Arthur POV
I quietened down. I had much more to say, but it didn't feel right to say and so I stopped.
"Well, lad. Thank you."
"Thank you?"
"For sharing, I know it must have been difficult for you."
I grabbed Excalibur's hilt. "Yeah, it was."
"Whenever you're ready to tell me more, I'll be here."
"Thank you, Nezu."
The atmosphere became somewhat awkward. Nezu was quiet instead of his usual snarky yet composed self and he gazed at me with a smile which weirdly I didn't find creepy.
I shifted uncomfortably, not used to this kind of vulnerability. The memories I'd shared were like wounds that had never properly healed, and exposing them to the light felt both relieving and terrifying.
Part of me wanted to tell him everything, about that final night, about how I'd found Excalibur and Avalon, about the choices I'd made that turned me from a broken child into a vigilante. But another part of me, the bigger part, the scared child I had been, held me back.
"The past has a way of shaping us," Nezu said quietly, his voice lacking its usual theatrical flair. "Sometimes in ways we don't expect. But what matters isn't what happened to us, but what we choose to do with those experiences."
I nodded, the atmosphere became awkward once more. Finally I spoke.
"Well then I'll be going off to bed. Night Nezu."
"Night lad."
With that I began to walk away. It really felt like I was going to tell him everything, but the closer I got to the end, the more I thought otherwise. Some things, were things, only I would know. At least for now.
I walked around U.A., night had fallen and the halls were mostly empty.
I finally made it to the dorms at U.A., weirdly however in front of my dorm room was a girl. The same girl who almost hit me this morning. Still in her U.A. uniform and a backpack slung on her back.
My enhanced hearing had picked up her presence from three floors down, but I'd assumed she was just passing by. Seeing her stationed directly outside my door was... unexpected.
One foot was tapping the floor constantly and her hands were fidgeting behind her back.
She turned to me, and her face lit up. Her smile was so wide it looked like it might hurt. Then she flew over to me, golden circles of energy pushing her off the ground.
"Hey, I was waiting for you. I wanted to formally apologize for this morning, I was late to class you see," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth like water from a broken dam. "Oh and I also wanted to ask you a few questions. What is your quirk? Is it the sword? And why do you always carry it around? But if it is the sword what grants you your physical strength? Do you know about your fan club, the Round Table? How many people have you saved? How did you get your charges dropped? Why did you decide to stop being a vigilante? And what's it like living here? Do you miss the vigilante life? Are you planning to become an underground hero or a spotlight hero? What's your favorite rescue you've ever done?"
She rambled one question after another, in a never ending stream, her enthusiasm so infectious that I found myself smiling despite my heavy talk with Nezu just moments before.
However one question rumbled in my head.
"My fan club?"
"Uh huh," she said excitedly, pulling out her phone from a pocket in her uniform. "I'm the vice-president. See, see!"
She jammed her phone in front of my face, and I had to lean back slightly to focus on what she was showing me.
I could see it, thousands upon thousands of texts, between thousands of people. All discussing me. It was weird. The messages scrolled by too fast for me to read individual ones, but I caught fragments.
"Arthur saved my sister."
"Did you see the news about U.A.?"
"He's so cool!"
"I hope he becomes a pro hero soon."
The sheer volume was overwhelming. I'd known people talked about my vigilante work, JJJ had been proof of that, but seeing it laid out like this, seeing how many people actually cared, was surreal.
"There are... thousands of people in here," I said, my voice slightly awed.
"Twenty-three thousand, four hundred and twelve members as of this morning!" she said proudly. "We get new people joining every day. Most of them are people you've saved, or family members of people you've saved, or just people who admire what you did."
"Our president Gentle Love is the best though, they always stand up for you in comment sections especially with that awful JJJ," she grumbled, closing her fist with enough force that I could hear her knuckles crack. "Have you seen it? It's awful. He keeps going on and on about how vigilantes are dangerous and how you're setting a bad example. It makes me so angry! You've saved more people than most pro heroes!"
"Well thank you," I said, not really sure how else to respond to the revelation that I had an army of internet defenders, maybe I should have clicked on one of JJJ's videos sometime.
"Uh huh," she said nodding enthusiastically, her hair bouncing with the motion. "Actually. I wanted to ask you something else?"
Another question. I braced myself for another rapid-fire interrogation.
"Could you give me a few more autographs? A lot of your fans would really appreciate it." Out of nowhere the same book and pen as this morning appeared in her hands. The backpack on her back now hung open, and I could see it was stuffed with what looked like dozens of identical notebooks.
"Uhm sure."
And so I began signing. One page after another. Arthur, with a squiggly line stretching below the name from the last r.
However it didn't stop Nejire from asking questions. If anything, having something to occupy her hands seemed to free up her mouth even more.
"So, how come you're living in the U.A. dorms? Does your family also live outside Musutafu?"
I paused in my signing for just a moment before continuing.
"No, they lived here, they passed," I said finishing my fourth autograph.
Her face immediately fell, her exuberant energy dampening. "Oh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to, I should have thought, "
"Don't worry about it," I said quickly, not wanting her to feel bad about an innocent question. "It was a long time ago."
"Still, I'm sorry. That must have been really hard."
I handed her the notebook back and she immediately produced another one. This girl had come prepared.
"So how come you actually stopped being a vigilante?" she asked, her voice softer now, more careful.
"A multitude of reasons," I said, starting on the new batch of signatures. It was easier to talk while my hands were busy. "I didn't want to inspire copycats first of all. The legal issues were also problematic. I wanted to do more good, and sometimes that meant working within the system instead of around it, maybe to change it so it could be better."
"And how did you meet Nezu? I heard rumors but..."
"He came to me in a hospital after I dropped Mirko the rabbit hero there after she tried to bring me in."
Her eyes widened. "You fought Mirko? And won? She's like, super strong!"
"It wasn't really a fight," I said, remembering the brief encounter in the forest. "More of a... misunderstanding that got resolved quickly."
"Do you know what hero agency you want to enter when you graduate?"
"Hero agency?"
"Yeah, all heroes need a hero agency. Or are you going to start your own? Yeah you'll probably do that right?!" Her excitement was building again, her earlier awkwardness forgotten.
I'd always worked alone, it was simpler and faster. Then again the idea of having Nezu in my ear while I saved people did bring a smile to my face.
"I'm not sure, I haven't thought that far ahead. Right now I'm focused on my provisional hero license."
"Makes sense. One step at a time, right?"
"How many autographs did you want exactly?" I asked, looking at the growing pile of signed notebooks.
"Uhm it would be great to have around two hundred fifty."
Two hundred and fifty. I was currently on number seventy eight. This was going to take a while.
"Okay then."
Time passed, I signed signature after signature and she asked question after question.
"Is Arthur your real name?"
"Yes." Sort of. Arthur Pendragon was the name on all my official documents now, but that was a fabrication created by Nezu and the Hero Public Safety Commission.
"That's so cool!"
Then for the first time in almost twenty minutes she went quiet which made me look up from the page I was signing, she took in a shaky breath and asked her next question.
"Do you remember me?"
"From this morning? Yes?"
"No, not this morning. You saved me."
My hands stilled completely. I looked at her. I really didn't.
"It was around five years ago. Your first year as a recognized vigilante," she said softer, "I had much shorter hair." She curled her hair up with one hand, showing me how it might have looked cropped close to her head. "I was much shorter too."
I never forgot a face. But I had never thought to think that the face itself had changed so dramatically. Five years was a long time in a teenager's life, the difference between a twelve-year-old and a seventeen-year-old was vast. Yet as I looked at her, accounting for the changes that time would have wrought, realization began to dawn.
The avalanche. The small figure buried in the snow, blue-lipped and barely conscious. The desperate flight to the nearest hospital, racing against time and hypothermia.
"I do remember you. The Akita Prefecture. The snow avalanche."
She nodded, her eyes bright with tears that didn't quite fall. "I knew you'd remember, I just knew."
The memory came flooding back with crystal clarity. I had heard it and dashed at the noise in a matter of minutes, heroes had already been there, they would have gotten her out, but I did it instead.
"I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you earlier."
"Oh don't worry about it, I was 12 then. I looked completely different. But I never forgot you. How could I?" She took a shaky breath. "I forgot to say thank you then, you know I was kind of caught up in the whole deal. So thank you. Thank you for everything."
I smiled at her words.
"And sorry for the pestering, buh bye!" she yelled, suddenly grabbing the pen and the latest notebook from my hands.
"You weren't pestering," I muttered, watching her form as she flew away toward the girl's section of the dormitories.
I wonder how much time she had been waiting at my door, I hoped it wasn't long.
I sighed, went into my room, and fell asleep without changing my clothes, somehow I was tired, even though Avalon should have taken care of that. It had been an emotional day.
I awoke the next morning, changed my clothes and made my way to class 1A.
I said hello to my classmates, and took my seat, Aizawa walking in.
"Be quiet everyone. I'd like to say well done on the battle trial yesterday, I'm sure you're all quite tired. I have a few criticisms, but I'll just say the two biggest gripes I have. Bakugo stop acting like a seven year old, Midoriya, get your quirk under control," Aizawa said his voice as tired as always. "Now let's get on with the homeroom notices, I'm sorry for springing this on you. But we need to choose a class president."
"Finally something school like!" Kirishima yelled, which earned a glare from Aizawa.
However that glare didn't do much as my classmates soon began shouting and raising their hands.
"I'd be a great class president!"
"It's a position only for my glamorous self of course!"
"That's a leader position right!"
"Be quiet," I heard a yell, from Iida. "This is a task laden with responsibility where you must carry and pull everyone else's weight! Just because you like to do it, doesn't mean you can! It is a holy office that requires the great esteem and trust of those around you! The only true leader will emerge from a democratic choice reflecting the will of the people! We must decide by a vote!"
"You lofty fucker!!"
"It's still too early to have developed any true trust between each other right?" Tsuyu asked.
"And everyone will just vote for themselves," Kirishima added.
"And that's why the person who earns the most votes will be truly worthy of the position, right! Is it okay if we do it like this sensei?!"
"I don't really much care, as long as you do it before the deadline."
"Okay how do we decide the votes?" Kaminari asked.
"How about we write them in small pieces of paper, and we put them all in a bowl and then we count the points of each one?"
"Fine by me, just be quick," Aizawa said grabbing a chalk and beginning to write the names of each student on the board. I grabbed a notebook of my own and tore a small piece of paper.
I started to think, who would make the best class president. According to Iida this was someone who was going to take a lot of responsibility so it should be natural that a smart person got the job, but who's a smart person?
I looked at each person who sat on the table, my gaze landed on Yaoyorozu, her analysis of the trials from yesterday was exemplary, plus she seemed to radiate an air of confidence, yeah she'd be the perfect class president.
So I wrote it down. Folded the paper in two, and at that moment Aizawa passed over my seat with a glass bowl, papers already in it, I threw my own in.
It didn't take long before all of the papers were in the bowl.
"So who wants to start writing down the count on the board?"
"I'll do it," Yaoyorozu said, standing up from her seat and picking up a piece of chalk.
Aizawa grabbed a piece of paper from the bowl and announced the first vote.
"Arthur."
A/N: I wonder if you guys can guess who actually voted for Arthur. You can rule out a few students of 1A but not all of them. Also yeah I decided on dividing it in two. We'll finish his past sooner rather than later but not right now, mainly because it wouldn't be in character for Arthur to tell him about all of it. His past shall remain a mystery for the forseeable future.
Oh and Nejire and the club thing, I actually had it planned lol. Just that since Arthur doesn't use social media, cause all he gets are videos about JJJ smearing his name (which he doesn't watch, Arthur doesn't let the hate get to him lol) he never had the time to find out, also you guys can probably guess who the club president is, I mean it's pretty damn obvious.
That is all for today. I'll try to get out a bonus chapter out today too but no promises. Thx for reading. Author out.