Digitalization (BNHA gamer Izuku fic)

Chapter 9 The boy who lived

Shimura Aiko had been a teacher at the Youth Hero Program for almost five years now. She had seen students grow and mature and had her fair share of tear-jerking farewells with some memorable students, but never had she ever seen a boy like Midoriya Izuku who went after troubled individuals like a beast. He was a fairly normal boy when she first met him, but recently he had changed.

The moment they got off the bus for their usual lunch activity, his bright green eyes would sharpen and dart around frantically searching for even the tiniest signs of distress. When a cry of help split the air, he would rush there so fast it was almost as if he had a speed quirk. He could always come up with the fastest and most efficient way to help others, and immediately after the individuals said thanks, he would run off for the next one. It confused her to no end how Izuku was able to locate all those people in need without actually searching for them. It was like he had a GPS in his head tracking down all their locations so he knew them beforehand and exactly where to go to find them.

Aiko was the type of person who couldn't let go of something once it took root in her mind. Izuku's situation had been stressing her day and night. How could a quirkless boy possibly track down people so fast? What pushed him to this extent? What was his motivations? Aiko thought about it when she taught, when she ate, even when she was with her family. It bothered her so much that she couldn't help but eavesdrop on Izuku one day during lunch when their activity was canceled due to the rain.

"Watch this!"

Midoriya Izuku and Aoyama Yuuga were sitting together next to Namamono Henshin, who crouched slightly with his eyes shut and teeth bared. Placing his fingers into a cross symbol in an imitation of a certain fictional character whom Aiko swore she had seen somewhere, he inhaled and growled, "Henge!"

His body twisted and pulled like it was been sucked into a vortex. Colors blended together forming patches of orange and stripes of black. His form cowered and shrank, his limbs shortening and a tail emerging at the base of his spine.

"TA-DA!" The cat exclaimed, but no one seemed to share his excitement.

Yuuga smiled, "That's a cat."

"It's nyat! It's a tiger!"

Izuku smiled, "No, I'm fairly sure that's a cat."

"It's nyat!"

"Mamo," Yuuga lifted the cat off of the ground, ignoring his frantic scrambling, and brought him to the edge of the lake by the clearing they were gathering at. "Look, you're a cat."

Henshin stared into the water for a long, reflective moment before hanging his head in disappointment and morphing back to his human form.

"Maybe a tiger's too much for you. Why not try something smaller?" Izuku unwrapped his bento and Aiko stifled a giggle at how cute it was. It was an All-Might printed lunch box containing riceballs, squid sausages, rabbit apples, and broccoli monsters, definitely the type of bentos his mother would prepare. Aiko had met Midoriya Inko about a dozen time in the past two years. The woman seemed like the quick-to-worry and happy-go-lucky kind of mother. She was the kind of mother who would join her son in video game tournament and throw huge birthday parties for her child, the exact type that Aiko wished to be but could never be.

That thought brought a frown to her face. Aiko was married and had a son named Tenko. She wouldn't consider herself a bad mother, per se. She did everything she could to teach her son the clear line between right and wrong. But when her husband was the type of cool dad who would let his son ride around the yard on the lawnmower or trash the house when she wasn't around or maybe both, right after they had spring-cleaned the house the day prior, the child more often than not would prefer the dad over the mom.