Why Us?

School Festival

"A haunted maze?" Izumi echoes, staring at her classmates blankly.

"Yeah, were you not paying attention in class, Hirai?"

"Uh, umm. I was paying attention in class," Izumi squeaks, "I'm usually just not much help without..."

Izumi trails off, catching herself before she can finish saying she's not much help without a quirk. The girls look at her questioningly, waiting for Izumi to finish.

"My quirk just isn't very helpful for these situations?"

"No way! Your quirk can be so useful if you use it right!"

"Yeah! We thought it would be cool to have you manipulate some water to scare all our customers. Like how it makes people shiver when you tickle the back of their neck with a feather or something! Except you could use really cold water!"

"Or warm water like something is licking them!"

"Ewwww gross!"

"It's a haunted maze. It's supposed to be scary and gross!"

Izumi watches silently as the girls banter, still processing the fact that her classmates want HER to participate. It's nothing like her other schools... then again, she has a quirk now. But could she really be that helpful?

"... and you could make fake blood ooze out of the walls!"

"I think we gave her too many ideas at once..." one of the girls trails off, glancing at Izumi worriedly.

Izumi snaps out of her trance and glances at the girls around her who look back with hopeful expressions. 

"I'd love to help out with the haunted maze," Izumi says quietly, a smile making its way onto her face despite her trying to remain neutral.

"Uwah, so cute!!"

"It's going to be the creepiest maze ever thanks to Hirai!"

.

.

.

"I see you got roped into this too," Izumi snickers, watching as Shinsou gets tied up securely.

"That was a horrible joke," Shinsou deadpans as his classmates lift him into position so he's upside down.

Izumi shrugs and uses her quirk on a nearby bucket of fake blood. It's thicker than water, but she's still able to bend it- with some difficulty. Smiling innocently, she shoots the fake blood at an unsuspecting Shinsou. 

Shinsou sighs, resigned to being Izumi's target practice. It's only 8 am and he's much too tired to put up a fight. There's too much to do for last-minute prep work before the festival officially starts.

"Rope and pulley system is good! Everything is confirmed to be secure, class prez!" someone shouts from above before Shinsou is slowly lowered to the ground and helped up by two boys with half of their costumes finished.

"Hirai, Shinsou. I think your guys' areas are finished, why don't you take a break and look around for a bit?"

Izumi immediately untangles Shinsou from the remaining ropes and hurries out of the haunted maze with him in tow.

"We have to check out everything!!"

"I wanna take a nap!" Shinsou groans loudly, protesting as Izumi starts dragging him around the entire school, "Let me go!"

Izumi freezes.

"I'm sorry for dragging you around. I guess I'll, uh, meet you back at the haunted maze around 10:30 to open up?" Izumi hastily lets go of Shinsou, bowing in apology.