Chapter 10: Middle School Mayhem and the Girl with the Audio Jacks.
[A/N: 75 Power Stone = 1 Chapter one time only]
(Sunny Midoriya POV)
I stood at the front door, adjusting my white gloves with a crisp SNAP.
Outside, our quiet street had turned into a low-budget movie premiere. Two news vans idled at the curb. Bloggers hovered like pigeons with ring lights. And one man in a tinfoil hat waved a cardboard sign that read: THE RABBIT IS A GOVERNMENT HOLOGRAM.
"Izu-chan," I chirped, pressing my face against the glass until my nose flattened into a perfect pink pancake. [SQUISH]. "We've gone from 'local nuisance' to 'national conspiracy' overnight. Do you think I should debut with a soft-shoe routine, or pull a giant black bar labeled CENSORED out of my pocket and refuse to elaborate?"
Behind me, Izuku vibrated like a phone left on a washing machine.
"Sunny," he hissed, clutching his backpack. "They're analyzing frame-by-frame footage. Someone slowed the video down and counted how many times gravity gave up."
"Rude," I said, my eyes doing a 360-degree roll inside my sockets. "Gravity and I are in a situationship. It's complicated."
"I AM BEING ERASED FROM THE NARRATIVE!" Aqua wailed from the kitchen, aggressively slapping labels onto bottled tap water. Goddess‑Blessed Concert Elixir – Limited Edition. "Sunny! Tell them my vocals were the reason the clip went viral! I need funding! The Divine Debt Collectors have started sending letters shaped like skulls!"
The front door rattled. [BAM-BAM-BAM]
"OPEN UP!" Bakugo roared from outside. BOOM! "WHO CALLED ME A 'TALENTED DRUMMER'?! I'LL BLOW UP THEIR SENSE OF RHYTHM!"
Toga skipped past me, checking her phone, eyes glittering. "They say he has 'aggressive charisma.' I think it's just the sweat. Smells like a spicy funeral."
I grinned. DING! A physical spark of light bounced off my front tooth.
"Alright, Chaos Crew. First day of middle school. On three, we run for the bus. Aqua, stop monetizing the sink. Let's go make a terrible first impression!"
(Nezu POV)
I paused the footage at exactly 0:42.
Sunny Midoriya's arm stretched across the screen, elongated far beyond anatomical limits, reaching for a falling star that had no business existing in a karaoke booth.
"Again," I murmured.
Frame by frame, the truth revealed itself. No blur. No distortion. No transitional movement. Between one frame and the next, reality simply updated.
All Might stood behind me, arms crossed, his thin form casting a long shadow. "That isn't teleportation. And it isn't space manipulation."
"No," I agreed, whiskers twitching. "It's editorial control. He isn't following the script; he's rewriting it as he goes."
I flipped to the auxiliary files. Izuku Midoriya: normal. Bakugo Katsuki: volatile but linear. Aqua: anomalous, divine-adjacent, financially irresponsible. Himiko Toga: previously unstable… now smiling.
And Sunny.
"He isn't reacting to the world," I said softly. "The world is reacting to him."
I closed the laptop with a definitive CLICK.
"Flag Aldera Middle School as an active observation zone," I ordered. "And move Sunny Midoriya to my personal watchlist. I want to see what happens when he hits the 'Hero Entrance Exams' and decides the robots are actually giant pinatas."
(Izuku Midoriya POV)
My heart was doing a frantic tap-dance against my ribs as we reached the door to Class 1-A of Aldera Middle School.
The hallway had been a nightmare. People were whispering, pointing, and holding up phones. We weren't 'The Midoriya Twins' anymore. We were 'The Viral Crew.'
Sunny was mid-argument with Aqua, completely ignoring the tension.
"...and I'm telling you, Aqua, you can't claim 'Copyright Infringement' on the concept of Blue! It's a primary color!" Sunny shouted, his hands gesturing wildly, turning into giant yellow foam fingers for emphasis.
"I AM BLUE!" Aqua shrieked, her face melting into those giant, theatrical tears. "I am the source! I am the aesthetic! You're just a drawing in a cheap suit!"
Sunny reached for the classroom door. "Oh, please. I'm the lead! You're just the comic relief who costs too much in CGI!"
He slid the door open. SHOOO-OOM.
The noise inside the classroom—the chatter, the scraping of chairs, the shuffling of papers—stopped instantly. It was like someone had hit a 'Mute' button on the world. Thirty pairs of eyes locked onto us.
Sunny didn't even blink. He just kept walking, leaning back against the air as if he were sitting in an invisible lounge chair.
"Anyway," Sunny continued, his voice echoing in the dead-silent room, "if you want a royalty check, talk to my agent. He's a six-foot-tall turtle named Sheldon. He's very slow with paperwork."
I ducked my head, wishing I could turn into a puddle like Aqua. "S-Sunny... everyone is staring."
(Kyoka Jirou POV)
I usually hate the first day.
The 'noise' of a new classroom is always a mess. Overlapping heartbeats, the scratch of cheap pens, the hum of the fluorescent lights... it's all out of tune. I sat in the back, my earphone jacks dangling near my collar, trying to find a rhythm to settle into.
Then, I heard it.
It wasn't a footstep. It was a... THUMP-SQUEAK.
Then another. THUMP-WHISTLE.
It was a syncopated beat, perfectly timed, but it didn't sound like a human walking on a linoleum floor. It sounded like a high-budget foley artist was following someone with a bag of woodblocks and a slide whistle.
I looked up, and my heart skipped a beat.
It was them. The kids from the video.
The blonde guy (the drummer, my brain noted instantly) was radiating a low-frequency hum of pure rage. The blue-haired girl sounded like a splashing fountain. But the kid in the lead... Sunny Midoriya.
He didn't have a heartbeat like the rest of us. It was a melodic, bouncy rhythm—like a bassline from an old jazz record. He wasn't just 'the kid from the video.' He was a walking jam session.
I felt my jacks twitch. I knew that video. I'd watched it forty times last night, trying to figure out how they got that 'Explosion-Snare' sound. It had been haunting my ears all morning.
The class was silent, terrified or awestruck. But I couldn't stop listening.
I stood up. My chair scraped the floor—a sharp, dissonant C-sharp—and I winced. But I didn't sit back down. I walked toward them, my hands shoved deep into my pockets.
I stopped a few feet away from the 'Chaos Crew.' Up close, Sunny Midoriya looked... brighter than he should. Like he had been color-graded by a professional.
"The video," I said, my voice sounding flatter than I wanted it to. "The bridge section... after the drum solo. Was that a natural reverb, or was the 'Goddess' girl actually manipulating the acoustics with the water mist?"
(Sunny Midoriya POV)
I stopped mid-argument with Aqua.
A girl with purple hair and literal earphone jacks hanging from her lobes was standing in front of us. She didn't look like a fan. She looked like a critic. A cool critic.
"Finally!" I shouted, my head elongating toward her until we were nose-to-nose, my neck stretching like a piece of saltwater taffy. "A technical question! Izu-chan, write this down! We have a 'Sound Engineer' in the building!"
The girl jumped back, her eyes wide, but she didn't run. She just stared at my stretched-out neck with a mix of horror and genuine fascination.
"It was a bit of both, Earbuds!" I chirped, my neck snapping back into place with a loud BOING. "Aqua provides the 'Divine Humidity,' and I just... adjust the volume of reality until it feels 'Crunchy.' But the real hero was the Boom-Boom Boy over there." I pointed a thumb at Bakugo. "He treats cymbals like they're villains. It gives the track a real 'Life-or-Death' stakes, don't you think?"
"I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!" Bakugo barked, though he didn't move to blast anyone. He just looked annoyed that someone had recognized his 'work.'
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a spare set of drumsticks (don't ask where they came from). I held them out to the purple-haired girl.
"I'm Sunny," I said, giving her a wink that produced a physical, yellow star that floated in the air for three seconds. "The guy who breaks the laws. That's my brother, the Fanboy. The one crying is the Goddess of Debt. And the angry one is the percussionist. You look like you know your way around a bassline. Want to help us figure out why the school's PA system is out of tune? It's been driving me crazy since the hallway."
Jirou looked at the sticks, then at me. A small, lopsided smile tugged at her lips.
"Kyoka Jirou," she said, taking the sticks. "And it's because the third speaker from the left has a loose wire. It's vibrating at 60 hertz. It's amateur hour."
I grinned. "I like her! Writer! Keep her! She's got 'Main Character' energy!"