My Hero Academia: EMTs

First Friend

Hotaru Aizawa:

My dad sits with me in the principal's office, and Mr. Nezu sits back in his chair. "She's cute, Mr. Aizawa, but I'm not sure this is such a wonderful idea."

"What's the issue?" My father asks, holding up his hands in confusion.

"It's just... okay, so let's review again. Your daughter, Hotaru, was someone's human lab rat for a long time. You took her in as your own to give her a better life and keep her from the government- fine, fine, I get all that. And I suppose I get you hiding her till now... But why do you think having her attend this school will help her?"

"I can pay."

"You are a valuable asset to this school. I'm happy to help you, Professor. That's not what I asked for. How will attending UA help her? She's eleven years old. She should be going to middle school, not high school. She could be overwhelmed by the other students here. Even the first years will be so much bigger and stronger. I hope you're not planning to put the poor thing through hero training. I'm not even sure that's legal- in fact..." The intelligent chimera pulled a book out of his desk drawers and quickly turned through its pages, "Ah yes, right here. Fourteen years of age. No one is allowed to train in even SIMULATED live fire exercises "until fourteen."

"Did you really have to check that?" My dad asks with lowered eyebrows.

"No- I thought you needed to check it." he closed the book.

"Daddy, what is Mr. Nezu?" I finally ask. I look at him, hiding behind my father's arm, but I can't help it. Mr. Nezu has the head of a rat, the paws of a dog, and a dog's tail. I'm unsure what his midsection is; maybe it's a bear.

Nezu chuckles. "Oh my, aren't you blunt? You should have just asked right away," He says. "I'm a chimera and an animal with a quirk of superintelligence." He smiles at me and seems friendly, but something about how he looks at me tells me he's okay with me being scared of him.

"Hotaru has an enhanced quirk, Nezu." My father says.

"Listen to me, for the good of your daughter... You said she has a what?" Nezu seems to pause.

"In that lab, when she was experimented on, her quirk was enhanced artificially."

Nezu hopped off his chair and wandered around his desk to look at me. "You're sure?"

"I've seen the kind of power she can put out. For a middle schooler, it's insane."

"For an adult?" Nezu queried further as he examined me from a short distance.

"If I had to guess, her Lightning-Storm quirk has the potency of a decently trained adult," My father confirms.

"I would love to see that..." Nezu comments.

"Sure, I trust you. But some people want to see what she can do, and they want much more than that. She has... maybe ten or fifteen times the kind of power she should have."

"Do you suppose it will keep growing?" Nezu asks.

"I can only hope not for her sake," my father says. "She's having a hard enough time controlling it."

"Maybe we should do some tests to see if she can be-"

"NO TESTS!" I scream. "No labs..." I wrap my arms around my legs. I know that word. The mean lady in the lab always used that word before bad things happened to me.

Nezu looks me in the eye and stops talking. He cocks his head a little, then looks down. I notice a big scar around one of his eyes, and there's something about it... I don't know... he looks at me like he and I just made a connection.