Third person pov

The weekend came and went, bringing with it relief Harper never knew it could. She'd never been the best at relaxing at home, but the coma she'd fallen into Friday night was something she hadn't realized she needed. According to the time on her phone, she'd passed out for an entire fourteen hours. It occurred to her that maybe all the new thoughts she'd been experiencing had made her ill. Something like that hadn't happened since she first awakened her quirk, but it wasn't so far-fetched considering the bullshit she'd had to deal with the past few days. 

By the time Monday rolled around, Harper was ready to die. She was prepared to deal with the thoughts of her classmates, having adjusted and such, but she was also ready to absolutely just keel over. She had to keep her emotions in check this time around as well. Last week, she'd gotten emotional. Her frustrations had risen and she hadn't given herself enough time to sleep. As much as she hated to admit it, she did need to take care of herself. It seemed so trivial when she thought about it. Harper had never needed to be in tip-top shape just to function and work at school. UA was the real deal.

A lot of her classmates were there when she slunk through the door like she was walking into hell itself. Honestly? She felt like she was. Harper braced for the wave of thoughts that would inevitably drive her insane one of these days. The brunette had resigned herself to the fact that there was no way in hell she was making it through the school year. But her parents were happy and proud, and there was without a doubt a traitor seeking to end UA and everyone in it. There was nothing else for her to do, so why not this?

"Morning, Harper!" Mina chirped at the brunette. "Wow, she looks so tired! Not as bad as Friday, but... I hope she's feeling alright. Maybe she's sick? Or just adjusting to the hero course? She never did say if she transferred from a hero school or not..."

"Morning." Harper grunted. A few more people echoed it back.

"She's amazing. Perfect. Look how cute she is!" Kirishima's thoughts bellowed joyfully. Harper brought her hands up to massage her temples as she plopped down at her desk. She was glad to see Iida was here and not dead in a ditch somewhere. It felt like a weight off her chest to know he hadn't done anything horribly stupid over the weekend. Still, it was to early for all this noise. "I should go say good morning and ask how her weekend was. No, wait, I should go get her a drink from the vending machine, and then go ask. But what if I get something she doesn't like and she hates me?! I can't have my soulmate hating me! I like her hair and face. I should tell her that too. Wait, that's weird as well. Gah! Why's this so hard?!" 

Fuck, she was hoping that had worn off over the weekend. Seems not. Kirishima's assumption that they were soulmates kept strong.

"How was your weekend, Harper?" Sato asked the girl as she carefully brought her head down to her desk, letting her forehead come to rest on its cool surface. "It's only Monday and she's already to go home. She should consider adjusting her diet! It can do wonders for your energy!"

"Splendid. Just swell." Harper tried not to sound sarcastic and failed horribly. 

"Awesome!" Sato didn't detect it at all. Fun. "Mine was great too. I helped with my mother's bake sale. It was pretty insane."

"Yeah, sounds like it." Harper choked out. Thoughts were bad enough, but conversation? Sure, she talked to Iida, Uraraka, and Midoriya, but that was out of sheer necessity. She was a walking suicide prevention hotline. All you had to do was think about suicide, and apparently she was ready to throw herself under the fucking bus just to stop you! Ugh, whatever. Harper didn't want Iida to die. He was a good guy underneath all that self-hatred, and he had friends and a family that would miss him. She couldn't just sit off to the side and watch him wilt. Harper was here anyway, she might as well.

"I should have ended it this weekend. I have my note. I have it ready. I just... should have ended it all. My parents could have just told my classmates I dropped out due to familial reasons. They wouldn't care. Nobody would have to know. My parents have Tensei. He's far better than I will ever be! He's amazing, I just-" 

"Hey, Iida." Harper wasn't able to keep the bark from her voice. He jumped slightly, turning around to face her. She knew he was confused by her constant attempts to make conversation with him. He also appreciated them, though. Not outright, but she could just barely feel the undertone of relief when anyone distracted him from himself if she probed for it. 

"Yes?" He responded, mildly-startled expression smoothing over. Harper stared at him for a moment, trying to think of something to say. She should really start planning ahead.

"...Weekend?" The brunette immediately wanted to shank herself in the leg. Make note: Harper can't socialize. Don't allow her to if at all possible. Seriously, not even a full sentence? Weak. Expected, but weak. She caught a few amused thoughts pertaining to her. Mentally, Harper dared them to laugh out loud. See what happened. Fuck, she could already feel her head pounding.

"Ah, mine was quite alright!" Iida lied through his fucking teeth, causing Harper to suppress a sigh. "I hope she doesn't catch on to how weak I am. Perhaps that's why she continued to pursue conversation? There's no possible was she actually enjoys talking to someone like me."

That was fair. Harper didn't enjoy talking to much of anyone.

"Oh, no!" Uraraka suddenly cried, leaping up from her desk and sprinting for the door. "MilkMilkMilkMilk-"

Harper's nose scrunched up. The hell? Not the weirdest thing ever, but still.

"My little pony, my little pony," Tokoyami really wasn't helping his image with those thoughts there. Harper massaged her temples harder. She wondered if people went to Recovery Girl for headaches. Maybe if it reached migraine levels, it would be good to have a reset, even if the pain would just seep back in. 

"The new girl looks pretty tired. I'll have to inform Shigaraki... She might be someone to keep an eye on."

Harper tensed but didn't immediately look up, instead searching for the voice. Her quirk chased it, searching and sniffing for the source. Her vision blurred as she stared intently down at her desk, focused. Her mind became hazy as her consciousness was lost in the thoughts of not only this classroom, but the classroom next door as well as she let her range widen and strengthen. They were in this room. A male. Who? She'd heard that voice before. Her classmates' thoughts flooded her.

"Biiiitch." Mina. "That's tea. I can't believe Jiro is a lesbian too! I wonder if she'd help me get a date with that cutie in 1-B. The one with the vine hair... so hot. I should ask which way Harper swings! I already know the other girls, and Harper is pretty cute."

"Fuck, I missed that nerd over the weekend. I wonder what he'd say if I told his cute ass that? Green is my favorite damn color. His eyes are fucking gorgeous. I'd turn around and stare if that shit wasn't so weird. Maybe he'll start mumbling so I have an excuse to..." Bakugo trailed. Harper was tempted to cross him off the list. Though he hadn't shown any signs of being the traitor, she didn't have many reasons to assume he wasn't either.

"If god is real, he's abandoned us all, and I'm going to fucking dunk on him for that-" Yeah, Harper bounced away from Hagakure's thoughts real fucking fast. The girl was hardcore as hell. Very intense and, oddly enough, into rap. Harper was surprised at how bubbly she appeared outwardly. It wasn't fake bubbly. It was truly a part of her personality. It just contrasted against some of her thoughts. Compared to Aizawa, however, it wasn't bad.

Harper's gaze trailed to the French fuck who thankfully thought in mostly Japanese. They'd have a huge issue if he thought in another language. Harper would have ended up using process of elimination otherwise, and they really didn't have time for that. Glancing rather briefly at Todoroki, who was gazing at her and wondering if she was "constipated or something", she tapped into the blonde teen's thoughts. She prayed it wasn't anything about France's fashion week again.

"TURN DOWN FOR WH-" Harper snapped the connection immediately retreated, hissing. How could someone have thoughts so loud?! Fuck, Iida was planning his suicide again too. And- why the fuck did Uraraka have thirteen cans of milk? Sero was thinking about tape bondage, and Izuku was mentally screaming for the second time this morning as he scribbling frantically in his notebook. Harper put her face in her hands. She took it all back. Prepared? Nothing could have prepared her for this.

"Quiet down." Aizawa demanded bluntly as he entered the room, sleeping bag slung over his arm. "I love them so much! So cute! Why does Ochako have so much milk? Harper looks ready to cry! Should I hug her? Wait, no, my image. I'll imagine hugging her. Good vibes. Happy vibrations. I'll send them at Midoriya too, since he looks like he's about to cry. Vvvvvrrrrrrrrrrr-"

Harper groaned. Next time Koda thought about his plan for murdering Aizawa, she was taking some god damn fucking notes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If I sweep her feet out from under her with my tail-" 

Harper jumped over Ojiro's tail, stumbling at the speed. The boy jumped back immediately before she could leap on his back like a rabid monkey. Harper was drenched in sweat and ready to fall over, unlike most of her classmates. She took solace in the fact that nobody seemed to blame her for her exhaustion. Mina was starting to really feel it, and Kaminari's wii music had gone up a level, changing into a wii music remix instead. What did that mean? Progression? It felt like a build up to something, and she didn't know what.

"Shoot, she predicted. Go from the left, high kick-"

She went to the right as he darted forward again, diving to the ground and grabbing his leg. With a grimace, she yanked as hard as she possibly could. The brunette worked to ignore Iida's intense self-loathing as he berated himself for not being good enough, as well as Mineta's lust over Kirishima, his opponent. Kirishima was only half paying attention to the Timmy Turner fuck anyway and didn't notice the ogling, awed over Harper. Harper didn't see it. She was a sweaty rag, but apparently that was 'manly as hell' or something, so okay! 

Ojiro let out a yelp as he fell, stumbling and tripping over Harper's body. "Shit, wrist-"

Harper didn't know what that meant, but she immediately assumed he was going to make a grab for her and rolled away, hopping to her feet. Like a feral animal, she lunged while he was in the middle of propelling himself to his feet with his tail. With a shriek, they both went down once again, Harper twisting his arm around his back in the way she'd learned last week and giving it a threatening tug as he flopped onto his stomach. His tail thumped against her back, nearly sending her flying forward and off of him.

"Harper!" Aizawa barked. Harper momentarily wondered if she'd done something wrong. "The principal wants to see you about your hero costume. Someone from the support course will meet you there."

Harper gave a grunt and climbed off the tailed boy, who rolled onto his back before pushing himself up. He rolled his shoulder and gave Harper a grin, holding out his hand. Harper really didn't want to touch him, but shook it anyway. Cooties? "She's not half bad. A bit all over the place, but her quirk almost makes up for the lack of experience. If she had real martial arts training, she'd be terrifying. Maybe I could show her some moves."

"Uh... bye." Harper mumbled awkwardly, her hand slipping from his as she tensely turned. 

"Yeah, catch you later. Good fight." Ojiro assured. It was one of the only spars she'd won, well... ever. She'd won two others before this. One against Mineta, whom she simply kicked as hard as she could, much to his surprise, and another against Ochako. When it got down to it, the other girl didn't have any training in hand-to-hand either. If Harper could avoid her touch, they were almost on the same level. She was sure the only reason she beat Ojiro was because he was level-headed enough to think through each movement on the fly.

Harper felt like a corpse dragging herself from her grave as she took the pass from Aizawa. Concern flitted around in him as he awed over her, "She's settling right in! I'm so proud of her. Look at Tsuyu! I've never seen her jump that high! All that strength training on her legs must be doing her justice! Oh, there goes Sero! Oh my god, look at Bakugo! My children! Precious little kiddos!" 

Harper was sure she looked like something out of a horror movie as she pulled herself to the campus. There was no doubt she smelled like shit, but the note said to go straight to Nezu. She hoped the mammalian principal had a heightened sense of smell. Let him get a good damn whiff of all she was going through just to save his shitty ass school. Faintly, she could still hear Iida's thoughts getting louder and worse, even as she stepped through the front door.

She knocked on the door to Nezu's office as soon as she managed to shamble there. "Come in!" Was the immediate response she got, along with, "I hope Harper isn't too upset that this has absolutely nothing to do with her costume."

The girl groaned loudly as she opened the door. A man in a trench coat was sitting in one of the chairs with a smile on his face that was professional and definitely not real, but not totally fake either. Irritably, Harper raised an eyebrow and the smiling Nezu. Her gym uniform clung to her skin in the nastiest, stickiest way. It probably needed to be either drowned in bleached or burned. Probably both, just to be safe. Closing the door behind her, she eyed the other man in the room. 

"Ah, I assume you heard me?" Nezu chirped. Harper gave him a dry look that answered all his questions.

"Yeah, no shit I did. Who's Inspector Gadget over here?" Harper asked tiredly as she plopped down, legs, arms, abdomen, everything burning. The man next to her looked taken aback and a bit confused by her straightforwardness, especially towards the principal. She glanced at him. He didn't know who she was or why she was here either. Nezu's smile widened. Ah, that was a giant red flag. Cool.

"This is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa! He's lead on the investigation against the League of Villains, and helped us out a great deal at the USJ. He's also taking point on our little traitor issue. He's very trustworthy, I assure you." Nezu assured. The man, Tsukauchi, gave a sheepish smile and scratched his cheek a bit. She looked him up and down.

"I wonder who this girl is. He wouldn't have called her here if it didn't have to do with this 'urgent development' in the case he mentioned over the phone. Is she in danger? I've... actually never seen her before. Perhaps another department?" He didn't seem to be having any nefarious thoughts, and Harper didn't see why he would. Nezu was telling the truth, and that man... creature... thing didn't trust easy.

"Harper Rye. 1-A." Harper grumbled, dragging a hand down her face. "What do you need?"

"We just need to inform Detective Tsukauchi here of your involvement in the case, that's all!" Nezu chirped. "Detective, I transferred Miss Rye here into the hero course due to her quirk. Currently, not even her teachers are aware what it really is, or why she was truly brought in. They all believe it to be a reflex quirk that allows her predict movements." Nezu's eyes glinted. "How exciting! Things are getting rather interesting. I wonder how Miss Rye and the Detective will get along. Miss Rye has been quite difficult to deal with so far..." 

Fair. 

"Oh, I see! And what is your quirk?" Tsukauchi asked. "Is it something like mine? One that can detect lies or ill intent?"

A lie detecting quirk. Great. Their quirks were actually in the same category if she thought about it. His was a subtly mind reading one, she was sure, or at least one that could read vitals and alert him to when someone was being dishonest. She was quite sure it was mental. Most like his were. She'd read up a lot of quirks when she'd gotten hers. Perhaps they could have something to relate over. Knowing when people are lying to you wasn't as bad as knowing what they were thinking, but it was semi-similar. At least, it was the closest she'd ever seen.

"It lets me read minds." Harper said blandly. Tsukauchi's eyes went wide. "No, I can't turn it off, and I don't get to choose whose mind I read. It's like... everyone is speaking their thoughts out loud at once. I can block them out to an extent if they aren't too strong, but otherwise they just float around. I can also probe around and get whiffs of their emotions and the state of their bodies. Mostly shit like migraines or concussions. Mental disorders, especially."

"I see... that's incredibly useful. It changes everything." Tsukauchi said thoughtfully. "A quirk like that would be extremely handy in the law enforcement field. If she could get it certified like I did mine, then interrogations would be a walk in the park. They'd just have to think about it, and she wouldn't even have to be in the room with them to know."

"Yeah. So far I know the traitor is in 1-A, and I'm pretty sure they're male." Harper sighed heavily, exhausted. Nezu perked up at this. It was new information, after all. "I heard them again this morning. They mentioned that one fucker from the USJ. You know, Shigaraki or whatever? I tried to chase it but it got lost in everyone else's thoughts. They keep their mind off their work when needed. It's... weird."

"I understand." Tsukauchi flashed a smile. "This is going to make things a whole lot easier. Thank you for your help. Let me give you my number so you can directly contact me if you get any information."

"Sure." Harper agreed easily. After a moment, she also said. "The sky is brown."

A loud pinging noise came from Tsukauchi's psyche, reverberating against her own quirk. Harper's brows furrowed. Now that was... new. She'd never felt that before. Tsukauchi looked a bit stunned, blinking at her as she squinted at him. She repeated herself. "The sky is brown." There was another ping. Nezu looked visibly amused, as well as intrigued.

"Uh... what are you..." Tsukauchi cleared his throat a bit, clearly confused.

"I've never heard a mental quirk make a noise before." Harper shrugged, leaning back in her seat. His eyes went a bit wide before he laughed. Glad to see she could bring some amusement, seeing as she was shit at everything else.

"Interesting! So you can hear that too then?" He grinned at her. "This kid's something else! I wonder if she'd ever join the academy and become a cop like I am... her quirk is perfect for the field. She could find witnesses, get information from them efficiently... another one lost to the hero course, I guess. Could be some issues with consent to give up information, but at least she could tell if they were withholding."

"Yeah, it's pretty weird. It's almost not a sound at all." Harper admitted, deciding not to comment. Her? A cop? She was more likely to end up a hobo. "How's it do with opinions? Can it confirm things that aren't a fact?"

"I've never really thought about that, actually. It's always just been false or nothing at all." Tsukauchi handed her his card. She took it lazily, arms feeling like led. Nezu looked nothing short of gleeful at the sight of their interaction, ears twitching and mind racing. Harper gave him another glare. Again, the principal was someone to be respected, but she couldn't help herself. Not when she could hear him spazzing out.

"The Detective is on board! With the police on our side alongside Miss Rye's quirk, there's nothing we can't find out. They're an informational treasure trove. Harper can read minds and Tsukauchi can confirm the information in an instant! The traitor stands no chance. No one will ever invade this school at this rate. Oh no, not at all. Hah... hah hah..." And there he went, devolving into maniacal laughter again. Even Tsukauchi was a bit uncomfortable as he glanced at the darkly chuckling principal.

"Right... that's not concerning at all..." Tsukauchi was sarcastic. Good to note.

"He thinks we're the new information gathering dream team." Harper sighed heavily. They sort of could be, she guessed, but why? Harper knew she couldn't always pick up on lies. It depended on what the person was thinking and how hard she was focusing. Sometimes it wasn't always definitive. She and Tsukauchi could probably throw down in an interrogation, like he'd thought.

"Is he wrong?" Tsukauchi thought to himself almost sadly. "I should try to convince her to become a cop. Wait, she's a mind reader, so right now can she-"

"Yep." Harper sighed, cutting him off. He looked awestruck, and also a bit dumbfounded. Definitely embarrassed. She didn't blame the poor guy. "I can."

Nezu's laughter got worse. Harper wondered how often it would be appearing in her nightmares.