawling all over my legs. I was pinned, and raising a hand yelled out. "Mercy, mercy!"

Over in the back, Mina was falling over with laughter, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Momo's hand come up to cover her smile. "Cheating cat." Kyoka declared grumpily, crossing her arms. "I fits, I sits."

"I am offended! Horribly offended!" I cried out, waving my arms. "That's my line!"

"Really." Kyoka asked, turning a weather eye on me.

"Listen, what else am I going to do?" I asked rhetorically, holding up my splayed hand and focusing very hard on keeping my claws in for this next trick. "Go up and say, 'hey, pick two fingers buddy!" Uraraka stiffed up as I kept going. "Which two fingers? These two!"
Then I poked Kyoka in the face, right over the eyes. People were resistant as hell, but I didn't want to accidentally take out eyes with my claws. The Three Stooges were still gold, and Momo went from hiding a smirk to laughing outrageously, Uraraka falling off my legs as she joined in.

"Yeah, I earned that one." Kyoka muttered, making to get off me before I put a hand on her leg.

"Hold on," I said, sotto vocce. "I have an idea."

Pitching my voice up, I sighed. "Well, it's not like this is uncomfortable, and this is a really nice couch. I guess you can stay."

"Oh, for the magnanimity of his highness." Kyoka said, lilting in sarcasm. "Still, I will say you're surprisingly warm, and it's not worth fighting you for the rest of the couch."

Momo was still laughing, grinning at us as she came back to her senses. "You two have to have done this before." she said, grinning.

"I have seven sisters." I replied, grinning. "I know all the old tricks."

"And if that joke got any older, it would have a monument in the park to it." Kyoka replied, relaxing into the couch. "Still, if this fur-decorated pile of muscles can get it, I suppose we can all share a chuckle."

"Thank you for the feedback." I quipped.

Things simmered down a little bit, until Momo got a page and went to the door to her rooms. A maid- even one without the old, dumb uniform- was there, with a catering cart piled high. "I'm sorry," she apologized, "but Yoshio has guests over using the main dining room tonight."

"That's fine, that's fine." Momo demured, accepting the tray. "I suppose that means I'm also getting the dog too?"

"If you could?"

Momo chuckled, before letting out a piercing whistle. "Done. Let's see if we can eat before Maomao gets here!"

Dinner turned out to be a nabe, heavy with meat and vegetables and noodles. Fortunatly, my chopsticks were fast and nobody else wanted to contest me for three of the ten crayfish that filled my bowl. Less fortunately, rice noodles. To be clear, I could eat rice noodles. The problem was, well, I had eat them slowly. Since I lacked incisor teeth, I couldn't reliably shear a rice noodle since they were so small. This, in turn, meant I had to take small bites, slurp up the trailing noodles, chew thoroughly, and then swallow the noodles mostly whole anyway because my mouth was still designed more about ripping out chunks of animal than human food.

Still, dinner was excellent, and at the end of it we all proceded back to the main area where I sort of flopped on a floor pillow and considered the pros and cons of dozing off. I certainly wasn't all there when a dark nose booped into mine, though!

"Awhats?" I asked, looking forward at the red shiba inu in front of me. "Well who are you?"

The dog barked at me, before sniffing me in a businesslike manner. Accepting the gesture, I sniffed at him, and held out a hand for him to inspect. Plopping his paw into it, I grinned as we shook, and I started delivering ear scritches.

"So this is the dog?" I asked Momo, smiling.

"Yep." she said, grinning. "Arsenio, meet Maomao."

The dog licked me, and in my magnanimity, I refrained from licking the dog. "Charmed." I replied, grinning. "I take it you weren't expecting this?"

"Not at all, no!" Momo chuckled.

"I did say dogs were friend shaped." I replied, before leaning forward to hug the doge. "Much fluff, very wow."

After a few more minutes of scritches, I grinned. "So dibs on the couch tonight."

"There's enough space in my room to lay out futons for the rest." Momo muttered, grinning. "Sure you don't want a futon of your own?"

"Give me some blankets and a good pillow, and I'll be happy." I said, grinning back. "It's a very nice couch."

"If you insist." Momo shrugged. "I only have the one changing room, though- can you go first?"

I shrugged. "Sure? Fair warning, I might shed on the couch a little."

"Then you're definitely sleeping on a futon. I have enough trouble with dog hair, and I'm not doubling that!" Momo decreed, pulling out her phone and putting in the order to her invisible army of staff. "Six futons and comforter sets."

I nodded, and when the futons arrived, I spread mine out in the den. Since I had the dubious honor of being the only guy, I had to get changed first. My gray sweatpants weren't exactly special, but the consideration that I wasn't wearing a shirt? Well. I'm pretty sure it was Hagakure who wolf whistled, but I do know there was a very appreciative 'kero' and Momo was having trouble keeping her eyes off me. Heh.

Sitting down languidly, I grinned. "Well, don't let me keep you. I'm tired."

"You slept on the way over!" Kyoka complained.

"Sleep is important." I said, taking a minute to brush my ears back. "Besides, I don't really need to get all my eight hours in one go. I sleep in fits and starts."

That earned me some judgemental stares, but I shrugged. Still, it wasn't long before the conversation started to loose me in female topics, and as they trailed off into Momo's room, I went to sleep. As usual, dreams escaped me. They always did, unless I was forced into a long sleep.

Then my eyes opened like a shot. Something had moved.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Spoiler: music

you all knew I was legally obligated to use this at some point.

Starting at the movement, I fought the urge to come upright. The dog was sleeping against my leg, and more importantly I didn't want to startle whoever was up. Presumably, this wasn't a hostile, but just in case I flicked out my left-hand claws. Working the covers off, I stood up, eyes fluttering as I adapted to the darkness. The door to Momo's bedroom was still shut, and slowly I panned around until I saw the windows. What I'd initially presumed was a fairly sane window arrangement was actually a glass door, now slid open. A faint breeze was tickling the curtains, and I retracted my claws. This wasn't an entry, it was an exit.

Padding to the door, I listened carefully, and then smelled. There was a faint whiff of tobacco, and walking out I saw Kyoka staring off with a short, miniature cigar in one hand and a winsome look. She hadn't noticed me, and I took a moment to appreciate the incongruity of my classmate in a band tank-top I couldn't read and a pair of booty shorts. Everything was grayscale in the faint evening light, but for the cherry-glow from the smoke.

As I stepped on to the balcony, my claws clicked softly, prompting Kyoka to turn towards me, soft happiness sliding away into cool disdain. I had intruded.

Non plus ultra; nothing further beyond. Each soft clicking step brought me deeper out, until I could look out on the grounds myself. A gentle rose garden was below, and the landscaped portions of the estate were magnificent. The air was clean, and that selfsame lavender whiff that trailed Momo around like a beacon was so strong I doubted Kyoka couldn't find it. Closing my eyes, I sighed.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked, leaning against the rail as I stilled.

A puff on the miniature cigar, and the sweet smoke trailed over to me. Finally, my friend spoke. "Everyone in there snores."

"Everyone?"

"Excepting Tsuyu, who sort of… burbles."

Another moment of silence, cherry glowing, the breeze picking it all up and letting it float away. In this liminal moment, there was no permiancy to our words; why spend them then? Two people could stand next to each other in this moment, and know that there was another, a companionship needing nothing more than a hint of movement to give it life. A tap of ash went off the edge of the cigar. I spoke.

"Things went well today."

"Not really." Kyoka contradicted, in that soft way that spoke to something fading away. "I couldn't find the time I needed."

There was something there, but words were meaningless right now. I couldn't push; but I could pull. "Nothing ended today, and tomorrow will still be there."

A wave of the miniature cigar; and I wondered why she would bother. A cigarette would be the same size; a proper cigar would taste better. "Today was a performance, and I don't know if I can get on that stage again." Kyoka quietly admitted. "I thought I had Yaoyorozu sounded out earlier, but today there was too much gain. Something was missing, or something was new."

"Was it me being here?"

That, at least, prompted a smile. "No. You were just one of the girls today. I'm just worried what I'm looking for doesn't exist."

"I'm glad." I said, finally divining her intent. She was hunting. Not searching, hunting. Something had caught her eye, and now the chase was on; to pursue, catch, suss out. Smiling, I took two steps closer, tapping a claw against the bannister rail, letting myself fill my own presence. Even if I was only a cat in a pair of sweatpants, I was I, and that was both all I could offer to help and everything I could bring to bear. "One pair of eyes might not catch everything. What are you looking for?"

"Love." she said, holding the cigar as she leaned on the balcony. I rolled my eyes, moving a hand over to gently take the miniature cigar and bring it up to my lips, puffing it out so the haze could filter through my whiskers.

"Love of a family, love from eros' bloom, love from a friend? There's not much I can do with the love of God, save console you it is there, but I'll try my best."

"The second." Kyouka said, taking the miniature cigar back and taking a soft breath. "I'm just worried about what would happen if someone finds out."

"If they place so much care on who you love, to hell with them." I said hotly. "It is yours to give, not theirs to take."

For this, I got a smile, before a hand wrapped around my waist and the cigar fell. Hugging me tightly, Kyoka gulped. "I was worried." she said, shaking a little. "So worried nobody would take it well."

"What?"

Stepping back from me, Kyoka stared. "What?"

"No, what wouldn't be taken well?" I asked, stopping to pick the miniature cigar up and dust it off. "I have no idea what you mean."

Kyoka's palm hit her face, and I puffed the smoke. "Arsenio. I'm gay."

Ah. That would do it. "Absolutely?"

"Completely and totally sure. I even checked when I was still considering going into music. Surprisingly, the homerotic gestures idols make? Yeah, that's an act way too much of the time."

"Also, god forbid you kiss someone on the cheek when you're wearing makeup, or at least four people will try to kill you." I quipped, taking another puff.

"Only four? That's some rookie numbers!" Kyoka said, laughing. "You're fine with it, though?"

I sighed, holding the smoke myself now. "Honest answer?"

"Yeah."

"Yes, but not… I don't know." I said, sighing. "I mean, I considered the possibility? It wasn't one that I minded, per say, but considering I might have asked you out when I inevitably crashed and burned on Yaoyorozu?"

Kyoka winced. "Yeah, no, aside from the fact I'd be doing the same thing if I was straight, that would be the backhanded compliment of the fucking month there!"

"Listen, I'm allowed to talk shit with my friends!" I said, waving my hands as another jack strike came flying in. "Easy, easy! You'll put an eye out with those!"

"Alas, he figures out my goal," Kyoka said, sighing. "Fret not, for he will inevitably take the gold later, when I inevitably bungle again and can't get with my crush. Observe, the useless lesbian in her natural habitat."

"I'd serve you a side of cheese to go with that whine, but Momo wouldn't like me digging around in the cellar."

I earned that poke, at least. Smiling, I gave her back the small cigar, now burned nearly to the end, and watched her puff it contentedly.

"Alright, alright." I finally asked, "What is your plan, exactly, for romance then?"

"About the same as yours." Kyoka sighed. "Of course, mine is a bit more uphill, but plus ultra, you know?

"Aim for The Yaoyorozu, settle for me?" I joked.

"I mean yes, but no, since as nice as you are on the eyes, no." Kyoka said, shrugging. "I have a type, and that type is not a fuzzy copy of yours truly."

I shrugged. "You might have better odds with Yaoyorozu than you think."

"Please, your gaydar missed me, and if I screamed it out any louder they'd be singing a musical number!"

"No, they save that one for guys." I replied. "Also, shove off, Legally Blonde will only go out of style when there are no more idiot gringos in Puntacaña. Anyway, give it a go."

"You're seriously giving me first shot?"

"On who?"

"Swear to fuck if you were any more oblivious I would put you out and use you as a guitar rack. On Yaoyorozu!"

"Yeah, do it!" I said, grinning. The smile hid the bitterness of the pill, but I was used to bitter solutions. Our conversation had gone from warm and liminal to cold and basic, and I had nothing to do about it.

Kyoka looked at me like I hit my head. "Okay, there's a logic there, but you're gonna have to walk me through it."

I sighed, stepping on the remains of the miniature cigar to put it out. "There's four ways out of this. One; we both go for Momo, and it turns into a race. One of us wins, one of us loses, and there's ill will that may or may not go away. Two is we agree to have a wait and see period, try and suss her out. At the end of it, things default to the first option, with the complication of there possibly being a third party. Three, one of us agrees to take a forfeit on the matter, and might win or might lose. Four is three, but the forfeit double crosses and goes for Momo anyway."

Kicking the remains of the miniature cigar off the balcony, I spat after it. "I'm alone here. I can't afford to make this a fight. I can't afford to make anything a fight, damn it all-"

Moving in, Kyoka grabbed me around the middle, and for a second I lowered my weight to resist a throw, until it hit me- this was a hug. I was getting hugged.

"I know if I don't say this very carefully, you won't understand, you damn too-proud hafaru, but you're not alone here. You have friends. You're not alone."

I wasn't too proud to say I cried a little, when she grabbed me. Mama had always been a little distant when I was growing up, and the most I'd been touched here was when I was sparring or letting one of the girls pet me. Compared to before, it was a starvation of sorts. Still, I stood there, trying to remember what I was going to say. In that moment, Japanese failed me. I could speak Spanish, but that wouldn't work for what I needed to say. Kyoka wouldn't understand. In the end, I just mirrored her, hugging her back.

After that, I barely remembered stumbling back into my futon, and sleeping like the dead. Morning was coming, and all too soon I'd be back in the fray. Only a little while longer, Arsenio, and then I could find the closest thing to a bar I could hit up legally and drown my sorrows in. God. I was going to have to be introspective later, wasn't I?

 

[Tabac Iberez]

So since some people are assholes, and I do intend to keep the archival copy SFW, all the inevitable porn of this story is going in my snips thread. Follow the link, get the good shit, don't mention this on the forums with assholes. If you have to ask which one, don't mention it there.

https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/shorts-collection.6459/#post-4941660