Chapter 55 - Not my fault

"I should be, along with All Might too I believe. He told me to bring some formal clothes after all." Hiroto responded to Melissa's question about attending a reception party.

"That's great! There's going to be a lot of other Pro Heroes attending as well as the investors, sponsors and shareholders of I-Island and I-Expo." Melissa said with a bright smile.

Hiroto thought for a moment and asked, "What sort of requirements do you need to be able to join the reception party anyways?"

"Well, one would be if you got a special invitation, like you. Another alternative is to be part of a family with a renowned Pro Hero or heavily involved in its business. Investors, shareholders and sponsors also get invitations of course." Melissa said, summing it up.

"Well, enough about that." Melissa then changed the subject as the two were on the bridge that connected to the top right city. "In the afternoon when you're not too busy, I can show you around the pavilion as well, after we meet up with Uncle Might!"

"That's where all those support items are, right?" Hiroto asked.

"Yup! It's normally closed off for now to the public, but with our passes, we'll be able to enter. It's a building that houses super-advanced support equipment for Pro Heroes, being one of the main attraction of I-Expo." Melissa explained.

The two continued on chatting until they reached her Academy. Melissa brought Hiroto into where her lab was, explaining that the academy was mainly targeted towards students wanting to study to become scientists.

Inside the room, Hiroto was greeted with white walls and a blue floor. There were advanced machines lying around the room as well as what appeared to be a server hiding within a wall compartment.

Along the walls were several shelves with various books, photos and awards she had gotten in the past.

Looking over the pictures, Hiroto saw photos of Melissa along with a man who he ȧssumed to be her father in the majority of them from when she was a toddler and up to now.

From the furthest photo on the right was a photo of her parents getting married with a young All Might behind them. To the left of it was a photo of Melissa's mother holding Melissa in a bed with her father. Afterwards were photo's of her and her dad, however, her mother wasn't in any of the rest of the photos.

'Did her mother pass away?' Hiroto thought, looking over the various photos and awards.

Turning around, Hiroto saw her going through a box of various equipment that took strange shapes, such as one looking like a baseball bat but had a ball attached to the top of it.

"I don't have a quirk myself, so my goal is to be the same as papa, helping Heroes in our own way." Melissa then took out a box with a red flexible bracelet.

"This isn't something that would support you, but I designed it to be able to withstand a lot of punishment. Around 3 of Uncle Might's full-powered punches, to be accurate. Do you mind helping me testing it?" Melissa asked, holding the box in front of her.

Hiroto looked over the bracelet, but shook his head, saying, "Trust me on this, you do not want me near any support items that directly interfere with my body."

Melissa tilted her head confused, but then her eyes lit up, saying, "Do you mean that you would break them with just your raw strength alone? Well, that shouldn't be a problem since I merely just want you to test it. I have another set ready to be printed, but I just need more accurate data. But in order to get that data, I need someone capable of utilizing and stress test it."

She pointed to a large blue machine at the end of the room with a display showing a red gauntlet next to the red bracelet.

Hiroto looked at her and said, "Are you absolutely sure about this? I won't be held responsible for what is to happen afterwards."

Instead of answering, Melissa went to a closet and took out a lab coat, wearing it. She then took out a tablet from a drawer and was getting ready to record data on Hiroto's test.

Taking her actions as her consent, Hiroto shrugged and took the bracelet in his hand. Before he put it on his right wrist, Melissa interrupted him, "Before that, can you stand next to the high speed capturing camera? If it does break, I want to see where the fracturing first occurred."

"Now, just apply pressure in your arm first so we can get a controlled set of data," Melissa said, typing away on her tablet.

Hiroto proceeded to do as told. He gripped his hand lightly and then flexed his arm. Big mistake.

The entire gauntlet instantly shattered and sent pieces of its shrapnel across the room. Before it could hit Melissa, Hiroto had already appeared in front of her and picked the pieces out of the air, saying, "I told you that it wasn't a good idea. Here's a piece of advice, I'm the worst person to ask for as a testing subject."

"T-T… You broke it… Without even doing the actual test…" Melissa muttered, dropping her tablet.

Hiroto backed away from her, saying, "Whoa, hold on. We agreed that I wouldn't be blamed for this."

"T-There's no way that the gauntlet was faulty…" Melissa then stared at Hiroto in his eyes, "... Just how strong are you? That was capable of taking 3 of Uncle Might's strongest attack, and yet you destroyed it by just… flexing your arm?"

"You'll get used to it," Hiroto said, looking around the room and the remains of the gauntlet. With a whirring sound, the machine that printed the gauntlet went to work again to print out another bracelet.

"Although it wasn't a very conclusive test, I still got some data that I can use to adjust the design of the gauntlet," Melissa said, going back to the desk in the corner of the room and began typing away on the corner to bring up the video.

She turned to Hiroto and said with an apologetic expression, "I'm sorry, but I need to work on this now while it's still fresh in my mind. I'll send you a message later in the day, or we can meet up with Uncle Might lands!"

Melissa waved farewell to him and Hiroto left, breathing out a sigh of relief, muttering, 'Well, good thing I didn't use more force or the pieces of that glove would turn into literal bullets…'

Looking at the time on his phone, Hiroto had about 3 hours until his class, Rumi and All Might arrive to I-Island. Checking the group chat, Aizawa had posted a few more messages about what they would do and where they were going to be lodged.

Compared to Hiroto's hotel, they were situated in one that wasn't as grand but was still had good standards as compared to the ones back in Japan for the same prices.

With that in mind, Hiroto left the academy and began his walk back towards where the main attractions for I-Expo were at, not really knowing what to do but just deciding to let fate throw whatever it had at him.

------------

In a highly guarded area, a security team, as well as a board of directors for the exhibitions on I-Island, were currently in a meeting over some 'variables' that occurred yesterday.

The room had a long desk situated in the middle with people sat around it. At the end of the table in front of a wall was a display with security footage from yesterday. More specifically, they were videos of Hiroto.

The video first showed Hiroto's fall and crashing of the personal shield exhibition, shortly followed by him destroying the highly regarded shield. He was then seen jumping straight up into the sky and back into the helicopter.

Afterwards, the video switched to one where Hiroto was undergoing the 'Villain Attack' challenge, where he had to defeat robots as quickly as possible to set a record.

Pausing the video, a well-dressed man with glasses turned to the people in the meeting, saying, "The majority of security alerts that we have gotten over the duration of yesterday's evening is centred around this young man, Hiroto Moriyama."

He then pulled up Hiroto's profile, "He is currently a student at U.A. Highschool. From what little information we have, it is safe to ȧssume from the current data that the closest conjecture that we can come to in regards to his 'Qurik' and abilities… It is on par to that of the Symbol of Peace, All Might."

With those words alone, everyone in the room got into a heated discussion with each other, talking about what they should do, how they should treat Hiroto and how best it would be to get into contact with someone who has so much potential.

Unknown to the rest of the people in the room, the man that was presenting the data had a hidden gleam in his eyes as he watched the people fumble around each other like headless chickens, thinking to himself, 'Look at all of them squandering around like this the moment someone with such a high potential appears… Pathetic.'

------------

[AN: I've been having a brain fart these past days on what to do, so bear with me if things are going a bit slow, it's how I cope when trying to think of stuff to write haha. Well not like you have a choice but to buckle in and read anyway, rip.

When the class arrives, I'll have Hiroto go around with them for a bit since this was still technically arranged by the school, albeit with not that much influence over it.]

Discord btw: discord.gg/BT6wfHu