MHA: Lust Quirk

Midnight taught like she was hosting a late-night talk show.

She paced the front of the classroom in heeled boots that clicked on the tile with each step, bullwhip looped on her hip, dark-purple hair falling past her shoulders in spikes that moved when she moved. The domino mask sat across her eyes like she was at a masquerade. The costume was the costume. Thin bodysuit, torn in places that made it hard to focus on the PowerPoint behind her, which was about the Golden Age of heroism and the evolution of public perception from fear to worship.

Nobody was looking at the PowerPoint.

"The transition from the Silver Age to the Modern era," she said, leaning against the lectern with one hip cocked, "wasn't about strength. It was about branding. Heroes stopped being scary and started being hot." She paused, let the word land, watched the front row shift in their seats. "Not that those are mutually exclusive."

Kaminari made a noise. Jiro jabbed him with an earphone jack without turning her head.

The class was Modern Hero Art History, which sounded like an elective but was actually required. The whip cracked once when she switched topics. Her voice went up at the starts of sentences and dropped at the ends, a rhythm that kept attention because you were always waiting for where the next one would land.

She was good.

Underneath the performance, the actual content was solid. She knew her subject. The current slide was about the Shimura era, how Nana Shimura's generation of heroes had worked in the shadows while the modern generation worked in front of cameras, and how that shift had changed what "hero" meant to the public. She had attendance records from the 1970s showing that hero agencies used to operate out of basements and abandoned buildings. She had survey data from the current decade showing that the average citizen could name twelve heroes by face and zero by fighting style.

She'd made those slides herself. None of it was in the standard textbook.

"The public doesn't want protectors anymore," she said, tapping the whip handle against the slide projector. "They want performers. They want someone pretty to feel safe about." Her mouth curled. "Present company included."

The class laughed. Mineta would have stared. Ryo was glad, not for the first time, that he was in this seat instead.

He watched her work the room. Momo was taking notes with a pen that moved in precise strokes. Todoroki was staring out the window but listening, which was his version of attention. Ochaco was leaning forward with her chin on her hand and her eyes wide. Bakugo was leaning back with his arms crossed and his jaw set, which meant he was also listening but would die before admitting it. Midoriya's notebook was already three pages deep.

Then Midnight turned to write something on the board, and the performance dropped.

It lasted maybe two seconds. Her shoulders came down from the squared-back stage position. Her spine curved forward slightly. The hand that wasn't writing rested on the board's ledge, fingers loose, not posed. She was just a woman writing on a whiteboard in a classroom, and her body language was completely different from the character who'd been pacing the floor moments ago. Smaller. Sharper. The whip on her hip hung differently when she wasn't posing around it.

She wrote "PUBLIC PERCEPTION ≠ PUBLIC SAFETY" in handwriting that was angular and fast, someone who'd taken a lot of notes in her own education and still wrote like a student.

She turned back around and the mask went on again. The professional one. The persona.

The class didn't notice. They'd been looking at the board or their notes or each other.

The bell rang. Chairs scraped. The usual noise of twenty people packing up at once.

"Remember, your hero identity presentations are next week!" Midnight called over the shuffle, her voice back to full stage volume. "I expect creativity! I expect passion! I will not accept anything as boring as a PowerPoint!" She paused. "Unless the PowerPoint is about me."

A few laughs. Kaminari said something about extra credit. Jiro jabbed him again.

The class filed out. Ochaco passed Ryo's desk and waved without stopping, already talking to Iida about something involving a worksheet. Mina was three steps behind and pointed finger-guns at him as she passed, which had become her default goodbye to everyone but was delivered in his direction with slightly more eye contact than necessary. Kirishima gave him a fist-bump on the way past. Bakugo didn't look at anyone.

The room emptied. The door stayed open. Someone had left a mechanical pencil on the floor near the third row, silver, slightly bent. The projector was still running, the final slide showing a graph of hero approval ratings over the last thirty years that peaked during the All Might era and had started declining three years ago.

Midnight was at her desk, organizing slides. The whip was off her hip now, set on the desk next to a stack of papers and a coffee thermos with a faded sticker on it. The thermos was the detail that stuck. Beat up and old, the sticker peeled at, edges curling. A cat in sunglasses. The least R-Rated object in the room.

Ryo stood up from his seat and walked to the front.

She looked up when she heard the footsteps. Tilted her head. The smile that came was warm but it was the professional one, the one that said she already knew why boys lingered after her class.

"Hayami-kun. Can I help you?"

"Your class is good," he said.

The smile stayed on her face but the edges went crooked, like the words didn't fit the shape she'd prepared for them.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your class. The material on hero branding, the statistics about public perception. You made those slides yourself. The content is good."

She stared at him.

Both eyes open behind the domino mask, straight on instead of the performance angle. Sky blue. He hadn't expected that color under the mask.

"Students don't usually comment on the content," she said. Her voice had dropped half a register. Still warm. Steadier.

"I noticed."

She laughed. Short, through her nose. A real one. The beauty mark below her left eye moved when her cheek pulled up, and there were lines around it that the makeup mostly covered but not entirely, and those lines were more interesting than the costume.

"You're an odd one, Hayami," she said. She was studying him now. Her posture had changed. The hip wasn't cocked anymore. She was standing straight, weight even, hands on the desk. "Most first-years can't make eye contact with me."

"You're a teacher," he said. "That's what matters."

Her mouth closed. Her jaw shifted, not tightening, more like she was biting the inside of her cheek. Her chin dipped. The performance had been off for a while now and she looked different without it. More specific. Less character.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Sure."

"When you look at me, what do you see?"

He could hear the answers she was used to lined up behind that question.

"Someone who knows her subject better than anyone in this building." He paused. "And had to build a whole act to get people to pay attention to the actual content."

Her mouth opened. Closed. She looked down at the thermos. Picked it up. Put it down without drinking. One nail tapped the cat sticker twice.

"Stay after class sometime if you want," she said. Her voice was the lower version now. The backstage version. "I don't bite."

Beat.

"Usually."

The persona slid halfway back on. The smile came back but it was smaller, more in the eyes, less in the teeth.

"I might take you up on that," he said.

"You should." She picked up the thermos. Took a sip. Set it back down. "Now go to your next class before Ectoplasm marks you tardy. He clones himself to take attendance. You can't be late without three of him noticing."

He turned to leave.

The hallway was already busy. He joined the flow of students heading toward the east wing and the thought was just there.

A hillside. Forest. Night. She'd be on the ground, having been knocked from something enormous, and someone would find her there. She'd have already given her last order to Momo. And then.

He knew because he'd read it. Chapter 296. Confirmed dead. Class 1-A finds her body.

He was going to prevent that. He didn't know how yet.

He walked to math class. Ectoplasm was already there, standing at the board with two clones taking attendance at the door.

All three of them looked at him when he walked in four seconds late.