Chapter 13: The Rhythm of the Ridiculous (Or: How Nezu Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Script-Edits)
[A/N: No chapter tomorrow I'm taking a personal day to recharge and spend some time with my girlfriend. Thanks for understanding and for all the support! ]
[Sunny Midoriya POV]
I have accidentally broken school again.
It wasn't intentional. I woke up this morning with every intention of being a "Model Student." I even polished my white gloves until they sparkled with a literal [SHING!] sound effect. But the problem with having a Power that treats the laws of physics like polite suggestions is that boredom is my greatest enemy.
And Aizawa-sensei is currently explaining the history of Quirk Legislation.
[YAWN.]
The moment the air left my lungs, it didn't just dissipate. It formed a physical, translucent bubble with the word "BORING" written inside in Comic Sans. It floated toward the ceiling and popped with a sound like a wet raspberry.
"Midoriya," Aizawa sighed, his capture weapon twitching like a disgruntled cat. "If your boredom starts manifesting as physical entities again, I'm sending you to the support lab to be used as a crash-test dummy."
"Technically, Sensei, I'm already a crash-test dummy," I chirped, my head spinning 360 degrees to look at the clock. [CLICK-WHIRR-SNAP]. "I'm just a very squishy, very handsome one."
I looked at the chalkboard. Aizawa's neat handwriting was starting to migrate. The letters were literally jumping off the board, forming a tiny kick-line at the bottom of the tray. One of the 'S's tripped and fell, letting out a tiny, high-pitched "Oof!"
I tried to ignore it. I really did. I know the school thinks I'm a walking natural disaster. The "Karaoke Bridge Incident" is still trending on the news, and I'm pretty sure UA is the only reason I'm not in a high-security containment unit filled with industrial-grade magnets.
I leaned back, my chair legs stretching like taffy to accommodate the tilt. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her.
Toga.
She wasn't sitting in her chair; she was perched on the back of it, her knees tucked under her chin, looking like a very cute, very blonde gargoyle. She wasn't staring at my neck today. She was just... watching. Every time my desk let out a rhythmic [THUMP-THUMP] or the chalk did a pirouette, her eyes would widen just a fraction, a small, genuine smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
She looked... calm. Like the world finally made sense to her because it was finally as weird as she felt.
I'm emotionally stupid, so I just assumed she was waiting for me to turn into a giant mallet again. I gave her a quick wink—a literal yellow star popped out of my eye and bounced off her nose [PLINK!]—and went back to trying not to let my desk turn into a pipe organ.
[Nezu POV]
I sipped my tea, the steam rising in a perfect, mathematical spiral. On the monitors before me, Class 1-A (Modified) was a study in controlled entropy.
Most Quirks are additive. They add heat, they add force, they add mass. Sunny Midoriya is... subtractive. He subtracts logic. He erodes the barrier between "What Is" and "What Is Funny."
I watched as the classroom's ambient noise began to sync. It wasn't just chaos. It was a tempo.
The tapping of a pencil. The hum of the air conditioner. The rhythmic scratching of Izuku Midoriya's notebook. All of it was beginning to align with the boy in the white gloves. The desks weren't just vibrating; they were vibrating in 4/4 time.
Sunny is not unstable. A bomb is unstable. Sunny is incompatible. He is a character from a different genre trying to live in a tragedy.
I adjusted my spectacles. "If I prod this, it explodes," I whispered to the empty office. "If I let it dance, it teaches itself."
I picked up a pen and drew a small smiley face next to Sunny's file. I think I shall allow the 'Chaos Crew' a longer leash. The data alone is worth the repair budget.
[Sunny Midoriya POV]
"Midoriya," Aizawa's voice cut through my internal monologue. "Define the 'Hero Ethics Code' as it applies to collateral damage."
I stood up. Or rather, my body stayed seated while my torso elongated three feet into the air like an accordion. [WHHH-IRRR-ZIP!]
"Well, Sensei," I said, my voice now echoing as if I were speaking into a megaphone. "According to the script—I mean, the textbook—collateral damage should be minimized unless it's for a comedic beat or a dramatic finale."
As I spoke, the whiteboard behind Aizawa suddenly wiped itself clean and began drawing a storyboard of my explanation. Tiny cartoon heroes were rescuing cats from trees, only for the cats to pull out tiny umbrellas as the trees turned into giant sunflowers.
[BOING!] [ZAP!] [K-POW!]
The subtitles appeared under my chin in bold, yellow text: [SUNNY EXPLAINS IT ALL].
Kaminari was muffled-giggling into his palm. Mina was already tapping her feet to the rhythm of the subtitles appearing. Bakugo looked like he wanted to explode the very concept of "Yellow Text," his eye twitching in time with the whiteboard's drawings.
Jirou, however, wasn't laughing. She was leaning forward, her earphone jacks plugged into her desk. She wasn't looking at the cartoons; she was listening to the sound of the reality-bending.
"The whiteboard," she muttered, her eyes narrowing. "It's clicking in G-sharp."
[Himiko Toga POV]
The world used to be so loud.
When I was little, everyone's heartbeats sounded like drums, and their blood sounded like a river I wasn't allowed to drink from. Everyone told me to be quiet. To be "normal." To be beige.
But Sunny is never beige.
Sunny is bright yellow and neon pink and the sound of a whistle blowing. When he's around, the "loud" parts of the world don't feel like they're screaming at me. They feel like they're singing with me.
I watched him "accordion" his body, and I felt a strange, warm pressure in my chest. It wasn't the 'hungry' feeling. It was the feeling of being allowed to breathe. He doesn't look at me and see a monster. He looks at me and sees a co-star.
I leaned my head to the side, unconsciously mirroring the way his neck was tilted. When he made a joke about the "script," I felt a laugh bubble up in my throat—a real one, not the practiced, polite one.
I don't know what this is. I don't care. I just want to stay where the music is.
[Sunny Midoriya POV]
The classroom was humming. Literally.
Kaminari was leaning over, adding a low-voltage electric buzz that sounded suspiciously like a bass synth. Mina was tapping a syncopated beat on her desk with her heels. Even Tokoyami's Dark Shadow had emerged and was swaying back and forth like a backup dancer in a jazz club.
Bakugo slammed his hand onto his desk. [BOOM!]
It wasn't an explosion. It was a perfectly timed snare hit.
He froze. His face went three shades of red. "I AM NOT DOING THE RHYTHM THING!" he yelled, then immediately slammed his hand down again to emphasize his point. [BOOM!]
It was a perfect metronome.
Jirou stood up, her jacks vibrating. "This isn't noise anymore," she said, looking at me with a mix of awe and professional irritation. "Sunny, you're literally tuning the room. The acoustics are impossible. We're sitting inside a giant resonance chamber."
"I just thought the lesson needed more 'oomph'!" I chirped, snapping my fingers. A pair of sunglasses appeared on my face. [CLICK!]
[Katsuki Bakugo POV]
I hate him. I hate his stupid gloves. I hate his stupid "Boing" sounds.
And I hate that he has the best internal tempo I've ever heard.
If these idiots are starting a band, I'm not joining. I'm a hero. I'm the Number One. I don't play 'backup' for a guy who can be flattened by a steamroller and come out looking like a pancake.
But my hand kept hitting the desk. [BOOM.] [BOOM-TRAP.]
"Shut up, Earbuds!" I growled at Jirou. "I'm just... testing the structural integrity of the furniture!"
I didn't leave when the bell rang. Neither did the others.
[Sunny Midoriya POV]
The school day ended, but nobody moved.
"Okay, but seriously," Kaminari said, leaning over my desk. "If we had a guitar that ran on my Quirk, it would sound like God screaming in auto-tune."
"I have the stage presence for a lead singer!" Aqua announced, appearing out of nowhere and striking a pose that nearly knocked over Izu-chan's inkwell. "My divine voice would bring the audience to their knees in debt—I mean, devotion!"
"We'd need costumes," Mina added, her eyes sparkling. "Acid-proof sequins!"
"The abyss requires a cello," Tokoyami muttered from the shadows.
Jirou was already sketching diagrams of speaker placements on a napkin. "If we're doing this—and I'm not saying we are—we need to figure out why the hallway speakers are vibrating at 60 hertz. It's amateur hour."
Bakugo was still there, leaning against the doorframe, looking like he wanted to murder a drum kit.
I looked around. Toga was standing right next to me, so close I could smell the faint scent of copper and strawberry lip gloss. She didn't say anything; she just reached out and lightly touched the fabric of my white glove.
I didn't pull away.
"I don't know when this happened," I whispered to myself, watching my brother Izuku frantically take notes on 'Potential Band Quirks.'
But I think I like the noise.