Blood Is Only Blood [My Hero Academia, but Vlad King teaches 1-A]

[Rob Rimsill]

Enjoying this. I'm liking Vlad King's approach to his students.

I'm hoping we see an opportunity to go off the rails soon - the stations of canon are good, and they work, but as I'm sure you're aware so many fics just have the same things happening in the same order and we may as well just reread the manga in that case. So far, your story has done a good job of focusing on the changes wrought by your premise, and I'm keen to see that continue to wherever you take it.

Also, I might just be imagining the extra bit of focus on Mineta? He's just the worst, as usual, but I'm pleased to see you're taking the approach of 'this boy needs Jesus support and guidance' rather than 'get this toxic goblin out of my fic for lovely people immediately'. It's so easy to bash him, but while he continues to be a little shit you've refrained. Here's hoping he gets some much needed character development, with a teacher that actually cares about his well-being.

Looking forward to what you've got planned.

 

[Obloquy]

I'm hoping we see an opportunity to go off the rails soon - the stations of canon are good, and they work, but as I'm sure you're aware so many fics just have the same things happening in the same order and we may as well just reread the manga in that case. So far, your story has done a good job of focusing on the changes wrought by your premise, and I'm keen to see that continue to wherever you take it.

Click to shrink...

Depends. Things like the Sports Festivals were planned waaaaay in advance in-universe and clearly happen every year, so only under circumstances more extreme than I'm willing to commit to could I justify canceling it.

That said, just like I mixed up the Battle Trials, I'm planning to mix up the Sports Festival events & matches in ways I'm really proud of, so feel free to look forward to that.

I'll also be fleshing out other events along the way, and then...

Spoiler: Off The Rails

Technically, things have already gone off the rails. It just hasn't visibly jumped the track yet, but as soon as we reach a bend in the road....

Well. Tenya's severed foot means he's looking at most of a month in recovery, so 1) he won't be able to participate in the Sports Festival at all, and 2) as a result Team Iidaten will volunteer to help with Festival security, meaning Tensei will be with his brother and far away from Hosu during that time period.

As a result, Tenya will do his internship with Tensei at Iidaten and Izuku won't be rescuing anyone in Hosu.

Oh. And because Izuku clearly doesn't need nearly as much help, he won't be interning with Gran Torino.

Cookies for anyone who guesses his BioB internship in advance!

But yeah, I think Stain going free, etc., qualifies as "off the rails," right?

Also, whenever we get to Final Exams, I have an amazing butterfly nearly guaranteed to get people screaming. I can't wait to show you all!

Mwahahahahaha...!

 

[Zedman7054]

Spoiler: Spoiler Guess

Well, if Izuku's internship isn't with Gran Torino, my first guess would be Sir Nighteye, who would be interested in the boy who inherited One for All over Mirio, which I think is what he did in canon. If I had to make a second guess...I actually wouldn't be able to right now. A big part of the Internships is the Pros inviting the students so they can work with them with some weakness to help achieve their potential, but there is just so many Pros that who would make an offer depends heavily on Izuku's showing in the Sport's Festival, let alone which one he would pick.

Also, Stain not being captured in Hosu is so far off the rails. With him going free, the League of Villains won't get the popularity boost from being associated with him, because he'd likely shoot down such sentiments. Although depending on how Hosu goes, if it goes anything like canon that might change.

 

[Obloquy]

"Not many remaining," Kurogiri mused, though he also knew his strength was waning after forming this many warp gates. Eager to finish, he sent tendrils with warp gates toward four more students.


Koji Koda got caught alone, and sent to where there was already one student waiting, while the other three—Ochako, Tsuyu, and Minoru—were banished to a separate location in USJ.


Then dark mist retreated, leaving only Rikido, Mezo, and Hanta, along with the pair Yuga & Denki whom Vlad King had thrown clear.


"Students, get behind me," Thirteen ordered, having been unable to hit Kurogiri for fear of injuring the kids in his dome. One uncapped finger threateningly kept the other villains present at bay, away from Yuga and Denki, whom Thirteen had already moved to protect.


"With flight removed from the equation, the only alternative is to fight for a hopeless victory," Kurogiri mused, retreating from the fray to gain a second wind. "I wonder though, how long will you last? How long will they, for that matter?"


Which was exactly the moment ice erupted out to cover almost all of the Flood Zone, crackling and straining as the cold exploded through the area.


Kurogiri turned his head to see the giant glacier emerge, covering most of the water with ease.


"…Oh dear, I do believe I miscalculated."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

Shouto shoved Momo away from the dark tendril even as it had already swallowed up two of his classmates.


'Admirable,' he judged of her dedication to Kan-sensei's instructions, 'but the cannon is a blind to cover Hagakure's escape, so that it seems like we're still struggling. We don't need it.' It certainly wasn't worth firing at the cost of the one student he felt any attachment to, given their similar backgrounds and their history from the Recommendation Student examination.


Darkness swallowed him, and the cannon too for that matter.


Then he was falling, his face toward the ceiling, with no idea what lay below.


'I only have a few seconds before I hit,' Shouto guessed, calling up his icy Quirk as eh tried to twist and guard his head. He wasn't quite sure whether he would make a landing platform or what, but he was still in USJ-


He hit the water.


He reacted.


With a sound like an avalanche in reverse, he froze everything immediately before he realized his full situation.


'...That was careless of me,' he cursed silently as he pulled up his fire half to melt the ice immediately around him; freezing even the water around his eyes and nose was incredibly unpleasant.


Swimming had never been a big part of his training, but in 3 seconds Shouto had melted a pool of water reaching from his feet up to the surface.


He surfaced a moment later with a gasp, hauling himself out of the warmed ice-water with a distinct lack of dignity as he panted for breath.


Shouto took a moment to observe his handiwork; almost the entire lake had turned to ice, barring a few distant edges at the shore, the waterslide, and the pit Shouto had just pulled himself out of.


Shivering, he called up his hot Quirk enough for steam to begin rising before he could get any colder.


The boat had been tipped by the eruption of ice, but it wasn't overturned, and he didn't see anyone on it, villainous or otherwise, so that was safe.


Momentarily content, Shouto turned his attention to the central plaza, where a bunch of villains were ganging up on Vlad King.


'That looks like the perfect way for me to intervene,' he decided, trudging over the arctic terrain to join the battle.


He hadn't gone far, however, when something interrupted him. The sound of breaking ice.


*C-KRACK!*

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

Eijiro Kirishima hit the water and didn't panic. He'd practiced breathing exercises and gone swimming for his training. Keeping his Quirk active underwater would make him sink, he knew, but he could hold his breath long enough to get his bearing and ensure that he wasn't attacked.


Just as he was thinking this, a villain with a shark-based Quirk swam up in a rush and bit into Eijiro's arm.


Eijiro felt, rather than heard, the sickening crunch of bone.


The shark villain let out a burbling yell as he broke his teeth on Eijiro's Hardening. He pulled away as blood and bone fragments streamed from his mouth. Eijiro slashed one arm in a knife-hand strike as the villain took a retaliatory swipe at him; it worked out much better for one of them than the other.


Cursing, the shark-man fled out into the depths.


Eijiro Kirishima did his best to kick upward, hoping to slow his descent as he judged how long his air would hold for and whether it was safe to release his Hardening Quirk.


Then the ice hit him.


'Shootshootshoot! Okay, I know which way is up, now is the perfect time to panic.'


Eijiro did his best to thrash and shove with his hardened body, attempting to shatter the ice all around him.


He was running low on air now, and the bitter cold would soon start sapping his strength, but he had strength to spare.


'I tore apart those metal robots in the exam, I can get rid of ice!' With passion and a tinge of desperation in his veins, Eijiro struggles and strives and exerts his full force as best he can.


It paid off, producing a musical series of cracks as ice shatters and he claws his way to the air.


He gasped for breath, high off of his success.


"Man! I'm so glad I- huh?" He saw Shouto a ways across the ice, looking back at him.


"Kirishima, you…" Shouto trailed off uncertainly.


It took only a moment to click.


"Dude, what the heck?! Is this ice all you?" Eijiro demanded. "You froze me solid, dude! Why, if I was another one of our classmates-!"


That's as far as he got before the shiver hit them.


*ba-dump*


"What the heck?" Eijiro asked as the ice shifted again.


*ba-dump*


"It's like a heartbeat, rather than some impact," Shouto assessed.


*ba-dump*


"Wait, a heart beat!" Eijiro panicked and began looking around them both.


He hadn't been the only other student caught up in the warp gate, after all.


*ba-dump*


Below them both, Kyoka Jirou lay entombed under several meters of ice.


Her couldn't feel her ears or fingers, her eyes were frozen shut, and she was rapidly losing strength as her air ran out.


*ba-dump*


'I just need to-!'


*ba-DUM*


The stronger pulse of her pulse hit the ice, breaking bits, sending spiderwebbed cracks up and out all around her.


She wouldn't be moving anytime soon, but while she didn't realize it, the fissures had at least reached the surface, leaving her a bit of air as well as signaling her location.


Both boys burst into panicked action as her mind silently drifted into the dark.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

When Koji Koda landed on a sidewalk he smelled the scent of dust, especially cement dust, mixed with some rot.


Having landed on his face, it was with some trepidation that he got to his hands and knees.


He raised his face just in time to see two villains step around the street corner.


"Hey, we got another one!"


"Meep!" Koji started running, pelting down an alleyway, in between empty dumpsters, and around blind corners.


Thankfully, he thought he lost them, especially when he found a scurrying rat and begged the little one for a place to hide from predators.


The smell would have bothered him a little, but his mask had a respirator function as well as a speaker system, so it was tolerable, and asking his many new friends to give him a bit of room- It wasn't like he minded furry bodies, but there was too much of a good thing in some situations.


But as he was hiding, waiting for the teachers to come save them, something kept bothering him.


'They said, "Hey, we got another one." Another one. Another one.' Koji swallowed. 'So what if… I'm not the only student here?'


Barely daring to go above a whisper, he began speaking.


The rats listened.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"Eep!" Mina darted out of the way, water streaming into her eyes.


"Hiyah!" Momo smashed her bo staff into the temple of the villain who lunged at her as winds buffeted them both, and Mina stomped on his knife-wielding hand with a crunch when he went down.


"Good stance, Yaoyorozu," Mashirao complimented as he kicked the second villain into a brick wall. "You've had training?"


"Several years with bōjutsu, as well as kendo, aikikidojujitsu, general athletics training, and a few lessons in kusari-gama use," she confirmed.


"Impressive," he noted as he ducked down to get the knife from the villains bruised fingers.


"I mean- Just general fitness and some friendly scrapping, though I've got a mean uppercut and a right hook," Mina admitted.


She was trying not to get twitchy, but it was dark, there was wind, there was rain, and there were villains running around.


Worst of all, with the wind and the rain, she was already shivering from more than fear.


"No time for lessons now, so you should probably take this," Mashirao judged, offering the knife hilt-first.


Mina cringed and hesitated.


"I can make you something better, if you want," Momo offered over the howl of the wind.


"Either way, we want to deny them their weapons if they wake up," Mashirao pointed out as Mina finally took the knife.


"Are we… just going to leave them there?" Mina asked. She jolted and shuddered as another gale roared past them "I mean-! Should we tie them up or something?"


"I'll make some bindings."


"I'll bind them," Mashirao agreed.


"I can do that," Mina said quickly. He gave her an odd look as Momo produced several lengths of cord. "I mean… Oh cripes, we're getting so soaked and sprayed by rain, my acid won't stay around if I make it in this weather," she finally admitted. "I'm thinking we should leave the actual fighters free for-,"


"Hey, I see 'em!" The yell caught all three students unawares and they spun to see another three villains charging down the alleyway.


"Aw man," Mina moaned, trying to fit her fist around the knife as Momo and Mashirao took stances.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"YYYYaaaaahhhh!!" Minoru screamed, his voice echoing across the landslide zone as he wildly throws his pop-balls.


"Ah shoot!" "What is that?" "Don't let them touch you!"


The villains, fortunately, shrank back to avoid the spray.


"Kero!"


Tsuyu flew by, kicking one crook's skull in upon landing, and grabbed Minoru before hopping up toward the top again, where Ochako was waiting.


"Mineta-chan, do you know if anyone else is here?"


"N-Nohohohohoho~!" He sobbed, burrowing his face against her. "What are villains doing here I was so scared thank you for saving me~!"


Tsuyu shifted but didn't push him away.


"Ochako-chan, I didn't see anyone else."


"Ah ain't seen-! I mean, I haven't seen anyone either, Tsuyu-chan" she admitted.


They were crouched near the top of the Landslide Zone's slope, conveniently hidden behind a piece of wreckage, but very aware of the villains spread throughout their surrounding.


"…Minoru-chan, your face is a little," Tsuyu hedged.


He opened his eyes, realized what he was doing, and after a bare moment of enjoyment he realized what Kan-sensei would probably do to him if this got reported.


"Aaaaaahhh~! I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry-!" Minoru backed off in a different type of panic, babbling until Ochako slapped her hand (pinkie finger excluded,) over his mouth.


"Shhhh~!" Ochako chided. "We don't want them to hear us, right?"


"Assuming the ones down there didn't see us flee up here," Tsuyu observed.


Slightly chastened, Ochako let go of Minoru to poke her head around a corner.


"I see… like, three groups of three people each," she reported. "They're searching downhill, still, but at least one will come this way eventually."


"Uhhh… but it won't be any time soon, right?" Minoru observed. "Besides, it'd not like they can beat All Might or anything, much less with the other teachers once Hagakure grabs them!"


"We took a bus from UA, and I don't think Hagakure-chan can run as fast as Iida-chan," Tsuyu answered. "Help is coming, but we shouldn't expect it quickly… and if they're trying to kill All Might, kero, they probably think they can succeed."


"On top of that," Tsuyu continued as Minoru grew more pale, "we're surrounded and outnumbered, and it wouldn't be the first time people tried using hostages against All Might. They knew to expect us, they're grown adults who have probably killed before, and we-,"


"Hey, enough of that," Ochako interrupted firmly. "No more loser talk, Tsuyu-chan! We will get through this, so don't be afraid; you already put the boot in on one of those thugs all ha, whoa, hiyah, right? We're going to be Pro Heroes, we can do this! Dekiru!"


"B-B-But how are we supposed to do this, we were just in Junior High a month ago!" Minoru complained.


"It's going to be more complicated than, 'you take the ones on the left and I'll take the ones on the right,'" Tsuyu agreed.


'Especially because that wouldn't leave any for Mineta,' Ochako complained silently, under no illusions as to how likely she could take down many grown adults on her own. 'But I'm not on my own! The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,' she resolved.


"Then we need a plan, guys! Team huddle!" Ochako declared, throwing one arm around Minoru's shoulders and another arm around Tsuyu. "What have we got to work with?"


"Yes, I should tell you more about my Quirk," Tsuyu decided.


Meanwhile, Minoru's face was in range of Ochako's chest, and he was trying not to enjoy it too obviously. 'No one can punish me when she pulled me in like this, right? I wonder if this means she likes me… Oh, that'd be the day.' He suppressed a depressed laugh and tried to focus on thoughts other than dying horribly.


"Yeah, you go ahead," Minoru said distantly. 'Asui-chan and Uraraka-chan are both pretty good in the oppai aspect; I wonder what else I can learn about them.'


"My main abilities are the leg strength that can let me jump several stories in height and the ability to extend my tongue up to 20 meters. According to Izuku-chan, the tongue thing is a transformation aspect of my otherwise mutation-type Quirk, since ordinary frogs' tongues are usually a third of their body-length, and even chameleon's tongues extend to less than double their body-length, while I'm only 150 centimeters tall. My tongue is also prehensile, like Ojiro-chan's tail, so can wrap it around things to lift and carry them within a certain weight limit."


"A p-p-p-prehensile tongue. Oh, I can think of uses for that," Minoru drooled. 'Getting to third base would be…! Bad thoughts, save it for later or Kan-sensei might barbecue me if I slip now!'


"So can I. Tsuyu-chan, is it more a weight limit, a mass limit, or a size limit?" Ochako asked distractedly. She absently pushed Minoru away from her, and he let her rather than keep close contact and annoy her.


"I'm not prehensile enough to grab small things, kero, but I can lift things that weigh more than I do if I'm well braced, though I wouldn't want to do it too many times," Tsuyu answered.


"Oh… Yeah… I can imagine," Minoru said, his head now filling with images of Tsuyu lifting him up and hurling him at the bad guys as a distraction.


'I just need to stay calm. "Behave like a hero," Kan-sensei said. I'll behave like a hero and absolutely get through this!'


"I can also spit out my stomach and wash it. According to Izuku-kun, my saliva might be a non-Newtonian fluid," Tsuyu finished, "and I can make myself excrete a technically toxic substance, but it really only stings a little. I don't know if any of those will be useful to you."


'E-E-E-Excrete, she says! And it's not saliva?! Clean thoughts clean thoughts clean thoughts,' Minoru repeated in a panic.


"I don't know if we can use those either," Ochako admitted, unwilling to confess that her science studies hadn't covered what it meant when something was or wasn't 'Newtonian,' "but strong legs mean you can escape or do super-strong kicks, right? Mineta-kun, what about you?"


"I-I…"


'His stuttering isn't nearly as cute as when Deku-kun does it,' Ochako thought, becoming a bit depressed. 'I wish Deku-kun were here, then we could team up and blow them away! But you know what? I can do this anyway!'


"I can harvest these pop-balls that grow on my head," Minoru finally admitted. "They grow back really quickly when I pull them off, and they stick to anything that isn't me. Depending how I feel, the stickiness can last for a whole day, but I just bounce off of them."


He squeezed one of the orbs on his head, getting a faint rubbery squeak sound, and realized he'd run out of things to say unless he demonstrated.


"Okay, I'm getting the outlines for a plan," Ochako declared. She held out her hand for them to see. "I have these finger-beans, like a kitten's toe beans, on both hands but not my feet. If I press all five on one hand against something, I can remove its gravity; well, technically Deku-kun says I'm removing it from the influence of other gravitational pulls, but saying 'remove its gravity' is easier. I touch it, and then I can make it float in zero-gravity… ah-hah!"


"Tsuyu-chan," Ochako asked, "If I can float chunks of rubble can you throw them around or use your tongue like a flail?"


"I can make that work, kero."


"Yosh! Then, if Mineta-kun sticks his sticky stuff on the rubble, the bad guys will be caught to it and weighed down once I return its gravity." She pumped her fist triumphantly. "Come on, I really think we can do this!"


"Hey," one thug yelled, "I think I heard something, let's check uphill!"


"…Oops," Ochako managed as the other two stared at her accusingly.

 

[Zedman7054]

Ah, poor Mineta. Well, he's trying his best at least.

 

[Obloquy]

Katsuki Bakugou's Quirk produced nitroglycerin from his palms like sweat.


It wasn't pure nitroglycerin, being watered down with genuine sweat and other proteins from his body, but the nitroglycerin was there and it was explosive.


It wasn't purely produced like sweat, either, since he could force small amounts of it out at will from his hands' glands, and he naturally produced more of it than was normal for sweat.


But he still sweat it out when he was hot or active, and it was still explosive.


Katsuki had to pour a neutralizing agent in with his laundry, he treated his bad sheets or wore gloves to sleep, and while he didn't wash his hands as obsessively as Mina, he still washed more thoroughly and more often than the rest of his class.


Which meant he was currently in a nightmare scenario.


'Badbadbadfirehotflamesopenflamesallaroundme and I'm surrounded with everything on frickin' fire and something could explode keep breathing keepbreathing keepbreathing keepbreathing keepbreathing I need to regulate my bloody biorhythms don't panic don't sweat I'm going to be #1 and I can do this.'


"Kacchan!"


"What is it?" Katsuki snapped, too distracted with edging away from the burning building he'd been dumped beside to be rude to Izuku for butting in.


"Are you okay? I think I've got a handkerchief if you need to wipe off," Izuku answered, pulling the cloth out of a pocket. "I'm not smelling smoke or getting dizzy, so I think most of these fires are gas-fueled, but it's open flames."


"No duh, moron. Give me that," Katsuki snapped back, grabbing the handkerchief.


He'd only worn one of his grenade gauntlets because his costume could be restricting for rescue work—like he'd ever be bothered with his Quirk, he'd just do what Endeavor did and re-double patrols to free up proper rescue heroes unless the teachers had a way for him to do more than smash rubble into smaller chunks—but that one gauntlet was still a well of gather sweat that could easily overheat and explode without warning, so he needed to lose it fast.


"After him!" Voices echoed from behind them, around a corner.


"Crud, the mooks," Katsuki snarled as Fumikage rushed into view, pursued by two villains.


"Familiar faces in this festival of nightmares," the bird-headed boy noted as he ran to join them.


"Hey, keep back a sec-,"


"Tokoyami-kun, this way!" Izuku yelled over Katsuki, moving in front of the blond.


'I really wish I had some more practice with this,' Izuku reflected as he settled into a rough stance as shoved a chunk of One For All's power into his right hand. 'More than a finger, but don't fill the entire hand… Now smear it back up along the arm, to the elbow, then the shoulder…'


On Nejire's advice, he'd spent Sunday night and part of the next two evenings watching some anime and some performances by heroes with Quirks that looked similar to his for inspiration on using One For All.


They'd finished up the first lesson that Saturday by breaking his fingers intentionally in seeing how much force a fully enhanced finger-flick could deliver, and he'd produced results similar to an air-pressure cannonball.


Naturally, his next step was to then see how people he who generate air-pressure cannon blasts fought, and he'd found a few sources of inspiration that led to this next idea.


"You have a plan?" Fumikage Tokoyami questioned as he reached Izuku and Katsuki.


"This," Izuku said. 'Delaware is already taken with my finger flick, so next on the list is-!' "Pennsylvania SMASH!"


He thrust his hand forward in an open palm strike, generating an air blast like a racecar, surging forward to smash the foremost villain, blast him off his feet into the larger thug behind him, and crash them both into a burning building several meters away.


"What the-! Where the fuck did that come from?" Katsuki had only just finished removing his gauntlet and wasn't on-point enough to get really ticked, so he actually sounded impressed.


"I've-," *pant* "-been practicing," Izuku gasped. His arm was all pins and needles, but when he moved it gingerly it responded, and he couldn't see any major discoloration through the firelight, at least. 'I think I can risk two or three of those each before I break anything.'


"An auspicious beginning, but sinister things are rising midst the flames," Fumikage warned them. "Let us disperse from here, and the shadows take us!"


Sure enough, it looked like at least one villain was getting to his feet again.


"Even if it's the Conflagration zone, there's got to be some area that isn't on fire," Izuku reasoned. "If we were practicing rescue heroics, we'd need somewhere safe to take evacuees. Kacchan, you good?"


"No," he grit out like it was physically painfully. "We need wide streets, and I need to leave this here before it blows."


"The grenade may serve as a distraction," Fumikage observed.


"Sure." Katsuki grit his teeth and looked between his two 'teammates' of the moment. 'Like hell will I ask Deku for anything.' "Bird Face, can your talking shadow throw this a block or two away to draw the low-lifes off?" It galled him to suggest anything other than fighting, but Katsuki knew that if he fought in this state, he would almost certainly die in a pathetic way when his own powers killed him with a stray spark.


"Alas, the firelight is Dark Shadow's bane."


"And without a bunch of smoke there's not much shadow either," Izuku finished.


"Well we need to freakin' do something before I blow our butts to kingdom come," Katsuki snarled.


Already, his grenade gauntlet was probably too hot to be safely handled and his explosive sweat would soon soak the handkerchief.


'I'll take off my mask next; I made it absorbent for exactly these reasons and reducing glare won't be as big an issue right now,' he reasoned, kneading the cloth between his palms. 'After that- Actually…'


"Bird-face, fork over your cloak," Katsuki demanded.


"For what purpose?" Fumikage asked stiffly.


"Tokoyami-kun, Kacchan sweats nitroglycerin. But Kacchan, that's a good idea, try my mask first," Izuku suggested, pulling it off.


"Fine. My pleasure to destroy the ugly thing," Katsuki grumbled as he took it, "but we need to go before-,"


"We got kids over here!"


"Three of 'em, this way!"


"Our pay day's here!"


"Of course," Fumikage growled out, disgruntled as several villains burst out from two blocks away.


"This way, try to keep up!" Katsuki ordered as he twisted his hands deeper into Izuku's mask and shot off, hoping his gauntlet would at least explode in time to take out a bunch of their pursuers.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ​

Yuga Aoyama, Denki Kaminari, Rikido Satou, Mezo Shoji, and Sero Hanta were gathered by Thirteen-sensei, all eyeing the remaining 4 villains on their feet plus Kurogiri.


'Unless someone cleans off their faces, those two should be incapacitated for the next while,' Thirteen assessed of the duo caught in Vlad King's blood. 'That leaves 4 of them and the warper against myself and 6 students. We're ideally buying time until Hagakure returns with backup, but letting them realize that would be bad… Moreover, even if I hadn't cut off our retreat by damaging the stairway, going back would just lead to the main mass of villains Kan is up against.'


"Students, which of you have ranged attacks?" Thirteen wondered. "We don't want to engage unless we have to." Thirteen particularly didn't want to use Black Hole lethally against the villains, but they wanted the students to be harmed even less.


"Hmm, my Naval Laser should be able to blast one or two away, sensei," Yuga judged.


"I can tape them up at range," Sero seconded, producing short strips from his elbows.


"I got nothing unless I throw something," Rikido admitted, cracking his knuckles.


"I'm in similar straights," Mezo confessed.


"I… Man, I can only really cover myself with electricity," Denki said, "if I discharge any I'll zap all of you, too."


"Good to know," laughed a four-legged crook before he charged-


"Black Hole!" Thirteen popped open a finger-cap and began a low-strength suction, sending the villain windmilling his arms as he tried not to overbalance. "Sero, now!"


"On it!" Hanta yelled, shooting out strips of tape.


Unfortunately, the tape also got caught in the suction, looping back toward Thirteen in the air, forcing the Space Hero to end the effect before being entangled.


A blue-tinged villain with spiky wrists promptly grabbed his 4-legged compatriot and pulled him away.


"Oh, so they want to play the range game, huh," mocked a female villain with distended arms like a gorilla. She promptly smashed her fists into the walkway and tore up 2 chunks of concrete to grip. "Let's play ball!"


"Naval Laser!"


Yuga's shout had her duck to dodge the beam, which punched a hole in USJ's wall.


'I wish I'd thought to hit the doors with that before Iida-san went through them,' Yuga reflected as he cut power before it could upset his stomach.


"Hey, that's a good idea," Rikido declared. "Sero-kun, can you stick some tape on a rock and I'll use it for a flail?"


"I'm on it it!"


"Sensei," Mezo declared quietly as they went to work and the villains (apparently lacking in ranged attack options as well,) eyed them warily, "I thought you should know that everyone is still in the USJ building."


"It's good to have confirmation," Thirteen affirmed as Mezo shifted his ears and eyes back to their default forms. "No, keep your ears open in case there's anything we need to know." 'In case you can hear help arriving,' Thirteen didn't say out loud, hoping Mezo would guess.


"Naval Laser!" Yuga blasted his Quirk again, aiming for Kurogiri, who just floated out of the way.


"Sensei, I've got a flail if they try anything," Rikido reported, hefting his rock at the end of some tape. "Is it okay to wait until I activate my Quirk?"


"I trust your judgment," Thirteen said, aware of their own ignorance in the matter.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

'Do not pray for an easy life,' Mashirao reflected as he kicked a villain in the skull and rebounded off a wall to whack a guy with his tail, 'pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. Yeah, I'm really starting to get that.'


"Between the wind and the rain, I'm getting chilly and slowing down," he reported to Momo and Mina.


"Shoot, I wish I'd thought of that! I can make you-,"


"A rain poncho won't help me now, we just need to get indoors for a little bit," Mashirao opined.


"Save your strength for a towel, and I can see two promising buildings, maybe?" Mina guessed. She pointed.


"I vote the gas station and convenience store," Mashirao said as the peered. "If they've supplied it with actual supplies, we could get warm."


"If there's actual gas, we could explode," Momo countered. "At least the complex we know there's nothing and no one in there."


"Either we deci-choo! We need to decide soon, I'm soaked," Mina said miserably. "Jan-ken-po?"


Mashirao shook his head. "No, we'll go in the larger empty building and I'll try a supplies- achoo! It's not just you," he grumbled, wiping his nose. "I'll try a supplies run from the store."


"Let's go," Momo confirmed.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"YyyyyaaaaaaawhooooooaaaaaOooooooaaaaaaOooooooaaaaa~!" screamed the weightless villain at the end of Tsuyu's tongue as she swung him around and around.


"Kero!" Tsuyu let go, pulling all 10 meters of her tongue back in, as the guy went flying off toward the Downpour Zone with a scream that even hand the hands-wearing villain (Shigaraki, not that they knew his name,) pausing in the fight to watch.


"Great job Tsuyu-chan! Release," Ochako declared, tapping her fingers together. She didn't look to see how the return of gravity affected the living projectile, she just quickly pressed her finger-beans against the chunks of building she'd dug out from the landslide in between fending off a few attacks.


"D-D-Did you have to be so loud?" Minoru demanded. "Now they're all coming for us!"


"Just hurry up and stick on the rest of your sticky balls," Ochako instructed. Then she snorted. 'Oh wow, how did I never notice that before.' "W-wait, sticky balls? Sorry," she chuckled, "bad time for puns."


"Yeah, yeah, I've heard them all before," Minoru griped, still not quite daring to make one himself. His hands moved quickly, and in a moment he'd affixed almost a dozen orbs to the building chunk (which was already bigger than him and Ochako combined). "It's in your weight limit?"


"I could float several of those robots at the practical, even if it made me queasy," Ochako assured him.


"That's one done, kero," Tsuyu declared, picking up the weightless rubble she then wrapped her tongue around it and turned her attention to the approaching thugs as he partners worked on the next piece. "Kero!"


Tsuyu kept her tongue attached, but she flung the rubble once her targets were within 15 meters. They scrambled and ducked, but she flexed her long muscle and whacked one with the rubble.


"Hey, what the-? Get me offa here!" The villain started yelling in dismay when he realized he was stuck, attached to the masonry by Minoru's sticky balls.


"Brats! What are those," another villain cried as she ducked Tsuyu's swing.


"I'll cut that tongue right clean o-!" That last threat got Tsuyu's full attention, smashing the masonry into the mouthy villain hard enough to send the knife flying.


"Kero!" With a heave of effort, Tsuyu flung the chunk with stuck-on villains at a clump of crooks coming their way from a different direction, knocking several over and sticking at least two more to the masonry.


"Perfect timing, the second one is ready," Ochako announced.

 

[Obloquy]

"They're fucking gaining on us!" Katsuki panted as the trio reached another intersection and glanced back before turning.


"Most unfortuitous."


"Tokoyami-kun," Izuku panted, "does it have to be air darkness? They've got to have a river or a lake here somewhere for people with water-manipulation Quirks. Would darkness under the water-?"


It was difficult, running from pursuit.


With Katsuki dripping sweat after he'd gone through the handkerchief, Izuku's mask, and now his own mask, they didn't dare get too near any of the burning buildings, confining the three to central wide streets instead of alleys where they could disappear.


They were stuck in sight of every villain who pursued them, they were overheating, their eyes were itching something fierce, and they were at risk of being surrounded and overrun if they didn't figure out something soon.


Katsuki grit his teeth.


"Deku, you hit hard enough for air pressure shit, right?" Katsuki questioned as they stopped to catch a second wind in an intersection. 'Of course, even the train rails are on fire here, why not?'


"Y-Yeah?"


"You need to knock down some buildings, extinguish flames with rubble, maybe kick up dust or smoke," Katsuki declared. 'I hate needing him for anything but we will die at this rate, and no amount of no-name villains get to kill me just from an environment disadvantage! I'll see 'em all dead myself, first!'


"I-I can't do-,"


"Bull!" Katsuki cut him off. "Listen up, Deku, stop thinking in punches! Think Captain Cutter with his invisible blades! Think the yama-sen-ken from Ranma 1/2, remember back when we watched that and he carved apart the giant statue? Think Cooking Princess dicing the bamboo forest," he snapped. "You've got the tools, you nerd, just actually use them right!"


"I-!" Izuku gaped, unable to process anything resembling praise from Katsuki.


"I see 'em!" "This way!" "Get the rats!"


"Our enemies approach," Fumikage declared grimly.


"No… don't wanna fight…" whined Dark Shadow's voice before the Quirk retreated back inside Fumikage's body again.


Izuku straightened, his face firming as a group of 8 villains rushed down the remaining block between them.


"I understand, Kacchan. After all…" He turned to face not just the attackers, now approaching from 2 directions, but the burning buildings as well. "I'm going to be the Deku who can do it."


Izuku clapped his hands together, because it would help him envision balancing power between hands, and just because it seemed like a kickass image to present.


'Power in my fingers… No, more than that, I'll fill both my hands…' he decided as he called up One For All. The villains were getting closer, but they wouldn't get there too quickly either. 'If I'm cutting through buildings, I can't have "not enough". Now spread it back along my arms… to my elbows… up to my shoulders…' As he did so, Izuku slid his arms into a cross-chop position, keeping his knife-hands stiff and flat. "Dakota SMASH!"


He snapped his arms out, forming less an X shape than an edged horizon of overlapping lines.


The world itself nearly shook with his force, and the villains were all knocked flat by the pressure wave.


As were almost 3 blocks of buildings.


The arc of air pressure bit like a knife into the buildings at the base, like an axe into tree trunks, and kept going.


Shoddy workmanship for the sake of easy repairs combined with thermal stress to bring tons upon tons of steel and concrete crashing down, smothering flames and crushing shut gas valves.


There were explosions. There was more collapsing. There was noise and thunder and rubble and dust.


There was clouds of dust, and there was smoke as everything began to finally settle, blotting out the light of the more distant fires.


"Perfect," declared Fumikage Tokoyami. Around him, Dark Shadow roared and rushed forward, a mass of raging midnight.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"Most of my more dangerous creations involve gunpowder, like my cannons," Momo admitted as they dried off around a synthetic campfire she'd come up with somehow. He shivered and sneezed.


"Achoo! Can you… make, maybe a taser or something?" Mashirao suggested.


"Not of functional size and sufficient power to be useful." Momo shuddered, huddling in beside Mina around the fire.


"Achoo!" Mina sneezed and sniffed. "Hey, if we get jumped now I can splash them with acid. Or, I dunno, Ojiro is a martial arts fanatic, right?"


"Just a student, really…" he mumbled.


"Can you make him nun-chucks and he'll go all crazy on everyone?"


"I suppose," Momo said slowly. Her hands were almost in the flames now, she was so close. "What should I make them out of?"


"You really don't have to-,"


"Found you! Guys," announced one thug as he barged through the door, "the brats are-!"


Mashirao vaulted across the room and silenced him with a spinning kick.


Unfortunately, in moving his tail had dipped into the campfire, and his blond tuft of tail hair lit up like a candle, which then landed on the downed villain's mohawk.


That was when the screaming started.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"GaaaaAaaaahhh!" Tenya screamed, cursing silently in his head as his body flinched and contorted, writhing under the ribbons or icy blue electricity that were coursing over him.


One moment, he'd been rushing out the doors of USJ to summon aid.


The next moment, everything went dark, and worse pain than he had ever felt before—worse even than the time tried to fuel his engines with onion juice—enveloped his left foot.


A second after that, he'd eaten concrete, toppling down for three different reasons and landing face first on the sidewalk of the Ruins Zone.


He'd wheezed in agony that only got worse when he brushed the stump of his calf against the ground, setting off a new wave of anguish that had brought him to tears.


'Focus! Focus!' Tenya had forced himself back to lucidity, knowing that he was losing blood fast and needed to stem the flow. 'I need a tourniquet of some kind. Something to tie…!'


Working quickly, he tore part of the clothing under his uniform, eventually removing his remaining boot and using his sock to make an impromptu knot around his stump.


"Equipment. If I- No, when I get out of this," he'd sworn, "I will request all the support equipment. Ties, medical kits-! Urg," he grunted as he pulled the tourniquet tight enough the blood loss was reduced to dripping. "Everything. Just as soon as I…" Tenya trailed off as he finally looked up to find several villains standing around him.


"Heheheheheh…"


"Yeah, kid. About that?"


The third one just swept a foot forward to kick Tenya's skull. He got an arm up, but rocked back on impact, flailing, and a fourth villain lashed out with some snake-like whip protrusion to slash his face and send his glasses flying.


Then a villain had blasted him with icy electricity, and that was when they'd started taking turns on his, helpless as he was.


It hurt.


It hurt.


It was agony.


'But I am still alive, and I will fight to remain that way! My brother… Mother and Father… I cannot leave them this tragedy to remember me by!'


After the electricity user's 3rd 'turn' ended, Tenya took the opportunity as they were jostling around him to brace one arm against the ground, extend a leg, (his goos leg, and didn't that ache that he had to make the distinction now,) and kick out with his Quirk.


"Engine BOOST!"


In a move Mina would have been proud of, Tenya pivoted on his palm a spun in place, smashing his good leg into the feet of everyone surrounding him.


Half-a-dozen villains went down like wheat before a scythe, and the ones who toppled forward instead of backward got their skulls cracked by Tenya's kicks on the second, third, and fourth cycle of around.


Sadly, that wasn't everybody, and in particular the electrical villain scrambled away with a blooming bruise and one hell of a shiner, but also with his wits about him.


*krzzzap!*


"AAaaaauuuuggghh!"


"You little turd," he snarled, zapping Tenya again for good measure as one of the others also tried to stand. "I am going to… to… to…"


The charge arcing through Tenya died down as the villain trailed off, and he raised his head.


'I will… If nothing else, I will do my family proud, meeting my demise with eyes wide- he isn't staring at me. Past me? What is he…?' Aching in places he didn't know he had, Tenya turned to look beyond his right shoulder at… at…


"Oh my," Tenya breathed.


*chitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitter*


*chitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitter*


*chitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitterchitter*


A veritable sea of rats covered the street, flowing down like the incoming tide.


"Guys, I need backup," declared the gray-skinned villain into his radio as he backed away slowly. "…Guys? Anybody?"


"No one's responding," hissed the electrical villain, "and I'm pretty sure it's because they were stationed in that direction."


They backed away from Tenya slowly, and amidst the mass of black and gray, Tenya saw one splash of color steps into visibility.


'Koji Koda…' He began laughing, almost cackling in relief as he realized what would come next.


"This," he chuckled as a few of the other villains came to enough to back away from the mad boy and thee incoming threat. "This would probably be the right time to inform you of two facts, or maybe three, even."


"Shut your yapper," one villain attempted, but he was visibly sweating as the rats creeped closer.


"First," Tenya lectured through edges of delirium, "my classmate has the ability to control animals. Second! I feel it my duty to note that you are surrounded." He gave the most manic, shit-eating grin he could muster through his blood loss and accumulated injuries, watching with utter glee as every conscious villain jolted like he'd shocked them, spinning around only to see a mass of rats covering the areas where they'd have fled.


"Whatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehell-," one crook whispered furiously. Another started whispering, and while Tenya couldn't see the details without his glasses, a snarled comment from one villain to another suggested someone had soiled their trousers.


"Third!" Tenya grinned at getting their attention again, doing his best to meet each villain's eyes.


"Oh, kid," one purred evilly, beginning to advance on him, "you do realize-?"


'Hostages,' Tenya dismissed with a scoff, tensing his leg and arms. 'Like I don't know how to handle that situation.'


"Third," Tenya reiterated. "Crime doesn't pay. Koda-kun, NOW!"


*vrooooosh!*


He shoved off the sidewalk with his good leg and both arms, his engine firing one last time to jettison his body into a streetlight.


Laughing madly, he clung on with both hands, suspending his body 3 meters above the ground.


Below him, the villains screamed, and then the rats were upon them.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ​

Sekijiro Kan was having a bad day.


Duck. Left hook. Jab with the right. Jump and roll away from the fireball!


Mert was possibly coming down with something, since he'd refused to produce on their morning walk. He hit every red light on his commute, and his coffee had grounds mixed in with it.


Apply blood gauntlet. Punch villain hard enough to break his jaw. Grab him by the shoulders before he fell and throw him skull first into another crook.


The whole morning had been mediocre, but the afternoon… All Might wouldn't be arriving for Rescue Training because he'd used up his time-limit. Then villains attacked because they'd gained information that All Might would be present. Tenya Iida had been maimed while following Kan's orders, and he had no clue if the boy was even alive right now.


Transform gauntlet to add spikes. Throw a flurry of blows at approaching trio, bobbing and weaving to avoid shots fired from further off. Cringe as something wings his left calf and roll, delivering a devastating uppercut to a hulking brute with no actual training.


The guilt might kill him, if these villains didn't. They were small fry, but there were a lot of them, and the few who got lucky were slowly adding up.


Half-step back and roundhouse kick to the rear to get one creeping up slowly. Lunge to get in the center of a clump and lash out before they get their act together. Grab two before they hit the ground and use them as shields for a chance to breathe.


His students had relied on him, and he had let them down. One was maimed already, they all were scattered, and Kan knew it would be a miracle if no one died before Tohru brought in his co-workers. His kids were damn near alone, facing adult villains, with nearly no training.


Smash the nose in on a guy inhaling to spew gas out. Break away from the pincer movement and swipe the legs out from one creep with a tendril of blood. Charge the group that had fallen back to half-check their injured, because villains getting up after he put them down was the last thing he needed. Take cover as a crashing sound from one of the domes reaches them, and drop three thugs while they're distracted by staring.


Try not to stare.


Vlad King continued dismantling the villains being thrown at him by this 'League' as half of them whirled around to gape at the Conflagration Zone.


The red dome that kept its flames contained had been smashed from the inside, like an egg hatching, and what emerged-!


"Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, huh," Kan mused as he whirled around to drive blood-hardened gauntlets into a fanged jaw with a bone-rattling crunch.


He'd lain out nearly 30 of the villains so far—more than half the group that had jumped him when he was dropped in the central plaza—but he was wounded in a dozen places and the exertion was getting to him, having been burned, slashed, stabbed, and bludgeoned by various Quirks.


'At least my Blood Flow Regulation technique will keep me from bleeding out and can expel venom I've been injected with,' he reflected, 'but I only have another 10 minutes or so even if the leader and his brute don't-! What are you doing?!'


Kan raged silently even as he didn't dare voice his fury; Fumikage and two others (he couldn't see clearly without taking his eyes off his enemies,) had broken free from whatever ambush was waiting for them among the flames only to come running his way.


'Those fools are going to get themselves killed!' He hit the next three villains even more savagely than usual, in a vain attempt to draw attention from them to him, but Fumikage smashing through the dome of the Conflagration Zone had attracted the leader's attention already.


"Students are incoming, hmmm? Noumu, let's have a proper tableau ready for them," Tomura Shigaraki mused, and the hulking figure began to stir. "After all… the last boss needs a proper introduction."

 

[TheLastOne]

"Students are incoming, hmmm? Noumu, let's have a proper tableau ready for them," Tomura Shigaraki mused, and the hulking figure began to stir. "After all… the last boss needs a proper introduction."

Click to shrink...

Hmm, doesn't Shigaraki normally call himself the protagonist, All Might the final boss, and other heroes as mid-bosses or NPCs?

 

[Obloquy]

"Practical exercises are wonderful, but you must make sure to emphasize what students do wrong and right. There are not always perfect answers, and we are the ones who must guide them," Principal Nedzu continued to lecture as All Might nodded along.


'He's still so long-winded. I'm glad I was permitted to skip out on the Entrance ceremony due to my time limit.' Toshinori sighed and drank his tea, knowing how valuable the Principal's advice was, even if he lacked the ability to be quick and concise.


Another voice interrupted them.


"Principal Nedzu." The voice of the vice-principal, Miss Whisper, filled the room and echoed in their ears as though she were standing beside the two of them. "We have an urgent situation. 1-A's Tohru Hagakure is claiming a villain attack at USJ has occurred."


It took only an instant for Nedzu's super-intelligent brain to assess the situation.


Immediately, he triggered a device he carried on his person at all times in the building.


"All staff, we have a code Epsilon Orange 1 at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. I repeat, we have a code Epsilon Orange 1 at the Unforeseen Simulation Joint," he declared, all of UA's announcement speakers echoing his words. "All students, remain calm and report to the evacuation locations as instructed. Response Team teachers, meet with me at the hangar for rapid transport in 2 minutes. Miss Whisper, please continue your appraisal of the situation."


"Tohru Hagakure escaped at Vlad King's instructions after he ordered a classmate, one Tenya Iida, to open the main doors. Tenya was transported away mid-escape by a warp gate Quirk—she reports that he may have been injured as well, so we will need ambulances on their way, which I am handling—but Hagakure's invisibility let her evade detection. She does not know the status of the other classmates, but everyone was uninjured when she departed. Hagakure knew she couldn't run far enough fast enough to reach us, and drove the bus by which 1-A arrived instead. There's some damage, and I believe she is concussed from her final crash through our front gates, but I've brought her to Recovery Girl."


"Principal," All Might interrupted, swelling with muscle.


"You're coming with us," he perceived, "even though your time limit is here?"


"I shouldn't call myself a hero, if something like a time-limit can stop me," All Might declared. "Most importantly, my students will need to be assured… that I AM HERE!"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"We're at the far end of USJ, no point in trying to sneak around, Deku," Katsuki had snarled when Izuku suggested evacuating. "With that show Bird Face put on in breaking us out…" He looked from Fumikage, standing in the wreckage of the dome they'd broken through to escape, to the mass of villains gathered in the Central Plaza. "Yeah. They see us already. Predators chase prey, so we just need to show them we're not afraid."


So saying, Katsuki stalked off toward the central plaza… but he didn't rush ahead alone or rocket off with his propulsion explosions.


Katsuki moved on his feet, quick and easy, but carefully prepared to react if anything came at him.


After a moment, Fumikage grumbled unintelligibly and went after him, Izuku falling in line despite his anxiety.


"Well, it looks like some students passed the tutorial," gloated the villain with severed hands all over his outfit. "Welcome, welcome!"


"K-Kan-sensei!" Izuku yelped in alarm as he saw the figure of his teacher, held in one massive hand by the brain-exposed being beside the leader.


"As you can see, the Blood Hero, Vlad King, has already fallen," Tomura Shigaraki gloated. "He specializes in taking down and suppressing individually superior opponents by using his blood to restrain them, preying on the weaknesses of the human body… but this genetically engineered villain, the Noumu, was made to crush All Might. He has no weaknesses!"


"Oh, you've earned yourself a first-class trip to hell, freak," Katsuki snarled as his palms began smoking. Deku, Bird Face! Get ready for a fight."


Dark Shadow reared up menacingly as Izuku stiffened and quickly did his best call up One For All.


'If I break any bones here, I bet everyone will jump on me,' he assessed. 'Both arms already have one use each, two uses on the right from that Pennsylvania Smash, but if I can send people flying away and open a path… If we can just get to Kan-sensei…!'


He started spreading One For All through his left arm, trusting his gloves and costume to conceal his preparations.


"All Might isn't here now. Our itinerary said he should be. I don't suppose you know why he's missing?" Tomura Shigaraki wondered, scratching at scabs on his neck.


Izuku couldn't see the man's face through the severed hand clamped onto his head, but he looked unhealthy and in need of a shower, his blue-gray hair matted with old sweat.


"Yeah, he knows we don't need him to kick your asses," Katsuki snarled.


*pop pop pop!*


"Release our teacher and you may yet walk away," Fumikage declared, but there was uncertainty in his voice.


'Tokoyami, no,' Izuku almost groaned. 'Don't show them weakness or let him know you care, that just tells him how to hurt us!' It felt like Kacchan and his notebook all over again, which was a realization Izuku wanted to unpack sometime like never. 'I need to keep him gloating.'


"Wh-Why are you here?" Izuku asked. "Why do you want to k-k-," He deliberately slipped in his stutter, letting stress get to him on purpose, like dripping fresh blood in the water. 'Better me than them or Kan-sensei.' "-to hurt All Might?"


Within him, One For All thrummed but held steady.


"Heroes," Tomura sighed dramatically. "Government officials dispensing raw violence. As long as they limit it to 'acceptable targets,' everything is all well and good, isn't it?" Around them, the villains still standing chuckled menacingly and took a half-step closer. None were behind the boys, they weren't encircled, but the suggestion was present.


"Just come and try it, we'll pow, to the moon!" Dark Shadow threatened.


""Hweheheheh…"" The laughter of the mix of villains is sinister. It feels like a jury of the damned, those who want to drag everyone down with them.


'If I try a smash, that Noumu guy might just use Kan-sensei as a human shield. But… it… Maybe this is like Principal Nedzu, supposedly? An animal with a Quirk? I could believe it's a gorilla, and it isn't acting like a person, just standing there with its brain… Urgh, is it's brain exposed? I'd call that an obvious weak spot, except I'm not sure it's a brain because surely Kan-sensei would aim for that then? Maybe it's like in Piper Piedmont's Detective Adventures, when they fought the thing with fake vital organs,' Izuku assessed anxiously.


One For All hummed under his skin. Vlad King needed his help, his classmates were in danger, and he wasn't moving.


He so badly wanted to do something.


"I'm half-tempted to sic Noumu on you, while we wait. A good test run, chasing down three little brats," Tomura Shigaraki continued. "Oh, but that wouldn't be sporting, would it. So let's play a game."


Even Katsuki hadn't moved as Tomura paced around, gesticulating, all while Vlad King hung suspended from Noumu's meaty fist.


"Oooh, I love games! Cards, a board game?"


"Dark Shadow," Fumikage grit out.


"A timed game. Here." Tomura Shigaraki strolled up to Vlad King and raised one hand to the man's gauntlets. He laid his 5 fingertips on Kan's knuckles. "You have until-!"


Vlad King moved, surging into activity as blood spiked out of his gauntlets, piercing Tomura Shigaraki in three places and forcing him back.


More blood poured out of the other gauntlet, creeping across and almost sinking into Noumu's flesh as it pressed to restrain the beast.


"Run!" Kan ordered the boys as Shigaraki went down and Noumu thrashed uncertainly, sending Kan flailing.


They ran… but Izuku and Katsuki ran forward, while Fumikage juked to one side and Dark Shadow lashed out at the villains surrounding them.


There's an unspoken moment between them, and Katsuki grit his teeth because he couldn't decide whether to be pleased that Deku was deferring to him, or pissed that Deku was there at all to be a part of this.


Katsuki rocketed at the hulking Noumu, figuring he should take out the big threat while Deku kept the big-mouthed 'boss' busy until he finishes.


Izuku angled himself at Tomura Shigaraki, hoping a clean hit will knock him out or send him flying far enough to not cause trouble.


"SMASH!"


Izuku shoved more of One For All—don't even ask how much, he has no clue— into his arm as he threw a desperate punch at the staggered and swearing Tomura.


Impact.


The ground trembled.


Students all across USJ felt the shudder as buildings swayed.


The shockwave blasted out air hard enough to shatter USJ's lights at the edge of the dome.


Tomura Shigaraki laughed.


Izuku's fist had hit the Noumu and stopped cold.


"Shock absorption," the hand-wearing villain gloated as Katsuki flailed in the air, his target gone, and only barely avoided landing on Vlad King, who'd been carelessly dropped by the Noumu. "All Might's own punches won't even leave a bruise," he crooned.


And that.


That was important.


Izuku staggered back, partly from fear, and partly from recoil, but also partly to make room.


Because he was an analyst. He'd trolled through forums and read journal articles and written down his own ideas for years, and reviewing everything…


Well. He was brainstorming ideas for both helping and fighting Eijiro with his Hardening Quirk just last night, since Kan-sensei wanted to hear more from him about his classmates' Quirks.


Physical immunity? Resistance to impacting force?


Izuku knows how to leverage that.


Izuku pulls his right fist back through the pain, sliding back his right foot as he went, and calling up as much power from One For All as he could gather, because he only had one shot at this.


"Florida," he shouted, making it up as he went, almost feeling the boss villain's eyes follow his hands and 'Please let me look helpless enough I need this to work,' he hoped, "SMASH!"


He swung.


Not his fit. His fist was nothing, no power, just a blind.


He swung his leg.


Izuku kicked, and he didn't kick the Noumu, not with its Shock Absorption quirk.


He kicked the ground in front of it.


'Like a golf club and a divot please let this work!' Izuku prayed, and he kicked.


On their own, the legs held the strongest muscles in the body. Charged with 100% and whatever else he can cram in, all his hopes and dreams, Izuku's kick tears up the tile the Noumu is standing on and sending int flying.


The earth shook.


The ground shattered.


They were at ground zero of a kinetic explosion shaped perfectly to send on man-sized projectile (or, really, one gorilla-sized projectile,) into near orbit, exploding out through USJ's all-encompassing dome.


Izuku shattered every leg bone in two places or more, and he probably lost a few toenails too, he couldn't really tell through the pain. His shoe was gone, and his foot ended up a bloody mess, the dust in the air probably doing no favors for his mangled, misshapen leg.


Next thing Izuku knew through the agony, he was on his back at the edge of the crater he'd carved out with his kick. No way was he standing after that backlash broke more bones in his leg than he knew he had.


"Aaagggghhhhh~!" Izuku didn't even scream so much as wheeze, despite a fifth of his body being turned to skin-wrapped pulp.


He was in agony, but he did what he needed to. The Noumu was gone.


"You…"


The Noumu was gone, but the mastermind remained.


'I'm going to die now, Kacchan, if there was ever a time for you to not hate me we were doing so well I'm sorry I stole your kill please just trade and take him,' Izuku whimpered.


"You trashed my Noumu!" Tomura Shigaraki materialized out of the dust plume like lightning. "You brat! I'll kill you!"


'Tokoyami, Dark Shadow, anybody!' Izuku didn't know what the villain's Quirk was, but it looked to resemble Kacchan's or Ochako's, which meant hands=BAD.


Shigaraki's palm smashed into Izuku's face hard enough to break his nose and split his lip open.


'At least it isn't nitroglycerin or I'd be dead already,' Izuku mused desperately just before the villain bashed his skull against the tile of the plaza.


Izuku's vision went white with starbursts, but he still felt the flex as Shigaraki fixed all five fingertips on him, much like Ochako would have.


'I guess I'm dead,' Izuku reflected as he felt the creeping blackness at the edges of his visions. 'Sorry Mom… Sorry All Might, I guess I wasn't a good successor. I hope you can reclaim… actually… Why aren't I dead yet?'


"…Huh?" uttered Tomura Shigaraki, wondering much the same thing.


"Texas SMASH!" All Might roared, blasting in with an uppercut that threw Tomura sky high.


The villain would've hit USJ's dome or even gone through it, but a metallic cloth snapped out to wrap around him, dragging the villain skull first down to ground level with a sickening thud.


"Midnight, get him knocked out for certain!" Shota Aizawa shouted, unwilling to bet that only two impacts had put the mastermind down for the count.


'The teachers! They've arrived," Izuku realized blearily as All Might picked him up.


"On it!" Midnight shouted, conjuring up a puff of gas as she rushed in with restraining cuffs.


Snipe stayed at the top of the stairway, firing his guns wherever he saw trouble.


Powerloader took his mecha-suit toward the landslide and mountain zones to evacuate the students. Ectoplasm conjured 30 clones to look through the Downpour Zone for endangered students.


Nedzu perched atop Cementoss for a good view and surveyed the area, calculating what had occurred and what was-


"The Warp Gate villain is at the central plaza!" Principal Nedzu shouted in alarm as everyone was securing the area. "Get the students out!"


Kurogiri, who had unceremoniously fled the second those heroes arrived, (moving as soon as Aizawa took his Erasure-afflicting eyes off the mist-man to save Izuku,) quickly made his move.


The warp-user made a gate underwater off the coast and promptly tore the sky open, dumping a deluge down on everyone in the central area.


"YOU WILL NOT!"


All Might had moved faster than he spoke. By the second word, Izuku, Katsuki, and Fumikage were in his arms at the top of the shattered staircase, safely away from the splash range of the 40 tonnes of falling water.


Unfortunately, he'd also had to grab Vlad King, Eraserhead, and Midnight, none of whom were well-positioned to survive the crushing pressure dumped down on the area.


Before the third word had faded from their ears, Kurogiri opened another gate under Tomura and vanished with him as the seawater pulverized where they'd been.


And just like that, the battle was ended.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

Arresting the 70+ villains that had attacked took a while, and that was on top of treating the injured students.


"No deaths," Aizawa mused to Nedzu and Cementoss as everyone bustled about, or tried to. Ambulances had arrived, along with police cruisers, and officers were taking statements from students with teacher support. "One miracle, at least."


"No deaths among the students," Cementoss corrected. "Several villains."


"We aren't responsible for villains killing each other with crushing amounts of water," Nedzu dismissed, "and Todoroki-kun's victims are all still alive."


"Only because Kirishima convinced him to defrost them while treating Jirou," Cementoss noted. "Otherwise, they'd have frozen to death." Left unsaid were the uncertain conditions of a few in the hospital.


"But they didn't," Aizawa sighed. "What of Jirou and the other students? Who's injured?"


"Tenya Iida is in the worst situation, followed closely by Kyoka Jirou," Nedzu declared soberly. "Iida-kun lost his left foot via portal severance a few centimeters above the ankle, then suffered drastic blood loss as a result of this wound, along with being tortured by villains and lastly exposed to disease vectors in the form of Koda-kun's rats when he was rescued." A note of pleasure crept into Nedzu's voice at that last bit, having some affection for and appreciation of the accomplishments of his species-brethren.


"Is there any sign of infection?" Aizawa asked.


"At least 3, but all should be treatable once he's properly hydrated," Nedzu assured both teachers. "Todoroki-kun's quick thinking with his ice froze Iida's severed foot immediately, and reattachment surgery remains feasible, though it will be time-consuming."


"Ingenium will be relieved to hear that, but still…"


"The entire Iida family will be unhappy that their youngest was injured on our watch," Cementoss agreed.


"With proper medical treatment and no ill fortune, he should recover completely," Nedzu reasoned, "and he shall have our full support. As shall Kyoka Jirou, the next most injured."


"And she wasn't hurt by the villains, either," Aizawa noted.


"I've informed Hound Dog to expect Shouto Todoroki in particular, though all the students will be having sessions in due time. Jirou-kun's condition at least involves fewer injuries than Iida's; hypothermia turning into temperature shock, a brief lack of air, and meltwater in her lungs. All together, she'll almost certainly be suffering from pneumonia for the next week or so, and we will work to ensure her full recovery."


"The three students from the Downpour Zone will probably be joining her," Cementoss revealed. "Mashirao Ojiro, Mina Ashido, and Momo Yaoyorozu all are suffering from their exposure to the elements."


"Hmm, and none of them have particularly concealing costumes, do they," Nedzu murmured as he turned over the odds of various events. "Well then, nothing for it! A fourth of the class will be out for various lengths of time, so we must briefly slow down the pacing of the school for them, but we shall be supporting them as well, as is our duty. None of the other students have severe injuries?"


"The worst was Midoriya, but Recovery Girl was able to heal his leg, save for a few lost toenails which should grow back," Cementoss confirmed.


"He was one of the idiots who sought out the villains directly, wasn't he?" Aizawa noted. "Will there be anything done about that?" Left implied was how he tended to handle such suicidal cases, but it wasn't his class to deal with.


"He probably saved Kan's life, and from Bakugou-kun's statement, their positioning wouldn't have given them the chance to flee," Cementoss grunted.


Silence between the 3 spread.


Finally Aizawa sighed.


"How is Kan, anyway? I saw Hound Dog's face, and he'd gone past angry, straight into looking devastated," Aizawa revealed.


"His left arm is gone above the elbow. Totally disintegrated," Nedzu revealed sadly, "with no hope of recovery. Shuzenji-sensei believes a viable prosthetic may be achievable, but it will take time before he resumes his duties."


Left unsaid was the certainty of Kan resuming his duties; the man was more patient than Aizawa in terms of recovering on medical leave, but he would at least wait out the year before retiring, to see his students off.


Given that Ectoplasm still functioned perfectly well as a Pro Hero and Teacher with prosthetic legs, the idea of Kan quitting because he lost his arm was almost laughable.


Almost. There was nothing funny in the current circumstances.

 

[RoboRenee]

The workaround Izuku hit on was pretty cool, though that does make me wonder if the Noumu is going to be basically intact. He didn't overwhelm the resistance after all, so it's just the launch and the landing. It might walk that off and come back later.

 

[Dromuthra]

Huh. It feels a little surprising that having the better teacher for 1A resulted in significantly worse and more permanent injuries. Like, I see how it happened, but it almost feels like they were punished for doing better. Still enjoying the story though!

 

[Obloquy]

The workaround Izuku hit on was pretty cool, though that does make me wonder if the Noumu is going to be basically intact. He didn't overwhelm the resistance after all, so it's just the launch and the landing. It might walk that off and come back later.

Click to shrink...

The canon had the Noumu land in a copse of trees after All Might sent it flying and get arrested without issue (presumably because the villains weren't there to tell it to fight).

Unless Kurogiri gets to it first, I assume it'd go the same way in BioB.

Huh. It feels a little surprising that having the better teacher for 1A resulted in significantly worse and more permanent injuries. Like, I see how it happened, but it almost feels like they were punished for doing better. Still enjoying the story though!

Click to shrink...

If you give Frodo a light saber, Sauron should get a Death Star a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers to keep things interesting.

Hmm, doesn't Shigaraki normally call himself the protagonist, All Might the final boss, and other heroes as mid-bosses or NPCs?

Click to shrink...

In the version of the anime I watched, Shigaraki introduced the Noumu to Aizawa by saying, "but you know, Eraserhead, I'm not the last boss here." So that's where I took it from.

This is one of the best MHA fanfics I've read. Keep up the fantastic work! I feel like Vlad will probably pick up on the uh... destructive tendencies of certain classmates, self- and otherwise. I do wonder if we'll see stuff truly go off the rails after the USJ incident.

Incidentally, do you have a fixed idea as to who the UA traitor is?

Click to shrink...

Assuming that there actually is a traitor and it is a named character who's been foreshadowed in some way? I'll ignore the teachers for now, though I think they're the genuinely most likely possibility since we don't know their histories as much

Any of 1-B are okay bets, but most of all Monoma. Neito Monoma is really rude & arrogant, like a villain bitter about a boring undercover op, plus his grudge against 1-A could be because he's angry they beat his real allies at USJ. He also has a meta-Quirk, in that it interacts with other Quirks, just like All For One. Copy also requires physical contact and it has a time limit (AFO can only keep a stolen Quirk for so long before he can't give it away again, IIRC,) so when you add on his fondness for suits Neito could be a descendent of All For One given a small position in the family business.

If we want to insist that there's a traitor and it's a 1-A student, (neither of which do I actually believe,) then our options are Mina, Denki, and Tohru in ascending order of likelihood.

Mina:​

Mina has a mutation Quirk, so she may have faced prejudice growing up, and everything we know about her backstory IIRC we learned from Eijiro Kirishima's perspective. We know nothing about her family situation, her heroic motivations, etc., so her parents could work for AFO, she could be an orphan, they could be holding a sibling hostage, or many other possibilities.

We also don't know how pink hair or horns fit with her acid, so it's possible the acid is a second quirk she received at a young age, hence her difficulty controlling it at times and how she loses resistance if she overuses it.

If her original Quirk is some kind of telepathy and her horns are broadcaster antennae, then she'd be perfectly placed to make reports and observations to the villains about everything, and a good spy would make everyone like and trust her.

Most suspicious are 2 particular facts. 1) Mina approached and 'fooled' Gigantomachia, but he never bother going back to look for her for revenge for the slight against his lord's work. Do we know that the directions she gave were actually wrong, or did she see her dad's scary co-worker and go help him out for real? 2) During the USJ attack, Mina did nothing; she wasn't sent away by Kurogiri and she didn't participate in the fighting to get Tenya out the door, she just stayed by the injured Thirteen and looked teary, as though she were trying to keep cover without hurting her real allies' chances to win.

That said, a lot of this is stereotyping and making the facts fit the theory. Moving on...

Denki:​

At USJ, we have no evidence except his own word that he couldn't break through the jamming. He didn't fight any villains until Kyoka forced his hand, he didn't detect the jamming villain who was hiding, and him frying his brain was a perfect excuse to stop contributing while letting his electrical ally hold him hostage.

Maybe he's related to the electrical villain, or maybe they have similar Quirks. Maybe he fakes frying his brain, maybe e it's the backlash caused by an implanted Quirk, or maybe he's been promised a fix for it by the villains.

Tohru:​

Being invisible makes it really easy to sneak around, and she could have Noumu-style surgical scars, deformities from other implanted Quirks, etc., without anybody noticing.

Her invisibility is somehow both a mutation (Aizawa can't shut it off and it affects her whole body but not her clothes) and an emitter (altering light,) like she has two separate Quirks with good compatibility.

She can sneak around to spy or make reports. We have no idea how she got through the entry exam practical when her fighting skills are baseline and she was seen struggling to do a pull-up during a training montage. We don't see chewed or partially digested food, so things in her body are immediately invisible as well, meaning she could have implanted cameras and trackers watching out from inside her invisible body without issue.

Lastly, 2 more facts. 1) She also didn't do anything during the USJ attack; ostensibly, she got sent to the same zone as Shouto and hid so she didn't get in his way, but she never called out to him or ran off to try finding anybody she could help, an physical alarm or emergency exit, nothing. 2) Horikoshi hasn't formally introduced her Quirk yet. The same way he didn't introduce the kanji in Himiko Toga's name until after he showed her Quirk off to preserve the surprise, he's consistently and repeatedly neglected to formally introduce Tohru's Quirk to the audience, which he has acknowledged in interviews (but he claims he just hasn't found a good time,) so I suspect he's saving it up for a very special occasion.


That said, I don't actually believe there is a traitor, but those are my guesses if you insist on me making them.

 

[zhuull]

If you give Frodo a light saber, Sauron should get a Death Star a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers to keep things interesting.

Click to shrink...

I know you're joking here but that whole line of thinking is still some seriously lazy toxic thinking. Please don't ruin your story by trying to take that train of thought seriously.

 

[Obloquy]

Friday.


UA declared an unscheduled free day in the aftermath of the attack on Wednesday, giving the school time to address the press and students time to recover from the stress of surviving USJ.


That meant everyone reconvened in the morning on Friday, as best they were able.


"Did you see? Everyone was on the news yesterday, and they didn't mention me at all," Tohru Hagakure half-complained, gesticulating invisibly.


"Which channel were you watching?" Mezo Shoji asked, taking a moment to stretch his three left arms. "I definitely saw a report about the school girl who hot-wired a bus."


"Aaaargh! That's not what I mean and you know it!" Tohru declared. "I was stuck with my concussion in Recovery Girl's office after I ran while everyone was fighting! I should have done something!"


"You did." The sharp (if flat) retort caught half the class's attention, and they turned to the back of the room. Shouto Todoroki neither smiled nor frowned as he spoke. "Running to get help probably saved several of our lives, bringing the teachers faster than otherwise," he continued. "Compared to what I contributed…" He trailed off, his eyes going to the empty seat 3 spots in front of him, behind Mezo.


Kyoka Jirou's chill and exposure had worsened into pneumonia, which Recovery Girl's Quirk couldn't treat. Tenya was out for his reattachment surgery, and Mashirao was absent because everyone in the Downpour Zone had come down with a spring cold, though Momo and Mina had still insisted on dragging their bodies to class, wearing face masks and carrying extra tissues.


The absences weighed on everyone, though, the empty desk in the front of the room as heavy as anything else.


Mina sniffed behind her face mask. "Tsuyu-chan," the pink girl asked, leaning back in her chair far enough that Tsuyu only barely kept her from overbalancing, "who do you think is covering homeroom today?"


"Ano, if Kan-sensei is still injured… other teachers have classes, so I supposed it may be the principal?"


The door clicked, heralding entry.


"Very close, Asui," announced the well-dressed, dark-skinned woman who promptly entered with a stack of folders.


A handful of people looked to Izuku.


"Oh wow, you're the Soft-Spoken Hero: Miss Whisper!" Izuku declared.


"That I am, that I am," the Ethiopian woman agreed with a smile. "I am also UA's Vice Principal, and I'll be covering your class until Sekijiro Kan-sensei is released from the hospital. It's a pleasure to meet all of you."


""We'll be in your care,"" most of the class chorused politely.


"I will duly endeavor to look after you," she replied with a brief bow from behind the teacher's desk. She put down her folders and turned her full attention on the class. "I would like to begin by expressing my pride in all of you for what you survived, as well as my condolences and sincere apologies that we UA faculty allowed it to occur.


"Today, this morning you'll be going through ordinary classes," she continued, "but when I cover Kan-sensei's class with you this afternoon, we'll be doing something… special."


"Special, sensei?" Momo asked through her sniffles.


"A pseudo after-action report, discussing what occurred so you can all come to terms with it better. It's impromptu, but I believe the experience will be beneficial," she apologized. "First, however, I ought to relay a decision to you about upcoming events."


Everyone tensed.


"Sensei, is this anything serious?" Momo asked worriedly.


"Technically, yes. On your annual schedules, you should all see that the UA Sports Festival will be occurring come Golden Week."


'Oh thank you, that's something that's just normal school stuff,' several people sighed mentally.


"Sensei, are we still having the Sports Festival after the attack?" Minoru asked with wide eyes.


"Isn't there a worry about the villains attacking again?" Sero seconded.


"Wise questions, but that threat exists every year, and can even be extended to any and every public event," Miss Whisper answered. She squared her shoulders and spoke firmly. "Many villains want nothing more than control and attention. They would love it if our every decision were about them and their actions, but we will not allow fear to govern us.


"Headstrong fools who attacked and were rebuffed so quickly, especially considering they chose to attack now instead of waiting for the Sports Festival's publicity, are deemed less of a risk to us. Might they still do damage? That possibility always exists. The villains could just as easily keep watch on UA's outside gates and assault our students when they leave for the day. But if they try it, we will respond, and we will stop them. They will not control our lives or livelihoods, so while precautions will be taken, the Sports Festival will continue as planned.


"Now then," she inquired, "how many of you are familiar with the reasons and history of the festival? Why do we hold it? Midoriya?"


"It's one of the biggest publicized events in Japan each year, since UA is the best school, and the only one to put on this type of show," Izuku answered. "For 3 days during Golden Week, all the students in each year perform in a bunch of televised events, displaying to the public everything our next generation of heroes will be capable of."


'I mean, it's more complicated than that, and it's not just the Hero Course students involved, nor do they show everything, but that's the gist of it,' he finished silently, and Miss Whisper nodded.


"Will anyone else contribute another aspect?" Miss Whisper prodded.


"Internship scouting," Momo answered. "Top Pro Heroes all over the country will be watching to scout for talent among up-and-coming students, especially with UA's Internship Week coming up immediately after Golden Week celebrations conclude."


"Correct, Yaoyorozu," Miss Whisper confirmed. "One chance for a week of work experience a year," she continued, omitting the work-study arrangements that were usually limited to upperclassmen, "for a total of 3 opportunities in your time at UA before you graduate. Canceling the Sports Festival would injure our students' future possibilities, which is not to be borne.


"As such," she finished, "I expect Class 1-A will go Plus Ultra in preparing for upcoming events, and until Kan-sensei returns I will be here to support and encourage all of you."


""Yes ma'am!""


"Good. Homeroom is now dismissed, but I will discuss other matter with you when appropriate."

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

The bell for lunch period rang as Cementoss left the classroom.


"I'm getting so pumped after everything!" Eijiro Kirishima declared excitedly as they all rearranged to gossip.


"Me too," Hanta agreed. "If we really catch some attention, that'll be the first step to going Pro for real!"


"UA is already proving worth all the effort," Rikido agreed as he punched his fist into his open hand. "Now we just need to go Plus Ultra!"


"It certainly deserves our best efforts, with limited opportunities," Fumikage declared from his perch on a desk.


"I just hope everyone else will be back in time to participate, kero," Tsuyu said, drawing a near-unanimous round of more sober agreement from everyone.


"Speaking of which, Satou-kun," Momo murmured, grabbing his attention for a quiet conversation.


"Koda-kun, I'm getting so excited," Tohru confessed, as her usual conversation partner was absent. "You and me, we have trouble being seen or heard, right? Would you maybe watch me as I try to show off in super ways?"


Koji Koda nodded jerkily as he erased the board, trying to not show his anxiety.


/You're welcome to all the attention you can get,/ he signed, omitting how hard it might be for her to gain.


"Hm, perhaps you should stand by me, Hagakure-chan?" Yuga suggested. "I'll stand out just by standing still, so people are sure to notice my neighbor's beauty and skill."


'Another possible grouping for me to take note of,' Momo reflected. "Midoriya, may I speak with you a moment?"


"Some guys get all the luck," Minoru sighed under his breath, but he was staring out the window, (technically at the reflections in the glass, but she didn't know that,) and Momo decided to leave him be.


"M-M-Me?"


"We are the only class officers in class," Momo noted with a sad glance at Tenya and Kyoka's empty seats. "What do you say, Vice Representative Midoriya? I can share my lunch with you and Satou-san." She held up her large, double-decker bento box with a smile.


'A-A-A beautiful girl is offering to share her lunch with me!' Izuku froze for a moment, his eyes straying to Ochako. 'U-Urara- Um, Ochako-chan looks pretty busy talking with Tsuyu-chan and Ashido-san, so I don't think she'll miss me.' "O-Okay!"


"Everyone! I'm going to do my best!" Ochako near-roared as Izuku followed after Rikido and Momo.


"G-Go Beyond, Ochako-san!" Izuku called back with a wave as he entered the hallway. 'I wonder why she's so excited… One day, I should ask why she wants to become a hero, maybe that's it.'


They made a quick swing by the cafeteria, but keeping in mind Momo's offer to share, Izuku and Rikido only purchased drinks, meeting her outside on the lawn beneath a tree, where she put down a blanket and a few clipboards.


"California makizushi and an array of nigirizushi," Izuku commented, impressed when Momo's bento turned out to be insulated as well, so the fish wouldn't spoil. 'Wow, that all looks really tasty!'


"She always brings a lot to eat, but so do I," Rikido laughed, producing an array of pastries and other finger foods from his pack. "Today's our treat, right Madam President?"


Momo flushed slightly. "I brought tea, as promised." She busied herself with making it as Izuku stared at the spread before him.


'It all looks so good! But even if there's so much, that's because…' "You two both have Quirks that working by eating, affecting your diet, right? Is it really okay for me to impose…?" 'I should have waited in line and bought my own meal.'


"It's fine, man, don't worry!" Rikido laughed as he grabbed a slice of Momo's extra-large California roll. "Yaoyorozu always brings a lot, but if we aren't doing practical exercises this afternoon-,"


"Precisely," Momo agreed, letting the water steep. She grabbed a bit of salmon on rice, dunked it in a tray of soy sauce, and popped the whole thing in her mouth. "Mm… Ryōri-san got some good cuts today." She turned her attention back to Izuku after grabbing one of Rikido's sweet buns. "Vice Representative, I wanted to speak with you about our class's preparations for the Sports Festival."


"O-Oh." 'I wonder what she…?' "How can I help out?"


"Well, according to…" Momo paused awkwardly, and he wondered who she-


"Oh, did you hear about something from Kinzokubutsu-sensei?" Izuku asked.


Now she flushed as Rikido laughed.


"Got her in one, Midoriya!"


"I… Well, I suppose there's no further point in hiding it. Yes, I'm familiar with the Sports Festival from attending a few times as a guest of my uncle, and hearing about it. Reportedly, our teachers won't do anything too special to prepare us, just more of our regular training, but I've heard him speak complimentarily of classes that go beyond the teachers' training to prepare," she admitted.


Izuku perked up at the implied opportunity to score points with teachers and live up to the school motto.


"That's great! What should we do?"


At his earnest and immediate support, Momo's melancholy dissipated, much to Rikido's amusement.


"Study groups, for lack of a better term, appear to have been the most successful strategy," she relayed. "Pairing up is limited, and things spiral out of control if everyone attempts to help everyone, but diving into groups of 3-4 students who can help each other due to their similar but different skill-sets and Quirk requirements…"


"Like us," Rikido finished. "You and I are alike because we eat to fuel our quirks with our bodies, Midoriya and I are alike because we have super-strength that comes at a backlash, and the two of you are alike for being really intelligent and analytical."


Both of them blushed.


"I'm really not all that smart, analysis is just a hobby I've done for a while," Izuku hedged quickly.


Momo gave him a skeptical look. "As I recall, you accurately predicted the outcomes of everyone else's matches while accounting for unknown variables and you were responsible for your team's successful strategies, resulting in the fastest victory of the class. You won with thrice the speed of Todoroki-kun's team, which was the only other team to claim victory in less than 5 minutes, and you were facing one of the class's top students while handicapped with a Quirk which broke your bones. A handicap which you quickly have begun to overcome, I noticed." Before Izuku could babble out an explanation of his tutoring with Nejire, she asked him, "If you were advising Mineta and I before our match, what would you suggest?"


"I-? Oh." Izuku relaxed, faced with the familiar task of analysis instead of discussing his own secretive Quirk. "Well, I don't know all your limitations, but you can clearly create complex devices like the alarms as well as chemical mixes like the neutralizing powder, so…" He absently took a pastry and chewed as he thought. "First, it'd be worth trying a lever and pulley system or maybe just a ladder and using Mineta's quirk to stick the bomb to the ceiling, especially if you could make a tarp or shell to cover it."


"A-?" Momo's jaw dropped. She'd brainstormed more than a few alternate approaches in the embarrassing aftermath of her loss, but, 'I never… well, I guess I've been avoiding thinking about working with Mineta, so I wouldn't have thought about using his Quirk to its full abilities either. But yes, if Ashido-chan couldn't reach, nor could Koda-kun or the animals…'


"Once you did that, and once you electrified or trapped the fire escape like you thought to do then too," Izuku continued with a nod, "a good strategy would be to just have Mineta stick shut every door or window he could find instead of reinforcing them. It wouldn't keep the hero team out, but it'd slow them down and breaking through would leave a clear path for whether they'd been by or not without being as time consuming as fully reinforcing the doors with traps and alarms.


"Lastly, since you created an explosive for your cannon and you made pressure sensitive alarms, if you'd made demolition charges small enough to just blow holes in walls or the floor you could have booby-trapped the hallways, especially sealing off the areas leading to the bomb. Add in your neutralizer and anything to keep Koda-kun from using his rats to scout, like peppermint oil smeared in places, and that's a solid plan."


"It… Yes, it would be," Momo agreed. 'Maybe a bit of a time press, but given what we got done the first time around…' "Some of those strategies are still things that didn't occur to me. So however you feel about yourself, Midoriya-kun, you are factually good at analysis and applying Quirk uses."


"That why she decided to ask for your help with this," Rikido agreed, considering himself largely along for the ride.


"I mean… Wow… Thanks," Izuku managed, blushing up a storm at the sincere praise. 'I guess, after what I talked about with Iida-kun, Tsuyu-chan, and… and Ochako-chan, yeah.'


A loud clap made two of them jolt.


"So," Rikido said once he had their attention, "Yaoyorozu suggested we might practice and plan a bit together, but she was also hoping you two would work out possible groups for everyone to cooperate with, while I'm here as your 5-year-old child surrogate." He promptly popped some sushi in his mouth.


""As a what?"" They both asked.


"You know? 'Any plan I make will be explained to a 5-year-old child, and any flaws this child brings up will be addressed before implementation.' Man, I need to show you guys the evil overlord list."


Izuku flushed. "Th-That sounds like…"


"Like a villain thing? It predates Quirks, so it's really more an old-movie-and-book thing about how fictional villains make stupid mistakes for the story to continue. It just means I'm not as smart as you two but if I see a problem you'll still listen to me, right?"


"Of course we will, Satou-kun." Momo took a sip of her tea. "I… Should we begin?"


"Let's start with who we each might be working with, other than each other. If it's people with similar Quirks and fighting styles, then me, Midoriya, Kirishima, Shoji, and Iida are all physical powerhouses… Maybe Ojiro too for his martial arts, and Bakugou for hitting really hard in a scrap."


"Kacchan won't want to work with anyone," Izuku disagreed immediately. "I'm not sure he'd follow any idea we…" 'I'm not sure he'd follow my lead on anything. I mean, back when his life was in danger… but that was different…' "I think he'll want to practice individually."


Momo frowned. "I suppose we can tentatively exclude him. None of this should be mandatory. Satou-kun, I think Tsuyu-chan also would qualify as a physical powerhouse, but then we have one-third of the class in that one category."


"W-Well, are we just dividing it by Quirk-typing, or by something else?" Izuku wondered.


A few minutes of brief discussion got a couple sloppy practice lists until Izuku brought up a new idea.


"Um. So, when I'm describing a Quirk, there are 3 important things to consider," he explained as Momo started a new sheet of paper. "First, the abilities, like Kaminari-san producing electricity or Iida-kun's leg engines. S-Second are the restrictions, like what they can't do: Kaminari-san, I don't know whether he can absorb electricity as well as generate it, and I don't know if he can produce positive charges or just negative, but I know Iida-kun only has engines in his legs, not his arms, and they vent backwards so they only help him move forwards. Third," Izuku finished, "are the requirements, like Iida-kun fueling his Quirk with orange juice and Satou-kun using sugar."


"Got it! Maybe he'd fit better with me and Yaoyorozu, just for training, if we need to improve our fuel efficiency. Your quirk's power is just there or something, right?"


"Yeah, it's kind of weird," Izuku admitted to distract from exactly how his Quirk worked, "but I'm working on it." 'I think I'll leave out Nejire-senpai's assistance. I don't want to let people know how much I'm troubling everyone.' "But then, so Kaminari-kun and me might be grouped together because we need to control our output more, and limit our backlash."


"Another good point," Momo agreed, scribbling down their names together. "Depending on how we define the system, we might also group together Kyoka-chan when she returns, Ashido-chan for controlling the output of her acid, and maybe Tokoyami-kun for controlling Dark Shadow."


That spawned another round of debates on group-making, still mostly hypothetical, but Izuku insisted that Katsuki was very good at regulating the size of his explosions and would not appreciate much 'advice' in that aspect of training.


"I'm going to just spitball out one last idea," Rikido finally decided after munching some more sushi. They'd gone through most of the food and they didn't have much time left before lunch ended, but they'd got a lot done. "Right now we've been grouping people based on similarities, and on things they need to improve, but if they all have the same problem, then who's going to help them improve?"


Momo frowned. "That's an excellent point," she allowed.


"I mean, I guess I was thinking people would trade approaches that worked, but yeah," Izuku agreed.


"Right. So I think I could maybe get the most done working with, like, Shoji on stealth or grappling, doing general fitness workouts with Kaminari or Kirishima… who do you two think you could best help, or who do you think would best help you?" Rikido asked.


"That…" Izuku trailed off in thought, looking up at the sky as Momo bit the blunt end of her pen.


"A tricky question," she mused.


"Well, maybe I should re-phrase it. We're doing this because we want to, right?" Rikido reasoned. "You both are analytic and stuff. Who do you really want to work with in stuff, exploring their Quirk and improving their abilities?"


'Kacchan,' Izuku mused nostalgically, 'but that'll never happen.' Then an idea he'd been tossing around his head reared up again. "Hagakure-san," he declared firmly.


"Oh?" "Huh?"


"I've seen her eating in the cafeteria, and food disappears into her mouth; we don't see her chew or swallow. Just based on that I have a few possibilities for how her invisibility works, and adding in her immunity to Aoyama-san's laser… Even just working a bit with her could teach us both a lot of things," he resolved. "Yaoyorozu-san, would you maybe consider working with Ashido-san?"


"Ashido-chan? Yes, I already did some chemical breakdowns on her acid and I developed a neutralizer once before," Momo reasoned, "but seeing whether she can alter the composition… I also believe I want to work with Kirishima-kun, to see where he falls on the Mohs Hardness scale using minerals I create. Satou-kun, you might also want to work with Hagakure-chan until Ojiro-kun returns, as she needs physical training to fall back on as well."


"Yeah, that's a good point." Rikido nodded thoughtfully.


"Satou-kun, either on your own or with Yaoyorozu-san, you could experiment with- I mean, I don't know, but aren't there different types of sugar, like molasses and brown sugar," Izuku figured.


"Sanding sugar as well, in baking cookies! Maple syrup, agave nectar… I can access many kids of sweetener if I talk to our chefs, and sucrose is just one type of carbohydrate, technically. C12-H22-O11," Momo recited. "There are many things we can explore if you haven't already," she eagerly suggested.


"Um, I mean… I've tried sanding sugar, but I never… Wow, maybe honey will work too, or molasses. I mean, I've had them before, but never the full 10 grams necessary, I don't think. Great idea," Rikido agreed, pumping his fist.


"Along with Hagakure-san, I… well, I've kind of done some things with Tsuyu-chan, so she might benefit more from physical training if she wants, but Ura- but Ochako-chan and I are planning to do some testing of her Quirk's limits this weekend, so we'll be working together anyway," Izuku continued. "Then… I don't really know who else I can work with, maybe Shoji-kun, or Jirou-san when she returns?"


"It will be a work in progress," Momo reassured him, writing more names down. "I'm probably best equipped to understand the mechanics of Aoyama-kun's Naval Laser and that belt he always uses, plus…" Here she hesitated for a long moment. 'He's been behaving better after Kan-sensei spoke to him. But I don't really… It's my responsibility as Class Rep, and I already know I shouldn't fob him off on either of the other two.' With a grimace, she wrote down one more name, adding, "If I'm going to do a chemical breakdown on Ashido-chan's acid, I may as well do the same on Mineta's sticky- on his adhesive spheres." 'The puns really do write themselves. How crass.'


"Now we're cooking with oil," Rikido chortled. "Can anyone think of anything Todoroki needs to work on? He's less likely to bite our heads off, right?"


"As a fellow Recommendation student, he may merit his own grouping," Momo decided. "I can find him to ask?"


"Finish eating first. And Midoriya-kun, eat up as well, we'll still need some strength for this afternoon."

 

[zhuull]

and Mashirao was absent because everyone in the Downpour Zone had come down with a spring cold, though Momo and Mina had still insisted on dragging their bodies to class, wearing face masks and carrying extra tissues.

Click to shrink...

"Isn't there a worry about the villains attacking again?" Mashirao seconded.

Click to shrink...

Damn that Tailman is a ninja! Sneaking into class like that to answer a question when everyone said he was home sick.

 

[Obloquy]

For their Physical education and Health class double period after lunch, Miss Whisper instead brought everyone (gym uniforms optional,) out to a part of campus with trees, a few stray flowers, and a generally peaceful aura.


There was also another staff member there, waiting.


"Everyone, sit in a half-circle please, though you can position yourself elsewhere if you feel more comfortable," the Vice Principal instructed. "Hound Dog, if you would care to take over?"


"Rrright!" Ryo Inui barked. "The emotional aftermath of violent experiences like you all survived is nothing to be ashamed of. Many Pro Heroes have trouble coping with the violence inherent to their encounters, suffering nightmares and other psychological scars. Most of them undergo some form of therapy. Japanese society still tends to downplay the presence of mental health issues, but as heroes it is our duty to rise above that.


"Our exercise today will be a simple discussion circle. Anyone who wishes to may step up and address the class. There will be no judgment. There will be no interruptions. You are all valid, your opinions are all important, and your experiences are all extreme. Koso?"


With a slight flourish, Miss Whisper produced a gaudy, green-and-orange plastic microphone from out of somewhere.


"This will be our speaking stick. While you hold it, you will speak uninterrupted. Let me begin." Miss Whisper stepped into the central point of the half-ring, a tree at her back, and bowed to the class. "We of UA's faculty owe you all our deepest apologies. While you are entering training for a dangerous job, you remain students, and it was through our carelessness that our security was breached, endangering all your lives.


"Class 1-A handled what occurred excellently, obeying your teacher's orders and adapting to the situation when separated from him. You all have shown the makings of excellent heroes in the future, and I will be incredibly proud to play a part in teaching you. Did you all react perfectly? No. But perfection is an illusion, and the enemy of a good plan is a perfect plan. You are all alive, you will all be returning to the hero course to improve, and that is what matters. Please know that we all are proud of you."


Miss Whisper bowed and held out the 'microphone'.


After a long pause, Momo took a breath and stood.


She took the microphone, turned to the class, and bowed.


"In the aftermath of the attacks, I feel I was insufficient. Kan-sensei instructed me to create the cannon as a distraction from Hagakure-chan's escape, but I am familiar with the construction and formulas for projectiles, for flares, and for producing plumes of colored smoke. Had I begun as soon as the villains arrived, I might have fired off distress signals before Iida-kun or Hagakure-chan needed to flee. Were I particularly quick, I might have distributed weapons and equipment for fighting back.


"Instead," she continued grimly, "I did exactly what I was told… but I did only what I was told. When we were scattered," she stopped to sniff through her mask again, "rain rendered most of my potential weaponry ineffective. Ashido-chan and I were forced to rely on Ojiro-kun, who overexerted himself defending us and is now sick from exposure to the elements. I can't stop thinking of all the ways I could have made a difference, but despite my… despite my training and my position leading the class, I weighed down those who should have relied on me."


"Yaoyorozu-," someone murmured sadly, but a sharp look from Miss Whisper cut them off.


"So for that, I wish to apologize. I am already trying to do better; along with Midoriya-kun and Satou-kun, I've put together a list of potential training groups to help us excel in the coming Sports Festival. If you are interested… Well, I'll need to work out the details with Koso-sensei, but I consider it my duty to serve and assist you all."


Momo finished with another resolute bow and held out the microphone.


Mina stood up.


So did Shouto, which surprised her long enough for him to take the 'speaking stick'.


"I was…" He trailed off in thought and restarted. "Yaoyorozu-san, whatever you feel about your contributions, you did nothing negative." He paused another moment, eyes distant. "My eldest brother, Touya," Shouto declared, "died several years ago when he lost control of his flames, which burned hotter than even my father's Hell Flame Quirk."


Several of the class gasped and a few people whispered quietly in shock, but no one spoke as Shouto marshaled his thoughts.


"Touya-nii-sama's death is one of several reasons I've long hesitated to use my flames unless forced to do so, which is why I rely on my mother's ice. Although I've studied and been aware of hypothermia and frostbite… at the USJ I lashed out unthinkingly, and Jirou nearly died for it. After freezing the Flood Zone, I didn't wonder at all whether anyone was frozen inside. Had it not been for Kirishima breaking free through his own strength, and Jirou releasing a last ditch effort to breathe, we would be attending 2 funerals due to my irresponsible behavior.


"I… have issues with Endeavor, but I cannot now deny his discipline or capabilities. While brutal in battle, he has never carelessly used his Quirk to injure a bystander or teammate, whereas my first combat engagement nearly resulted in two cases of negligent homicide." Shouto closed his eyes for a long moment. "I wish to become the Number 1 Hero using my mother's ice, to make her proud of me, but I worry that in avoiding Endeavor's faults, I scorn the merits that made him a top-ranking Pro Hero."


He held out the microphone.


Izuku stood this time, taking it. He faced the class, and then he closed his eyes, trying to breathe.


They waited patiently.


Finally, Izuku looked at them again and said, "My own experiences aren't really that bad or important, compared to everyone else. I think we all did really well, though, in staying together so we all got out alive. Koda-kun saved Iida-kun, preventing him from dying, and it was Todoroki-kun who preserved I-Iida-k-kun's foot for reattachment; without that, he probably wouldn't be able to continue at UA.


"S-So… Todoroki-kun, there are many kinds of heroes who behave in many ways. You can avoid your father's mistakes and still learn to be great, not just from him," Izuku observes, "but from the other top heroes like All Might, Hawks, Best Jeanist, and from our teachers like K-Kan-sensei and M-Miss Whisper. Yaoyorozu-san, it's really easy to say you should have done something else, but what if the first time you f-fired that cannon instead made the Warp Villain and the rest attack at once, getting us more injured? What if making equipment to distribute left you weak enough to be injured later?


"I-If we shouldn't judge each other, then you shouldn't judge yourself so harshly, either. We were all attacked, and we all got through it. More than 70 villains are behind bars because of us. Sure, we could be better, I wish I was better… but we were already good, when it could have been so, so bad for all of us. IIda-kun will be back, as w-will Jirou-san and Ojiro-kun. N-None of us think badly of them for being injured, so let's hold the evil villains r-responsible and f-forgive ourselves as well."


Izuku bowed sharply and handed the microphone back to Miss Whisper instead of waiting for his replacement to take it.


Eijiro Kirishima caught him as he trudged back, hugged him, and sat Izuku in his spot between Mina (who also hugged him) and Shouto, who gave Izuku a nod of respect. Eijiro, in turn, took the microphone.


"I'm not one for regrets, so I'm agreeing with Midori-bro here." He then went around the circle listing off something awesome about every person present—Rikido & Hanta teaming up to make a flail, Shouto going beyond and defrosting the villains he froze to save their lives as well, Fumikage & Dark Shadow tearing open the dome around the Conflagration Zone, etc.—and finishing with, "Let it never be claimed that we don't rock, people! Chivalry lives on in the hearts of badasses!"


He held out the microphone and Mina took it.


She opened her mouth, and then she just stood there for a long moment as she teared up.


"I-," *sniff* "I never want to feel that helpless again! Before we got scattered, I didn't do anything big, and after we got scattered, I couldn't do anything big! The wind and the rain just… any gush of acid might've killed someone or hurt you guys! I don't want to hurt my friends! So yeah, we all got past this, but I'm doubling down on my training from now on and I'll become someone you guys can rely on, I promise!"


She burst out crying, so Ochako and Tohru quickly ushered her to the side with some tissues given to them by Miss Whisper.


Rikido spoke about how he worried his strength wasn't bringing much to the table, and he was going Plus Ultra in his training as well.


Yuga spoke to pump everyone up again about surviving and how they'd all worked together so well.


Tohru spoke about how useless she felt, having to use the bus to call for help, and how all she had done was run after hiding, not even returning with the teachers to fight.


Denki declared his worries that he should've somehow been able to power through the communications blockout, but he just didn't know how (and he said those words with as much self-condemnation as he could muster).


Ochako talked about how she felt a little embarrassed that her encounter in the Landslide Zone was only notable for her attracting trouble to her trio and how she worried she hadn't done enough because she never really felt she had to worry, like she was safe because the other groups weren't.


Some people refused to speak—Katsuki definitely wasn't airing anything in front of people, while Koji remained too shy—but everyone who wanted to took their turns in due time, and Miss Whisper obligingly used the remainder of the period to fine-tune the proposed study groups Momo & Izuku laid out.


In the end, even Katsuki offered to let Momo do a chemical work-up of his explosive sweat, and he said he'd be good offensive practice for Kirishima's hardening, so everyone had one or two people they'd be working with.


"It's the end of our time together for now," Miss Whisper declared once a rough set of groups was drawn up, "but I'd like to reiterate how proud I am of you all, both from back then and your behavior today. You give me hope for the future, you do."


She bowed and led them back inside for the rest of the day's classes.

_____________________________________________________________________​

3:20 pm


Class was letting out for the day, and Miss Whisper was staying behind to do a bit of grading at Kan's desk, but when 1-A tried to leave…


"Wh…?" Ochako was going to be one of the first out the door with Izuku, only for a crush of other students to be crowded around the doorway in the hall. "Wh-What's going on here?"


"Class Rep, I think we need you up here," Denki called with a grin.


Momo left her half-packed bag behind to address the crowd. "My apologies, but do you have business with our class? Is something happening?" Momo inquired.


"Whatever it is, they're blocking us in," Minoru complained. "Do you people want something?"


"They want to check out the competition, small fry," Katsuki drawled tiredly.


It set Izuku's teeth on edge, and not in the familiar way he was used to. Katsuki wasn't meant to sound so tired like he had ever since the USJ attack, as though he barely cared about things now.


"They what the what?" Mina wondered.


"Raccoon Face, we're the big names who survived USJ," Katsuki explained. "We saw ourselves on the news; they saw us too." Several of the on-looking students shifted as Katsuki trudged up to the doorway.


"Don't worry Kacchan's in neutral gear," Izuku joked to a worried Minoru and Momo. "He won't be starting any big fights."


He didn't really realize that Miss Whisper could hear him just fine, nor did he notice her attention turn toward the door as her lips began to silently move.


"You extras are all here to get a look at us before the sports Festival, right?" Katsuki challenged.


Several outside students bristled at the address while 1-A students groaned in despair.


"Why are we leaving this blond to be our ambassadeur dignitaire to the other classes?" Yuga complained.


"You're wasting everyone's time trying out half-assed strategies like this. …Out of my way, nameless extras!" Katsuki snapped finally.


"See, he's always angry, kero," Tsuyu sighed to Mina.


"Bakugou-," *sniff* "-don't be rude just because you don't know them," Mina chided.


"Such uncouth behavior is hardly appropriate. Please accept our apologies for him," Momo said, though she didn't pull him away from the door either.


"Y-Yeah, he's just like that sometimes," Izuku seconded, which surprisingly didn't prompt another outburst of anger.


"Ohhhh…" Ochako just whined in shocked exasperation.


The figures crowding the doorway shifted as someone shoved through.


"Class 1-A is famous now, so I came to see how you all are in person," drawled Hitoshi Shinsou (not that 1-A knew his name yet). His unruly hair was a deep purple, and he had tired eye bags deep on his face. "I suppose the answer is, 'pretty arrogant'."


Several members of 1-A bristled at that.


Miss Whisper hummed softly but didn't say anything, appearing to pay no mind to the encounter.


"Are you all alike?" Hitoshi wondered.


"N-N-Not at all! It's just, like, Iida-kun would probably be telling off Kacchan if he were here," Izuku reflected sadly.


Momo pursed her lips, getting a vague feeling. "Ojiro-san similarly is quite humble in my experience. Bakugou is the exception, not the rule."


"Yet I'm not seeing anything to reconstruct my lovely illusions of you all," Hitoshi deadpanned, eyeing the room. "Where are these people, anyway?"


"Iida-chan is still in surgery after the villains cut his leg off," Tsuyu declared, and for the first time surprise was visible on Hitoshi's face as murmurs swept through the few students in the hall who heard her speak.


"Kyoka-chan and Ojiro-kun are still hospitalized," Mina seconded with an odd twist to her face under the health mask, "but they'll be back. We probably should be, too, some of us-," She gestured at he classmates as everyone assembled to stare down the other students. "-but we'll be bringing our A-Game in time for the Sports Festival, right?"


"Right!" "You better believe it." "We'll knock your socks off for sure!"


"I-Is there any other reason you guys are all here?" Izuku wondered as the masses of students eyed each other.


Several people in the hallway shifted uncomfortably.


Hitoshi sighed, but before he could say anything, someone further down the hallway (previously out of sight,) laughed.


"Ahahahahahahaha…! Plenty of students who couldn't make the cut directly into the Hero Course instead tried out for General Education," declared a blond boy as he led several others in shoving through the mass of students. "Fighting robots can be a bit difficult for some people, so the school left a loophole for people who specialize in more human enemies; a non-Hero Course student who wins the Sports Festival against all odds will be permitted to transfer into Heroics. Of course," he finished, "there's only so much room, so a low-performer will be dropped into Gen Ed, too."


"You seem remarkably well informed," Hitoshi drawled, his eyes shifting uncomfortably between the newcomers and the survivors in 1-A.


"Neito Monoma, of 1-B."


"Hitoshi Shinsou, 1-C," Hitoshi replied.


"I'm Tetsutesu Tetsutetsu from Class 1-B! We came to see everyone who fought against villains and like the news was talking about," declared a silver-haired guy with odd growths (like a ragged picture frame,) around his eyes.


"Yeah," sighed Hitoshi, "me too. I guess here's a warning for all of you then, A and B alike: if you let your guard down in the Sports Festival, I'll sweep your feet out from under you. A bit of a declaration of war. So... you'd better be at your best come the festival." This last bit had a touch of supportiveness to it as he glanced at the masked girls.


'Wow, some really bold people are taking this super seriously,' several members of 1-A reflected silently. A few even chuckled.


"Isn't that a little extreme?" Momo wondered.


"Barking dogs rarely bite," Katsuki dismissed flatly with a huff. "If these guys were worth anything, they'd realize that spelling out the danger will only help us fight back. They don't matter."


"Hey, don't dismiss us, you'll only embarrass yourself!" Tetsutetsu roared furiously.


At the desk, Miss Whisper watched the situation out of the corner of her eye, lips silently moving again.


"Ahahahaha…! You're Katsuki Bakugou, right? You're already famous for surviving one villain attack, the sludge guy," Neito Monoma recalled drily. "No wonder you're the most stuck up in this group, getting to hog the spotlight twice like that."


"What did you just say?" Katsuki grit out?


"Monoma," an orange-haired girl scolded from the side of the crowd, but she couldn't press in to reach him quickly.


"My research said the idiot who jumped in then with only his notebook is here as well," Neito continued, and Izuku tensed. "I bet you all had so much fun with that villain attack, enjoying your 5 minutes of fame. Ahahahahaha…! If that's all you want out of life, proving how much better than us you are, then I really hope you get to experience a few more-,"


"What the hell did I just hear?"

________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

Due to comments on SpaceBattles, there is a rewrite or addendum to the previous ch is in progress but slow, so I'm going to keep the story moving past the rough spot in the meanwhile.

The other students at the end knew things are in the news, but not the entire details of who was hurt or how badly; a majority of the students gathered just hope 1-A is all okay, by the way, they just don't know how to express this or have enough confidence to speak up.

Guess who's talking at the end, I dare you.

 

[Lunaryon]

Oh boy. I don't remember what Miss Whisper's quirk is, but I have a feeling someone is about to regret something

 

[zinay]

Personally I'd guess Aizawa since he is responsible for class 1-B, and is the teacher I can think of who would be most likely to swear in front of all the students, though considering what Neito said, I could see a number of them doing so in this situation.

 

[Lunaryon]

Personally I'd guess Aizawa since he is responsible for class 1-B, and is the teacher I can think of who would be most likely to swear in front of all the students, though considering what Neito said, I could see a number of them doing so in this situation.

Click to shrink...

Oh, oh no. Neito... you done fucked up them.

Congrats, you are not going to enjoy the future if it is Eraserhead

 

[Rukatin]

Oh boy. I don't remember what Miss Whisper's quirk is, but I have a feeling someone is about to regret something

Click to shrink...

I think she's an OC, I couldn't find anything about her online.

 

[Obloquy]

Vice Principal Miss Whisper is an OC, yes. Her Quirk has something to do with communicating over long distances, because she was the staff member who reported Tohru's arrival in the bus to Nedzu & All Might from the far side of the building.

 

[ConfusedCanuck]

Huh this is on this site as well neat!

 

[Zedman7054]

Vice Principal Miss Whisper is an OC, yes. Her Quirk has something to do with communicating over long distances

Click to shrink...

Oh?

He didn't really realize that Miss Whisper could hear him just fine, nor did he notice her attention turn toward the door as her lips began to silently move.

Click to shrink...

Miss Whisper hummed softly but didn't say anything, appearing to pay no mind to the encounter.

Click to shrink...

At the desk, Miss Whisper watched the situation out of the corner of her eye, lips silently moving again.

Click to shrink...

OH! I wondered what the odd emphasis on these parts was for, but she was talking to someone using her quirk, presumably whoever has come to break up this mob, likely Aizawa.

 

[drake_azathoth]

First thing I thought when I knew this was about a class switch is Aizawa won't put up with Monoma's BS.

 

[Obloquy]

"What the hell did I just hear?"


Neito Monoma froze.


Tetsutetsu, who would happily face any fight that promised to be a fair challenge, stiffened in fear.


Itsuka Kendo, who had charged into a burning building when one of her fellow examinees lost control of their Quirk during the entry exam practical, abruptly found herself too terrified to move.


Katsuki Bakugou, the survivor of two villain attacks who aimed to surpass All Might, shuddered at the anger present in those words, and stayed still.


En masse, half the students in the hallway scrambled to clear a path, pulling their less reactionary classmates out of the way.


A length of cloth shot down the hall to envelop Neito Monoma as he panicked.


Quirk active, a red-eyed Shota Aizawa strode down the hallway, radiating cold fury.


"S-S-Sensei," Itsuka managed through her fear, "it's not-!"


"Enough, Kendo. I have ears," Eraserhead growled.


He didn't look like a hobo now, as was his usual daily appearance. He looked like a veteran Pro Hero in full command of the situation, and the students barely dared to breathe in his direction.


"Neito Monoma," Eraserhead intoned darkly. "Do my ears deceive me? Earlier this week, Class 1-A was fighting for their lives, and here you stand, mocking them about the experience? Pretending they should have enjoyed putting their lives on the line without warning? Acting as though it isn't a miracle they all pulled through, and that it didn't come at the expense of great suffering on their parts? Ignoring how Vlad King remains hospitalized with his injuries, and that only immediate medical attention prevented several of them from being crippled, if not outright dying?"


"I- I- I-," Neito attempted, too terrified under Aizawa's baleful gaze to defend himself.


"Wishing," Aizawa spat venomously, "that they would repeat the experience, as though it weren't traumatizing enough the first time?"


"I- I- I just-,"


"You are hereby expelled from UA, Neito Monoma" Aizawa declared over his attempt at defense. "Harassment of your classmates will not be tolerated, nor will belittlement of the very real threats they faced. UA students have died before, did you know? One of my classmates was murdered in our second year," he continued. "It was only their competence and an abundance of luck through which we avoided 20 funerals for 1-A, and you would wish on them a repeat experience. The world of heroics has no place for that behavior, Monoma. Thank you for revealing your true colors before your carelessness hurt anyone."


So saying, Shota Aizawa departed down the hall, dragging Neito Monoma—still shocked speechless, but now with tears streaming down his face as he realized what was happening—behind him to the main office.


Not a single student present dared to speak.


Sighing, Vice Principal Miss Whisper stood from Kan's desk and stepped out after them.


"That's always a shame," she mused aloud, as though someone else had spoken across the school to summon 1-B's homeroom teacher instead of her. "I'll be needed to assist with the paperwork, if you'll excuse me." No one present dared so much as blink until she was down the hall after the two and out of sight.


"Oh… Oh hell," Itsuka Kendo finally muttered, looking genuinely as though she were about to be sick.


Momo saw the tears building and shook off her shock enough to grab the green-faced redhead and escort her quietly to the restroom for a breakdown.


Tetsutetsu just shivered, still feeling as though he had come so close to death itself.


Even Hitoshi Shinso, who by all rights ought to have been pleased with the now-open seat in the Hero Course, still seemed more shocked than anything. Whatever he'd wanted or been planning, it wasn't this.


Katsuki gave one last shudder, shaking off the intimidation much as a dog shakes off water.


"Well," he huffed, "looks like you've got a good chance at getting your seat, if I don't beat you into the ground on my way to first place," he told Hitoshi. Turning to the rest of their audience, Katsuki added, "Welcome to Heroics, extras. If you can't take the heat, be glad they won't let you in the kitchen." Warning duly delivered, he stalked off.


He had training to complete, after all, and this was a more perfect punishment for that smug blond trivializing the worst day of Katsuki's life than any beating he could deliver, in the end.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"Hi again!" Nejire cheered, leaping onto Izuku's shoulders when they met again in the park that weekend. "I heard you guys got attacked, wow! I remember my first time facing villains, it was super-scary!" Her smile fell for a moment. "Your classmates in the hospital are going to be alright, right?"


"Yeah," Izuku sighed, "but it was scary. And, I mean, they say the surgery to reattach Iida-kun's leg will… it just worries me."


"Un!" Nejire nodded seriously. "Have you been to visit anybody?"


"I don't even know where they're staying," Izuku confessed.


"That's sad, you should ask. I totally get my friends numbers after we meet, every time!"


"I-I remember," Izuku muttered, recalling how she'd gotten his contact information and blown up his phone twice the past week with random streams of questions/comments. 'Oh, I'm a terrible friend, I bet Iida-kun could really use a friendly face.' Izuku squared his shoulders. "You're right! I'll try to figure out how to visit him later!" 'Even if I need to visit every hospital in Musutafu until I find him!'


"Awesome!" Nejire cheered. "Now, we're training! What do you want to do?"

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

"Hey, Nejire-chan," Izuku asked when they took a break from spreading One For All's power through his legs to see what happened, "I have a question." He was on his back, resting as he watched the clouds.


"Shoot! Oh, that's was an invitation, by the way, not an instruction, though you totally could shoot things like a BB-gun by flicking your fingers I bet, like Son Aīpa flicking dice from the top of Taipei 101, right? Pew-pew! Pew-pew!"


"Aha… Right, I guess. Um, so, the Sports Festival."


"What about it?"


"There was… this Gen Ed student who approached us, talking about transferring into the Hero Course? How does that work?"


"Oh, yeah! That's how Yuyu joined the Hero Course, she's my best friend. Her Quirk lets her make people hallucinate if she touches them, but it won't work on robots and we got split up from attending the same junior high, so she got wrecked during the entry exam practical," Nejire recalled, snickering sadly.


"But she won the Sports Festival and transferred over?" 'If she's a 3rd-year now,' Izuku mused, 'then this was either last year or the year before. I watched all three days of those performances, so I probably saw her! I should look that up again.'


"Logical ruse~!" Nejire sang happily.


"Huh?"


"You technically don't need to win the Sports Festival, it's just that a non-Heroics course student is guaranteed an offer if they win," Nejire revealed with a cheeky grin. "Ooh, that one looks like a puppy! So cute!"


"I guess…" Izuku agreed weakly. "So, if they don't need to win…"


"What do you know about the Sports Festival's set-up?" Nejire prompted.


"That's… well, there's always three events," he started muttering, "with games for the people already disqualified in between so everyone can still put on a good showing. Scavenger hunts, kickball, dodgeball, freeze tag, tag-teaming the robots- Oh! Wow, I feel really stupid," he sighed, "I never realized those robots that popped up as obstacles a few times were what they'd use in the entry exam, I should've been more prepared…" He grit his teeth. "No, I will be more prepared this time, and in the future too."


Thus began a mutter fest in which Izuku recited every detail of the Sports Festivals he'd watched previously, from the order and nature of the events to the fact that the TV showing put up photos of the Heroics students in their hero costumes with brief bios when focusing on someone.


Nejire mostly let him just go wild again—she'd found he'd get to generally good conclusions eventually on his own—although she occasionally tossed in a few details from her prior participation in her first and second year, like how the TV broadcast would have pictures of the students in their hero costumes for advertising purposes.


"…Hey, Nejire-chan-senpai," he wondered, "are they going to be taking photos of us in our costumes?" 'I still haven't gotten around to replacing my mask.'


"Nah, they'll probably use pictures from your Heroics 101 exercises. You had a few of those before the attacks, right?"


"Battle trials in our first class, then sparring and discussions before we practiced the strategic use of force in later classes, until our rescue training got interrupted," Izuku affirmed.


"Great! They'll probably use those, then, unless you get called in for a photo op," she assured him. "Ooh, I bet I should look some of those up for our next lesson, and see what we can find for inspiration. Maybe I'll show you some of my class exercises too, so you'll know what to aim for!"


"You can do that?" Izuku boggled at the implications.


"Yuppers! The school library has all the classes' recordings kept on record for reference, it's this biiiiiig database," she confirmed. "You just have to sign in with your ID and maybe talk to the librarian, but you can view any recording you were part of at any time, just because!"


"Oh wow," Izuku said, and then he realized, 'All the activities? Does that mean the other classes' stuff as well?' He got even more excited, turning from his cloud watching. "Senpai, can we view, like, 1-B's Battle Trials if they did any? I don't know if Gen Ed does anything like that-,"


"Nope, not really! That was in answer to both your questions, by the way; Gen Ed doesn't do anything like that unless they're in a Sports Club that I might be misremembering or making up, I dunno, but you need teacher signature if you want to troll through the archives, though if there's a specific scene I think a class officer can requisition it."


Izuku gave her a long look as he parsed that fact.


"So I, as Vice Representative in 1-A, can potentially requisition 1-B's Battle Trial footage?"


"Probably! But it might better if you request both classes' footage from the librarian so it doesn't seem like you're actively undercutting your year mates or anything," she figured.


Izuku, who'd had a little experience with skeptical authority figures, nodded grimly.


"Right." 'This will all work more smoothly if…' "Ne… Nejire-chan, I have a bit of a crazy idea I want to run past you."


"Yeah?"


"Well, Plus Ultra in helping out our fellow students on top of…" He bit his lip, but, 'She already knows my Quirk came in late, it's safe.' "You know I didn't have my Quirk when I signed up to take the entry exam. If anything had gone differently… Until I got my acceptance letter," he confessed, "I thought I had failed the practical. I didn't know about Rescue Points. So I… There's a part of me that really likes the idea of helping Hitoshi Shinso get into the Hero Course. I could be wrong about him, and maybe he isn't such a great guy, but I want to try unless he proves he's-,"


"A creep? But yeah, I know what you mean, I helped Yuyu practice a bunch to qualify! Helping teach him what he's missed and practicing- ooh! They say 'the best way to learn is to teach,' so I bet this could be good practice for you too!"


So saying, Nejire popped to her feet and dragged Izuku up too.


"Okay, let's do this thing! Well, I mean, you're going to do it because me teaching more people would be sort of overkill, but I'm going to get a grand-student now! Gasp! I'm too young to be a grand-teacher, oh, why didn't I ever teach anyone about protection and proper timing, we need to fix that!"


"W-What! N-N-No we d-don't!"


"Nope, no can do, I'm going to teach you all about timing your blows and protecting against attacks!" Nejire smiled evilly at him. "Buck up, mister, it's time to spar!"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________​

After a match (that turned into a set of matches for Nejire to wipe the floor with him), Izuku was properly exhausted. Even so, he took notes as she showed him where the library was at UA and introduced him to the digital camera recording storage systems. She even showed him the battle trial she'd been in early in her first year, (it was a different teacher, and a different scenario, but the same type of exercise,) and they laughed at the total disaster it had been when she kept spinning mid-flight and got dizzy.


That evening, two knocks on his front door heralded his guests arriving.


"Midoriya-san, thank you for having us over! I come bearing strawberry shortcake for dessert," Rikido declared to Inko when he entered the Midoriya abode.


"Oh, you're so kiiiind!" She burst into tears as she greeted him with a bow, to Rikido's slight alarm. "Izuku, you have such wonderfully polite friends, I'm so happy~!"


The scene repeated itself when Ochako arrived minutes later, with the addition of extra tears for her baby boy inviting a girl over, "and she was even sweet enough to bring mocha, oh, this is amazing!" Inko had wailed as she ushered in the second guest.


Izuku had just managed to keep from weeping, and he'd assured them this was a regular thing, so both classmates had rolled with it and just been very nicely polite the entire time.


It was after Inko left to get dinner ready that they got to business.


"So while Satou-kun looks over my weights and exercise regime," Izuku announced, producing a notebook, "Uraraka-san can-,"


"Deku-kun, you're allowed to use my first name since you're using Tsuyu-chan's," Ochako interrupted with a pout.


Again.


"Right! Ura- Ochako-chan, sorry, if you could look over this list of experiments and see what you already can answer, that'd be helpful before we start out."


"Can do," Ochako chirped, which was on its way to becoming their catch phrase.


As Izuku led Rikido to his room, (and suffered a minor panic over all the geeky All Might memorabilia he'd forgotten to hide, at least until Rikido had laughed and expressed admiration for the collection,) Ochako reviewed the list of tests.


Her eyebrows rose, and she found herself mildly embarrassed.


'I think I can only answer one of these already. Can I float liquids? No, or else I'd be floating blobs of water when I took a bath. But then… Have I ever floated a cup with water in it? I can't remember. Did the water weigh it down so it never floated, or did it just never happen even on accident,' she wondered. 'Then the ice… Yes, I floated snowballs a time or two, but ice cubes? And did they keep floating when they melted? It's really a tough question, I don't remember and I can't even guess. Wow, I honestly thought I knew my own power, but I really just focused on weight, while Deuk-kun is focusing on all the substances I could try to float. Oh, water in a container! Well, the human body is 70% water, thank you science class… but is it the same, with all the proteins and the bones? I really don't know,' she admitted.


So it went as she read down the list, growing slightly more glum and self-conscious. Izuku's tests weren't big things, involving cups and ice cubes and bits of string or handfuls of sand, but Ochako had never even considered most of them.


She wrote down the few answers she had, and with the boys still in Izuku's room she decided to test one or two immediately, before they got back.


"Midoriya-san, do you mind if I borrow a cup? I promise I won't break it."


"Oh, of course dear, here. Help yourself to anything in the fridge."


"Not that, I'm practicing my Quirk on it," Ochako admitted. She touched all five finger pads to it. "See?" She let go and it floated in the air.


"Oh my! That's such an interesting ability," Inko complimented as she bustled around, chopping vegetables and heating oil to fry with.


Ochako perked up again. "If you think this is cool, you should see the giant robots I floated." She bustled over to the sink and filled the cup, careful to keep her pinky extended.


'When water is added to a Zero-Gravity cup, the water remains affected and weighs the cup down, right. Release!' The cup was already pinned to the table, so nothing changed, but when she grabbed the cup again with water inside it… 'Hm… Okay, release!'


"Midoriya-san, do you have any ice cubes? And maybe another cup or two I could borrow, please?" Ochako requested.


By the time Izuku and Rikido left his room, Ochako had come to several interesting realizations.


"Deku-kun! Your tests are really smart, there's something strange with my power and I think it has to do with the cup's rim!" Ochako exclaimed excitedly.


"H-Huh?"


"Wow, you've been busy, Uraraka," Rikido complimented.


"Yeah, and look what I figured out! So, we've got these cups of water, and I never noticed if I ever floated a cup before—I'm really good at remembering my pinkie now, and before I could remember I wore mittens or we used gloves with handles—but sometimes the water floats with the cup if it's full when I float it, and sometimes it doesn't, and I think it's the shape of the cup, see?"


Ochako hurriedly grabbed one cup that was a straight cylinder and another that was conical (with the rim wider than the base), leaving an opened water bottle on the table.


"The water always floats up with the cup in the straight glass, but it doesn't with the glass that's wider at the top! I'm not sure it it's because there's more room for gravity to push it down or what, but I also used think there was sort of a mental switch I could almost flip to make it float, only it went away when I upped my weight limit, so maybe I need to practice that again!"


"O-Ochako-san, that's great," Izuku congratulated.


"I see some ice cubes, too," Rikido commented.


"Yeah! So they take time to melt, but it looks like if I float an ice cube the water keeps floating as it melts, even though I can't float water on my own," Ochako revealed. "Then I'm practicing with differences between floating a cup just of ice or a cup of ice water, and it turns out water with always float if it's in a water bottle like here and I float the bottle, even though I'm not touching the water!"


"Wait, before anything else, can you just touch the water bottle and then I'll unscrew the lid and see if it floats on its own?" Izuku requested.


"Ohmygosh Deku-kun that's a brilliant idea!"


It did, they learned.


"Eeeee! I'm learning more about my Quirk in an evening than I experimented with up to now," Ochako squealed, trying not to feel to silly about that fact as she stared at the bottle and its blobs of weightless water.


"Hey, I wouldn't go that far, this is water bottles and cups not robots the size of three cars," Rikido reminded her, prompting a blush. "But hey, I remember seeing something about trying to drink those floating bubbles of water in zero gravity, so what would happen if we tried pouring regular water into a floating blob? Would it cancel out, would it drip through, would it slowly get its gravity back?"


The answer unfortunately splattered the floor and kitchen, so they took a break to clean that up, at which point Inko announced that dinner was ready.


They ate, they effusively praised the food, they insisted on doing the dishes while Inko sampled their desserts, and then they moved to some ideas Izuku had that didn't involve water.


Instead, they involved string. Conveniently, there were shoes with laces available for use.


"Test 1: can I float a shoe just by grabbing its lace?" Ochako announced right before trying it as the boys watched eagerly.


The answer was yes.


"Hey, can you float a person just by grabbing their shoe?" Rikido asked.


"She should, it isn't different from touching their jacket," Izuku reasoned.


"That one I've done before, playing pranks at the dinner table when I was little," Ochako admitted. A quick demonstration had Rikido pushing himself off the ceiling.


"Wow, this is fun," he chuckled. "Hey, maybe some day at the gym you'll let me spar with you and Midoriya in zero gravity?"


"Let's! That sounds like a cool plan, Satou-kun!"


The next test was tying shoes together by their laces and seeing if floating one would effect the other. It didn't work if they were tied after the floating effect had been applied, obviously, but it definitely worked if they were tied by both laces.


Tying them only by one lace, however, was interesting in that it worked, but Ochako described it as requiring that extra bit of effort again, like a flipped switch in her head. After that was established, they tied the shoe around Izuku's wrist and tried to float him with it, which produced a similar effect.


Then Ochako tried to float a couch by touching just one cushion, which worked even though the cushion was removable.


Once they'd done a few experiments with furniture and things tied together, they moved onto people.


Rikido lifted Izuku in his arms, and then Ochako tried to float them both while only touching one of them. It was tricky, and she repeatedly failed to float them by touching Izuku, but there was that effort effect in floating them both by touching Rikido when he held Izuku.


What really caught Izuku's attention, however, was the discovery that it was reversed when he held Rikido (which he was able to do, since Rikido weighed far less than a car or refrigerator). Ochako had "maybe a bit of an easier time" floating them both without 'effort' by touching Rikido when Izuku held him off the ground, she claimed, but she could float them both by touching Izuku when he held Rikido, meaning it didn't relate to their respective weights and sizes.


When Rikido or Izuku lifted a chair, Ochako could float them and the chair just by touching the boy in question, but touching the chair simply would not remove the boy's gravity when she tried it.


"Maybe with both hands?" Rikido suggested after Ochako started growling in frustration at her failures.


"Oh, that's a good idea! Ochako-san, if you're getting frustrated, we can try the finger-pad tests," Izuku suggested.


"Oh fine, thanks," she grumbled, stuffing her face with a mocha Izuku grabbed off the tray she'd brought. *munch, munch* "Mruf." She swallowed. "Yeah, let's do that, this is giving me a headache. I call them beans, like a kitten's toe beans, though I guess pads are also okay, Deku-kun," she added with a faint smile.


Rikido chortled something under his breath and shared a conspiratorial grin with Inko.


The 'finger pad' series of experiments were something Izuku had come up with in case of Ochako's worst-case scenario.


He'd explained, with a bit of embarrassment, that a villain who really wanted to stop her Quirk could break, dislocate, or even cut off a finger to stop her from using that hand, since it required 5-points for her emitter effect to remove the gravity.


However, in thinking about ways to prevent this, Izuku had wondered whether it specifically required all 5 fingers on the same hand, or only 5 fingers total.


This question Ochako had felt confident in answering—she had carried boxes, etc., with her pinkies extended with both hands and not floated them, after all—but with everything she'd learned already about her abilities affecting ice and contained water, she felt it worth checking.


Try as she might, though, even using 8 finger beans, she couldn't float any object without 5 pads from one hand touching it in some combination.


"Still, it feels like something I might be able to do," she reflected at the end of the evening. "I've got the 'effort' feeling, only deeper, like I need to push harder just to touch the button, let alone press it down. I noticed it a few times trying to lift things in my weight range, and really early on when I tried to float people, but I got used to it. I can do that too, here, I just know it!" She clenched a fist in determination.


"Yeah, we'll see you keep getting better and better, Ochako-san!" Izuku promised.


"Here's to friends and to improving for the Sports Festival," Rikido toasted with his own glass.


"Kanpai!" Inko cheered, and they all laughed together before they parted for the night.