A Powerful Silence

Chapter 1

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock

Every time the second hand of the clock ticked, Midoriya felt a weight grow. He felt stares, but could not see them. The sports festival was a few days away, and it could just be the pressure of that building on him. All Might's successor was a big title to have to carry, even if it wasn't public knowledge.

He still needed to be able to control his quirk, even if he was improving gradually. He did happen to notice that he had definitely gotten substantially stronger, but... it still wasn't enough. He wasn't strong enough at the U.S.J. Aizawa-sensei was horribly injured and All Might's time was reduced.

He had to be better.

Be stronger.

Be smarter.

Be-

CRASH

Jiro's quirk made it so she could hear every one of her classmate's heartbeats. Especially in the classroom. Thankfully Power-Loader was working on her special pair of ear-muffs but presently... she was stuck with listening to all twenty-three heartbeats. 'Wait, twenty-three?'

She looked around the class, counting again. She could pick up the slowed heartbeat of Aizawa-sensei sleeping, but other than that she counted all nineteen heartbeats of her classmates. Plus her own made twenty, plus Aizawa-sensei made twenty-one. She counted again. 'One, three, seven, fifteen, twenty-two, twenty-five, it's gotten higher?!' She looked around briskly, her earphone jacks swinging as she did so. 

No-one seemed to notice her panic, for better or for worse, bar seemingly Midoriya who seemed more stressed than normal.

She raised her hand, knowing Aizawa-sensei ('asleep' in the corner supervising their independent study time) would see promptly and 'awaken' conveniently to prompt her response. It was a few days after he returned from the U.S.J incident and despite his injuries he was adamant about keeping an eye on the class, his once actual naps now simply feigned. It was kind of sweet.

She watched him pretend to wake up, stand by the desk and was about to point to her, when everything... happened.

CRASH

Jiro instinctively covered her ears in pain as the glass was shattered, flinching hard with the combined slamming of the door. Although, one voice in particular cut through all the chaos and it quickly settled, ringing with commandment.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" Aizawa-sensei yelled with an authority and voice that would put All Might's greatest enemies to shame. 

The chaos immediately died down and Jiro cautiously looked. She noticed several of her classmates were similarly shocked, their heads clasped on the table as several armed soldiers were in various locations around the class. Although what disturbed her most, was where their munitions were aimed.

At the class cinnamon roll; none other than Izuku Midoriya.

She felt sick to her stomach as she watched his head be pushed down by the barrel of one of the guns, the soldier's finger dangerously close to the trigger.

They hadn't been in the class long together. But after the U.S.J, much of the class had grown significantly closer, bonds being created over even the slightest common interest. Jiro had taken it upon herself to get to know her classmates through music. 

She had talked to most of the class already about it; Mina and Toru liked dance music, Yaoyorozu liked classical, Uraraka enjoyed pop, Kaminari was into grunge, Tokoyami was into folk songs, and so on. She found that music tastes often reflected people's personality (such as Bakugo being into heavy metal).