Published: August 6th 2022, 5:49:16 pm
Fandom: My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia
Ship(s): Gen, Pre-Kiribaku, Bakusquad friend-ship
Rating: Teen
Tags: daemon au, oblivious bi!Kaminari, ADHD!Kaminari
CW: objectification, self-deprecation, Mineta
*****
So most daemons kept to small animal forms, right? Like, this was so especially true in Japan, it was a national stereotype: big daemons are considered rude. After all, it was super inconvenient to have a giant animal--that nobody was allowed to touch--on a packed train during rush hour. Denki had gone his whole life being told to ‘Keep it small’. If he hadn’t known heroes were the exception to this rule, he would’ve figured it out pretty dang quick the minute he stepped on UA's campus.
Denki wasn’t good at identifying daemons. He’d downloaded a daemon-identifying app (who hadn’t?) but typing in ‘cat thing with spots’ either gave him zero answers or a million. Most of his classmates in middle school had recognizable daemons. They were little rodent-y things or weasels or dogs (lots of dogs!) or cats or little birdies that, okay, maybe he didn’t know by name but he’d seen them eating off his mom’s birdfeeder. Here at UA things were totally different.
There was a weirdly muscle-y goat-thing with horns longer and thicker than Denki’s arm. Then there was this reddish antelope thing with zebra legs that was a foot taller than its human companion. And that was an anteater--too distinctive for him to not recognize--and it was longer than Denki was tall! And that was--oh. It was a golden retriever. Still, it was big!
Aaaaand… Denki’s daemon was currently a squirrel.
“Dude!” Denki hissed as they entered campus. “C’mon it’s our first day, pick something more heroic!”
“Shoot, you’re right uh….” Her bushy tail flicked and her feet stamped on his shoulder while she thought. Denki tried to act like he didn’t even notice. This was his high school debut at the coolest high school in the country after all, he had to be cool himself.
“What about this?” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
Now she was a ferret.
“Dude, no!” He hissed, his eyes flicking ahead, trying to make sure he was actually going the right way. “Something cool! Like this guy here!”
A guy--obviously a third year, he was huge --passed by them. He had this badass looking shoulder pad thing that went across his shoulder--it had the UA crest on it and everything--and sitting on top of the shoulder pad was this big bird with a crazy curved beak and blood-red feathers. That bird looked like it murdered people for fun, but it was unquestionably badass.
“Like this?”
He looked over and… yeah, no. She’d turned herself into some kind of parrot with bright yellow feathers that faded into red around her face. Her wings were a super bright green with deep-blue tips. She reminded him a lot of like… those multi-colored fruit-flavored popsicles? He could perfectly imagine what flavor each part of her would be. Except for the few bits of white down cutting across her colors (but that was the crappy part about bird daemons; since daemons progressed at the same age group as their human, bird daemons were downy, ugly little things for forever ). But he could see the potential. It was definitely flashy and aesthetically very pretty. It just wasn’t really… heroic.
He blinked and her pretty colors had turned white, her body changing in a second, turning into a cockatoo with a big yellow crest. “Shh!” She hissed, subtly bapping the side of his head with her wing.
Denki turned to look where he was going and saw Present Mic– the Present Mic!–heading in their direction. On his shoulder was his daemon. Denki knew exactly what she was, because being a hero meant people know what your daemon is. She was a citron-crested cockatoo. A pure white cockatoo with a huge golden-yellow crest and a little circle of gold-yellow ‘blush’ on her cheeks. She was doing that bouncy thing that birds do when they’re excited: “Lookin’ good kiddo!” She shrieked.
His daemon puffed up in pleasure while Denki flushed ‘cause now Present Mic was looking at him with a knowing grin. “Welcome to UA, Little Listener!” He said in a super loud voice. “Are you finding your way alright?!”
“Yes, sir!” Why did he reply so loudly? He didn’t need to be loud, that was Mic’s thing!
“Alright! Have a good first day, kiddo!”
“Thank you, sir!” He was still being loud. Denki ducked his head, partly to show his respect while he passed his teacher, but mostly to hide his red face.
“Good luck, little birdy!” Present Mic’s daemon squawked.
“Thanks, big birdy!” Denki’s daemon shrieked back.
Denki wished he could shape-shift into different animals. Perhaps a turtle, so he could duck his head in and hide? Or an opossum, so he could die on command. “You’re so embarrassing…” He hissed.
“I should settle as a parrot,” she totally ignored him. “They’re loud. They’re colorful. They totally match our vibe!” She turned into a huge blue and gold macaw. “You can’t say they aren’t heroic--Present Mic’s got one for his daemon!”
Denki hummed. “Parrots are smart though.”
He ignored as she turned into a kinkajou to stick her tongue out at him. They’d reached his classroom. The door was insane; tall enough for a giraffe, wide enough for an elephant, and yet light enough that you didn’t need much strength to open it. A fact that Denki very much wished he’d known before he’d accidentally flung it open with a huge bang.
“Ah! Another one!” Somebody yelled amid laughter.
So much for his cool high school debut! Denki walked in with a sheepish grin, trying to recover the moment. Instantly he made eye contact with a boy with spiky red hair. The guy offered him a sharp-toothed smile. “No worries, bro!” He said cheerfully. “Everyone’s been doing that!”
“Close it behind you!” Cackled a boy in the seat next to the redhead. “It’s a right of passage!”
Denki snickered. He could get behind a harmless prank. He closed the door behind him and went hunting for his seat.
Part of the admissions package he’d got along with his acceptance letter was all about the daemon accommodations they had at Yuuei. At first Denki thought that this was just how things were in high school (in elementary and middle school most kids’ daemons weren’t settled so why accommodate them especially?) but according to his older brother and sister this was definitely not the case.
Denki not only had to fill out info about what he wanted for his hero costume, but also info on his daemon-- had she settled? What had she settled as? How big was she? What were her hero costume design requests? What school uniform garments? (And that’d been hilarious because his older siblings weren’t allowed to dress their daemons in anything at school, but apparently at UA you were allowed to put clothes on your daemon but only if it was one of the school’s issued garments.) None of that really applied to Denki though, since his daemon hadn’t settled. Still, it was nice that it was considered.
Another thing that was considered? That daemons were going to be like… in the classroom, moving around! Each row of desks had a narrow walkway on one side for the students and a wider path on the other, just for daemons, with clear lines on the floor to mark the space. The walkway wasn’t wide enough for an elephant, he noted, but maybe that was a ‘We’ll solve that problem when we get to it’ kind of issue).
UA also seemed to actually care that their daemons were comfortable! Hence the assigned seating: different daemons needed different accommodations. Some desks had bird perches, either on the desk or behind them. Some had little boxes on the desk or bigger boxes on the ground to make cozy little resting places. Others had big dog bed-looking cushions with the UA logo embroidered on the side.
Denki found his seat--right in front of the redhead, next to a girl who was pink from head to toe (and not in the blushy way).
“Hey man, I’m Kirishima Eijirou!” The redhead said cheerfully. “Nice to meet you!” Denki got a cursory glance of what looked like a small black bear at Kirishima’s side before he was distracted.
The boy next to Kirishima leaned over and cupped a hand over his mouth. “I’m Sero Hanta!” he said in a mock shout that had Denki snickering.
Because of the daemon walk-way, their desks were very far apart. Not so far apart that Denki couldn’t see Sero’s unusually large teeth though. He wasn’t sure if it was a mutation quirk (apparently before quirks, humans looked more uniform but nowadays things like green hair or red eyes or overly large teeth were common-place). Regardless the end result was that Sero had a super sunny smile, like ‘Whoa! +10 Friendship !’ It was infectious and Denki found himself grinning back.
“I’m Kaminari Denki!” He copied Sero’s gag, pretending to shout across the great gap.
“And I’m Ashido Mina!” Said the pink girl, on Denki’s other side. “You can call me Mina!”
Wow. Her first name?! And she was really cute too! Lucky! … If only the space between them wasn’t so wide… they wouldn’t even be able to pass notes. Plus her daemon was chilling in a cozy-looking pet cave in-between them. He was a little, squirrel-sized thing, black and white like a skunk but with spots instead of stripes. Denki didn’t know what kind of animal he was, but he knew It’d be rude to reach over him.
“Woah!” Denki’s daemon said. She turned into a blue jay and fluttered from Denki’s desk to the three-foot tall tree branch next to Sero’s desk.
“Nice, huh?” Sero’s daemon said. She was some kind of monkey, all black except for white sideburns that stuck straight out. The black fur on top of her head stood up like a mohawk and Denki wondered if Sero had styled it that way or if it was natural. She was wearing some of the official UA daemon garments--a grey vest and short-sleeved button-down. It was extremely cute.
She lounged on a small cloth hammock slung between a fork in the artificial branches, but she sat up to talk to the new daemon. “Did you see the mattress?” She pointed with a tiny hand.
“Mattress?” Denki said at the same time as his daemon. As one they turned to look where she was pointing, even gasping in unison. Mina giggled.
The desk beside Denki’s was currently unoccupied, so he had a relatively unobstructed view of the next desk over, which had one of the UA emblazoned doggy-beds next to it… except this bed was about the size of a twin mattress.
“Holy cow…” Denki said.
“Oh, a cow!” Mina said. “Maybe it’s for a cow!”
“We’ve been debating what it could be for,” Kirishima explained. “I guessed a horse!”
“I still think it’s too small for a horse,” Sero said. “Like it’s not that big. My guess is a deer.”
“Hmmm…” Denki said thoughtfully. His daemon came in to land on his shoulder, ruffling her feathers.
“I have a guess,” she said. She took off from his shoulder, flew over to the oversized bed and dropped down, instantly turning into a hamster.
“Genius!” Sero’s daemon cackled.
“I think we’ve cracked it!” Sero laughed.
The hamster turned around in a circle, gave an exaggerated stretch, then sprawled out. “Perfect fit!” She sighed indulgently.
“I mean, they asked what accommodations we wanted, right?” Kirishima asked with a grin, “Would they say no if we asked for something super oversized?”
“Oh my gosh, imagine though.” Mina giggled.
The door banged open.
For a second all conversation stopped, then they all laughed as they turned to see their new classmate’s embarrassed expression. Except he didn’t look embarrassed. He didn’t even seem phased at all. The guy stomped in, hands in his pockets. He had an explosion of dusty blond hair and a face that might have been handsome if it weren’t squished into a deep frown. All laughter stopped the second his daemon walked through the door.
It was a fucking lion .
Denki had only ever seen lions at the zoo. Until that moment, he hadn’t appreciated how far away they were, and how much that affected his perception of their size. She was fricking huge . Her head came up to her human’s mid-chest and she was easily longer than Denki was tall.
The guy didn’t hesitate for a second as people started whispering, like he was totally used to this… Actually, he probably was. Unfortunately, his unbroken stride took him to the desk one over from Denki. He flopped down in his seat, kicking a leg up on the desk like some kind of delinquent.
The lioness prowled after him, pausing only when she noticed the hamster on her bed. She stared down at her silently for a long moment before opening her mouth to reveal canines as long as Denki’s fingers: “Move.”
In a split second, hamster turned to roadrunner and Denki’s daemon had bolted back to his desk, leaving the lioness to sprawl out across her giant bed (which was actually pretty modestly sized for her). With her front paws casually crossed at the ankle she looked relaxed, regal, and deadly.
Sero clicked his tongue. “Maybe he’s overcompensating,” he said in a stage whisper.
The newcomer ignored him, but the lioness’s ear cocked back toward them. Then she turned her head around and looked Sero right in the eye.
Denki felt uncomfortable and he wasn’t even the focus of her attention. Daemons hardly ever spoke to or made eye contact with any human other than their own. Denki could count on one hand how many times his mother’s daemon had made eye contact with him. It wasn’t a rule or anything it just… wasn’t done.
But the lioness didn’t give one single fuck. She looked Sero dead in the eye and said calmly: “He’s not.”
She turned her gaze back to the front of the room, tail flicking casually. Her human had zero reaction.
“So manly,” Kirishima breathed.
Denki didn’t know about ‘manly’ but… he definitely had a new understanding of the phrase ‘big dick energy’.
Denki wasn’t done being impressed that day (not by a long shot). He was impressed when their teacher seemed to suddenly appear wrapped in a bright yellow sleeping bag on the floor just outside the classroom (maybe his quirk had something to do with it?). He was even more impressed when the teacher’s daemon appeared because, seriously, how had nobody noticed a fricking person-sized black cat? The black panther (jaguar? Denki didn’t know the difference) wasn’t as huge as the lion, but she was still big. Maybe the teacher and his daemon were ninjas and that was why Denki had never heard of them.
Their teacher barely introduced himself before he ordered them into their PE uniforms and outside. Denki wasn’t too bummed to be missing the entrance ceremony--he usually just spaced out through those anyway--and the guidance session was the opposite, too much focus and attention he didn’t know what to do with. So going out for an impromptu gym class sounded more fun. As long as they didn’t work up too much of a sweat… he’d done his hair up planning on an easy day of good first-impressions (wherein he looked like a handsome boy idol and not a sweaty idiot).
Next up on Denki’s Lists of 'Things to be Impressed By’ was the locker room. Denki’s attention was split trying to chit chat with his new classmates (a lot of whom were like… no homo, but wow? They were ripped?!), get dressed, and crane his neck to check out the room. It was similar to the classroom, with extra space between the benches where daemons could lounge and humans weren’t allowed to walk. His locker was right at the end of the row so he could see how nice the showers were.
There was a line of shower heads for the humans and then a series of half stalls with detachable heads for the daemons. One was extra large--elephant sized! Three were large like a horse-stall. Ten were kinda medium-sized. The rest were glorified sinks for washing small-to-teeny daemons.
Now Denki wasn’t the brightest bulb in the drawer but he figured the stall sides were so humans could wash their daemons without accidentally touching anyone else's. So much thought had been put toward the daemons! He’d have to tell his older siblings and see if this was a rich school thing or just a UA thing. Judging by what everyone else was saying, it was at least not common at their old school’s.
“It’ll be nice having a place to bathe that I can actually fit in,” a massive boar daemon said.
“There’s a huge daemon-hair dryer behind the showers!” A big chimp-looking daemon skipped around the bend. “No more soggy monkey for me!”
“Look! You get a gym uniform too!” The chimp’s human, a short guy with strange purple balls on his head, held up the packaged uniform. She clapped her weird human-y hands and yanked off her regular uniform. Denki got one glimpse of funky monkey boobs before he decided he was done looking around and focused on getting his own self dressed.
Once the whole class was gathered on the field, their teacher explained how they were going to do a fitness test with quirks, which sounded… interesting. Denki had never used his quirk on a fitness test… he really wasn’t sure how it could be useful.
While he was still debating over this, Aizawa-sensei called up lion-guy to demonstrate the ball throw and the guy fricking crushed it. But before he could turn back and stand with the rest of them, the teacher stopped him.
Sensei looked down at his own daemon and the big cat stepped forward. “My name is Obake,” she said to total silence. ”You will call me Obake-sensei.”
Denki frowned as the class murmured. It was weird enough for someone else’s daemon to talk to you, but to call one ‘sensei’ was totally unheard of.
“I know where you come from, your teacher's daemon is not your teacher, but in the world of heroes things work a little differently.” She spoke loud and clear, obviously used to addressing a crowd. She lowered her gaze to waist-height, and talked to the daemons. “It's not enough for a pro’s daemon to stand around behind their human when their participation can spell the difference between someone living and someone dying.” She raised her gaze once more. ”From now on, think of your daemon as your personal sidekick. In team-ups your teammates won't just be the humans but their daemons as well.” She blinked lazily. ”We're not playing any cutesy name games but when you introduce yourselves to one another, start introducing your daemons as well.”
Oh. Oh no. Denki cringed. Usually you didn't formally introduce your daemon to other people. Only little kids introduced their daemons and that’s just how Denki liked it.
“This also means that your daemon needs to be able to perform to the best of their abilities. Those of you whose daemons have settled will perform parts of the fitness test as well.”
Obake-sensei nodded toward the lioness. “The ball throw will be reserved for daemons with opposable thumbs, but there will be a ball-catch portion to test your coordination and reflexes.
“Daemons’ scores will not be compared to each other's. You humans can use your quirks to make up for what you lack but an insect will never be as strong as an ox. The scores will simply be a measure to compare your personal growth throughout your time at UA.
“All of you, regardless of whether your daemon is settled or not, will be taking a distance test. We will measure how far you and your daemon can comfortably separate. This is something we will work to improve for the rest of your time at UA.”
“Oof,” Denki muttered as unhappy, shocked mutters rose among the students. Obake-sensei continued: “In a few weeks we will have optional ‘touch training’--”
“Say what now?” Both Denki and his daemon said at the same time. Everyone around him was having similar reactions. Except the curly-haired kid who was muttering into his fist. And lion-guy. He looked deeply bored.
“Quiet,” Aizawa-sensei snapped and everyone shut up instantly. “Listen: Whether they are drugged, out of their mind, desperate, or simply don't care, at some point a villain will try to grab your daemon and when they do you cannot collapse. Legally, we can't force you to attend this training, but if you can't stomach the thought of controlled separation or clinical touches from someone you know, you might as well drop out now because these things will come up in the field and the wrong response will get you killed.”
Then his cold gaze lingered on their faces before turning to look back to lion-guy.
“Bakugou, will you consent to a distance test?”
Bakugou--lion-guy--scoffed.
“You have to answer yes or no,” Obake-sensei cut in.
“Yes.”
Aizawa-sensei gestured to a white line that looked like it was for the sprinting test, except there were more lines spaced out about a meter apart. “Both of you stand at that first line. When I say go, Bakugou will slowly start walking forward.”
“Think of it like stretching,” Obake-sensei cut in seamlessly. “Go until you start to feel resistance, but stop before you feel pain.”
Bakugou and his lion stood side-by-side at the start line and, at Aizawa-sensei’s prompting, Bakugou started forward, walking in a disaffected slouch. Around the six meter mark, he maybe started to slow down a bit. At eight, he had definitely slowed. Didn’t matter though, because even without officially testing it, Denki knew he couldn’t go that far from his daemon. Bakugou stopped at ten meters and Denki (and everyone else too it sounded like) was suitably impressed.
“Not bad,” the teacher tapped his results onto a tablet, his expression blank. He looked over toward the class as Bakugou turned and rejoined his daemon. ”Now the demonstration is over, it’s time to do the test for real.” He gave them this creepy serial killer grin. “And to ensure you take this seriously: the student who comes in last place will be expelled.”
Denki’s knees went weak as the students around him voiced their disbelief. Holy shit. Expelled?! He could just picture himself walking through the door of his house, his mom greeting him, and him, still wearing his UA uniform, announcing that he’d been expelled. Oh shoot, it made his stomach hurt just thinking about it.
“If you were hoping for an easy time in high school, spending your evenings hanging out at McDonald’s,” Aizawa-sensei scolded, “I’m sorry to tell you that for the next three years U.A. will run you through the wringer.” He offered a creepy grin. “That’s ‘Plus Ultra’. Now line up.”
Denki tried to shove down his nerves as he got in line for his test. It shouldn’t have taken too long considering most of them couldn’t get that far from their daemons, but they all had to verbally consent and most people were slow about the separation. Then there was a big guy with like six arms who didn’t consent to the distance test. That had at least been a welcome distraction from his own anxiety; but it turned out the guy just wanted to do the test later because his daemon had sensitive senses or something. The daemon in question was tucked out of sight in a glorified fanny pack (but it was a fanny pack with the UA crest on it!).
Aizawa didn’t push. In fact, he seemed so calm about it that Denki started mentally debating if he could put off his own test this way. He didn’t have any good reason except that he was anxious.
This was, of course, when the K-drama-level-handsome guy with the red and white hair stepped up. His daemon turned into a Japanese crane then stood there vibing while her human walked forward quickly and purposefully. When he stopped it looked more like he was tired of walking than like he was feeling the separation. He was twenty frickin’ meters away from his daemon!
Somebody whistled behind Denki, “Guess it’s to be expected from Endeavor’s kid, huh?”
Woah. Okay. Denki felt slightly less inadequate now. This guy probably knew ahead of time that distance training was a thing for heroes and had worked on it. Still, the threat of expulsion kept a swarm of butterflies firmly trapped in Denki’s stomach.
Aizawa-sensei called him over. “Kaminari, will you consent to a distance test?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Line up.”
The butterflies were getting stronger.
“Just do your best,” his daemon whispered as she turned into a bird and left his shoulder. Once on the ground she turned into a giant tortoise–which was totally an attempt to make sure she didn’t instinctively chase after him–but Denki wasn’t going to comment on it. When Obake-sensei told him to start, he focused first and foremost on hiding how nervous he was.
Denki had really only ever put distance between him and his daemon when he was showering. But even then, on a bad day she’d just turn into a duck and climb in after him. Even on a good day, she just parked it right outside the curtain. He'd never tested how far they could go from one another though. The thought made him nervous. Usually if he didn’t know how well he was going to do on something, that meant he’d do badly.
Sure enough, he was barely at two meters when he started to feel a little bit of a strain. At three it started to hurt, like there was a stone in his chest slowly smooshing his heart over to one side. He knew it wasn’t a real pain though.
His older brother once teased that if his daemon didn’t get through the subway doors in time and the train took off without her, Denki’s heart would explode out of his chest Alien-style. His mother had spent quite a lot of time reassuring him that nothing physically would happen if he got separated from his daemon… but also don’t ever let his daemon not reach the doors in time because it would still hurt a lot. As he pushed himself to three and a half meters, he felt like maybe his brother had been factually wrong but like metaphorically? (Or was it figuratively?) Whatever! His heart felt like it was going to bust out Alien-style. But… but he didn’t want to get expelled.
Five. He could do five meters, right? If he really pushed himself? Plus ultra!
He made it to four and a quarter when it suddenly stopped hurting so much. Holy shit. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? This probably wasn’t normal.
Something nudged the back of his pant leg and he looked down to see his daemon’s sheepish face. Literally. She’d turned into a sheep.
“Four and one fourth a meter,” Obake-sensei announced.
“Sorry…” she whispered as she followed him back to the crowd of students.
“It’s fine,” Denki tried to hide his disappointment.
“Dude, that was so manly!” He startled at Kirishima’s beaming grin. “You could totally tell you were struggling!” Ouch. “But you just kept going!”
“Yeah, yeah!” Mina nodded along. “It’s impressive when it’s effortless, but you were cool too!”
“It was our first time,” his daemon scuffed her little hoof in the dirt.
“That makes it especially good,” said a boy with a huge-ass tail. “I got seven meters but I’ve done distance training. You’re off to a really great start.”
He offered Denki a soft smile and Denki… actually felt better. It wasn’t so bad for his first time, was it? And maybe if he’d been able to plan ahead with his daemon they could’ve held out for five meters–either way, next time they’d probably do better… as long as he didn’t get expelled first.
Denki’s mood improved as he watched the rest of his class get tested. It seemed his score was pretty average. Luckily he’d learned to accept ‘average performance’ as a good performance long ago. By the time they moved on to the next event, Denki had recovered from his disappointment and nerves enough to face his greatest foe: boredom.
Fitness tests were more about standing around and waiting for your turn after all. First up was the fifty meter dash. The bar was set high immediately by a guy with a speed quirk, but who was going to beat him at a sprint anyway? Denki stood there reminding himself that he’d never been bad at gym so he should just calm down, right? Right! He hadn’t totally failed the distance test and he’d had zero experience with that so this should go way better.
His daemon nudged him. “Zombie apocalypse, remember?”
Right. Zombie apocalypse. It was something his older brother taught him: You didn’t have to be the fastest runner to survive the zombie apocalypse, you just had to be faster than the other guy.
Huh…
How would Denki’s quirk help in a zombie apocalypse? Does electricity work on zombies? Would it just make them twitch or would they cook? Does fire work on zombies? It seemed like it would but maybe he was thinking of some other type of monster.
“Denki.”
He jumped as a pair of huge yellow eyes landed on him. “Line up,” Obake-sensei ordered.
Oh shoot, he’d spaced out and now it was just him and a big, mountain of a kid with a soft little bunny rabbit daemon. His own daemon slipped into his pocket as he hurried to line up. He hadn’t thought of a single way to use electricity to help him win the sprint, he’d just have to do it the old fashioned way. But this guy’s daemon was a rabbit--what if he was really fast?!
Before he could fret over it a moment longer, Aizawa-sensei shouted: “Go!”
Denki ran as fast as he could. He didn’t even know where the other boy was, just that he wasn’t in front of him. When he got to the end he turned and saw the guy was not actually rabbit-fast. He was more tortoise-slow. The little white bunny bounced along beside him, cheering him on.
“Zombie apocalypse,” he muttered to himself with a little nod.
Belatedly, he realized he could be making friends while he waited. Kirishima and Mina were already mingling, introducing themselves to everyone except Bakugou and Endeavor’s kid, both of whom emitted powerful ‘Don’t even look at me’ vibes. Thankfully the two unfriendlies weren’t enough to wreck the cheerful vibe Kirishima and Mina were putting out, so other than the lingering threat of expulsion the air between the students wasn’t too bad.
Weirdly opposite them was this weird blond kid with a swan daemon. He walked around talking to people like he knew them when he hadn’t even introduced himself. Denki might have thought he was one of those ‘ trying too hard’ kinds of guys except that he lacked that subtle desperate aura. Figured that the hero course would have some interesting characters.
Before Denki could hunt down someone to introduce himself, Sero finished his sprint and came to join him. Which was cool. Even cooler: This seemed to have a magnetic effect on Kirishima and Mina, who both approached with such sunny smiles Denki had to look away. His eyes traveled downward, landing on Kirishima’s four-legged shadow.
Denki did an obvious double take. Kirishima’s brows jumped up at the motion; it was rude to stare at people’s daemons. Denki flushed. “Sorry man, I literally just realized your daemon is not a small black bear.”
“She’s not?” Sero looked down just as Mina shouted:
“I did the same thing this morning!”
Kirishima chuckled as the group all turned their attention to his daemon. His cheeks were pink and Denki felt a little guilty for drawing attention to him.
“Um…” he floundered, “congrats on winning the daemon lottery I guess?” Oof. It was rude to talk about what people’s daemons settled on… Well, people still did it– a lot –but it was still rude. Time to pull his foot out of his mouth: “Man, I don’t know a single guy that didn’t want a wolf daemon at some point.” Or shove it in further, that’s cool too.
Sero chuckled. “Maybe that means Kirishima’s kinda basic?”
“Or maybe it means he’s someone boys will aspire to be like!” Mina proposed.
They all looked down to watch the daemon smile well… wolfishly . ‘cause that’s what she was. Not a small black bear but a huge , black wolf. “We’re supposed to introduce ourselves, right?” She said in a voice just as boisterous as her human’s. “My name is Taiko! Like the drum!”
Uh oh. They were introducing themselves?
“Sweet!” Sero’s monkey daemon said. “Nice to meet you Taiko Like the Drum, I’m Washi Like the Tape!” She held out a black paw for a high five which Taiko delightedly (if not clumsily) returned.
“Ooooh! Washi tape!” Mina spoke to Sero. “When you go pro you should totally make washi tape merchandise!”
“Nice to meet you Washi!” Mina’s daemon said from his perch on her shoulder. “Do you style your hair that way?” He asked the question like he’d been waiting to ask it all day.
“No!” Washi replied like she’d been waiting all day to answer. “I’m a Francois Langur,” she brushed her hair back all slow and sensual like a supermodel. The mohawk sprang back in place. “We just wake up like this.”
Obake-sensei’s voice cut through their laughter: “Ashido! Aoyama!”
Denki stood back and watched as Mina lined up for the 50 meter dash next to Swan Guy (Aoyama apparently). Aoyama’s swan was in that awkward ‘adolescent bird’ stage where its feathers weren’t quite done coming in so it looked part way between swan and ugly duckling. The dingy grey feathers didn’t just look bad, they messed up the birds’ flying. The guy used some kinda lazer blast to shoot forward, but then had to stop and wait for the bird to run after him. Mina beat him pretty easily.
Aizawa made a comment about how they’d be training so their daemons didn’t hold them back, and then called up Bakugou and the curly haired kid.
The second event was the grip strength test, which Denki did well at because he surprisingly had a good idea: he electrocuted his hand closed. Did it feel good? No. Did it work? Yes!
Afterward he found himself gravitating toward Sero. His daemon, Washi (and wasn’t that easy to remember? Washi Like the Tape!) was getting her grip strength tested. His own daemon (now a macaque) leaned into his ear and whispered, “She is so cute.” And dang it, she really was!
She was wearing the daemon gym uniform, it was similar to the human one, but sleeveless, with a wider neck, and shorts instead of pants. The other monkey, the chimp, was dressed the same… but it was significantly less cute on her. Plus the grip tester was people-sized so it looked ginormous in the little black monkey’s hand. When Obake-sensei prompted her, she puffed her cheeks and squeezed with all her might. Denki made himself look away. It was kind of weird to coo over other people’s daemons if you weren’t like… dating them.
After the monkeys finished their grip strength test, Obake-sensei corralled them over to the other settled daemons. Apparently they all had to do a bite strength test and the monkeys got to help administer because they could touch the other daemons and had opposable thumbs.
Denki tried to check out the other settled daemons. In addition to Sero’s monkey (what was she again? A France Lemur? He’d have to ask his daemon, she had a better head for names and faces… and numbers and letters). Then there was Kirishima’s wolf, Taiko Like The Drum, and Mina’s… skunk-thing? He was starting to think maybe it really was just a skunk with spots instead of stripes. Just like their humans, both daemons seemed determined to approach and befriend all the others. The chimp was acting similarly, though Denki noticed she paid particular attention to the boy daemons. Then there was the lioness, who made a point to stand separate from the others, not even twitching an ear in Taiko’s directly when the wolf tried to say hello.
The invisible girl and the guy with the octo-arms had been dismissed from the bite force exercise, though he wasn’t quite sure why. They both had carrying pouches for small daemons, so it might’ve been that–but then why hadn’t the girl with the little bat on her shoulder been excluded too? The last two in line were a kid with curly green hair and the world’s smallest, cutest little falcon on his shoulder and a guy with a raven head mutation quirk and his… raven.
Denki guessed he felt a little bit better, seeing the crowd of settled daemons. Even if his daemon settled on something small and unimpressive, she wouldn’t be the only one. Zombie apocalypse.
“So your name is…?”
“Uraraka Ochako! And you?”
“I’m Hagakure Toru!”
Denki glanced over to see a group of girls approaching and… wow. All the girls in his class were so cute? Even the invisible girl had a cute vibe. She was really bouncy and animated.
Denki’s thoughts were interrupted as Taiko cried out: “Whoa! That’s crazy manly!” He looked over to see a dizzyingly high number on the bite-force scale. Bakugou’s lion didn’t respond to the praise, simply stepping back with her head held high.
This was a trend that wound up continuing. The lion was fast, strong, and agile; she crushed every challenge Obake-sensei put before her. Denki had always sort of assumed lions got the name ‘King of the Jungle’ after being voted ‘Best Hair’ but turns out they earned the title honestly.
The only thing she didn’t do perfectly was the pole weave (a quadruped substitute for the side-step). Aizawa-sensei had the settled daemons line up by size, then adjusted the distance between the poles based on their body length. Still, when the big cat came up, he pressed a few buttons on his pad and brought the poles closer together, saying her cat flexibility would’ve made the wide distance too easy. Seeing as he had a big cat daemon of his own, Denki trusted his judgment on that one.
The lioness managed to do it but her time wasn't that fast. Still, she outpaced all the other daemons. Especially the boar. She made it around exactly one pole before she started bumbling and stumbling, knocking nearly all of them down as she tried and failed to get around them. As soon as she’d trotted free of the course she turned to Obake-sensei and sheepishly asked if she could try again. The panther gave her a flat ‘no’ and the wild pig deflated like an old balloon and trudged away. Ouch. But Denki supposed a teacher that threatened to expel his students if they didn’t do well wasn’t one to offer second chances.
The one thing that could successfully distract Denki from the lion’s (admittedly impressive) achievements was watching the girls.
Denki was looking mostly (kinda sorta) respectfully. One of his high school goals beside not failing and becoming a pro hero was to get a girlfriend so he was… y’know… browsing. He wasn’t a total dog though, like he’d look at any cute girl but he did care about personality so he’d need to scope out what each of them were like before he tried asking anybody out. So far he’d mostly talked to Mina and she’d seemed pretty cool and fun.
“Not many girls here,” said a voice by his elbow, “but they’re all hot!”
He glanced down to see the guy with the funky ball hair standing next to his chimp daemon. Standing upright on two legs, he and the monkey were almost the exact same height.
“We totally lucked out,” Denki agreed.
The guy made knowing eye contact and they shared a moment of acknowledgement: one connoisseur to another.
“Mineta Minoru. I like boobs and butts.”
Denki snorted. What a way to introduce yourself! “Kaminari Denki. I… uh… Well I like… boobs and vibes?”
Mineta gasped in outrage.
“Butts are like… number four,” Denki amended. “Like boobs: first. Vibes are second. Personality is third–no don’t look like that you know a cute attitude can totally make up for a weak butt. Butt’s fourth, man.”
Mineta clicked his tongue and looked at his daemon. “What I’m hearing,” she said, “is more cute butts for you.”
“True!” Mineta crowed. “We shall agree to disagree on the butt priority! But why are vibes and personality separate?”
“Well–”
“What are you two talking about?”
Denki turned to see the girl who sat on his other side in the classroom. He hadn’t caught her name but she had weird long earlobes that looked like phone jacks and purple hair cut in a slanted bob. She had one of the UA issued shoulder perches (the gym version was red to match their gym uniforms because that’s how extra (Plus Ultra) UA was). Instead of a bird sitting on the perch though, there was a bat, although mostly it looked like a black puff ball with little white patches.
“Uhhh…”
“Butts!” Mineta announced shamelessly.
The girl gave him a weird look with a little ‘hm’.
Denki let out a nervous laugh. “I’m Kaminari Denki and this is Mineta Minoru!” He said, hoping to change the subject to something a little cooler… like her. “Who are you?”
“Leaving,” she said easily. “I’m leaving.” She gave a little wave and walked away back to a group of girls. Oof.
Denki turned to look at a disgruntled Mineta. He was feeling simultaneously lowkey-devastated and elated. “That, my friend,” he said, “is the power of vibes.”
“You like mean girls? Weirdo.”
“I like cool girls.”
Mineta seemed doubtful.
“Listen man, self-respect is so attractive.”
“Huh?!”
“Jirou.”
Denki nearly jumped out of his skin as the cool girl reappeared. She offered him a very small smile. Vibes , man. “My name is Jirou Kyouka.”
“Oh! Cool!”
“This is Koto.” The bat wiggled its wings.
“Nice to meet you Koto!” Denki’s daemon said cheerfully.
“My quirk is Earphone Jack,” her earlobes moved on their own.
“Neat!”
“It means I have really good hearing.”
“Coo– oh.”
She offered that cool smile once more then left again, although this time it was less a sassy retreat and more like a triumphant withdrawal.
Denki could tell his cheeks were flushed when he looked down at Mineta’s befuddled expression. ‘Cool’, he mouthed.
Mineta just shrugged. ‘To each their own,’ his face said.
They both watched as the cute girl with the brown bob went up for her ball throw. He’d be hard pressed to say what was cooler, her infinity throw or the next guy's insane toss. Sero had drifted Denki’s way again and he was just about to turn and say as much when Bakugou went totally feral.
The teacher stopped him while Obake-sensei put herself between the lion and the little falcon. Thankfully, the lion was way calmer than her human ‘cause… yeah, he’d always sort of imagined panthers and lions to be the same size and… no . The lioness was easily twice the size of Obake-sensei. If she’d really wanted to hurt the curly-haired kid’s bite-sized bird daemon, Denki wasn’t confident the panther could stop her.
“Don’t waste my time,” Aizawa-sensei grumbled as he released Bakugou. (Apparently blowing off the whole ‘went nuts on another student’ thing, UA really had all sorts of people here, huh?) “Prepare for the next event.”
***
The walk back to the lockers was a mixed bag. Some people were frustrated over Aizawa-sensei's ‘logical ruse’ while some were still recovering from the drama of Bakugou going postal. Some, like Denki, were just glad to have their head off the chopping block. He chatted with his newfound friends.
“I can't believe I was second from the bottom!” Mineta wailed.
“I can't believe I wasn't second from the bottom, that Midoriya guy was crazy strong!” Sero laughed like he hadn’t been one place up from Denki.
There was a colossal bang as Bakugou slammed his locker closed and stormed out. His lion followed, tail lashing behind her. All this dramatic exit accomplished was sparking a discussion on what crawled up his butt, ended by Kirishima graciously saying: “Maybe he's just having a bad day.” Denki got the feeling that wasn’t the case, but he could appreciate that Kirishima was apparently a patient, tolerant guy. It was cool; a charming contrast to his wild appearance.
When they went back to the classroom to collect their things, they found the girls hanging out, talking and looking cute.
“Hey guys!” Mina said cheerfully. ”We were thinking of setting up a group chat – pass out your info and Yaomomo will set it up!”
‘Yaomomo’ was apparently the ridiculously pretty girl who’d come in first in the fitness test. The Speed Quirk Guy started going off about what a great idea this was and how they could be an ‘invaluable resource’ to one another while she passed around a notebook.
“Anyway, you were introducing your daemon?” Mina asked.
Uh-oh.
“Oh, yeah!” Uraraka perked up. “This is Mochi,” she said, cheeks going pink and fingers steepled together nervously. “It’s my favorite food so…”
“No, that’s so cute!” Mina said quickly. “My daemon’s name is Jelly Bean!”
“Call me Jelly!” Her daemon said.
“Jelly beans aren’t my favorite food though,” Mina clarified. “I just think food names are cute!”
“They are pretty popular for daemon names, kero,” said the girl with the frog quirk.
“Does anyone else have food names in the class?” Mina asked. “Who am I vibing with?”
“Oh! Her!” Taiko Like the Drum inserted herself into the conversation, pointing out the little rabbit daemon. The bunny looked a lot like how a regular rabbit would look if addressed by a wolf, but Taiko just smiled doggishly, waiting for the rabbit to introduce herself.
“Um…” she said in a very small voice. “My name is Cotton Candy.” Her human flushed red as all the girls cooed. The bunny’s nose twitched under the attention.
“I have a food name too,” the boar offered shyly. "My name’s Eclair.” She scuffed one of her dainty feet on the floor and blinked her long lashes bashfully while the girls aww’d over her sweet name. Her similarly huge and tough-looking human (Satou, Denki had got his name earlier) seemed just as flustered, which was kind of cute.
Mina looked up, to her left, where Denki was. Denki, suddenly aware he might be asked to introduce his own daemon, had the brilliant idea to mirror her motion, turning to the left. One desk over, Bakugou was snatching up his bag, looking like he swallowed a lemon.
“What about you, Bakugou?” He asked “What's your daemon's name?”
The guy didn't even break his stride. “Like I’d tell you extras.” Then he was gone.
Denki blinked and looked around at his gathered classmates. They all looked back with matching incredulous expressions.
“Funny he called us extras when he is so extra,” Sero joked.
“Don't you mean ‘Plus Ultra’?” Denki joked back and Sero laughed, showing off that impressive smile again. Hell yeah, +10 Friendship .
“What about you?” Washi spoke up from his shoulder, directing her question down to where Denki’s daemon was living the corgi life chilling on the floor.
“Oh, me?”
Oh no. She had no shame.
His daemon changed from Corgi to a little rodent–like a big hamster with huge ears: a pika.
Denki went through four stages of grief in a matter of seconds before landing on acceptance: ‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘they were always going to find out eventually... He just needed to own it. His daemon certainly did, proudly declaring the name he picked when he was 5 years old: “I'm Detective Pikachu!”
Denki expected laughter, but none came... which was strangely worse? If they’d laughed it would’ve been embarrassing but he could shake it off and make a joke. Instead it was like everyone mentally thought ‘That's embarrassing, so I won't laugh’. He was a clown! He felt at home in the circus! This silence was just uncomfortable.
“Ah!” Mineta cut in. “My daemon’s name is Fujiko, named after my favorite character, Mine Fujiko, from Lupin the Third!”
“I named my daemon after Keroppi,” the frog girl said easily.
“Mine is Romeo!” Hagakure said cheerfully. “I thought it would be romantic!”
“I named my daemon after my favorite author,” Gorgeous Girl (Yaomomo?) said. ”I read ‘I Am A Cat’ in first grade–” say what now “--and had to name my daemon after Soseki Natsume.”
Denki was pretty sure naming your daemon after famous classic novelists wasn't quite the same as naming them after cartoon characters but you know what? He was just happy to know he wasn't the only clown here.
“I named my daemon after my favorite character and personal childhood hero: Princess Ariel!” Aoyama cut in with flourish.
“Oh, how fun! Do you go by Princess or Ariel?” Jelly asked the swan.
The guy flipped his hair, scattering sparkles as he answered for her: “Her full title, s'il vous plaît.”
“Oh... Okay.”
“Y’know,” Kirishima said, ignoring the display. “I know Aizawa-sensei said that we wouldn’t be hanging out at McDonalds after school but…”
“I’ve been craving McDonalds since then!” Mina finished.
“Exactly!” He turned that huge sunny grin on Denki and Sero. “You guys in?”
“I’ll come if no one teases me for getting a salad,” Sero replied.
“Aw, dude no one would make fun of you for that!” Kirishima said right as Denki quipped: “I make zero promises!”
“What if I let you eat my croutons?”
“Oh!” Denki snorted, “well, in that case!”
They started off, Mina announcing to all the classmates they passed that they were going for ‘Didn’t Get Expelled’ Celebratory McDonald’s.
Denki’s daemon alighted on his shoulder. She was a parrot again–the same rainbow one from that morning.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” she said quietly. “Zombie apocalypse, remember?”
“If you’re trying to say your name isn’t the worst one then, I’m sorry but you’d be wrong,” Denki whispered. “And I’m not sure a name really is applicable to the zombie apocalypse scenario.”
“What’s that?”
He jumped and turned to Sero.
“Oh! Um! I was… uh… I was wondering If my quirk could help in a zombie apocalypse?”
“Oh… Your quirk is electricity right? Hm. Does electricity work on zombies?” Sero asked.
“Ha! I was wondering that!”
“Wondering what?” Mina asked.
“Does electricity work on zombies?” Sero repeated.
Kirishima looked thoughtful. “Huh. Would it just make them twitch a bunch or would they like… cook ?”
“I thought that too!”
“Does fire work on zombies or am I thinking of a different type of monster?” Mina asked.
This was uncanny.
The conversation devolved as they all discussed the usefulness of their quirks in a zombie apocalypse scenario. With Mina sure that she could melt a zombie, Sero saying he could restrain them, and Kirishima adding he’d be impervious to zombie bites (but he refused Sero’s suggestion of breaking their teeth to render them harmless because ‘that’s just mean’). By the time the golden arches were in view they’d put together a feasible zombie survival plan and Denki finally understood what people meant when they talked about ‘finding your people’.
This year was gonna be great!