More problems with being a ghost

Izuku found his way to U.A as All Might was drinking a coffee alone in the teacher's lounge, sitting in his deflated form. With a deep breath to help his confidence more than his nonexistent lungs, Izuku willed himself to appear in the world of the living. All Might didn't notice him at first, being absorbed in thought. When he finally looked up, he nearly jumped out of his skin, almost literally this time. "What- Who- How- Huh?!" All Might spluttered, somewhat losing the ability to form complete sentences. He dropped his coffee cup, which hit the floor, shattering and spilling coffee everywhere.

"Um, hi," Izuku said sheepishly.

"How did you get here? Why are you here?" All Might stammered. "What- Who- Who are-" He paused for a moment. "I know you. You were the kid who asked me if he could be a hero some months ago," All Might murmured shakily, regaining his composure.

"Guess I made an impression," he replied quietly.

"How did you get in here without me noticing? And more importantly, how did you get on U.A. school grounds without alerting any alarms?"

Izuku laughed nervously. "About that, it's because I've um," he paused, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've been dead for around ten or eleven months."

"What do you mean you're dead?!"

"I mean I fell off a building and went crunch." All Might grimaced. "The reason the sensors didn't pick up on me is because you can't sense a ghost. You didn't know I was there because I hadn't appeared in the world of the living yet."

"You're a ghost?" All Might said skeptically.

"Yeah," Izuku nodded. "If you want, I can prove it."

"How on Earth would you prove it?"

"Earlier today I met a woman by the name of Nana Shimura."

"How do you know that name?"

"I met her. She told me that she taught you when you were younger. Died at the hands of a villain named All For One? Had a son? Ring a bell?"

All Might shook his head sharply. "There's no way you could have met her. Where did you learn that? Are you one of All For One's servants?"

"I don't even know who All For One is!" Izuku protested.

"That's a useful quirk you got, then. Did you discover it only recently? When we last met, you said you didn't have a quirk."

"I don't have one!" Izuku whisper-shouted, trying not to attract too much attention from an outside source.

"Then how did you get in here?"

"I already told you! I'm dead!"

"And how would you just fall off a building? And why would you be here to talk to me, anyway?"

"Forgive my rudeness, Mr Toshinori," Izuku said, All Might's eyes beginning to widen. "But don't you ever read the news? My death was in the paper for heaven's sake!"

"What- Where?"

"I even got to see the headline. My Mom tossed it in the trash because she didn't want to see it. 'Local boy falls from roof.' My bullies even came to my funeral and you still don't believe I'm dead?"

"I think I-"

"And to answer your question, All Might, if my memory serves me right, I didn't 'just fall' from that roof. I'm here before you because I killed myself." In his frustration, the words fell from his mouth nigh by accident, and the room went silent.

"Why are you here?" All Might finally asked.

"I'm here to warn you." Izuku said, his presence in the world of the living beginning to flicker. "Crud, I don't have much time."

"What?"

"All Might, tomorrow villains are going to attack the-" Izuku started, and that was all All Might heard. Izuku could no longer stay visible. "Oh no! He didn't hear all of it!" Izuku ran to a table nearby, looking frantically for paper and a pencil. He found it quickly, but found he couldn't pick up the pencil. Izuku tried his hardest to reappear, but to no avail. Izuku looked at the clock. Five minutes. It seemed his appearing had a time limit, like All Might and staying in his muscle form. Unlike All Might though, Izuku was limited to just a few minutes. He panicked, reaching for the pencil again, trying to pick it up.

Despite his best efforts, however, Izuku was unable to interact with the pencil or reappear in the world of the living. If he couldn't warn All Might, he would have to find a way to protect the students. He had to find Nana Shimura.

He spent the next hour searching the city and obviously, he couldn't find her. But, that didn't stop him from continuing to look. He then remembered how he had promised to meet Nana at the boba shop the next day. He sighed with relief. At least he had an idea of where to find her. Now onto the next problem, he thought. He needed to find a way to get Toga some help, but he had no idea how to tell the workers about it, especially with his limit of five minutes. These were adults he was working with, and adults were notoriously stubborn. They probably wouldn't listen to a middle school sized kid telling them that they needed to help their daughter with the side effects of her quirk. He would need another adult, but how would he convince them?

A voice from behind him broke him out of his thoughts. "Boo," the voice said, and Izuku nearly jumped out of his skin, that is, if he had any. He whirled around and saw the person behind him, another ghost by the looks of it. It was a young man, either a high schooler or around twenty, but you never really could tell with ghosts. The man's voice was deep and a little growly, sounding something like the voice of a villain from a horror movie or an anime's final boss.

"Hi," Izuku said shakily. "You uh, you scared me a little bit there."

"You look like you saw a ghost," the man said.

"I mean, I just did, by the looks of it."

The man laughed, and Izuku spotted his pointy and fang-like teeth. "Smart kid. You must have seen a lot of ghosts in your time."

"Well, I've gotten a little used to it, what with being dead for almost a year. You start to learn to tell the difference." Izuku was already a little wary of whoever this was. So, he tried his best to answer the questions bluntly, with no room for conversation.

"What's your name, kid?"

"It's Izuku MIdoriya. And you are?"

"Call me Yosuke," he said, the sunset tinting his fluffy black hair a shade of orange. "It's nice to finally meet you. I've been told a lot about you."

"Who would tell you things about me?"

"Someone who has a reason to be interested."

"And who, pray tell, would be interested in some middle school kid?" Izuku asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Someone who knows the kind of power you have." Yosuke said slowly with a smile, his amber eyes glinting in the fading sunlight. "You can appear in the world of the living at will and interact with the world around you. You can take offerings with ease and already had a strong power about you while you were alive. You were destined for greatness."

"And then I fell off a building," Izuku nodded.

"As I heard," Yosuke said, tipping his head to the side. "But, I see you trying to help people here. You were always a hero at heart, weren't you?"

"Keyword being 'trying,'" Izuku snorted. "There's someone I want to help that I can't help because for the rest of eternity, I'll be stuck in the body of a fourteen year old boy. Nobody'll take me seriously."

"Oh? And who is that?"

"A girl named Toga. Blood quirk, she's obsessed with blood and her parents make her repress it. I wanted to get her some help from a quirk assistance facility but I would need her parents to allow her to go. Unfortunately they clearly seem to think her quirk is bad for the family name or something, so she's stuck unless someone can convince them to let her go. But I can't do that, because I look like a scrawny middle school kid and can only appear in the world of the living for a few minutes. She was right. Who would listen to me?"

"They might not listen to you, but they might listen to another adult, say, someone from the facility."

"They wouldn't really listen to me either. Besides, filing a report on somebody who might need help takes an interview, and I can't be visible for long enough for that."

"There is another option, you know."

"What?"

"Possession," Yosuke said with a smile, half showing off his fangs.

"Huh?!"

"Borrowing somebody else's body, I mean," Yosuke said, unbothered. "It's a skill that takes a lesson or two to learn, but it's useful. Takes a little practice, but it can be done."

"Doesn't that feel wrong to you?"

"What about it?"

"You're taking over someone's body by force, aren't you? Isn't that rude? And it'd probably be really uncomfortable to the person."

"I was possessed once when I was alive," Yosuke said dismissively. "It feels a little weird, and you're pretty aware the whole time. Once the ghost leaves the person's body, they might feel a little tired or disoriented, but otherwise they're fine."

"And how do you intend on teaching me, even if I agree to it?"

Yosuke smiled. "I know a guy."

The two of them went to a neighborhood that Izuku hadn't been in before. He hung around Yosuke, electing to try and not get lost for once. They entered a house and went upstairs, entering the third room on the right of a long hallway. The room was simple but well-decorated. The walls were painted a dark blue with constellations painted in white. By the left wall was a soft-looking bed with what looked like a weighted blanket over the comforter. On the right wall was a vanity with makeup scattered all over the desk with no rhyme or reason and a box that looked something like a treasure chest in the corner.

In another corner was a potted plant that looked rather healthy, and sitting on the bed was a cat, fast asleep. In the center of the middle wall, however, was a desk, and working at the desk was a rather pretty young woman, roughly seventeen or eighteen. Her hair was a shade of light pink, something that vaguely reminded Izuku of Mina. "Babe, I'm back," Yosuke announced.

"Babe?" Izuku asked quietly. Was this Yosuke's girlfriend? She looked rather alive, and Yosuke hadn't appeared in the land of the living. He wasn't sure how he could tell, but he knew without a doubt that Yosuke was still invisible.

"I thought I told you not to call me that," the girl sighed, turning the office chair she was in towards the two of them. "I'm not your girlfriend."

"Aw, but you always flirt with me," Yosuke said, mock hurt dripping from his voice.

"First of all," the girl said, her blue eyes full of exhaustion and frustration. "You've been dead for thirty years. I don't date older men. Second of all, you always come to me with some half-baked dead guy who you're trying to teach your ghost skills or whatever and ask me to be their practice dummy for learning to possess people. Then they can't do it and you leave me with a kiss on the forehead I don't want and thirty minutes of wasted time. I'm studying for a big test coming up and I can't have you bothering me."

"What's the test on?"

"Geometry."

"That was my major in college, you know," Yosuke said smoothly, walking across the room and leaning on her desk.

The girl snorted. "And you died before you could finish the course."

"I was caught in a fire, it wasn't my fault."

"I hate to break up the conversation, but Yosuke, who is this?"

"Oh, how rude of me," Yosuke chuckled. "Midoriya, this is my friend Sakura."

"Who's the kid?" Sakura asked.

"Hi, I'm Izuku Midoriya, I'm dead. Yosuke, first question, why can she see us?"

"It's her quirk," Yosuke explained. "For her, the line between the living and the dead is so thin that sometimes she has trouble telling the difference. She can talk to us, touch us-"

"I can beat you in a fight," Sakura continued.

"We can touch her," Yosuke added, ignoring Sakura. "But, she can also allow other people to touch and talk to us as well as allow us to touch and talk to them."

"It's useful enough," she shrugged. "Some ghosts are hanging around my college. They help me out." She then looked directly at Yosuke. "Some of them get in the way."

"I don't get in the way that much."

"Does Thursday ring a bell?"

"It does not."

"I was running to class. You tried to stop me. I tripped and almost broke my nose."

"I saved you then, didn't I?"

"Yes, but then you tripped me by mistake again."

"Why did you bring me here?" Izuku asked.

"I'm assuming he wants to teach you how to possess things, and for that, you need a person to practice on. Unfortunately for him and you, I have a big test to study for. Maybe you can possess my laptop and write my English essay, I don't know, but you're not borrowing my body for even a moment."

"I don't know anyone else who would let him, and you know how hard it is to possess an unwilling person. I'll even help you study for your test! You know how I always help with that."

"I said no, that should be enough for you. This is why I haven't been on a date with anyone in so long, because it's people like you who don't know what that means."

"I'm sorry ma'am," Izuku said quietly. "I didn't really want to come, but Yosuke said it would be a way for me to help this one person get some help. I won't take up any more of your time. Yosuke, please take me back to the U.A. campus. I'll find my way home from there."

Sakura stared at him for a moment and sighed. "Kid, how old are you?"

"Fourteen," he replied awkwardly. "I'd be fifteen going on sixteen now if I hadn't died."

"Why do you want to help this person?"

"She almost stuck a straw into a kid and drank his blood due to the side effects of her quirk. I don't want her to struggle alone."

"How well do you know this girl?"

"I met her like, this morning."

"And you're still willing to go out of your comfort zone for her."

"I am."

"Why's that?"

"I guess I can't leave someone to go through their problems alone. I went through the same thing while I was alive."

"He's the kid I told you about," Yosuke said.

"The one that Juniper investigated?"

"Yeah."

"Hm," Sakura nodded. She sighed, then continued. "Fine. One lesson, but you have to help me with studying for that test, and you owe me a favor, Yosuke."

"I already owe you everything, darling."

"Then maybe you should stop bringing me reasons to owe me a favor."

"Fine."

"Alright, kid, first three rules of possession, one, be careful with your host's body. You're borrowing it. You can't really feel pain while possessing someone but they certainly can, and you don't want them waking up with a broken arm. Two, be polite to the host while in their body. If they get adamant enough about you not being there, they can try to force you out and will hurt themselves. Three, possession is not to be taken lightly. It can be very uncomfortable for some people. Do not use it recklessly, and it will make you tired the first few times you do it. Remember being tired? Yeah, I bet you don't. Be careful," Sakura said.

"Alright," Izuku said, wishing he had a notebook to write in.

"You gotta walk into your host body, basically. It's like putting on socks. Except these socks actively don't want you in there. It's easiest when the host is asleep or allowing you in. Getting in is easy, but getting out and staying in are harder."

Yosuke nodded. "Yeah, Sakura is a little difficult to possess, but a good starting point."

"Give it a try, okay?"

Izuku was now regretting his (after)life choices. "Are you sure? I don't want to bother you."

"It's a few minutes of mental rest if you manage to get it right. If you manage to get in and stay in I'll clock out. Let you walk around for a minute or two, then you hop out. If you can stay in for that long in a willing participant's body, you should be fine for a good amount of time for anyone else." Sakura's phone started to ring.

"Shouldn't you answer that?"

"It's probably nobody important. My professors never call at this hour and my parents are just downstairs.

"What if it's a friend?"

"Midoriya, I talk to dead people. How popular do you think that makes me?"

"Very?"

"No. People see me talking to people they can't see on the street and write me off as crazy. If you care so much about me answering the phone then you can do it. Now either try the possession thing or get out and stop wasting my time." Izuku grimaced, took a deep breath, and stepped into Sakura's body.

He hated it already. It was uncomfortable, something like being in somebody else's clothes that just so happened to be too big. He blinked and looked around and realized that he suddenly felt very heavy. He examined the room, everything being a little discolored, the reds and greens of the room looking more like gray and white. He also found himself sitting in a chair, the first thing that tipped him off to the fact he had managed to possess Sakura.

"Hey kid, are you okay?" Yosuke asked.

"I think," Izuku said, but the voice that came out wasn't his. It was Sakura's, obviously.

"Alright, you can manage speech. That's already a good step forward."

"Why is everything so discolored?"

"She's red and green colorblind. It means you're settling in okay. Can you stand up?"

Izuku started to stand up slowly. The phone had stopped ringing. "Ugh, I feel dizzy."

"That's normal. Do you feel alright?"

"Why is she so tall?"

"Her parents are, too. How does it feel being six feet tall?"

"Six feet?" Izuku took a tentative step forward and almost fell over.

"Careful, if she's disoriented from the possession you might be, too."

"Why do you do this?"

"Eh, it starts to get better and more comfortable the more you do it. Can you walk?"

Izuku tried to take another step forward and stumbled, but Yosuke caught him. "It appears I can't."

"You're trying to walk like a ghost, but you're in a human body again. You need to pay more attention to your steps."

"Sakura, who are you talking to?" A woman yelled from downstairs.

"That's her mom," Yosuke said.

"Nobody, Mom!" Izuku yelled.

"Is that ghost boyfriend of yours over again?"

"He's not my boyfriend, Mom!"

"Ouch," Yosuke muttered. "You said it too."

"Well, she said it, so I kind of assumed she was telling the truth," Izuku hissed.

"She is, I'm just not happy about it."

"Alright, just please quiet down. I have guests over!" Sakura's mom yelled.

"Okay!"

"Try walking again," Yosuke said. "Remember what it was like to walk when you were alive. You're already doing great, just get this down." Izuku took another step forward, managing it this time. "You have the posture of someone who was abandoned by their father, straighten up."

"My dad's always out on business trips."

"Guess I was right. Straighten your back." Even in Sakura's body, Yosuke was still somewhat taller than Izuku was.

"She really is tall," Izuku murmured, still not used to how far off the ground he was. He managed to get walking down within a few minutes and soon progressed to a relatively slow jog. "I think I've got it," he said.

"Alright," Yosuke said. "Sit on her bed, she might pass out."

"Huh?"

"I'm teaching you how to get out. Duh."

"Oh." Izuku sat on the bed, still feeling like being in the room in the first place was wrong.

"Okay, it's hard to explain, but just kind of unzip the body."

"What the-"

"I know it sounds weird, but imagine the body is a onesie and just kind of take it off."

"Huh?"

"Unzip the body, Midoriya."

"Okay, okay, fine." Izuku held up his hands in surrender, then sighed and closed his eyes, trying to imagine detaching from Sakura. With a little bit of effort, he stepped out of the body. Sakura rubbed her eyes and yawned, then blinked once or twice.

"So he did it, huh?" she said.

Yosuke smiled. "He did."

"How long was I out?"

"He stayed in for around ten minutes. I think he's got it down."

"That's the fastest learning time I've seen from one of the ghosts you've brought over."

Yosuke's smile turned into a smirk. "It seems you still have time to study."

"You still have to help me with studying for that Geometry test."

"I will. I just need to bring this kid back to his city."

"Be back quick, alright."

"Always."