The School Festival

The nerd is running late.

He had to go pick up another rope to carry Twinkle Toes. Twinkle Toes tried to quirk-walk upside down under the catwalk, but it wasn’t really giving the disco ball vibe the class was going for, so the nerd has been carrying him with a rope and harness that apparently was very frayed from all the practice. 8:50 A.M arrives, and he still isn’t here. We excuse ourselves for a moment from where our classmates are, telling them we need to get some air, and quickly head to our dorms to change into an outfit we prepared there, then walk through the front gates like we did last time as Fumiaki and Hanzo. Principal Nezu was there with Jewel and All Might, who appears to be our escort today. Principal Nezu says while pointing with his arm, “Right this way, gentlemen. I will show you where Present Mic is announcing the festival, so you can follow his announcement.”

We nod and follow to the PA room, where they make announcements over the school speakers, where Present Mic is doing his blistering announcement. I tune him out, and when he is done, Principal Nezu motions for her to do the announcement and busts out her charm, “Good morning UA students and faculty. For those who haven’t recognized my voice already, this is Fumiaki. Hanzo and I feel honored to be invited to join your festivities, and we hope our presence helps lift your spirits. For those who want to meet us face-to-face for a meet-and-greet, that should be on the event schedule later today. Please enjoy the UA School Festival to the fullest. We look forward to seeing you.”

Present Mic turns off the microphone and gives Fu-chan a thumbs up and is very animated, “Look at you! You are a natural, Fumiaki!” I hear muffled squeals on the other side of the door from varying distances as if most of the school started fangirling. Principal Nezu says while adjusting his tie adorably, “Let’s get you boys on your way to your prior commitment.” He takes the hand that was adjusting his tie and motions to the door, and I go to walk behind Fu-chan. That only works going through the door, as she then stops and looks at me and motions for me to walk by her side. They escort us to the front gate, and All Might asks, “Will you be fine on your own from here?” Fu-chan turns on the charm, “We have gotten pretty good at slipping away… Kind of had to with some obsessive fans.” He bought that answer very easily.

We wave goodbye to them, and we walk to a nearby alleyway to combine our quirks and return to our dorm to transform back to our normal selves and change clothes again. We immediately go back to our class, and once we're back, we notice the nerd is still gone. Ida asks me, “Sekai, could you use your quirk to see if you can find Midoriya?”

I sigh and go outside, and fly above the school, and use my zoom vision to see if I can find the nerd. The worst-case scenario is that he is fighting, and knowing him as the main character of this My Hero Academia story that the nightmare Japan told me about, that will surely be the case. I see gusts of air in the forests near the border of our campus, and when I get there, the nerd is subduing a villain with white hair. A woman who is shorter yet older than me, with red pigtails, is hitting the nerd while sobbing, who is bruised and bleeding. The nerd looks conflicted with the villains.

The villain throws the nerd aside and seems to be turning himself in to the incoming heroes, who have probably sensed something with observation haki, as if in a change of heart. I groan as I see heroes getting closer to them. Why do I feel like I want to help them, too? The villain, who seemed to want to disrupt our school festival, realized that if the heroes saw them together, the festival would be canceled, as it would have been extremely evident that a fight had taken place. I teleported to where they were hugging on the ground, then teleported them far away, well outside Musutafu, with a few long-distance hops. They were confused.

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The man asked, completely perplexed, “Why would you help villains like us?” I sigh, “Don’t think too much into it. I just did what I wanted to. So don’t go changing your mind and fucking up our school festival. Got it?” He nods elegantly, “I will come up with another caper that won’t impede on your efforts. I only wanted to make a video so people could see me do the impossible, to make my imprint in history by breaking into the unbreakable UA. However, the fight with that young man opened my eyes and made me realize I was going about it the wrong way.” I sigh in relief, “Good, now before I go, I need you to punch me a few times.” He asks, confused, “Pardon? Now, why would there be any more reason for violence?” I smack my teeth, “Tsk. Well, that nerd will need some kind of excuse to explain his cuts and bruises.” He bows respectfully, “I do apologize for having to be rough with one as compassionate as you, but if it will help Izuku Midoriya, then I shall.” He punches me a few times, cuts my lip, and gives me a black eye. I spit some blood as he wipes the blood from his fists with his handkerchief elegantly. I tell him, “You aren’t so bad.” With that, I leave them and quickly teleport myself back to UA, where the heroes are confronting the nerd.

I teleport next to the nerd who is trying to explain that he just ran into a tree by accident while training. The heroes know there was a fight since they sensed it with their observation haki, and they cross their arms at the nerd. I smack my teeth, “Tsk. Why are you lying, you nerd? Just tell them the truth that we got a little carried away sparring.” I look at Hound Dog and Ectoplasm, who were questioning the nerd, “It is my fault things got so heated, so if there should be any fault, it is mine. I lose my temper rather easily.” Hound Dog starts barking angrily at us. Ectoplasm translates, “That is strange, Hound Dog says he smells other scents here.” I clap back quickly before the nerd can ruin things, “I am sure that we aren’t the only ones who use this forest to have unsanctioned fights. It is pretty quiet out here after all, and no cameras.” It seems that they bought that. Ectoplasm says sternly, “Unsanctioned fighting is against school rules, and you will probably be punished accordingly. I will also ask Nezu if he can install cameras out here to prevent this from happening in the future.”

I nod and say, “I accept any punishment, but can you let that nerd get off without punishment? He did everything to de-escalate our conflict, and I escalated anyway. I didn’t have Aya-chan here to rein in my emotions.” I groan and rub the back of my pink hair, “I am over it now. We punched things out, so if it is alright with you, I can take us both to Recovery Girl.” Ectoplasm reports our ‘fight’ via his radio, then says, “Go straight to Recovery Girl and go back to your classmates so you don’t miss your performance at 10.” I sigh, “Yeah, yeah. Sure, whatever.” They continue to patrol around the grounds, and the nerd says, “I dropped the bag of supplies by the hardware store. Can we go grab that first before seeing Recovery Girl?” I nodded, and we teleported that way.

As we teleport, he asks, “Why did you help those villains and take the fall back there?” I sigh, “Your face speaks its own nerdy language, and I put 2 and 2 together. So, leave it alone and shut up, or my playing the villain would have been for nothing. You want the School Festival to go on, right?” He clutches his t-shirt as we arrive at the hardware store. “Yeah…” He quickly picks up the bag, and I teleport us in the direction of Recovery Girl immediately. He asks while we are en route to her, “So, how did you get those cuts and bruises?” I sigh, “The weirdly nice villain hit me reluctantly after I asked, now just shut it.” We quickly reached her thanks to my quirk.

She asks us as we sit down in her clinic on campus, “Now, why are you two beat up like this?” I groan, “I wanted to beat up the nerd, so I did, and I feel better now. Can you do your thing, so we can pretend this never happened?” She sighs and heals our wounds and sends us on our way. The nerd asks as we start heading back to our classmates, “Are you sure you want to take the fall? It isn’t too late to tell the truth, you know.” I groan, “Just shut up and stick to the story if you want the school festival to continue.” He sighs softly with a smile and says, “You are so much nicer than you appear, Sekai.” A vein pops on my forehead, and I say, very annoyed, “Stop talking, nerd.”

Our classmates rush to have us change into our outfits, and Ida asks all stiff like usual, “Midoriya, why on earth were you so late? Do you have any idea what time it is?” I nod to him, and he says hesitantly, “I- I got in a fight with Sekai, but we are good now.” Ida asks me, “Is that true, Sekai? Were you fighting with Midoriya?” I stick my hands in my pockets and say, “Well, the cat is out of the bag, I guess. He pissed me off, so I used him as a punching bag.”

Ida looks confused and asks, “But if you really were fighting, why were you here moments prior?” I say annoyingly, “It was a failed attempt at an alibi using my quirk, but you made me seek him out again, and I found myself fighting him again.” Aya-chan doesn’t know what is going on, but understands I am lying for a reason, and she plays along. “On our walk, she disappeared, and I caught them fighting and broke it up the first time. I didn’t know that Midoriya wasn’t right behind us when we came back the first time.”

The class seems so disappointed in me, except Tsu and Toru, since they know I had a confidential alibi. I groan, “We are good for now. So, stop looking like that. We punched out our feelings, right nerd?” He nods, “R-right.” The spiky bastard says while punching his palm, “Good. Now let’s go kick some ass on that stage.” The class mood shifts, and they all get pumped at Bakugo's words.

We took advantage of the time we had to spare, and the performers went on stage behind the curtain. Aya-chan puts half of our classmates in the dance crew, with our cherry blossom backdrop, to dance in 2D while the other half remains 3D. When the curtain opens, Bakugo yells, “Get ready, because our music is going to kill you!” He uses his quirk to make an explosion to start the show directly after his words.

The beat drops immediately after his explosion, and the show begins, and I try not to become mesmerized by Aya-chan’s voice as she sings harmony to Jiro. I prepare for the climax when Twinkle Toes officially becomes the disco ball while Todoroki and Kirishima make sparkles of ice that fall on the audience. The second chorus is when we will reach the climax. I wait for Jiro’s long “Ooooooooooooooooh!” Which is her lead-up for the show chorus.

When the beat drops and she starts singing the chorus, I start dropping the petals all around from quirk-walking on the ceiling so they fall on the band and the people in the audience. Aya-chan simultaneously pops the dance crew out into 3D while not missing a note while singing. “Hero, too. I am a hero, too. My heart is set, and I won’t back down. Hero, too, strength doesn’t make a hero. True heroes stand up for what they believe. So wait and see.” The moment is just as cool as our classmates imagined it. The dance crew moves from the stage to the ice catwalk Todoroki made, and Toru makes her body shiny like a rainbow while Tsu uses her tongue to hold Uraraka above the crowd, as she makes the audience float in the mosh pit using her quirk.

We fucking killed it.

Even the students wanting to see us fail enjoyed our performance, which was very gratifying. After our performance and class 1-B’s play, we cleaned up the auditorium where we performed. Making sure to get every chunk of ice and the fuck ton of cherry blossom petals. I put myself on sweeping duty so I could clean up my mess. A little girl comes in with Weird Eyes and Mr. Aizawa, and I think she is the girl they rescued during their work-study, Eri. She looks so adorable with how excited she is, and the nerd is listening to her reaction to our performance with watery eyes and a warm smile. I have never wanted to hug a child here in Japan before now, but I have this strong urge to hug her because she is so cute. Aya-chan, who was collecting the petals on an empty sheet of her sketchbook, sees me do my slight, cute wiggle. She squeals, dropping her sketchbook and hugging me, “How can you be so cute, Kai-chan?”

While she hugs me, she asks about the obvious lie in a whisper, and I tell her in a whisper, “It was the only way that I could think of to ensure that the School Festival continued. I will tell you more later when there aren’t so many people around.” Shoji heard my whisper but looked away, pretending he didn’t hear anything. Ida yells, “Sekai and Kubo, you need to stop flirting and start helping clean this auditorium! If we work together, we can make light work of this task, but we can only do that if we are working together!” I sigh at his scolding as we separate, and we continue sweeping. Mineta is working very hard in an abnormal fashion. Though he starts yelling about getting good seats at the beauty pageant, that sounds more like him.

Principal Nezu collected me, Aya-chan, and Midoriya, and had a pink camera in his hands and said, “Miss Mochizuki and Midoriya, I will need you in my office. Miss Kubo, since you are attached to Miss Mochizuki’s hip, you can feel free to join us.” I don’t know what that camera is, but the nerd seems to know. We get to his office, and he has us sit down.

Wait.

That villain dude mentioned a video. Shit, that must be the video that makes my lie fucking pointless. He says, “Ectoplasm and Hound Dog found something peculiar while on rounds, and after their report of you having an altercation with Midoriya, I decided to look at the recorder’s contents since I am well aware that you have a confidential yet iron-clad alibi proving your innocence of this particular incident.” He opens the recorder and plays the scene where the villain is fighting the nerd.

In the video, the villain introduces himself as Gentle Criminal, and his tech-genius sidekick is La Brava. He pauses the video during the fight scene, since he apparently has already seen it, and says, “I will need a detailed account of the actual events that are not shown in this video.” I elbow the nerd softly, and he tells the principal about the villain’s plans to infiltrate the school for a prank to increase his popularity, and all the way to the point where he was sent flying by the villain when Ectoplasm and Hound Dog were closing in. He then motions for me to take over, and I say, “After he sent the nerd flying, it seemed like he was trying to save the festival by turning himself in, but I was worried it would have been enough of a scare to call off the whole festival. So, I teleported them way outside the boundaries of Musutafu so they wouldn’t be returning any time soon, just in case they changed their minds.”

Principal Nezu asks, perplexed, “Then how did you receive the cuts and bruises that were present when you were confronted by Ectoplasm and Hound Dog, Miss Mochizuki?” I sigh, “I asked that ‘Gentle Criminal’ to punch me a few times, and he reluctantly did as I asked for the nerd’s sake.” Principal Nezu sighs, “I am thankful that you students defended this learning institution. However, please remember, Midoriya, that you only have your provisional license, and you, Miss Mochizuki, don’t have one at all. You should put your faith in the pros that protect this fine institution and only worry about being students.”

I groan, “But sir, you are acting like I fought the villains myself? I just kicked them out.” Principal Nezu sighs yet again, “Miss Mochizuki, you are one of my treasured students, and your quirk is coveted by villains. You must be careful and do your best to remain out of sight.” I sigh exasperatedly and look away, annoyed, “Tsk. It isn’t like I can use my quirk with my disguise, so I had to do what I had to do. I didn’t really have time to think, you know.” The nerd seems confused by my talk of a disguise. SHIT. I hope he doesn’t press on that later. Principal Nezu says while closing the camcorder, “We will keep the villain's plot a secret from the student body, and we will continue forward as if you two were in an altercation like the fib you told Ectoplasm and Hound Dog.”

He pours his tea that has finished steeping into his cup and takes a sip and says, “Ahhh. That is what I needed.” He places his cup down and says seriously, “Since you both acted in the best interest of this school, I will not be putting you on house arrest. Instead, I will be making you two write a fake letter of apology, and you both will do your dorm chores for a week for optics.” I groan, “Tsk. Fine, whatever. Who am I writing the apology to?” Principal Nezu takes another sip of his tea with a happy smile on his furry little face, “Well, I would like you to write a letter of apology to Ectoplasm and Hound Dog and promise not to fight on campus anymore. Not even Ectoplasm or Hound Dog are aware of the true events since they turned on the camcorder without viewing its contents. So, let’s keep it that way since letting the villains go might cause issues if the press becomes aware.”

Principal Nezu puts the camcorder locked up in his cabinet and says, “That is all I needed you children for. You are free to go now.” The nerd goes out first, and we linger a bit after seeing the Principal’s body language. The Principal says, “You have some time to enjoy the festival before your event, so go have fun while you can.” We nod, and Aya-chan grabs my hand and says, “We are definitely hitting the food stalls first. I would love some takoyaki.” I blush furiously and say, flustered as she drags me to the food stalls, “Isn’t that cannibalism for you?” She giggles and says, “I am a human first. Also, octopi have been known to sometimes be cannibals. So, it is fine.” I stammer, very flustered, thinking of tasting Aya-chan, “B-but you ruined takoyaki for me. I don’t think I can have it without comparing it to your taste, Aya-chan.” She stops walking and turns to me and bites her lip in that sexy manner, and she asks in that sexy voice of hers softly, so others don't hear, “What about eating it from my lips?”

I get a nosebleed from being so flustered, and she laughs while handing me a tissue from her tattoo. She says, after recovering from laughing with a radiant smile like the sun, “I take that as a yes.” I nod awkwardly as she pulls me through the crowds. We get yakisoba first, then go get takoyaki, and then crepes. We enjoyed the takoyaki far away from any onlookers so we wouldn’t cause a scene, and I never want to eat takoyaki any other way again. By the crepes, Aya-chan was full, so I ate the other half of her crepe. The nerd and Uraraka were here, seemingly on a date themselves, eating crepes together in a flustered and slightly awkward manner.

Aya-chan looks at her phone and says, “The beauty pageant is still going on, do you want to do some games before we are needed?” I squeeze her hand, “I will follow you anywhere you want to go.” She gets her free hand that isn’t holding my hand and pulls me by the waist close to her, and she licks some cream that was on my face. Making me blush furiously.

She smiles her ‘mission complete’ smile, since she lives to see my blushing face, and pulls me to the gaming stalls, saying, “I want to see you try and catch a goldfish.” I am familiar with the game, but I have never tried it before. I kept breaking the paper paddle, and a vein was popping on my forehead, “Aya-chan, why in the fuck would you think I would like this when you knew I would probably fail?” She giggles, “You are just too cute, though. I just had to see it. Also, for your information, I am not great at this game.” She takes a paddle and breaks it, and I felt so vindicated, but it almost seemed like she did it on purpose, “Are you really bad, or are you just trying to make me feel better, Aya-chan?”

Aya-chan puts her broken paddle down and turns to me, “I have no reason to pretend at all with you.” I smack my teeth, “Tsk. But you are just so perfect, though.” Aya-chan laughs, “I am far from perfect as a person, but I do believe that I am a perfect match for you.” I blush furiously as she said that in such a sexy voice, and she closed the distance to give me a kiss. Some extras, who wanted to play the game next, cleared their throats, and we separated, and Aya-chan pulled me along while saying, “We have a little more time, let’s do the haunted house next.” I followed her as she pulled me by the hand, and afterward, we changed into Fumiaki and Hanzo and did the meet-and-greet event with the students.