Chapter 72: The Big Three
The next three days passed smoothly without much happening, besides Bakugo and Izuku getting punished for their fight.
Bakugo received four days of house arrest, while Izuku got three, they also had to do all the dorm chores during their punishment period. The rest of the time was bland with Cid attending classes and going to a few more healing sessions. But there was not much left for Recovery Girl to fix, his body was as healed as it was going to get for now. He was now able to use his quirk again, except for his spatial aspect of it, which was only usable to a smaller scale for now.
He spent most of his free time digging for anything useful on Claire and came up with nothing. He also spent time with Yui and a bit of time with his classmates.
The day was looking like another normal one with the one exception being that Izuku was back in class now.
Aizawa walked in and to the podium up front. "Alright, quite down. Today you have something different than normal, you have guest speakers so give them your full attention. You may enter "
The door slid open a few seconds later and three third-years stepped in. Aizawa stood off to the side and gestured toward them.
"These are the top students in the hero course," he said. "You may know them as The Big Three. They're here to talk about work-studies experiences. Get to it. Introduce yourselves, let's start with Amajiki." he said, gesturing to the tall one with dark, messy hair.
His head raised up to look at the class with an extremely intense look, that had the class recoil due to the sheer intensity. Then he started trembling. Then
"It's no good, I can't do it, even trying to imagine them as potatoes doesn't help," he muttered. He turned and hit his head against the white board with a loud *Thump*. "I wanna go home."
A few people blinked in surprise, confused at what just happened.
The girl with long light-blue hair stepped forward. "I'm sorry about him, this is Tamaki Amajiki. He isn't very good with people. My name is Nejire Hado, and I'm here to talk to you a bit about your work studies program, it's going to be super exciting." She said cheerfully.
Then she immediately got distracted. She bounced over to Shoji and asked why he was wearing a mask. Then she pointed at Todoroki and asked how he got his scar, then shifted to Mina and asked if one of her horns broke would it regrow. She kept moving from person to person, asking rapid-fire and never waited for them to answer before going to the next person.
Aizawa's eye twitched at Nejire's antics and Mirio stepped up with a wide grin trying to take control of the situation.
"The future is—!"
No one answered as they all just sat there confused, but the triple assault of weirdness from their upper classmen.
Mirio laughed it off casually, "Man tough crowd you were supposed to say, Grim." he said cheerfully.
By this point Nejire made it around the room and reached Cid's desk. She stopped and tilted her head, eyes going straight to the empty sleeve and then to his eye.
"Hey, hey, what happened to your arm?" she asked, poking at the sleeve. "And your eye? It's all cloudy. Did something explode? Or was it a villain? Or—" she kept asking questions at a pace that most people could even begin to try and answer.
Cid's expression quickly shifted from surprised to deeply annoyed and uncomfortable. This was due to her touching him and constantly asking questions about his injuries.
Nejire stopping to ask one person so many questions, caught Mirio's attention and his face split into a wide grin when he saw Cid.
"Cid! Best buddy!!!" He yelled and waved eccentrically across the room. Then he quickly walked over and stopped next to Cid's desk. "I didn't know you were in this class! Man, it's good to see you!"
Cid turned his head the other way and stared at the wall like he hadn't heard Mirio at all and he didn't exist.
Mirio leaned across the desk into his field of view. "Hey, Cid. Hey, Cid. Hello, Ciddd, buddy, pal, I'm right here. Hello."
Cid turned his head further away desperately acting like he didn't know this weirdo.
The class was staring on in amazement at the older teen getting this kind of reaction out of their normally stoic classmate. Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero watched, while covering their mouths with hands desperately trying not to burst out laughing.
Mirio waved a hand in front of Cid's face. "You can see me, right? I know the eye's messed up, but I know you can still see fine. So quit ignoring me best buddyyyyy"
Cid finally let out a sigh and looked at him with fake surprise on his face.
"Ohhh, Mirio, I didn't see you there. How have you been, man." He said in an obviously over polite and strained tone due to the older boy's antics.
That was enough to break all the restraint the class had and most of them burst out laughing in some form. Even Todoroki's and Iida's mouths were twitching at the two's antics.
"Alright, that's enough. Quit messing around, you're here to explain work studies to the first years, not socialize." He said sternly.
Mirio straightened, but kept smiling, and walked back toward the front of the room. Nejire followed after him, but was clearly still full of questions she wanted to ask.
Mirio clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "Right. So. Work-studies are a lot different from the internships you did last year. You're not guests this time around. You're going to be treated more like sidekicks and you'll actually be responsible for people's safety. The best way to show you what that means is to let you feel it." He pointed at the class. "So, all of you are going against me, meet me in Gym Gamma in 10 minutes."
Cid raised an eyebrow and looked at Mirio for a second. Then he shrugged. "I'll just sit this one out."
Todoroki spoke a few seconds later. "I will as well, I don't have my provisional license."
Mirio blinked, then nodded as it didn't change anything. "Alright. The rest of you, get changed and meet me there."
The class looked towards Aizawa for approval. "You heard him go on, quit wasting time." He said waving them off
-After the fight-
Cid stood near the edge of the gym with Todoroki, as they watched most of the class groaning on the ground. Mirio stood in the middle of them, still smiling brightly. Then he looked down realizing he had lost all his clothes during the fight and panicked scrambling to find them.
'Well. That went about how I expected it to.' He thought dryly
Kaminari groaned from the floor a few feet away and turned his head toward him. "Dude… why didn't you help? We could've used the extra firepower."
Cid looked at him like he was an idiot.
"Two reasons," he said. "One, I've worked with Mirio before during my internships. If I stepped in it would've defeated the point of this as I know what he's capable of. Two, If I was in there the whole thing would've been pointless. I'm a direct counter to him and would beat him the second it started."
Kaminari blinked, still flat on his back panting. "…Oh."
Cid turned his attention back to Mirio as the third-year started explaining what the point of the fight actually was.
With that finished, Aizawa dismissed the class for the day. He told them to head to lunch and start looking into who they could contact for work-studies if they wanted to participate.
As the class began dispersing, Mirio caught Cid before he could leave and dropped an arm over his shoulder.
"Best Buddy!! Let's go have lunch together with my friends." he said brightly, already steering him toward Nejire and Tamaki before Cid even agreed.
Cid rolled his eyes and sighed, but was clearly carrying fondness rather than annoyance. "If I have to, I guess I can."
Mirio's smile widened as they reached the others, then the four of them walked towards the cafeteria together. They walked and chatted for a few minutes, until they were far enough that no one could see or hear them. Cid stopped and set his hand firmly on Mirio's shoulder looking him in the eye.
"Mirio, I'm okay," he said. "I promise. You don't need to keep forcing yourself to act cheerful just to reassure me. Alright?"
Mirio's smile faltered. Then a second later it dropped completely. He looked down, at his feet as he let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm sorry, I just don't understand how you can be so okay with this. You lost your arm and your eye. I just—" He exhaled. "I wanted us to work side by side as heroes in the future. You know?"
Nejire looked at him worriedly and rested a hand on his back. While Tamaki actually managed to set his awkwardness aside and stand directly beside him to support him. Even though he was shaking like a leaf.
Cid forced a bright smile onto his face that was clearly strained and awkwardly lopsided, trying to comfort his friend. "It's just an arm and an eye. I'll still be a far better hero than you even like this."
Mirio stared at the weird face Cid made then abruptly burst out laughing. "HaHaHa. You're horrible at that and trying to cheer people up. Gosh, if this hero thing doesn't work out you could be a comedian." He said while holding his stomach.
Cid's expression fell back to its usual flat look as he looked to the side. He rolled his eyes and muttered, "That's the last time I try to help you," despite his words you could clearly hear a faint, reluctant happiness in them.