I've got no Strings

Part 18~Hypnosis

Yawning, Izuku rested at his desk, listening to the chatter filling the room. Toga sat a little away, her arms slumped lazily on the desktop, tiredness edging at every muscle. The classroom continued to buzz and flutter when Aizawa walked into the room, commanding the attention of all students instead. "Alright, quiet. We have an announcement. Due to the recent Sports festival, some classes are being moved around to reflect the talent and potential displayed. As you may have already noticed, Koda has been moved to class 1B while one of the class 1B students has been moved to general ED."

The class gasped, whispering harshly as they considered the words.

Both Toga and Izuku knew what was happening.

"Shut up!" Glaring at his students, Aizawa took a deep breath, his hair falling back down as his quirk cancelled. "The new member of our class will be joining today. Don't screw him over. You can come in now." Aizawa put down the sheets of paper as Shinso walked in, his head lifted proudly and the bags under his eyes heavy. He was so nervous about this, that he hadn't slept one bit.

"Hello. My name is Shinso Hitoshi or the brainwashing hero, Hypnosis." Shinso paused as Izuku smiled, nodding to him. Shinso wasn't sure where to go from that. He normally would be cut off as people worked out his Quirk and started calling him a villain, he was highly unsure about this situation. Awkwardly sitting beside Izuku, Shinso was not prepared for the onslaught of questions and voices.

Izuku let him suffer for a while before he slowly got up and walked through the crowd, slinging his arms around Shinso's shoulders from behind and placing his head on Shinso's head. "Toshi! Congratulations! I can't believe we're in the same class now! You're going to love it here!"

The class froze, watching Shinso blush heavily and lower his head, pretending that Izuku's casual affection wasn't killing him. Izuku continued to yatter, talking about the different things Shinso would love about the class. Izuku hid his smirk as he leaned close to Shinso's ear, pretending to be attempting to see Shinso's face.

"What's wrong, Toshi? Don't hide from me, you're too cute to hide away." Izuku grinned for a second as Shinso groaned, laying his head on the table, overheating completely. "Maybe he's a bit tired. We should let him rest." Izuku ran his hands through Shinso's hair, pretending to be oblivious of the obvious cause as the class continued to stare in shock.

Eventually, Momo coughed, nodding. "Suzuki is right, we should leave Shinso be for a bit."

"They're totally right!" Mina grinned widely as she pushed the boys away. "Let's leave Shinso in Suzuki's capable hands."

Slowly, the class thinned, leaving just Izuku and Shinso at his desk. Izuku grinned, leaning closer to Shinso. "Got rid of them for you," he sang teasingly.

"You could have done it in a way that didn't embarrass me," Shinso grumbled, reluctantly lifting his head.

"But that wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun." Izuku hopped away, grabbing his chair as he pushed it up to Shinso's desk. "Does that mean you want me to stop playing with your hair?"

Shinso paused, sighing as he laid his head closer to Izuku, inviting him to continue without the need for words. Izuku grinned, playing with the purple strands until the next class.

~~~

Standing at the edge of the fake city, Izuku silently recalled the roles. They were pretty simple, as always with All Might's lessons. The first to reach him won. No destruction. No sabotage. Simple. Now just to figure out how to get around this pipework from hell!

Izuku huffed as he stretched out. The buzzer went off and he blasted forward. He moved the fire around his hands, whipping it out and wrapping it around the nearby pipe. The fire swirled around his wrists holding him up... well, not really. Fire has no physical presence so that would be impossible however, fire ropes made a lot more sense and were a lot less incriminating than golden strings that belonged to the wanted criminal these heroes were searching for.

Swinging back and forth, Izuku pulled himself across the city similar to how Sero was. They were neck and neck, close to the finish when the pipe gave way, throwing Izuku from the sky.

Yelping, Izuku blasted the ground below him, saving him from injury but losing him the match. Toga smiled, suppressing the laugh as Izuku pulled himself onto the rooftop.

Toga was up next. She rushed forward, red liquid surrounding her and propelling her up. Well, once again, not exactly. The red liquid was a quick solution they came up with to mimic Seiji's Quirk. A thousand little highly powerful microbots that mimic blood under Seiji's influence drag Toga around. The result was a little amusing as Toga had barely mastered controlling them and more often than not, one would begin glitching and just fly off, posing as a mosquito to the local climate.

Shinso's group were last. He nervously ran forward, using the capture gear that looked identical to Aizawa's to pull himself up. He huffed, stumbling on the pipes too much for his liking. He could see All Might!

Screaming, Aoyama slipped, unable to grab ahold of anything as he began falling. Spinning on his foot, Shinso caught Aoyama, holding him off the floor as Bakugo won. Sighing, Shinso put Aoyama down, waving Aoyama's apology as he walked back, ignoring All Might's eyes watching him.

"Nice going Toshi. You were amazing." Izuku punched Shinso's side lightly, laughing as he blushed.

"Shinso? Can I talk to you?"

~~~

Opening the door, Shinso sighed, collapsing into the sofa.

"Bad day?" Naoki munched on the cookie in his hand. Shinso grumbled as he looked up, spotting Mineta and Wolf eating another cookie on top of the bar. Naoki blinked before picking up the bag. "Cookie?"

Shinso reluctantly took a cookie, nibbling on it as Izuku jumped up. "Are you okay?! What did the fake want?! I swear, if he did anything to you I'll cut him up so small they'll have to change his name to Small Might!"

"Izuku-" grabbing Izuku's arms, Shinso pulled him down to the couch- "it's okay. I'm okay." Izuku huffed, laying his head on Shinso's head.

"Fine. What did he want?"

Shinso shuffled, fidgeting his hands. "He... He offered me his Quirk... One for All."