Taxonomy (Platonic Hawks and Tokoyami)

Class

Tokoyami did not like the look Todoroki had been shooting at him for the past week. Ever since the whole 'same face as Hawks' incident, the bicolor boy had been staring at him like he was a particularly confusing puzzle. Now, Tokoyami was well and familiar with Todoroki's 'theory face', as the class called it, almost everyone had been on the receiving end of that look at least once. Everyone but Tokoyami, who, for a very long time, had managed to remain un-theorized. Midoriya, Bakugou, Kaminari, Kirishima, they all had been subject to the half-and-half's conjecture, Tokoyami had no intention to join their ranks. Todoroki, of course, did not care about what Tokoyami wanted, he needed answers, and he was going to get them.

The icy-hot elitist finally managed to corner Tokoyami on a Tuesday evening with the help of Midoriya, that traitorous bastard. The two had approached and pulled the raven into Todoroki's room, which had been conveniently pre-set up with a projector. There, Tokoyami was led to (read pushed into) a seat facing the blank projector screen, whereupon Todoroki turned to him with manic and glazed eyes. Midoriya, for all his usual ability to reel Todoroki in, simply stood in the back, grinning proudly.

"Tokoyami, I have a theory," that was always how it started, wasn't it, I have a theory, "and I have made a presentation to exemplify the soundness of my evidence. I would like you to watch." Todoroki, of course, issued the request more like a statement and left no room for a polite refusal.

Midoriya clicked a little button and the title page of Todoroki's presentation popped up. Tokoyami had to resist slamming his head into Todoroki's very nice marble table when he saw the title of the presentation. Tokoyami wanted to die, this, he decided, was the only acceptable time for Dark Shadow to rampage. The sentient quirk, ever the instigator, wiggled gleefully and munched on popcorn, provided and popped by Todoroki.

Said title, written in all caps yellow comic sans, read as "TOKOYAMI; HAWKS' SECRET RELATIVE?" against a horrendous background of purple and black bird silhouettes. Each slide, presented in tandem by Todoroki and a surprisingly invested Midoriya, bore an equally obnoxious design. Tokoyami tried his best to tune the rant out, he was well acquainted with checking out in the face of over-the-top rambles, but his peers took painstaking effort to keep him engaged. It didn't take long for the raven to understand that things would go faster if he just played along.

The first piece of evidence presented was, of course, a side-by-side photo of Tokoyami's 'humanized' face and that of Hawks. Each similar feature was labeled with red arrows and circles. Todoroki had only just emphasized the notability of the matching eye markings when Tokoyami felt the need to cut in.

"Todoroki, while I commend this... dedication... of yours, I must interject. My unexpected humanity was merely the result of a child's quirk gone awry; do you not think she may have simply modeled my face after that of Hawks? We found her together, and children have a habit of creating unfounded associations, bird likened to bird, as it is." Reasonably, Tokoyami knew this would not stop Todoroki, but he hoped it might convince Midoriya. He was wrong.

"No, that's just the beginning, Tokoyami. We have more, tell him Todoroki!" Midoriya gripped his pencil with such excited force that Tokoyami feared he would send splinters flying through the room. The green-haired boy excitedly gestured for Todoroki to continue.

"So, here we have what I consider the most compelling evidence." Said Todoroki as he excitedly, as excited as someone like Todoroki could be, gestured to the second slide. On it were still-watermarked stock photos of DNA and images of birds, all crows. There were no words, and Tokoyami already hated it.

Here, Midoriya stepped in and opened his quirk journal. "As we know, quirks are genetically inherited, right?" Todoroki nodded in agreement as the other continued, "And we know animals don't independently develop quirks, because if they did, we'd see people like you more often."