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There is a belief that like minds have a tendency to find one another, an assurance that one can know no bounds when it comes to finding a source of familiarity. Because similarities are a blessing, a way of molding in with a group without having to change one’s self, without having to conform to beliefs and ideals that one does not believe in. Perhaps this is why the hero course students tend to stick amongst themselves, why they separate by year and course number. Perhaps this is why the general education students split into two, those who envy the hero students and those who could not care less, fueled by other ambitions than unfulfilled dreams of getting into Yuuei’s prestigious hero course. Perhaps this is why the support students hide away in their labs, clustered around half made designs and half drank coffees.
But perhaps this is why some students are able to break the mold, are able to move out of these groups. Because they are looking for something quite more distinct, an understanding beyond the surface level.
Izuku Midoriya is the star of 1-A. He is their supernova in human form, a boy with a Quirk that keeps growing stronger. Because there is no Quirk that can compete with one that seems to be incessantly mutating, Quirk Awakening over and over due to stress. Izuku Midoriya is the boy who came in with a Quirk that hindered his ability to be a hero, and is the boy who now walks with a Quirk that acts more like three. With strength, black tendrils, and the ability to fly, Izuku Midoriya is a force that will one day be unstoppable.
Izuku Midoriya was the outcast of his past. He was Quirkless, and therefore was considered useless, from the day he was diagnosed to the day he left his middle school. He was the boy with dreams far too large, far too threatening to the rest of the world. Because the world he knew was the world that his peers knew, and all that they knew was that it was the Quirk that made the hero. And if Izuku was Quirkless, then surely he did not belong in their world, did not have the right to be, to even wish to be, a hero. But Izuku wished, always wished, and so he was scorned, shunned, a reject to the world.
It is no wonder that Izuku Midoriya is the one to reach out, the one to find the others.
But similarity breeds familiarity, and Izuku is an observant boy. One has to be observant to survive, when they are alone. There is no other option, no other choice if one wants to reach a new day.
And Izuku was the type to always strive for a new day.
It takes one to know one. That is a saying that some may have heard in passing, and it is an idea that Izuku follows. It takes a traumatized individual to spot the signs within another, and perhaps that is how Izuku finds his group so easily.
The boy does not branch out of his class immediately, no. No, Izuku starts with Shouto Todoroki, with the Sports Festival. Their fight is a moment of connection, Hosu only furthering their bond. Izuku is a boy who was abandoned for his Quirklessness, Todoroki a child given far too much pressure from the start. They began as opposites, and yet their individual fears make them stronger together, a storm on the horizon, lightning and hellfire and glaciers intertwined. The group begins within 1-A, begins with them, and it only grows from there.
And it is of little surprise that Izuku finds himself finding Hitoshi Shinsou next, because Shinsou shows so many of the signs that Izuku does. The mistrust born from past betrayals, the fear that kindness will lead to cruelty, Shinsou shows the traits that Izuku hides underneath bright smiles and a cheerful demeanor. But Shinsou sees his anxiety, his uncertainty, and he knows that a boy born with a Quirk like Izuku’s would not normally act in such a way, unless something different had occurred or the boy was not, indeed, starting out on such a good beginning.
Because Shinsou does not understand the life of those with heroic Quirks, no, but a late bloomer, one deemed Quirkless until fourteen?
Shinsou can connect much better after that.
And so a general education kid leaves his self-formed isolation, lets the 1-A boys pull him in, a trio of fear, of people trying to trust their own.
It only grows from there. Neito Monoma is offered a hand, the 1-B boy’s rude comments reminiscent of the way that a cornered animal lashes out, a defense mechanism created out of worry, a last resort, a way of protecting oneself at the expense of others. It’s misguided by sensible, and just another way of putting up a barrier. Because Shinsou brushes it all off, Todoroki keeps an icy demeanor, and Midoriya acts as if everything is alright, so for someone to push that they are superior...it only adds another type to the spectrum.
Mei Hatsume is quickly taken in, the girl’s eccentricities leaving her isolated, her genius off putting to those who compete against her, and her paranoia high from people of the past, those who ignored her until they wanted her devices, her work. Hatsume is a girl marked by dreams far beyond comprehension and nightmares of times unspoken, and she is the perfect addition to the group, their support department friend to round them out.
Trauma comes in many forms, fears in many ways, and yet they all come together to cluster as one. Because there is no difference in being alone, nothing that separates the feeling of isolation, and so those who feel such a way bond together, dispelling the sensation by breaking it down, shattering it.
And so those with similar pasts make a future together, breaking past the boundaries of class and course, their only thought of moving forwards.
And that is precisely what they do.