Chapter 11: A Cup of Tea and a Strange Proposal!

Papers were aligned with millimetric precision across the desk, and green plants sat in every corner. At the back, an enormous window overlooked the training field, where a group of students was running in single file under the morning sun. It was the cleanest place Izuku had ever set foot in in his entire life, and coming from someone who'd been picking up dog waste for months, that was saying something.

Across from him, perched on a swivel chair far too big for him, a small white creature with a black nose and a scar crossing one eye watched him from over a steaming cup of tea.

Relax, Izuku, it's just the smartest man in the country shaped like a plushie, no pressure.

"Go ahead, pour yourself another cup if you'd like. I brewed enough for both of us." Nezu slid the teapot forward with a kind smile. "It's an exquisite blend from Shizuoka. They send it to me from time to time, and believe me, it always manages to improve a conversation."

He paused briefly, as if he'd just remembered an important detail.

"Ah, how rude of me! I haven't properly introduced myself yet. I'm Nezu. Some insist on figuring out whether I'm a dog, a mouse, or a bear... and truth be told, that mystery tends to spark more interest than my position." He laughed softly. "But what truly matters is that I have the honor of serving as principal of this institution. It's a genuine pleasure to meet you."

Izuku set his cup down on the saucer and nodded naturally.

"Izuku Midoriya. The pleasure's mine, Principal Nezu."

Nezu tilted his head, his kind smile curving just a bit more.

"Well, well. Not a single blink. Most fully grown adults need quite a while to decide whether I'm being serious or pulling their leg. You, on the other hand, didn't flinch at all."

"I've had a pretty weird month," Izuku answered, shrugging. "At this point, a principal who might be a bear is one of the most normal things that's happened to me."

The principal let out a short chuckle and settled back into the chair, crossing his little paws over his lap. Between two feathers rested a slim folder with a single printed sheet inside.

"Very well, then. Let's talk about your email." Nezu rested a paw on the folder without opening it. "You're requesting a meeting to apply for a position, and not just any position. To quote directly: 'Temporary Instructor of Quirk Optimization and Support Tactics.' A grand and beautifully worded title, with one small detail."

"Which is?" Izuku asked, though he already sensed where this was going.

"That the position doesn't exist," Nezu said, his smile widening. "You invented it, which, I'll grant you, does have a certain creative merit."

"The best positions always have to be invented first," Izuku said, taking another sip of tea. "Nobody hires for something they don't know they need until someone shows it to them."

"A charming philosophy. Very fitting for someone in sales, I'm afraid. However, at U.A. we don't sell vacuum cleaners, young man. We train heroes." Nezu smiled politely as he raised a paw to enumerate each point. "Before you arrived, I reviewed your file with great interest. Let's see... you're a civilian; you hold no hero license, no teaching license, not even a provisional one. From a strictly legal standpoint, your credentials for teaching here are practically identical to those of the kind gentleman who sells takoyaki on the corner. Though in fairness, I should mention that he makes extraordinary takoyaki. It would almost be an injustice to compare you."

Izuku nodded slowly, taking no offense whatsoever.

"That's all true."

"I'm glad you're aware of it." Nezu clasped his paws together with a small smile. "In that case, you'll understand why this situation piques my curiosity so much. A young man without a hero license, without a teaching license, and without a single credential related to teaching sends me a letter requesting a position that, I must admit, doesn't even officially exist... and somehow ends up sitting across from me, sharing a cup of excellent Shizuoka tea. Fascinating, don't you think? I've spent quite a while trying to reconstruct the chain of events that brought us to this precise moment... and I still can't decide whether I should congratulate you on your audacity or on your extraordinary ability to persuade people."

"We got here because my email piqued your curiosity," Izuku answered calmly. "If you really believed I was a nutcase, you wouldn't have let me through the door, you'd have handed me off to security. And yet here we are, having tea instead."

Nezu's black eyes gleamed for an instant. He set his cup on the saucer with a delicate clink and leaned back, folding his paws over his stomach.

"Touché. Very good." Nezu laced his paws together with a serene smile. "I confess I was curious. Very few civilians take the liberty of contacting the principal of U.A. directly. So go on, Midoriya... convince me. What do you have that you consider worthy of my attention?"

Izuku set his cup aside and straightened in his chair. Here came the complicated part.

"My Quirk. What's on record is wrong."

"Wrong?" Nezu tilted his head. "The Commission's files rarely make mistakes."

"This time they did. It says there that it works for understanding animals and giving them simple commands. Animal empathy, basically. For years I believed it too, spent my time walking dogs and everything." Izuku paused. "Until... recently I discovered what it actually does."

"I'm all ears." Nezu rested his chin on his paws. "I love stories of discovery."

Izuku took a deep breath. Here came the delicate part.

"I discovered it because my face accidentally ended up against a heroine's rear end."

For a full second, the only sound in the office was the soft bubbling of the teapot. Nezu blinked, thoroughly bewildered.

"I beg your pardon? I believe I missed the last part."

"A heroine's rear end," Izuku repeated evenly. "She fell, I was right underneath her, and you can imagine the rest. I won't be sharing her name, by the way. Professional discretion. But the moment my Quirk made contact with her, I felt something I'd never felt with a dog before."

"How extraordinary... I confess I find this both fascinating and slightly unsettling." Nezu tilted his head slightly, without losing his smile. "Do go on. I'd like to hear how it continues."

"She felt my Quirk enhancing her." Izuku leaned forward, and for the first time in the entire conversation there was real intensity in his voice. "For a fraction of a second, she was stronger. That's when I realized something I'd been getting backwards my whole life. My Quirk was never meant for training pets, Principal. It's for enhancing people."

Nezu went still for a moment, and his tail gave a slow flick against the back of the chair. When he spoke again, the playful tone had grown slightly more serious.

"Hmm... enhancing people. That's terrain where a small mistake can carry enormous consequences. Reinforcement Quirks have existed for a long time, so allow me to ask you a question, young man: what makes you certain yours isn't simply another one of those?"

"That I don't enhance the Quirk," Izuku said. "I enhance the connection between the user and their Quirk."

"Explain that distinction to me."

Izuku searched for the right words for a moment, drumming his fingers against his knee.

"Alright, let me explain it the way I understood it. Almost everyone has a lock in their head. That brake even makes sense, it's the body protecting itself, keeping you from tearing a muscle or frying your brain by using your Quirk at full power. The problem is it's almost always cranked too tight, and people end up performing well below what their Quirk could actually handle."

"And you loosen the brake," Nezu completed, his eyes lighting up.

"I remove the lock," Izuku corrected. "I don't add power to anyone. The power was already there, tucked away. I just open the door so the person can reach what their own Quirk was always capable of and nobody ever let them touch. That's why it works differently for each individual."

The principal fell quiet for a long stretch, a subtle interest forming across his face. He picked up his cup, found it empty, poured himself more, and settled back.

"A very elegant hypothesis... though also extraordinarily difficult to verify." Nezu held his gaze with a kind smile. "What if it were nothing more than a fleeting boost? A momentary spike in performance dressed up as evolution. Tell me, young man... what evidence leads you to conclude this is a real change and not simply a favorable coincidence?"

"I tested it a second time, on another heroine with a completely different Quirk." Izuku raised a hand before Nezu could ask. "And no, I'm not saying who that was either. But the result was the same. It wasn't luck twice in a row, Principal. It was exactly the same thing both times."

Nezu let out a chuckle that shook his whiskers.

"Two anonymous heroines, a mental block... and a revelation triggered at the most improbable moment. Fufu... I must admit it's been quite some time since anyone walked through that door with such an imaginative hypothesis." Nezu clasped his paws together with a smile. "However, imagination and evidence rarely walk at the same pace, young man. If you intend to convince me, I'll need more than a fascinating story. Show me proof. Then I'll be delighted to continue this conversation."

"That's why I came with a proposal and not a speech." Izuku met his gaze head on. "Give me a week. Seven days, not one more. And give me your worst case."

"My worst case?" Nezu arched what in a human would have been an eyebrow.

"The student with the widest gap between what they could become and what they're delivering now." Izuku shrugged. "In seven days I'll show you a measurable change. If I can't pull it off, I disappear. You never hear from me again, delete my email, and we pretend this conversation never happened."

"And if you succeed?"

"Then we go back to talking about my invented position, but with a different face." A small smile escaped Izuku. "Think about it, Principal. You're not risking anything. If I fail, you're rid of a credential-less nutcase for the modest price of one week. And if I'm right, you've just found a tool no other academy in the world has. The scale is very lopsided, and every bit of it tips in your favor."

Nezu didn't answer right away. He swiveled the chair slightly toward the window, watching the students still circling the field, and took a long sip, savoring both the tea and the situation. He loved bets in which he had nothing to lose, and the young man had just served him one on a silver platter.

"How eloquent you are. It's a pleasure to encounter someone who takes the trouble to build an argument rather than tossing out conclusions. And yes, the numbers do appear to favor you: I risk almost nothing." His eyes gleamed with curiosity. "But incomplete equations have an unfortunate habit of hiding the most important variable. In this case... your method."

"My method?"

"Your Quirk requires physical contact to activate, correct?" Nezu tilted his head without losing his smile. "Very well. Now humor me with this small thought experiment, Midoriya. An unlicensed civilian, alone with a U.A. student, establishing physical contact under the pretext of a theory only he fully understands... can you imagine how that headline would read in the papers? And how many people would pause to hear the explanation before jumping to conclusions?"

Izuku opened his mouth, then considered the matter with the seriousness it deserved.

"That reads pretty badly," he admitted.

"I wouldn't call it catastrophic, but rather potentially catastrophic," Nezu replied with a serene smile, as though the nuance amused him more than it worried him. "You see, my duty doesn't consist solely of training heroes. I must also protect U.A. from every kind of risk, including those born long before any disaster occurs. Public image risks tend to be particularly insidious."

"And believe me, Midoriya, your theory sparks my curiosity in an extraordinary way. Precisely for that reason I must examine it with the utmost care before taking a single step."

At that exact moment, the office door swung open without warning.

"Principal, I've got this week's patrol reports. And I'm warning you, Kamui's practically knocked me out cold. If anyone still had doubts that crime can be defeated without a shred of drama, that report is living proof..." Nemuri Kayama froze mid sentence, the folder tucked under her arm and one hand still on the doorknob.

Her eyes traveled from the principal to the boy sitting across from him, calmly sipping tea.

"...Midoriya-kun?"

Izuku turned in the chair and gave her a small nod of the head without standing.

"Midnight-san. What a pleasant coincidence."

In what universe does the katsudon kid end up having tea with the principal?

Nemuri took a couple of steps forward, narrowing her eyes, still not quite buying what she was seeing.

"Hey, hey, hold on a second. What are you doing here?" The folder dangled from her hand as she pointed at him with an amused smile. "Oh, I get it... You're here for the entrance exam, right?"

"Principal..." she turned toward Nezu with a smile, "if this kid ends up getting into U.A., you'd better not let him get bored. He's got this innocent face that's totally misleading, but his head works way better than it looks. I'd bet my whip he'd give more than one class a headache... and more than one teacher, too."

"I'm afraid he isn't that kind of applicant, Midnight," Nezu said with an almost mischievous smile. "Young Midoriya isn't here to request a spot."

"He isn't?" Nemuri blinked. "Then what's he here for?"

"To negotiate a position on the faculty. In other words... he's here as a potential colleague of yours."

The silence that followed was delicious, at least for Nezu, who savored it with another sip. Nemuri kept staring at Izuku, the folder half falling and her mouth slightly parted, her brain making a visible effort to fit together two images that refused to line up. On one hand, the strange, charming kid who'd handed her an absurd business card at a katsudon restaurant while unwittingly torturing Yu. On the other, that same kid, in the principal's office, negotiating on equal footing with total ease.

"'Colleague'?" Nemuri repeated, bringing a hand to her chest with exaggerated disbelief. "My colleague? Principal, with all due respect... the last time I saw this kid he was analyzing, with frankly suspicious concentration, Mt. Lady's rear end at a restaurant... and handing out business cards that appeared out of nowhere. And now it turns out he's... my coworker? What a way to start the day."

"Analyzing Mt. Lady's rear end?" Nezu turned toward Izuku with a fresh gleam in his eyes. "Well, well, how curious. Wouldn't that happen to be the anonymous heroine from your epiphany?"

Izuku didn't move a single muscle.

"Professional discretion, Principal."

"Of course, of course." Nezu raised his paws in a gesture of surrender, delighted at how everything was unfolding. "I won't press. Though I must confess, the puzzle is putting itself together."

Nemuri looked at one, then the other, and felt as though she'd missed an entire chapter of something important.

"Wait, wait. What epiphany are you two talking about? What exactly is going on here?"

"It's a long and rather fascinating story," Nezu said, thrilled to bits. "Young Midoriya claims that his Quirk, misregistered for years, is capable of enhancing heroes. And he's just made me a very intriguing wager that I was on the verge of considering right when you walked in. In fact..." the principal clasped his paws together and widened his smile. "You've arrived at the perfect moment. A second opinion would be most welcome."

Nemuri set the folder of reports on a corner of the desk and crossed her arms, studying the young man with a curiosity that was beginning to win her over.

"Alright... hold on a second," Nemuri narrowed her eyes, gesturing at him with her chin. "You're telling me this kid was the same one who handed me a business card introducing himself as a 'professional assistant for professional heroes'... and now it turns out he's got an enhancement Quirk nobody knew about...? And you're seriously considering him, Principal?"

"I'm taking it very seriously," Nezu confirmed, and for once there wasn't a trace of mockery in his voice. "Precisely because the proposal is so absurd that only someone who truly believes in it would dare bring it into my office. Con artists ask for money up front, Midnight. This young man asked me for a week and my worst student, and offered to vanish if he fails. That isn't a liar's play."

Izuku drank the last sip of his tea and set the cup on the saucer with care.

"I appreciate that, Principal. Though I'll remind you I'm still waiting for your answer."

"And you'll have it," Nezu turned his chair toward Nemuri, and the mischievous smile came back full force. "But first, since providence brought you through that door at just the right moment, I want to hear from you. You already know the young man, even if only from a chaotic dinner. And you've spent more years in the hero world than any other hero currently available. Tell me, Midnight... what's your read on this?"

"My... read?" Nemuri repeated slowly, and the word felt strange in her mouth. The patrol report she was still half holding suddenly seemed like the least important thing in the world.