Work Text:
The camera view swings zooms past tatami flooring and a low-set hard-wood desk before stabilizing against a makeshift stand of textbooks. The lighting is too dark and the camera’s auto focusing program can’t adjust quickly enough to capture the titles of the textbooks. A disgruntled sigh is faintly picked up by the microphone before the camera view changes to selfie mode.
Shouto Todoroki’s face comes into focus. The background looks like a neatly maintained teahouse; traditional, calm, and impersonal. Shouto kneels with a straight face and slightly adjusts the camera. It’s a textbook perfect portrait-shot video taken with a high-quality video phone. The lighting is dim and terrible.
Shouto frowns. “This isn’t good enough,” he mutters.
“Wow, man, it’s so hype that you actually had to ask us for help on a project,” Kaminari chatters mindlessly, “Like, I suck at school! And you’re top of the class! But now-”
Todoroki interrupts Denki Kaminari, “Why did you need my extra sheets?” Kaminari looks down from his precarious position balanced on the arm of the common room couch. He doesn’t lower the arm he is using to lift the white bedsheet into the air.
“So mine didn’t get dirty before I can record,” Kaminari says with a note of confusion. Todoroki takes a moment to process that. He absently nudges Kaminari when he falls so that he lands on the couch cushions instead of the floor.
“I mean,” Todoroki clarifies, “What are you doing with the sheets?”
“Oh!” Kaminari jumps up with a grin. “Thanks man!” He claps Todoroki on the shoulder. Todoroki forces himself not to react. “I’m using the sheets to fix the lighting,” Kaminari explains. Todoroki looks at the makeshift collection of sheets around the common room as Kaminari explains how the light bounces around and makes different shadows.
“Are you sure you need my help with your homework?” Todoroki interrupts.
“What!” Kaminari screeches. “Don’t back out of our deal, I can’t face Bakubro if I fail the next test again!”
“I’m not breaking our agreement,” Todoroki says slowly, “I just am confused why you need help when you obviously already have a working knowledge of the physics of light, which is what the current unit is on.”
“It is?” Kaminari asks.
“Maybe if you paid attention in class you’d know that,” Jirou Kyoka interjects from the sidelines. “The equipment is all good, by the way.”
“I still need help with the formulas and vocabulary and stuff,” Kaminari asserts. He steps out of frame without complaint.
“Thank you, Kyoka,” Todoroki says formally. “I bought everything on the list you provided instead of renting it, so you can keep it for yourself when I am done with the assignment.”
“What.” Kyoka and Kaminari accidentally mirror each other. Todoroki frowns at each of them before blinking in an incredibly derisive manner.
“You said you were happy to help, and didn’t need any recompense,” Todoroki says to Kyoka, “But you will need to do the assignment, too. This way you can use the equipment to its fullest potential.” Todoroki looks dramatically at his hand. “I don’t want things to be wasted.”
Kyoka swallows her shock as she looks at the couple tens of thousands of Yen in audio-visual equipment she has just been gifted. “Cool,” she says breathlessly. “I guess I’ll leave it out for now, and let everyone have a chance to use it.”
“That’s your choice,” Todoroki says with a shrug. He sits on the middle of the couch with his legs exactly shoulder length apart and his hands stiffly on his knees. “I’m ready to record,” he says.
“Okay,” Kaminari’s voice cracks. “Well, uh,” Kaminari crouches next to Kyoka’s laptop display on the coffee table to look at the digital recording. Todoroki is perfectly framed in the scene and well-lit, even if the setting is somewhat plain. “You look a bit stiff?” He says hesitantly. “And I don’t know what you’ve picked as your topic, so I don’t know if you wanted to add anything to the background, or…” Kaminari lets the sentence trail off.
“The background doesn’t matter,” Todoroki says, “and I’m just doing a basic news report. I said I was ready. Hit record.” The slight edge of impatience in his voice is as intense and scary as Bakugou’s nostril flare. Kaminari mimes zipping his lips and starts the video.
Todoroki gives himself a second to see the red light of the camera and Kaminari’s thumb waving from off-screen. Then he focuses his gaze on the glass of the camera lens. An inanimate object can’t judge him, and Todoroki is mostly certain that the people behind this camera aren’t looking for a soundbite from Endeavor’s son to manipulate. “Hello, and welcome to Shouto’s Weekly Report,” he says. He tries to mimic the way Aizawa had them practice giving fake hero reports for when they end up working with the police and judicial system. “I am hero-in-training Shouto, and I guarantee that any information I provide will be accurate to the best of my ability.”
Kaminari shifts from his crouched stance on his feet to rocking quietly on the floor and messing with his shoelaces. Todoroki ignores the movement. He can see Kyoka monitoring the sound and she will stop Kaminari if he becomes disruptive.
“Today, I will be discussing the latest civilian casualty reports,” Todoroki says gravely. He can see Kaminari jolt to attention. “List the worst incidents of property damage by region,” Kyoka slowly shifts her gaze from the equipment to stare at Todoroki incredulously, “and question the trend of UA teachers hiding their children and then enrolling them at UA itself.”
“You can’t say that!” Kaminari shouts.
“Kaminari,” Todoroki says shortly, “Now we will have to figure out how to edit that out or start over entirely.” Kaminari stutters like an idiot. Todoroki gives a short huff. “Please let me finish my script.”
“Todoroki,” Kyoka says gently. Todoroki holds his tongue out of dubious respect for her. “I thought you were doing a normal news report, but your intro sounded a little,” she pauses, “uh, well, sensationalist.”
“I would never report fake news,” Todoroki answers flatly. “I researched actual statistics, and while my suspicions about the endemic of secret UA love-children has not been confirmed by the individuals themselves, I still have actual evidence for my theory.”
Kaminari slowly closes his gaping mouth. “Oh my god,” he whispers. Kyoka side-eyes Kaminari. Kaminari sits back with a wide grin. “I’m so sorry, Todoroki,” he says, “I should have realized you would have evidence.” Todoroki side-eyes Kaminari. Kaminari sounds absurdly excited. “Kyoka and I will fix this in editing.”
“We will?” she says.
“Kyoka,” Kaminari says with an excited grin, “Todoroki is going to have the best video in class. There is no way Aizawa and Present Mic expected Todoroki’s mad journalism when they assigned us to do a media assignment.” Kyoka looks upwards and audibly prays to the heavens for help. “Why don’t you start with the love children, Todoroki,” Kaminari says with a grin, “and then lead into the more depressing stuff.”
“I thought it would be better to get the more depressing stuff out of the way first,” Todoroki says, “but if you insist.”
“Yeah!” Kaminari cheers, “Depending on how much evidence you have, you might not have time to get to the other stuff in this video, really.” Todoroki gives Kaminari’s wheedling tone a clear judgemental look. Kaminari ignores the judgement from both Todoroki and Kyoka, because they still comply.
“For privacy reasons,” Todoroki says to the camera, “I shall leave the specific students unnamed. UA came under increased scrutiny when number one hero at the time, All Might, took a post as instructor of Hero Studies at the school. Many don’t realize that All Might’s relation with the traditional media is actually very simple; he doesn’t interact with them at all. All Might has been captured by field reporters in the midst of his heroics and immediately after, and many fictionalized characterizations have been made of All Might. Many of the different individuals All Might has saved have given their impressions of the hero. Yet All Might has never appeared on any sort of talk or variety show, made a sponsored appearance, or allowed the public a glimpse into his personal life.” Todoroki pulls a piece of paper from behind his back. Kaminari tries to ask Kyoka if she knew that was there using gestures. “These statistics show that across different media, All Might’s activity has only been accounted for at a max of roughly eight hours a day within the last 16 years. The average is roughly five hours.” Todoroki calmly puts the paper down beside him. He steeples his fingers and leans towards the camera. “All Might has plenty of time outside of the public awareness during which he could have been doing anything. Working as a teacher. Training other heros. Fighting underground villains. Or leading a civilian life with a secret wife and child.”
Kaminari silently jumped to his feet and began punching and kicking the air. Kyoka pushed him further away from either her or the view of the camera. Kaminari collapsed to the ground and rolled on the floor. Todoroki ignored them.
“In the same year that All Might joined UA, another student also joined the first year hero course. All Might is known for a unique strength enhancing quirk that does not seem to be based on his physicality but rather purely enhances the raw power of his every action. Similarly, this new student at UA seems to have a quirk that can only be described as raw power. Another interesting fact is that this student claims to have developed their quirk late in life. Late-developing quirks are rare. So rare, in fact, that there are less late-developing quirk holders in the population of japan than there are individuals who are quirkless. This population of late-bloomers just so happens to include both the aforementioned UA student and number one hero All Might. While these individuals could not be reached for comment, it does appear that UA can now boast of the presence of both All Might and All Might’s secret child.”
“Strength quirk, strength quirk, strength quirk,” Kaminari muttered. Todoroki and Kyoka stared at him. “Is it Satou? Or,”
“Midoriya,” Kyoka interrupted, “Todoroki is saying Midoriya is All Might’s son.”
Todoroki refocused on the camera. “That’s not all,” he said powerfully. “The curriculum for the Heroics program is designed and partially taught by the hero Eraserhead. As a registered underground hero, Eraserhead is barred from the Hero Rankings or accepting sponsorships and other forms of commercial deals. Despite that, Eraserhead has one of the highest approval ratings among his fellow heros according to just last year’s statistics.” Todoroki holds up a print-out with the seal of the Hero Network in the corner. Kyoka is fairly alarmed considering the Hero Network was supposed to only be accessible to working Heros. “Among the student population of UA in the last decade, Eraserhead is well-known as one of the scariest teachers. In fact, publicly available records of UA enrollment lists almost 200 expulsions with Eraserhead’s signature. The reason is consistently ‘lack of potential’.” Todoroki raises a single eyebrow at the camera. “Harsh.”
“But UA is the premiere hero school,” Todoroki says after a pause in which Kaminari turns blue holding his breath waiting for Eraserhead to descend from the ceiling. “They have standards to maintain. Standards that apparently include an uncharacteristic petition submitted by Eraserhead himself to the UA school board to allow mid year transfers to the Heroics Program ‘in lieu of untapped potential’. The student was allowed to transfer into the program from UA’s General Education program, though they were not placed directly into Eraserhead’s class. Interestingly, both this student and Eraserhead share a number of physical and behavioral similarities. Also, both of these individuals are diagnosed and treated for a sleep disorder known as chronic insomnia.”
Todoroki takes his time pulling out a new piece of paper. “Of course, there is a proven hereditary component to insomnia.”
Kaminari grabs Kyoka’s shoulder and shakes her body as he points excitedly at Todoroki. Kyoka shoves Kaminari away. Todoroki takes a second to collect and put away his papers.
“Now, let me talk about…”