Chapter 25: The Chaos Selection Committee!

Yu's living room had turned into a makeshift war room. Izuku had hooked his laptop up to the TV with a cable, and the list of UA applicants filled the screen in all its bureaucratic glory. The school's logo floated above a welcome message so formal it sounded more like a legal warning than an invitation.

Hundreds of young faces, each one with their file, their Quirk, their evaluation, and their footnotes. Izuku scrolled down the list so slowly it was wrecking Yu's nerves, his eyes glued to the screen and a seriousness that filled the room with an awkward silence.

Yu was on the floor, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, fighting the urge to rip the mouse right out of his hands.

"Hey, Izuku, take a look at this one," she finally blurted out, pointing at a profile. "He's got this huge tail and he fights with it. No complicated powers, nothing that blows up in your face. You just make him hit harder and boom, problem solved."

Izuku didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Mm," he answered, nothing more, and moved on to the next one.

"Okay, what about this one?" Yu said, pointing at the next photo. "He's got a hardening Quirk. He turns hard as a rock and that's it. If you boost his hardness and his durability, you've got a wall with legs that can take hits all day. It's simple, it works, and it won't give you a headache."

"Mm."

"Alright... this one shoots electricity," she tried one last time, scrunching up her nose. "The catch is, if he gets too worked up, his wires cross and he ends up kinda out of it for a while. And if you crank up his power on top of that... well, you might fry his brain even faster... Ugh, what if you fry it for good? " She went quiet for a second, thinking. "Okay, that example was pretty bad. Just go with me here. Let's start with something simple, something you can practice with without worrying you're gonna break somebody on your first try."

Izuku stopped scrolling for a moment and turned to her, looking at her with a calm that caught her off guard. "I'm not looking for easy, Yu," he said quietly. "I'm looking for the right one."

He went back to the screen and kept scrolling. Yu slumped against the flipped-over couch, absolutely certain it was going to be a very long night.

Just like they'd planned, organized chaos didn't take long to knock on the digital door. Izuku accepted the video call and the screen split into three. Mirko and Nemuri appeared in two of the boxes. The Chaos Selection Committee, as Yu had christened it in her head, was now officially in session.

"Does this piece of junk even work?" Mirko grumbled by way of greeting. Her image shook, the phone bouncing in her hand as she walked. "I hate video calls. I'd way rather settle this with my fists. At least then you know where to hit."

"Oh, Rumi, don't be such a dinosaur," Nemuri replied from her armchair, softly lit and perfectly framed. "It's the only way the three of us can meet up without causing a scene out on the street. Also, hi again, Yu-chan, I love what you've done with the place. The upside-down couch gives it a very interesting post-apocalyptic vibe."

Yu shot her a glare. "Very funny, Nemuri."

"Alright, kid, get to the point," Mirko cut in. "What've we got? Did you actually find your future champion, or have you just been staring at photos for hours?"

"He's deep in deliberation, Rumi," Nemuri chimed in, her tone honeyed and her eyes glinting with amusement. "Izuku-kun's method is careful. You've gotta let him breathe. He's the expert here for a reason."

The debate broke out fast, just like Yu had predicted. Mirko went for brute force and demolition, true to her style.

"That one!" she shouted out of nowhere, and Yu jumped. Her finger took up half the screen. "Look at him! Give him more power and you've got a maniac who can smash through a wall with his head. That's what actually works in a fight! Villains understand that language."

"So unimaginative, Rumi," Nemuri said with an elegant shrug, pretending to swipe across her own screen. "I'd pick this girl. She can plug in those jacks and turn sound into shockwaves. If Izuku-kun boosted her Quirk... she could take down a whole crowd without laying a finger on them. See? Class can be terribly effective too."

"All that dainty finesse is for the weak!" Mirko snorted with a defiant laugh. "While yours is still busy making music, mine already blew up the building with the villains inside. That's how you win fights."

"And the hostages inside that building, Mirko?" Nemuri shot back.

"Bah! Collateral damage!"

"No, you can't just sum it up with 'collateral damage' and call the debate over. We heroes are here to save people, remember?"

"If the villains go down fast, fewer people are in danger! Same difference!"

"That logic has as many holes as the building you just knocked down."

"Hey, wait! That one!" Mirko pressed up against the camera and pointed at another profile. "The one with the half-white, half-red hair. That kid's already broken! Give him a little nudge and you've got a beast who can wipe out half the city."

"That's exactly why he doesn't interest me, Rumi," Nemuri replied, a finger on her cheek. "A boy like that gets into UA with his eyes closed. He doesn't need our Izuku-kun to shine. The whole point is grabbing someone nobody would bet on and making them unstoppable. That's where our boy's talent really gets to show off."

"Heh, cheap philosophy. I wanna see stuff blow up." Mirko crossed her arms.

"Hey, hold on!" Yu raised her hand from the floor with a grin. "What about the girl who makes everything she touches float? If Izuku gave her Quirk a good boost... she could lift a whole building and drop it right on top of any villain."

Mirko let out a booming laugh and bared her teeth.

"Ha! Now you're speaking my language, big girl!"

While the two heroines argued about tactics and ethics, Izuku kept working through the list, oblivious to the verbal war around him, lost in his own world of files and potential. And then he stopped.

Katsuki Bakugo's profile sat frozen on the screen.

The photo was just like he remembered him from the middle school hallways, with that same arrogant smirk and the red eyes that jumped from confidence to hostility in a blink.

Yu, who over the past few weeks had become an expert at reading his expressions, caught the tiny slip.

She leaned in toward him and lowered her voice. "Izuku? Something wrong? Do you know him from somewhere?"

Izuku didn't look away from the photo. "We went to the same middle school."

The silence between them turned tense. Yu opened her mouth to ask something else, and the look on Izuku's face stopped her. Without another word, he clicked and moved on to the next profile. A whole pile of questions gathered in Yu's head, and her instincts warned her that this was a minefield. Now wasn't the time to step on it.

A few profiles down, comedy reclaimed its throne. A short boy appeared on the screen, with hair shaped like a cluster of purple grapes on top of his head. Minoru Mineta. The photo was a failed attempt to look cool, thumb up and a smile that wanted to be charming and landed on awkward instead.

"Quirk: Pop Off," Mirko read, frowning. "He rips those little balls off his head and they stick to everything. Seriously? That doesn't intimidate anybody. At most you ruin a villain's day."

Nemuri's eyes slid down to the note at the bottom of the file and she read it out loud.

"Reason for becoming a hero... 'To be incredibly popular with all the pretty girls.'"

She raised an eyebrow and let out a resigned sigh.

"Well... at least he's honest."

Mirko laughed dryly.

"What a pathetic goal! If that's the only thing driving him, he can go find another job. Being a hero isn't about picking up girls. Next."

Yu, on the other hand, said nothing. Her face, animated just a second ago, went blank. She stood up slowly, her movements so unhurried that they left the other two quiet mid-conversation.

"Izuku..." she said, and her voice was dead serious.

"Yeah?" he answered, pulled out of his files by the shift in mood.

"Print that file. Just the first page."

Izuku blinked, confused. "Mineta's? But Nemuri-san and Mirko-san say he's a weak candidate and that his motivation is..."

"Just print it."

Obedient and completely lost, Izuku found the option in the menu and sent the file to the printer in the corner. The machine buzzed and spat out a single page. Yu grabbed it from the tray, crossed the room with an impassive face, and opened the junk drawer that every kitchen has. She pulled out a silver lighter, walked over to the metal trash can next to the fridge, and, before Izuku's stunned eyes and the other two's cameras, dropped the file inside and set the corner of the paper on fire.

The orange flames climbed up the page and ate away Mineta's smile in a thread of black smoke. When the last scrap turned to gray ash, Yu turned toward the screen and then to Izuku, her voice calm.

"I've already got enough on my plate with one functional pervert on my team," she declared, nodding toward Izuku. "I'm not adding a hopeless amateur to the mix. Next."

Izuku sat frozen, trying to process that his boss had just committed a crime against human resources in the middle of a meeting. He looked at the smoking can, then at Yu. "I'm pretty sure UA doesn't approve of getting rid of paperwork like this," he mumbled.

After the purifying fire, the meeting lost its momentum. The mood, which had gone from tense to comical, turned just plain exhausting. Izuku kept going through the files, his face marked by an indecision that was turning into a real block.

After another long stretch of silence, he ran a hand through his hair in frustration and looked away from the screen, his shoulders slumping.

"I don't know," he admitted. "There's so much potential and I can't settle on any of them." He looked at Yu, his eyes begging her to understand. "This is serious to me."

Yu raised a hand before he could go on.

"Okay, okay. That's enough." Her tone was firm, but she kept her cool. "We're not getting anywhere like this. We've spent hours going in circles over the same thing and all we're doing is wearing ourselves out." She got up and stretched her back. "We're drowning in all this analysis."

Then she turned her gaze to the screen where Nemuri was, and a tired smile started to spread across her face.

"You know what, Nemuri? I think we deserve a break from all this heroic testosterone and existential drama. We need to unplug for a while."

Nemuri, who'd been watching Izuku with a pitying look, smiled instantly and caught the hint mid-air. "A girls' day," she said, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, I love it. It's been forever since I had one, Yu-chan. We could use a little break... and take the chance to vent about all this work."

Yu let out a laugh, nodding enthusiastically.

Mirko scrunched up her face like she'd just heard the worst idea of the day.

"A girls' day? What the hell do you even do at one of those? Sit around drinking tea and talking about life? Pass. If I've got free time, I'd rather use it to knock some villain's teeth out."

She huffed, but a fierce grin curled her lips.

"...Though, come to think of it, I'm in." She crossed her arms with a defiant smirk. "But there's one condition. If you're making me sit through that little get-together, the kid comes too. No way I'm the only one suffering."

The suggestion left the room speechless. Izuku was the first to react, totally confused about how things had ended up here. "Me? At a... girls' day?"

"No!" Yu took a step forward and jabbed at the screen like a madwoman. "Absolutely not! Rumi! Are you insane? It's supposed to be for relaxing, not for dragging along a walking social disaster who asks awkward questions!"

"And what's the problem?! Let him come!" Mirko argued with reasoning so weird it somehow sounded flawless. "Let him learn to handle himself when he gets yanked out of his comfort zone. He's gonna spend the day with three professional heroines, watching how we operate outside of combat. That teaches something too, doesn't it? Consider it fieldwork, kid. Some useful stuff's bound to rub off on you."

"How wonderful..." Nemuri laughed, clapping with a smile. "Rumi's logic is a complete mess... and yet, it works. Our pupil will get a truly invaluable social learning experience surrounded by three professional heroines. As his supervisor, it would be irresponsible of me to object. I happily approve."

Yu looked from one screen to the other, mouth hanging open, feeling betrayed. The motion had been proposed, seconded, and passed in record time by the chaos committee, and there was no way out for her.

Izuku, seeing that the decision was made and maybe relieved to have an excuse to put off the choice, turned to the screen and adopted a more formal tone. "Alright, Nemuri-san. I'll take a few days to really think the candidates over. Like Mirko-san says, a little distraction might help me see things from a different angle. When I decide, you'll be the first to know."

The video call ended. Mirko and Nemuri's faces vanished, the screen went black, and the room fell into a sudden silence.

Yu dropped to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and muttered in despair. "My life is a total disaster."

Izuku, beside her, watched her with a serious sort of curiosity, completely unaware of his boss's existential crisis. He leaned toward her and pulled his little notebook and a pen out of his pocket, ready to take notes.

"Hey," he began, the tip of his pen hovering over the paper, "what exactly do you do at a girls' day? Because all I know is what shows up in movies." He frowned, thinking. "Is it true they always end in a pillow fight in your underwear, or does that only happen on TV? Because if we need matching pajamas, give me a heads-up. Mine have little All Might prints and I don't know if they fit the occasion."

Yu lifted her head slowly, horrified by Izuku's words.

"Oh, and one last question," Izuku added, jotting something down with total seriousness. "In the movies they always end up playing spin the bottle and truth or dare." He thought for a second. "Does that mean at some point I'll have to kiss somebody, or can I pass my turn if it lands on me?"

Yu buried her face in her hands again, praying on the inside for the earth to finally just open up and swallow her.

I'm gonna kill him, I swear I'm gonna kill him... Damn it, how can anyone be this dense?

*********

Hey everyone, my lovely readers! Just popping in to let you know that the first R18 chapter of this fanfic is officially written. So don't wait any longer and come join me on Patreon to read Chapter 40 at

patreon.com/itszeroo.

And if you want a little spoiler on who the girl in the R18 chapter is, you can find it on my Patreon or just click the link below. See you there!

https://www.patreon.com/ItsZeroo/posts/authors-note-168637728