A Silent Kind of Strength

Chapter 95

The Downfall of the Public Schools was all anyone could talk about over christmas break. The trial had started off hidden. A hush hush back door affair that was never meant to go public. After seeing the first school district on the docket Izuku had a good guess as to who leaked the drama. His guess included white fur and too smart eyes.

The proceedings were long and drawn out, a panel of judges listening to the prosecutors and defenders for no less that thirty different school districts. All of them were accused of neglect or discrimination. Or both.

And as the head chairman for the board of directors at Aldera stepped up to the podium the world watched. And judged. And, for the most part, cheered the largest overhaul of a public school system in the world in over fifty years.

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Izuku sold the patent for his first hero grade hearing aids about a week before he finished his upgraded designs for his new ones. These included a slimmer more discreet profile and a whole butt load of new features. Including an AI he had written entirely from scratch as a project in his private lessons with Nezu.

He kept his testing of prototypes discreet for the first month after that. Working out bugs and making sure SARI, Self Activating Resource Interface, worked correctly and did everything he wanted her to do. The only ones who knew of the project were Power Loader, Nezu, Mei, and Hitoshi. The first two because he needed their sign off to use school resources for his build, and the last two because he needed help with his tests on occasion.

By the time he was ready to put in for a patent he had a whole slew of extra sets built. A main and a spare for himself and Hizashi as well as ten more pairs he was donating to first responders who'd had their hearing damaged in the line of duty.

The charity had been Mia's idea. Well, in a way. The woman had been regaling Izuku and Mei over dinner of her days in the support course with Power Loader. And one of her stories had been of a charity drive they had done in their third year to get their names out to the public. They had taken all of their old prototypes, spruced them up, and then given them away to 'heroes in need'. That had been the move that really got them scholarships to colleges and other programs for higher education. 

Little did she know that story had inspired a monster of a project. Within two days Izuku and his sister had a whole, well drawn up, folder worth of plans and projected numbers to give to their principal. And the rat, ever willing to support the creatives under his care, agreed. The fact that it would look good on UA as a whole as well was just a bonus.

It only took a week for the project to be announced to the rest of the support students in all 3 years. Unexpectedly, though in retrospect he really shouldn't have been surprised, when the outreach project was announced to the news Mei and Izuku's names were all over it. The two teens were asked to make statements for fluff pieces across Japan. Most of Mei's lines didn't get used, her over the top personality being too much for most people and resigning her to a few short usable clips. But the sweet stuttering hero student stole the watchers' hearts. And he soon found himself as the face of the project.