Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This message is meant for Detective Tsukauchi of the Japanese Police Force, as well as the faculty members of UA High School, specifically those in charge of the hero course.
For identification purposes, allow me to state that this is being recorded by Kurai Hikari, UA hero course student, and a provisionally licensed hero operating under the alias of ‘the Guardian Hero’. You likely already know this, and are investigating the incident involving a villain capable of stealing quirks from others. I believe that I can make your job considerably easier.
I have attached a large number of files to this message, and have the majority of them backed up to another secure location, accessible by one Akarui Hikari. I have listed the files under the title ‘Your Hero Academia’. The most prevalent files to this case are located toward the proverbial bottom of the stack, though the earlier ones will aid in lending some context to the situation. They all contain the story of class 1-A’s struggles, and I entrust their story to your care.
They were unique individuals, and I am proud to have fought beside them for as long as I did. Together we laughed, cried, struggled, celebrated, and went beyond, plus ultra. In the end, they were fine heroes, and the greatest friends I could have ever wished for- and I shall miss them all dearly.
If this message comes off as maudlin, or even over-dramatic, then I’ll ask that you forgive me. This is, after all…
The story of how I die.

Chapter Text

“Can you believe that we’re here?”

“I know, right?!”

“Hero course, here we come!”

These and several other exclamations were being echoed by the chattering students standing together outside of an area known as Training Ground C. Why wouldn’t they be? After all, they, out of thousands of students in Japan, had been chosen to pit themselves against the rigorous acceptance regime of Ultra Academy High- the Hero Academia. Anyone who made it through the testing and was accepted into the school were promised a higher-than-average chance at becoming Pro Heroes one day.

And what child didn’t want a chance to become a super hero?

Among those gathered there for the combat test that day was a young man named Kurai. Dressed in a t-shirt and some running pants, standing at average height with brown eyes and wearing short black hair, he didn’t look like anything special, especially when surrounded by people with more obvious and flashy quirks, but those that knew him from his time at the private Somei Academy knew that he was marked for high rankings in the hero world someday. The only other student that garnered as much at attention at his school for his abilities and intellect was Tenya Iida, the younger brother of the pro hero, Ingenium. The two boys had a friendly rivalry between them, as they both aspired to become like the men they admired.

For Iida, it was his elder brother, of course. For Kurai, it was the hero Gang Orca, which surprised many people who learned the fact. Sure, he had recently risen to the number ten spot among the rankings of pro heroes, but he hardly seemed an ideal role model for an aspiring young man like himself. When asked why he admired the bizarre-looking hero, Kurai would simply reply that he admired a man who, despite appearing every bit as evil as the people he often fought, decided to do something worthwhile with his life, instead of conforming to society’s assumptions about him.

“Hello there!” a girl with pink skin and horns sprouting out her head said as she approached Kurai, snapping him out of his reverie. “You excited about this, or what?”

“Or what, I think,” Kurai replied with an easy laugh, despite being a little put off by the girl’s eyes, which were black where they ought to be white, and surrounding yellow irises. “I know we’ve been given a grand opportunity and all, but getting excited about it won’t do me much good if I don’t pass, right?”

“Sheesh, ever heard of optimism?” the girl asked him, though she kept up her own grin. “I don’t think it ever really hurt anyone.”

“Sorry, I have a bad habit of being kind of a downer,” he chuckled, scratching his head nervously. “Or so say my friends.”

“Well, maybe once we get into this school, it’ll teach you how to be a little bit more optimistic!” the pink girl said, unabashed.  “What’s your name, guy? I’m Mina Ashido.”

“Kurai Hikari,” the boy answered. “What kind of quirk did you bring with you? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Acid,” she said proudly, holding out a finger, off of which fell a drop of pale green liquid that disintegrated the speck of pavement that it touched. “I’ve got way more than that, of course, but I don’t wanna accidentally turn somebody into a puddle, ya know? How ‘bout you? What kinda guns are you packing?”

“I-”

“OKAY, BOYS AND GIRLS!” An obnoxiously loud voice blasted out of a speaker system, belonging to one Present Mic. “RUNRUNRUNRUN! TIME’S WASTING, AND YOU’VE GOT ONLY TEN MINUTES! THERE ARE NO COUNTDOWNS IN REAL LIFE- OFF YOU GO!”

Kurai was already gone after Present Mic had told them to run, having noticed the doors to the enclosed city simulation sliding open. He wasn’t the only one, but he managed to get ahead of the pack for the most part. Mina, he was interested to see, was keeping up with him by secreting her acid out of her feet, allowing her to slide across the ground faster than most people could run.

“See ya after the practical!” she laughed as she took off down a side street. “I still wanna know what your quirk does!”

He grinned to himself as she left his side, then refocused on his surroundings. Okay, robot villains, he thought. Shouldn’t be too difficult, really. As if in response to his thoughts, a robot twice as tall as he was shot out from an alley and swiveled its head so that a single eye locked onto him. On several plates of its body, he noticed the number ‘one’, indicating its point value.

“Hi,” he smiled again. Holding out his right hand so that his palm faced the droid, he engaged his quirk, sending forth a small yellow energy bolt that blasted his target’s head clean off, leaving the rest of the body to collapse in heap. “Bye.”

Glancing around him, he thought, Need a better vantage point than street level. Engaging his quirk again, he used the energy it granted him to leap twelve stories high and land lightly on the roof he had aimed for.

From there, he had a much better view of the simulated city in which many robots could be seen to be rampaging and destroying buildings as often as targeting students. Okay… he thought, composing himself before raising both of his hands. Bolts of energy flew out by the dozens at his command, taking down robot after robot, all of them worth one to three points.

Is this really the best they could come up with? He thought with a frown. He had been expecting more of a challenge in which to test himself. Then again, he reasoned that his quirk was a great deal more powerful than even some pro heroes out in the field right now. Not everyone could be held to the same standard as him.

He had no idea how many points he needed to pass, so he just kept blasting away, making sure to do as little damage to his surroundings as possible. He also tried to avoid aiming at robots being taken down by other students, as he did not want to accidentally strike one of them.

This thing only lasts ten minutes, he thought as he blinked a few times after demolishing a trio of robots that had noticed and were headed right for him. I can control myself for that long.

No sooner than the thought had crossed his mind did he detect a rumble in the ground. Looking over to the east, he noticed several buildings were collapsing, as if being shoved aside from something within the cloud of debris that had sprung up. That’s more like it, he thought as a feral grin split his face.

Taking a running start, he began to leap from rooftop to rooftop, heading for the collapsing buildings, demolishing any droid that he came across as he went. Admittedly, there weren’t very many left at this time- he had heard Present Mic call out that there were only three minutes to go- but he knew that every point counted toward him getting into the academy. I wonder what this will be worth?

Then out of the dust finally emerged a gargantuan robot, even taller than the buildings Kurai had been using to get there. There were no markings to indicate its point value, which could only mean… That thing is the zero-pointer? He thought with a deep frown. The hardest one to beat, and it’s worth nothing?

That didn’t sit right with him. Maybe this is a test of logic? He thought quickly as the behemoth moved to break another building into billions of pieces. Maybe the judges monitoring want to know that their students are aware that there is a time to retreat just as much as there is a time to fight?

That seemed the most likely explanation, and it wasn’t as though Kurai needed to prove anything- he had lost count of how many points he scored after forty-something. The logical thing for him to do would be to leave. So why does it feel like something else is still going on? He wondered.

“Let’s take this thing down!” Kurai was surprised to see a group of five students standing in the streets in front of the building he had landed on. Leading them was a tall boy who had what looked to be fists made of stone. “We’ll be all the teachers can talk about if we turn it into scrap!”

“Hey, wise guy!” Kurai called down, folding his arms. Once they all looked up to see him standing over them, he shouted, “That thing is worth zero points! You don’t get anything for beating it, so even if you could, why bother?”

“Whaddya mean ‘if we could?!’” The teenager shouted up at him. “The five of have taken down way harder stuff than that slow-moving scrap pile!” Despite his assertions, Kurai could see that his comrades were eyeing the approaching mech with nervousness.

“When?!” he demanded, incredulous. “When have you ever fought something more dangerous than a skyscraper-sized robot constructed by people who are testing potential heroes?! Stop trying to have a dick-measuring competition and leave that thing alone!”

“Try and stop us!” the other boy shouted back before turning to face the oncoming enemy.

“ONE MINUTE REMAINING!” Present Mic boomed.

“…I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Kurai muttered as he watched three of the students stumble and fall as soon as the ground in front of them cracked and shifted. Their leader and one of his comrades kept going, heedless of their friend’s plight. Bracing himself, he leaped off the roof, using the energy that he controlled to reinforce his legs and arms, hitting the pavement and rolling to help divert some of the momentum that would have otherwise injured him.

Even so, he sprained one of his ankles and scraped the skin on his bared arms. Limping into a standing position, he moved to help one of the boys that had fallen get on his feet. “Come on,” he grunted as he got him up. “Get out of here, take your friends. Keep the points you’ve got, and be thankful you didn’t get squished by a falling boulder.” So saying, he raised his hand upward and blasted a human-sized piece of concrete to powder before it could fall on one of them.

“Th-Thanks,” the boy said as he went and moved away from the approaching robot with his two friends.

“Morons,” Kurai scowled as he noticed that the other two were using stones and some sort of warping quirk to try and snipe the robot’s head from down below. “Hey!” he shouted at them, but to no avail. Either they were ignoring him or they couldn’t hear him over the sound of the mech destroying everything it touched.

He weighed his options swiftly. He could feel his pulse already moving at a quicker pace than normal, and his hands were shaking as he tried to control his breathing. Any further use of his quirk…

I don’t owe these guys anything, he thought, but his feet refused to move. What is wrong with me?! I should be leaving! As he stood there, warring within himself, the robot reached down with one house-sized arm to crush the two students, who began to backpedal, finally seeming to realize their mistake.

Kurai bared his teeth and gave into his primal desire, raising both of his hands to face the robot and letting the energy he had been suppressing run wild, exiting his palms and uniting to form one shining beam that sheared through the massive arm like it wasn’t there, then hit the chest and exploded in a brilliant flash of heat and light. The result could be heard and seen throughout the entire simulation, nearly drowning out Present Mic’s announcement that time was up.

When the debris settled, Kurai stood where he had launched his energy blast, shaking and panting. His vision was tinted red and he was almost growling out his breaths as he stood before the smoldering ruins of the droid.

“Hey, jerkoff!” the boy with the stone quirk shouted as he emerged from the dust. “Thanks for stealing our chance to stand out!” He crashed his stone gauntlets together with an unmistakable intent.

“Don’t…” Kurai heaved as he turned away from the other boy. “Don’t come near me.”

“Or else what, you’ll hit me with a laser, too?” the student snorted. “Nah, man. No one could do that without hitting some kinda limit on their quirk. You’re all used up, while I’ve got plenty to give.”

“Please…” Kurai growled, almost sounding as though he were in pain. “Don’t…”

“Oh, I think I will,” the other boy snapped as he used his quirk to shift the concrete around Kurai’s feet to bind him in place. “The teachers ain’t watching now that the test is over. Ironic, right? The time you’ll be calling for a hero, and no one will hear you.”

“Hey, c’mon Matsuda,” the other student’s friend protested. “We got enough points to pass. Besides, I think this guy might have just saved us-”

“He made us look like idiots!” Matsuda shouted, causing Kurai and the other boy to both flinch. “He’s gotta pay for that!” He raised a stone-enclosed fist to strike Kurai’s back.

Before he could begin the downward motion, though, a glob of some green-gray substance hit the gauntlet and began to eat through it, causing Matsuda to swear and fling the rocks away from himself. “The hell?!” he demanded before turning around with wild eyes.

A few meters away stood Mina, looking a little scared, but determined not to leave. “That’s enough, guys,” she said, a bit of a quaver in her voice. “The practical is over now. W-We don’t need to be competing anymore.”

“No one asked you, pinkie,” Matsuda snarled, tearing rocks out of the ground with a flick of his thoughts to conjure another gauntlet. “Now get the hell outta here before I get ugly with you.”

“That can’t be very difficult,” Kurai chuckled, feeling his pulse beginning to settle a little. “What with that thin-crust pizza you call a face? How do you not be ugly?” Matsuda, it has to be admitted, did sport a fairly bad acne problem.

Reddening even further, Matsuda stormed over to where Kurai stood, bellowing, “Maybe you’ll think twice about mocking me once I’ve given your stupid face a redo!”

“A redo? Really?” Kurai taunted him as they came face-to-enraged face. “That was your best comeback?” Matsuda drew his fist back, so his would-be victim clicked his tongue and said, “I really wouldn’t do that right now.”

“Why’s that?” Matsuda sneered. “If pinkie interferes again, I’ll give her some of the same I’m about to give you.”

“I do hope you’re only planning on giving out hugs then, because if this is what it looks like, you will be facing some very serious consequences, young man.” A new voice came onto the scene, this one sounding like gravel mashing with concrete in a bass tone. Matsuda whirled around to see Mina standing a little behind and to the side of what looked like a living cement block given a rough human shape.

“Hello there, mister Cementoss,” Kurai said with a strained smile. “Big fan of your work- loved that capture you managed back in February.”

“Not often I meet a fan of mine,” the blocky hero said with a smile toward the young man. Kneeling, he touched the street and sent forth a pulse of energy that undid the stone bindings on the student, who moved quickly out of the reach of Matsuda’s stone gauntlets.

“I’ve some appreciation for the underdog heroes,” Kurai said as he walked briskly over to stand next to the teacher. “Er, for lack of a better term. Sorry, there was probably a way better way to phrase that.”

“No offense taken here,” Cementoss chuckled. Reaffixing his attention on Matsuda, the pro hero rumbled, “Now then, young man, I suggest you put those down right now.”

To his credit, Matsuda did as he was told. He did, however try to justify his actions, saying, “Look, mister Cementoss, I know how this looks, but that guy, he stole our kill!”

“He didn’t steal anything,” Cementoss quickly asserted. “That robot was worth no points, which you would know if you had paid any kind of attention during the orientation. In fact, he probably did you a favor by stepping in. Those robots are programmed not to kill, but they can still cause all manner of serious injury.  Your quirk was not suited for taking it on, yet you insisted on fighting it anyway. That was very foolish, and will reflect poorly on your application to this academy, not to mention that you nearly attacked two students.”

Matsuda reddened fiercely with embarrassment and shame, but he set his jaw and refused to concede to the teacher’s lecture. “But he-”

“Unless you wish to face an outright rejection here and now, I suggest you move along and keep away from these students,” Cementoss said firmly. Matsuda made a rude gesture toward Mina and Kurai before turning around and walking away, muttering darkly to himself.

“Here’s to hoping we don’t end up in the same class as that guy,” Mina laughed nervously, wiping sweat from her brow.

“You okay?” Kurai asked, looking her over for any injuries.

“Yeah, just a little rattled,” she laughed hoarsely. “Those robots were a lot more than I was expecting, which I guess is my fault. I’d shoulda known U.A. would test us this hard.”

“I’m glad that the two of you are alright,” Cementoss said after a slight pause in their conversation. “From what I could see in the observation room, you two did quite well, especially you, young man.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” the boy said, reddening a little with embarrassment. “I just went with my gut for the most part.”

“Then I’d say you have better instincts than about a dozen pros I could name,” the blocky hero chuckled. “Go on back to the main gate, both of you. I do hope I get to see you again in one of my classes.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kurai said with a respectful bow, which Mina immediately mimicked.

As they left the area, Mina turned to Kurai and said, “You never did get around to telling me what your quirk was.”

“Heh, I guess not,” he grinned, scratching his hair as he looked at the ground in front of him. “My quirk is called ‘Energon’. It allows my body to produce huge amounts of energy that I can either channel into my limbs when I fight to enhance my strength and speed, or in energy blasts that pack a real punch.”

“Wow!” Mina exclaimed animatedly, causing him to redden a little with embarrassment. “That quirk has gotta be so awesome! I’ll bet you took out a bunch of those robots!”

“I, uh… yeah,” he said sheepishly as she stared at him with wide, attentive eyes. “I honestly lost count of how many I got…”

“Seriously?!” she squealed, a great deal more excited than he expected her to be.

“Yes,” he nodded. “What about you? What kind of score did you get?”

“I think it was forty-eight, though I might have confused a couple of ‘em while I was running around,” she confessed. “Still, I feel pretty confident about my chances when it came to the practical exam. The written part, though… blech!” She made an exaggerated face.

“Don’t like tests on paper, huh?” Kurai chuckled. “Me neither, but I think I did fine on it. Good enough to get in, anyway.”

“Well, aren’t you all confident?” she giggled, giving him a light shove on the arm.

“An old friend of mine keeps telling me I should be,” he laughed again. “Though I suppose it’s easier to be once the test is over, right?”

“Not me,” Mina replied. “The suspense is gonna kill me until I get my results!”

A week later, Kurai and his family were gathered at the Iida’s residence, both of their children having received letters from the offices at U.A. High. Even Tenya’s older brother, Tensei, was present, having been able to take an afternoon off for once.

With Kurai were his parents and his younger brother, Akarui, who was about to start his last year of middle school. While Kurai had what many would consider a great power, his younger brother’s quirk was also something quite special. The doctors called it ‘Solar Intelligence’, and it allowed his brother’s mind to work at incredibly high speeds during the day. At age twelve, he took an IQ test at around noon and came out with a score of 294. During the night, however, his quirk mostly lost its effect, and he became of rather average intelligence.

Even so, it was an impressive power, one that could allow him to choose any number of paths in life when he got older. So far, he had expressed interest in becoming a bio-mechanical engineer, but who knew what else he might discover before he went off to college?

In any case, he and his parents were eager to discover the results of Kurai’s test, as well as that of the younger Iida boy. So at the insistence of Tenya’s mother, Kurai opened his letter first, and was surprised to find a holoprojecter inside of the envelope.

“That’s new,” he muttered, pushing the button that would begin the playback.

“Hello, Hikari! I am here to announce the results of your exams!” A booming voice startled the onlookers as a video began to play on the living room wall, though not nearly as much as who the voice belonged to.

“That’s All Might!” Akarui exclaimed, his young eyes wide with delight. For indeed it was the number one hero, larger than life, smiling broadly, and dressed in a yellow business suit that barely contained his bulging muscles.

“That’s right!” All Might continued, oblivious to their exclamations of surprise. “You’re looking at the newest member of the U.A. faculty! From here on out, it will be my privilege to teach the next generation of heroes!”

“He’s going to be a teacher at U.A.?!” Tenya burst out with a laugh. “Extraordinary!”

“Shh!” About a half-dozen people told him as they waited with baited breath to see what the man would say next.

“I’m sure you’re dying to know how you did in your tests, and I’m dying to tell you, so let’s get on with it!” All Might laughed, bringing grins to the faces of his audience. “Hikari Kurai, as you know, we receive many applicants each year, and select only those students that show the highest amount of promise to become Pro Heroes! In regards to your written exam, you passed! And with respectable scores, I might add!” His family cheered and clapped for a moment, then quieted as All Might began to speak again. “Now, for your practical exam…” The huge man grinned even more broadly and said, “As you know, there were points awarded for the villain robots you faced, and in that alone, you broke a record, scoring a whopping eighty-nine points!”

His family went ballistic, his brother giving him a hi-five, just in time for his mother to wrap him up in bear hug, followed by a simple handshake from his father, all while he was grinning broadly. As if he had expected there to be some kind of delay, All Might had paused for a few seconds, and now he spoke once again.

“Not only that, but there were other factors we did not reveal to you in the briefing, for reasons you’ll understand in a moment!” the powerful superhero continued. “During the exam, a panel of judges observed students and awarded what we call ‘Rescue Points’ for heroic acts! After all, what good would a Hero Academy be if we did not look out for those who seek to protect and inspire others?”

“Wait, I…?” Kurai gaped, his mind flashing back to the zero-point robot that he had defeated in order to rescue the students that had been in over their heads.

“Because of your actions on the field of battle in saving those other pupils, you earned yourself a further forty-two rescue points!” All Might exclaimed. “Hikari Kurai, having set a new record for our entrance exam, you are now the most qualified out of all applying students to enter the courses of my Alma Mater!”

Taking a step forward, as if to approach the dumbstruck teen, All Might held out a hand and said in a warm tone, “Welcome, Kurai. You are now a part of the Hero Academia!” The video froze, and all was quiet in the mansion for a few moments.

Then Tenya stepped forward and said, “Well, I find myself caring little about my own prospects of entering the academy at this moment! Well done, Kurai!”

“Well done!” Tensei laughed as he moved to shake hands with his brother’s friend. “I might have to have you and Iida both work at my agency as interns one of these days!”

“I won’t say no to that,” Kurai laughed, his head whirling. Turning to Tenya, he added, “How cool would that be? You and I working with the legendary Ingenium?” His friend laughed in response, merriment lighting up his face.

When things had settled down somewhat, they stopped and listened to Iida’s results. Although he hadn’t scored nearly as high as Kurai in the practical exam, his written test scores were nearly perfect, which also earned him high praise from All Might, who said that it took brains more than brawn to become one of the greats. At the end, when he was confirmed to also be accepted into U.A. High, both families celebrated loudly once more.

In the midst of this, Tensei Iida raised a glass and said, “To the future of heroes! May they be safe in the hands of my brother and his friend, Hikari Kurai!”

“To the future heroes!” everyone else echoed.

Chapter Text

“Okay, Iida, when are you going to remember that the general population does not have jet engines in their legs?!” Kurai complained to his friend as they walked up the stairs to what would be their homeroom. The two of them had been delighted to discover a few days ago that they would be in the same class: Hero Course 1-A.

“We should always arrive at least ten minutes early,” Iida said stubbornly. “A good hero is always early whenever possible!”

“Not unless his sidekicks are threatening to unionize and revolt against him because he never learned how to relax!” Kurai groaned. He and his friend had met up to walk to school together- or so the smaller of the two boys had thought. As it turned out, Iida had decided to run all the way to school from their meeting point, forcing Kurai to keep up, much to his chagrin.

“Are you my sidekick in this situation?” Iida teased him.

“I’ll show you just how good my side kick is the next time you make me run that far any time before noon,” Kurai grumbled.

“But a run in the morning has always been shown to increase cardiovascular-”

“Iida, you sound like you swallowed a medical textbook,” his friend interrupted as the emerged onto the floor where their homeroom was. “Some of us mortals like a little something called taking it easy.”

“This is why you’ve never been able to match my test scores,” Iida grinned as they came to a massive door with the designation ‘1-A’ on it.

“You mean except for that one where I broke the school record for the practical exam?” Kurai shot back a little smugly.

“You’re never going to let up on that, are you?” Iida sighed.                                                                                                                                 

“Nope!”

With that, the two friends entered the classroom, surprised to find that a handful of students had already arrived. Two of them were girls that were talking quietly to one another, one with long black hair done up in a stylish ponytail, and the other with short hair of the same color. Neither of them looked too odd, though the one with the short hair did have what looked to be an auxiliary jack hanging from her earlobe.

Three boys were in the classroom, though none of them were speaking to each other. The one that grabbed Kurai’s attention first was sitting in the back, his expression completely passive. His appearance would have been what one could call normal, if not for the fact that the right side of his face was framed by pure white hair and had a brown eye staring out of it, while the left side contained a sky blue orb framed by red hair. Perhaps even more startling than the variety of colors was the nasty burn scar that covered the majority of the left side of his face.

How on earth did he get that? Kurai wondered, then averted his gaze to another student before his glance became a full-on stare.

The next student that he noticed was a blond young man with a thick, muscular tail that reached up to rest on his left shoulder. The tail was hairless, save for a small tuft of blond hair that matched the student’s head, which somehow made it look weirder in Kurai’s opinion.

The last student in the room had spiky red hair and large grin on his face as he got up to greet his new classmates. “Hey there!” he said he came to stand a couple feet away from the pair. “You guys here for the hero course?”

“I was born for the hero course!” Iida said proudly as he reached out to shake hands with the red-head.

“Actually, Iida wasn’t born; he was factory-issued,” Kurai snickered, causing the other student to laugh delightedly. Iida, meanwhile, shot his friend an annoyed look, which he pretended not to notice.

“Nice to see this class’ll have someone I can laugh with,” the other boy said as he moved to shake hands with Kurai. “My name’s Eijiro Kirishima. Who’re you guys?”

“As my companion here stated previously, my name is Iida,” the bespectacled teenager said by way of introduction. “It’s good to meet you, Kirishima.”

“And I’m Hikari,” his friend added. He was surprised when Kirishima looked at him with something close to awe. So he asked, “What is it?”

“Are you that guy that took down over half the training robots on your own, including the zero-pointer?” Kirishima asked excitedly.

Kurai became uncomfortably aware of the other students looking at him with interest out of the corners of his eyes, but he forced himself to answer, “I guess so? I mean, I didn’t know that I had taken out over half of them, though I’m sure that’s just am exaggeration.”

“Dude!” Kirishima laughed. “Some of the other students are saying that you’re gonna be the next All Might!”

“I could believe that,” a familiar voice said from behind them, causing the three boys to look around at the doorway. Mina Ashido stood there, smiling and bubbly as ever as she stepped in the class room to say, “I watched him take down the zero-point robot like it was a big piñata! Didn’t even take him a big finishing move or hardly any time at all!”

“Yo, Ashido!” Kirishima said as he moved forward to hi-five the pink girl. “You saw this guy in action? What was he like?” It was apparent from the familiarity of his tone that the two of them knew each other.

Kurai reddened with embarrassment and spoke before she could to say, “I just took the opportunity that I saw, is all…” Mumbling an excuse, he went and found his assigned seat, which placed him against the far wall in the row second-to-last. As he sat down, he hoped that the spot would be inconspicuous enough to hide him from any further inquiries like Kirishima’s.

Kurai was something an introvert, though he didn’t have any issues with meeting new people, so long as it was one-on-one, like when he had met Mina, or if he was surrounded by several people that he already knew. However, if there were already rumors circulating about his skill in battle, he knew that he would hardly get a moment’s peace outside of the classroom, if Kirishima’s reaction was anything to go by.

The class quickly filled up in the next couple of minutes, and Iida made himself busy lecturing several of their new classmates about the proper treatment of their equipment. Kurai chose to keep his head down instead of arguing with his friend about making good first impressions, and instead concentrated on observing the people that he would be spending the next three years with.

He watched with mild interest as a dozen more students came into the room, some looking like comic book characters, such as a tall young man with six arms, and others just as normal as his own appearance. The boys outnumbered the girls by about three to one according to his estimate, though there were still a couple of people left that hadn’t come in.

Everyone seemed friendly enough, with the exception of the half-and-half boy, and a blond boy with crimson eyes that was slouching in his seat two rows in front of Kurai. It wasn’t that he was quiet like the other, though. This boy was loud and obnoxious, as if of the belief that the person in the room who shouted the loudest would command the most respect.

So of course it was only natural that Iida would butt heads with him. “Stop disrespecting school property!” the bespectacled teenager demanded of their blond classmate.

“Eh?” the other boy drawled, as if bored. Looking up at Iida, he asked, “Did they shove a stick up your ass at whatever prep school you came from, or were you born with it?”

Iida frowned, then to his credit, forced himself to calm down and extend a hand out to the blond kid. “Let’s try starting over,” he said peaceably. “I’m Tenya Iida from the Somei Private Academy. And you are?”

“Somei, huh?’ the blond boy snorted, ignoring the offered hand. “That means you think you’re better than me, huh? Well, I’m gonna enjoy tearing you a new one.” At the last of his words, the boy’s face split with what could only be described as a feral grin.

Iida recoiled a half-pace and gasped, “You would threaten your own classmate?! Are you sure that you’re in the right class?” The blond boy scoffed and looked as though he was about to respond, but then the door slid open to reveal another newcomer, quieting them both.

The boy in the doorway looked a little frazzled when he saw Iida and the blond boy, but he said nothing as nearly every eye turned to examine him. He was incredibly plain-looking, with messy green hair, wide eyes of a matching shade, and a small dusting of freckles on each cheek. He was a little on the shorter side when compared to some of the others in their class, but he wasn’t exactly small, either.

He looked familiar, but Kurai couldn’t place why until Iida went over to introduce himself. Wait, that’s the kid that he called out for talking during the lecture, Kurai realized with interest. Hang on, is Iida apologizing to this guy? He never apologizes to anybody except Tensei and his parents!

The blue-haired boy was still talking to him when the final member of their class showed up, a short girl with brown hair and rosy cheeks that gave her a very cute appearance. She seemed to know the green-haired boy- who had introduced himself as Izuku Midoriya- and went about congratulating him on getting into the school with an energy that seemed to rival Mina’s.

“I wonder if he’s the other one that people have been talking about…” the student sitting next to Kurai, a boy with the head of a raven, said in a low tone.

“What’d he do?” Kurai asked in spite of himself.

The other student glanced at him then replied, “Supposedly he took down a zero-point robot on his own, and with quite the display of theatrics if the rumors are true.”

“Huh,” Kurai muttered. Personally, he hadn’t found the colossal robot difficult to deal with- its sheer size and slow movements provided anyone with the skills an ample opportunity to hit it in its critical areas, rendering it ineffective. To be fair, though, most people don’t have my offensive capabilities, or the training to use them, he reasoned.

He was about to say something back to the bird-headed boy, but then everyone’s attention was diverted to a most bizarre sight: a six-foot-tall caterpillar with a man’s head lying on the ground, staring up at the students in the doorway with bleary, uninterested eyes.

Wait, is he a teacher? Kurai wondered as the man muttered something to the trio of students standing nearest to him that he could not make out. Are we gonna be taught by Butterfly Man? The thought made him snicker with laughter.

That is, until there was a sound of a zipper coming undone, and a thin man dressed in black with a gray scarf emerged from the sleeping bag he had apparently been getting around in. He transferred his disinterested gaze to the rest of the class as he mumbled, “Hello, I’m Shota Aizawa. I’m your teacher.” His black hair was long enough to fall to his shoulders, almost covering his bloodshot eyes and thin face with a week’s worth of stubble on it.

This guy? Kurai thought with polite disbelief. He looks like he needs a nap… or a fix. Not sure how he got hired in the nation’s top hero school, but I suppose we’ll all get an idea about that before long.

“Your reaction time is insufficient,” Aizawa continued as he reached into his yellow sleeping bag without blinking. “It took you all eight seconds to shut up when I first got here- that won’t do.” His hand emerged, holding a medium-sized blue shirt with the school’s initials done in red and white across the front. “Put these on and come outside.”

“A quirk assessment test?!” The cry went up from at least a dozen of their classmates as they stood out on the P.E. field. They were all changed out of their day uniforms, and had exchanged them for the physical education clothes that their teacher had provided.

“Hang on, what about the introduction ceremony?” the brown-haired girl that had arrived last demanded. “We’re gonna miss it!”

“If you wanna make the big leagues, you can’t waste time on pointless parties,” Aizawa replied without looking at them. “Here at U.A., we’re not tethered to tradition. That means I get to run my class however I choose.” There were some looks of dissent among the students, but no one was foolish enough to argue with him outright.

Turning around to face his class, Aizawa said, “You’ve all been taking standardized tests for most of your lives, unfortunately. The government is still trying to push the idea that all men are created equal- we’re not. Someday, the learning systems in our country will realize that, but for now, I’ll just have to correct their mistake. Hikari!” He called out the name suddenly, without any indication that he was going to ask for a volunteer.

“Er, present?” the boy said nervously as he stepped forward, aware of every eye that was on him.

Aizawa’s gaze fell to rest directly on him, and he swallowed nervously as he felt himself being studied by his instructor. “You set a new record for the entrance exam,” he stated, causing the boy to wince slightly as he heard several people behind him begin whispering interestedly. Then the man asked, “What was your longest throw with a softball in junior high?”

“Sixty-two? Sixty-three meters?” Kurai answered.

“Here,” his teacher said, tossing him a large ball that looked as though it had been teched-out somehow. “Throw this, but use your quirk to get it to go as far as you can.”

Kurai blinked at the ball a couple of times, then muttered, “Okay… Sure, I’ll do that.” Here’s to hoping this thing can take the impact from my quirk.

As if sensing his concern, Aizawa added, “It’s a lot more durable than it looks. Give it your all.”

“Yes sir,” Kurai nodded, feeling a little more confident now.

As he walked over to the pitching ring, he heard the blond boy from before muttering, “That guy set the new record? He looks even more boring than Deku. How’s a small fry like him supposed to be the next number one?” His tone was laced with generous amounts of resentment that Kurai did not understand.

I haven’t done anything to him, he thought with a frown as he stood in the circle. And who’s ‘Deku’? Taking a pitcher’s stance, he thought, Doesn’t matter. The only thing I need to focus on is keeping control.

Drawing in a deep breath, he exhaled slowly, then wound up his arm, even as he triggered his quirk. Letting out a raw-throated yell, he willed as much energy as he could manage into his hand, sending it forth just as he threw the ball toward the horizon. A yellow beam of pure energy shot out, propelling the ball far beyond what any normal throw might have. When he had lost sight of the ball, he ended the energy flow and lowered his arm, breathing deeply to keep his pulse settled.

Most of the students in the class were amazed by the display of power he had put on, but as he expected, the blond kid simply sneered at him before turning to look at the teacher, who was holding up a smartphone with blue numbers in the display that read ‘780.6 m’.

“Well done, Kurai!” Iida laughed as he returned to the group of students. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your quirk in action- you’ve gotten a lot stronger than I thought!”

“I’m sure I can say the same about you,” Kurai grinned confidently at his friend. Glancing over his shoulder at the blond boy, he added, “Looks are often deceiving. What appears plain to the average eye can hold great potential, and those that look great are often idiots puffed full of hot air… among other things.”

“The hell’d you say?!” the blond boy exploded- literally. Actual explosions lit up as he held out his hands in claw-like grips while his red eyes glowed with hate. “Wanna repeat that?!”

“Kurai, don’t!” Iida said sternly as he held his friend back from doing or saying something he might regret later.

“Is there a problem?” Aizawa asked sternly.

“…No, sir,” Kurai answered as he forced himself to break eye contact with the other boy. “Sorry, sir.”

His rival continued to glare at him until Aizawa said, “Bakugo, unless you want to sit out the rest of today’s activities, I suggest you simmer down.” The blond kid snorted and let off one more small explosion before turning to face the teacher again.

“So today we get to take physical tests while using our quirks?” a boy with golden-yellow hair asked. “That’s so cool!”

“Yeah, I wanna try!” Mina added.

“This looks like fun!” the brown-haired girl exclaimed.

“Fun, huh?” Aizawa asked them in a tone that immediately set them all on edge. “You all have three years to become pro heroes. You really think that it’s all gonna be fun and games?” When no one answered, he gave them a chilling smile and said, “Idiots. Today you will all compete in eight physical tests to gauge your potential. Whoever comes in last has none… and will be expelled immediately.”

Everybody reacted with shock and a bit of fear. He said they weren’t tethered to tradition, but that’s pushing it! Kurai thought a bit angrily.

The brown-haired girl stepped up and protested, saying, “That’s not fair! We all worked really hard to get here! You can’t just send one of us home after everything we’ve been through!”

“Not fair?” Aizawa repeated mockingly. “Do you think natural disasters and villains will care about what’s fair? Life isn’t fair, kids. It’s a hero’s job to combat that unfairness, understand? In order to become a pro, you will have to push yourselves to the brink. So for the next three years, U.A. with throw one terrible hardship after another at you. You will have to go beyond… plus ultra style.” Adding another cold smile to his face, Aizawa made a beckoning motion toward them all and said, “Show me it’s no mistake that you’re here.”

Iida and Kurai exchanged an uneasy glance. “I don’t like this,” Iida muttered. “But if it’s how the school does things, I suppose we should respect it.”

“Can’t say I like it either, but I suppose I see the sense in it,” Kurai replied, also speaking softly. “If they’re training us to risk our lives, they can’t really make room for people that could wind up getting themselves- or others- killed.”

“If we’re all done wasting time chatting, we should get moving,” their teacher ordered as he moved away. “Let the games begin.”

The first test was a fifty-meter dash. Kurai watched as the other students put on displays of their power, some of which were fairly straightforward, like Iida’s Engine quirk that allowed his legs to carry him at speeds comparable to formula-one cars if he got into high enough gear. Others were less so, but several of them showed ingenuity, such a blond boy whose quirk allowed him to unleash a beam of sparkling energy from his navel which could propel him through the air if he jumped up first. Another was Bakugo, who used his explosive abilities to enhance his speed by propelling himself with combustions aimed behind him.

So he does have an impressive enough quirk, and the brains to use it, Kurai thought as he watched him blaze past Midoriya, whose quirk apparently didn’t work well in a running situation, because he didn’t use it at all. Trigger-Happy needs to work on that attitude if he wants to be a pro, though.

He found himself competing against a boy whose elbows apparently shot out strong adhesive tape named Sero. He used his quirk in the race to essentially slingshot himself toward the finish line, clearing it in just under six seconds. Kurai took a page out of the navel-laser boy and Bakugo’s book, using his Energon quirk to send himself flying across the finish line in a little over four seconds.

He mistimed the landing, though, and wound up rolling in the dirt a couple of times before springing lightly to his feet. “Well, that was new,” he muttered. “Might need to practice it some more before I try that in combat.”

“Hey, you beat me, so I’d still count that as a win,” Sero said as he walked up to him. “Nice quirk, by the way.”

“Not so bad yourself,” Kurai answered as he shook hands with the other boy. “Gotta say, I’ve never seen one like it before.”

“And I’m hoping that’ll be to my advantage once we start our careers,” the other boy grinned. “The more unique the quirk, the more memorable the hero, right?”

“True enough.”

The next event was the grip-strength test, in which Kurai scored an impressive 462 kilograms. The only student to surpass that was the boy with six arms, coming in with a score of 540 kilos. Kurai was surprised at first, but then he found himself smiling about it. It’s good to know that I’m not in the top bracket for everything, he thought. If I was, what would be left for me to work towards?

He noticed that the plain-looking kid, Midoriya, was looking glum as he stared at his result of 56 kilograms on the grip tester. Seeing it, Kurai walked over to him and said, “Hey.”

“Y-Yes?” the boy stammered, looking up and backing away a half-pace, causing Kurai to look at him curiously.

I know I’m normally more of a shy guy, but even I’m not that on edge around other people, he thought to himself. Pushing aside the observation, he said, “I don’t mean to pry, but are you feeling alright? You’ve looked out of sorts this entire class.”

“Oh, uh, well…” the green-haired boy stammered. “I’m just, uh… having trouble controlling my quirk, is all.”

“Oh,” Kurai said, a little surprised. If he doesn’t have proper control over his quirk, how’d he get into U.A.?

“I guess I’m really just afraid of what’ll happen when I use it,” Midoriya added.

Kurai’s head snapped up at that, and a measure of sympathy entered his heart. “I can understand that completely,” he told the other boy. When Midoriya looked a question at him, he explained, “My quirk, Energon, is pretty powerful, right?”

“Yeah, I can see how you would have done so well in the entrance exam,” Midoriya said, his eyes shining with admiration.

“Well, be that as it may, it can be just as dangerous to me as it is to others,” Kurai replied as he reached up and tapped himself on the forehead. “The part of my brain that triggers my quirk is located in my frontal cortex.” After a slight pause, he asked, “Do you know what part of the brain that is?” As they were speaking, the other students were moving to put away the equipment, so they moved to join them while talking in lowered voices.

“It’s the area that keeps your impulses in check, right?” Midoriya guessed.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Kurai nodded. “The more it’s used, the harder it is to control darker emotions like rage, hate, aggression… you get the idea.”

“Wait, so if you overuse your quirk…” Midoriya said in a low tone.

“Remember how I was ready to go all ham on mister firecracker?” the black-haired boy reminded his classmate. “Normally, I’m a lot more like you. Right now, I’m feeling pretty confident because I’ve been using my quirk a bit more than I normally do, which means my frontal cortex has been taxed a fair amount.”

“Well, my quirk makes me super strong, but I can only use it once before I get knocked out of the fight,” Midoriya admitted nervously. “Whichever part of my body that I channel my power gets broken really badly as soon as I use it.”

“Broken?” Kurai repeated. “As in, broken bone?”

“Bones,” Midoriya nodded with a wince.

“Ouch,” his comrade grimaced. “So, you’re pretty much counting on one excellent score to carry you out of last place?”

“Yeah,” Midoriya admitted.

“Well…” Kurai muttered while scratching his head. “Have you tried to decrease the amount of power you’re putting into each move?”

“Yeah, but so far all that’s gotten me is not using it all,” his classmate groaned. “I… My quirk didn’t show up until last year, actually. And I haven’t really had much chance to train with it so that I don’t hurt myself every time that I use it.”

“Ooh boy,” Kurai grimaced again. “Well… Crap, man.”

“How do you control your power?” Midoriya asked him. Before he could answer, Midoriya added, “I mean, it’s probably different from how I need to control mine, but it would be helpful to have some kind of reference since I don’t really have anything to go on myself, and at this point something is better than nothing, not to mention-”

“Midoriya!” Kurai exclaimed, cutting the boy off and startling him. “Sorry, just… Do you want my answer, or not?”

“Yes, please,” the green-haired boy answered, abashed. “I have a habit of rambling, I guess.”

“You guess?” his classmate asked dubiously. Before Midoriya could answer that, he said, “Never mind. The truth is that I simply have a lot of practice in controlling the energy output, and now it’s more of an instinct than anything.” Taking a second to marshal his thoughts, he added, “But when I was a kid, I did set up a sort of pattern that I would use before I engaged my quirk. It took way longer to use it then than it does for me to use it now, but maybe it’s something you could try.”

“I’m willing to try anything at this point,” Midoriya said desperately.

“Okay, you said that decreasing the power output didn’t help, right?” Kurai asked.

“Yeah.”

“All right, so what I used to do was picture the energy in my body like a great big river headed for a waterfall,” Kurai explained. By now the class was back outside in preparation for the standing long jump event and everyone was more or less milling about as they waited for Aizawa to call them by name.

“River headed for a waterfall?” Midoriya questioned, a blank look on his face.

“Just close your eyes and picture it as best you can,” Kurai told him. “Although, word of advice? Don’t do this when you need to go to the bathroom. Doesn’t end well.”

In spite of himself, Midoriya let out a short burst of laughter, but he quickly recomposed himself. He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow in concentration, keeping his breathing even as best as he could.

“Have you got the picture?” Kurai prompted him as Aizawa called up a student named Kaminari.

“Yes,” Midoriya answered seriously.

“Okay, now picture yourself at the bottom of that waterfall, standing in front of it,” Kurai ordered. “You’re so close that you could reach out and touch it. Take one step and you’ll be under the full force of it. Are you there?”

“I thought the water was the energy inside of my body, so how-?”

“Take it or leave it!”

“Sorry!” the other boy yelped.

Kurai took a moment to make sure that his own pulse was settled before he said, “This is a metaphor, so just humor me, all right?” When Midoriya nodded his agreement, Kurai continued on to say, “Now, in your mind’s eye, I want you to reach out and try to keep your hand level under the pressure of the water.”

“Why just my hand?” Midoriya asked, though he kept his eyes closed.

“Because if you attempt to put your whole body in and withstand it without first conditioning your mind and body to handle it, you’ll be crushed by the energy,” Kurai said dryly. “In your case, that’s broken bones, if I understand it.”

“R-Right.”

“Just try to keep that image in your head the next time you try to use your power,” the black-haired boy told him. “It’ll be slow, but hopefully it’ll help you gain some control.” He clapped Midoriya on the shoulder and then went to join Iida.

“What happened to you?”

The other boy’s question stopped Kurai in his tracks and made him turn around to look at Midoriya, confused. “What?”

“Sorry, I meant what happened to you when you tried to stand under the waterfall?” Midoriya asked.

Kurai’s countenance darkened considerably before he answered, “I nearly died.” Then he walked away, leaving Midoriya feeling quite stunned.

“What were you talking to Midoriya about?” Iida asked his friend as soon as he got close.

“He needs help controlling his power, so I gave him a few pointers,” Kurai answered.

“Ah,” Iida nodded, apparently unsurprised by the revelation. “Yes, I saw what happened to him when he used it against the zero-point robot. He nearly got himself killed, but it was quite an impressive display of power, nonetheless. Miss Uraraka actually saved him from death by a fall right after the fact, actually.”

“Which one is-?”

“Her,” Iida said, indicating the girl that had been talking to Midoriya and Iida during the beginning of class.

“Ah,” Kurai said, apparently non-committal. She’s pretty cute, actually…

For the long jump, Kurai chose not to use his energy blasts to send him flying again, but rather decided to reinforce his limbs with his Energon, like he normally would. This is a contest, he reminded himself. I can’t take too many chances. Besides, I need to keep my head on straight, and energy blasts like that are more taxing on my brain to produce than just enhancing my body to achieve the same thing.

He scored fairly high compared to most of the other students, but the highest score went to Bakugo, who appeared very pleased with himself about it. Kurai ignored him, but felt strangely competitive when faced with the prospect of losing to such an arrogant person.

My quirk must be responsible for this, he decided. However, in the back of his mind, he knew that he was only making excuses for himself.

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed Midoriya take his place at the jump point. Come on, man, he thought, trying to send encouragement to his classmate through the silent message.

Midoriya met his eyes and flashed him a nervous grin before taking his stance, a look of intense concentration furrowing his brow. He held that position for a few seconds before Aizawa called out, “Are you going to jump or take a dump, Midoriya? We don’t have all day.”

“Y-Yes!” the poor boy stammered as he straightened. “Er, I mean, no! Uh…”

“Looks like Midoriya’s gonna be the one to go home,” Kirishima said with a slightly disappointed look.

“Of course he is!” Bakugo snorted. “He’s a quirkless loser.”

“He has a quirk,” Iida protested.

“Eh?”

“Didn’t you hear about what he did during the practical exam?”

“Just jump and get it over with,” the teacher sighed while Iida and Bakugo began to squabble. Kurai considered jumping in, but decided against it. He had better things to do with his fresh air than waste it on the likes of Bakugo.

“Yes sir!” Midoriya replied to Aizawa. He took his stance again, and this time Kurai felt a change in the atmosphere around the boy. It was almost as though the air was shuddering where he stood, as if trying to get away from the impending storm about to break.

I really hope he’s not about to break himself, Kurai thought with a grimace.

Then with a yell, Midoriya launched himself forward- and cleared fifty meters in the blink of an eye. Kurai blinked a couple of times to make sure that he wasn’t seeing things, but his eyes did not lie. Midoriya was lying in the dirt, panting from the effort he had just exerted, but there was no denying that he had indeed cleared a great distance in less than a second.

Even Iida would need to be in a pretty high gear to cover that much distance that quickly, Kurai thought, impressed. At least now I see why he’s been afraid of using his power. If that’s just the tip of the iceberg, the full power he can wield must be something on a level that I’ve never even seen before!

Midoriya got to his feet, wobbling, but smiling as he turned to face Kurai, who gave him a thumbs-up. Then the green-haired boy’s face went from one of triumph to one of fear, and Kurai realized that he wasn’t looking at him anymore.

Turning slightly, he noticed that Bakugo looked as though he was about to have an aneurism. Then, without warning, he shot forward, an explosion lighting up in his right hand as he screamed, “DEKU, YOU BASTARD! Tell me how you did that, or you’re DEAD!”

“Ack!” Midoriya squawked as he held up his hands to shield himself from Bakugo’s fiery wrath.

Kurai’s eyebrows met in a sharp ‘V’ and he aimed his palms at Bakugo, ready to pulverize him with a barrage of energy blasts.

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. Before either of the boys could harm anybody, a grey fabric shot out and wound itself around Bakugo multiple times, holding him in place more tightly than steel chains. At the same time, his explosions went out like candles cut off from any oxygen.

“What the…?” Bakugo snarled as he craned his neck to see who had bound him. “Is this… your friggin scarf?!”

Aizawa was glaring at his student, his eyes glowing crimson while his hair and scarf floated above his head. “This is a capture weapon designed for use on villains,” he replied with a hint of anger in his tone. “Don’t bother trying to use your quirk on it- I’ve erased it.”

“Wait a sec…” Midoriya gasped, his eyes going wide. “I know you! You’re that pro hero, Eraserhead! Your quirk lets you suppress the powers of anyone you’re looking at!”

“Anything else that’s blatantly obvious you feel like adding?” the teacher deadpanned, even while Bakugo struggled in vain against the scarf.

“N-No sir,” Midoriya stammered as he backed away from Aizawa.

Fixing his attention back on his explosive student, the teacher said, “I expect better of my students than starting fights, Bakugo. This will be the last time I have to use my quirk on you, unless you want to suffer some serious consequences.” Without bothering to wait for an acknowledgement from the boy, Aizawa released the tension on his scarf and stopped using his quirk, returning his appearance to that of a tired, haggard man. Turning to the others, he said, “Come on, then. We don’t have all day.” With that, he started to wade through his students.

Bakugo turned to follow, but not once did his eyes leave the ground. Kurai could practically feel his anger roiling off of him like a heat wave, even from the distance that separated them.

However, he did stop by Midoriya and say, “You surprised me, kid. I thought you were going to break yourself with reckless abandon again like in the practical.”

Before Kurai could give his classmate another thumbs-up, Aizawa turned his withering gaze on him, instantly rendering him silent and still. “Next time you think about blasting one of your classmates outside of combat practice, remember what I told Bakugo,” he said quietly. “I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior in my class.”

Once he was out of earshot, Iida muttered, “Only the first day, and you’re already on his bad side. That has to be another new record, right?”

“Iida, I will rip the engines out of your legs and put them on my motorcycle.”

The rest of the tests passed without incident, and Kurai was able to congratulate Midoriya on his use of his quirk without breaking his bones in between the ball-throw and the seated toe-touch. When he did, the freckled boy grimaced and said, “Yeah, well, I’m not broken, but I think I sprained my wrist pretty bad with the ball throw- I went and stuck my arm in the waterfall instead of just my hand.” He held up his arm for inspection, revealing it to be swollen and slightly discolored.

“Ow,” Kurai grimaced. “You should go see the school nurse after class, cos if that doesn’t heal up right, you’re gonna have bigger issues than just a sprain. Honestly, that looks kinda broken.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Midoriya groaned. “I’m back to square one if it is!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Kurai said, trying to sound encouraging. “You didn’t break your legs, now did you?”

“No, but they’re kinda sore, too,” the boy admitted.

“Sore like the arm?”

“No, more like I’ve just been walking on them all day without a break.”

Kurai snorted with a hint of derision and said, “Then you’re making progress. Don’t be so hard on yourself, man. It’s not like the world is counting on us yet.”

“Uh, right,” Midoriya said with a nervous laugh. “I guess that’s true.”

When the scores were revealed at the end of the class, Kurai was able to let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t known that he was holding in. He had taken the top spot, just ahead of a girl named Momo Yaoyorozu, who had apparently gotten into the academy on recommendation, so he felt quite proud of that. Iida took fifth place, which he seemed satisfied with.

Midoriya, Kurai was pleased to see, had taken eleventh place with his newly-developed control of his quirk. He had hoped that his new classmate would score higher, but he had been impeded by the pain of his arm, and it had admittedly hurt his later scores. Still, he had borne the pain without complaint, silently working alongside the other students in order to try his best to win Aizawa’s approval.

Unfortunately, someone had to come in last place, and it turned out to be a girl named Toru Hagakure. Her quirk was heteromorphic in nature, which basically meant that it didn’t turn off, ever. The only issue was that, unlike the boy with six arms that could spawn different body parts on the ends of them, her quirk simply rendered her invisible. She had no edge over the others when it came to running fast or jumping high, which meant that she performed at the level of an average athlete from their age group. In a class full of people like Kurai and Bakugo, she never stood a chance.

The poor girl was bawling her eyes out when Aizawa said in a flat tone, “By the way, I lied about expelling the loser.”

This took a few seconds for most of the class to process, and when they did, many of them let out exclamations of protest and condemnation. Their teacher simply gave them a crooked smile in response and said, “I just used a rational deception to make sure that you kids would give it your all.”

“How are we supposed to trust what you say now?!” Kurai demanded angrily. He had been using his quirk to great effect for all of the tests, and it was showing in his flushed face and trembling fists that were kept at his sides.

“Kurai, you need you need to cool down,” Iida said worriedly. Of all the people there, he alone knew exactly what happened if Kurai’s temper exploded, and the consequences it could bring about. “I’m not happy about his methods, either, but this isn’t the time or place to raise your concerns.”

Kurai’s breaths accelerated, and he glared back at his best friend, every fiber of his being demanding that he punch him for demanding restraint. In his head, he knew that Iida was just trying to help, but every other part of his existence craved violence at that moment. He was about to use an energy blast that would put Aizawa in his place when he felt something wet slide down his lips and fall into the dust with a minute plop.

“Kurai…” Iida said, his face going white.

Instantly, the boy’s anger fled into the corners of his mind, where it would not be forgotten, but could be sorted out later when he was more capable of doing so. In its place came a raw, animal terror that saw him falling on his rump as he clutched at his face while blood sheeted from his nose and pain stabbed through his head before he blacked out.

Chapter Text

“How many times has this happened before?”

“Once, but this was a lot less concerning than my first episode,” Kurai answered as he twiddled his thumbs, not wanting to meet the accusing face of Recovery Girl, the school nurse.

“What happened that was worse than you passing out with a bloody nose in the middle of class?!” the old, diminutive hero demanded in a cracking voice.

“This was cured by a quick healing session,” Kurai answered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Now that his quirk had been inactive for some time, he was back to his usual, shier self. “When I was seven, and I was still getting used to my quirk, there was an… incident.”

“You’re gonna need to be less vague, sonny,” Recovery Girl said shortly. “If you’re going to be a student here, I need to know your medical history, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kurai sighed. “It’s just… I don’t… really like talking about… the day that I nearly died.” The old woman stiffened in her seat, but she did not interrupt him. Seeing this, he went on to say, “I… lost control of my temper completely… and since my quirk is tied to my frontal cortex… It basically forced my power into overdrive. The effects just kept bounding off each other- I kept getting angrier, and my power just kept growing, until… Er-hem…”

“What happened, kiddo?” the nurse asked, though the tone was a lot less hostile now.

“I had a massive aneurism,” he said in a very soft voice. “I had to have an operation to save my life… Nearly scared my parents to death, and I…” Kurai let out a long, shuddering breath before saying, “I’ve never been the same since. I always have to keep a lid on my emotions so that when it comes time to use my powers, I’m not already in danger of hurting the people I care about.”

“Sounds like quite the burden,” Recovery Girl said sympathetically. “Have you seen any therapists about this?”

“Several,” Kurai laughed bitterly. “All of them say the same things with different words, but basically they tell me ‘it’s not your fault’. It’s no-one’s fault; I know that. But that doesn’t help me.”

“I don’t know that anyone can, sonny,” the nurse said a little sadly. “This sounds like a puzzle only you can solve. For now, just focus on feeling better and doing well in class.”

“I will,” he said quietly. “Thank you for listening, ma’am. That does help.”

“Well, it’s my job to look after sick and injured students,” the elderly woman said with a smile. “But I’d wager that you’ve got some friends that you can talk to as well.”

“My friend, Iida, he knows about all this,” Kurai nodded as he moved to exit the room. “But I dunno that I have any friends besides him in the class.”

“Well, that’s one of the things that school is for,” Recovery Girl laughed. “Go! Make new friends!”

“Right…”

Make new friends… the boy thought tiredly. If only it were so easy as saying it.

Recovery Girl had used her quirk to heal him from the aftereffects of his seizure, but the process drained the physical energy reserves of his body, leaving him feeling worn out. Unfortunately, this did nothing to help him out of the funk he was currently in. I made a fool out of myself today, he decided. Forget my scores in the practical exam, I almost attacked another student and my teacher- and I’m not sure which one is worse…

He paused in front of the door to his classroom. School is nearly over, he thought. I could probably just go home and no one would even think twice about it.

He quickly discarded the idea. Aizawa would figure it out, and I should really pick up any assignments that I’ve missed so I don’t fall behind. With that thought in mind, he braced himself and opened the door.

He was met with something completely unexpected as soon as everyone noticed that he was in the room. “He’s okay!” Kirishima shouted with a huge grin on his face as he scrambled ahead of the other students to come up to the now-confused boy. “These guys were all worried about you, but I knew you were gonna be fine!”

“Your quirk sure has one hell of a kickback, huh?” a golden-haired boy named Kaminari asked from his desk. “Gotta say that the powers that it comes with are something pretty special, though. Good to see you on your feet, man.” Kurai blinked a couple of times, unsure of how to respond.

“I was afraid you were gonna miss out on school, cos I wanted to hang out with you after!” Mina said excitedly. “That is, if you’re free?”

“Yeah, some of us were gonna go for karaoke since we don’t have much homework this afternoon,” Sero explained. “We were all hoping you could join us!”

Iida joined in here, saying, “I’m sure that after his ordeal, Hikari would just like the opportunity to rest at home.” He met eyes with his friend, his bespectacled blue orbs asking a silent question.

Kurai looked around at his classmates, more than half of them looking expectantly at him, then back to his best friend, all the while considering his own exhaustion, as well as the words Recovery Girl had sent him off with.

Finally, he said, “I can go with you guys for a little while, I suppose.”

“All right!” Those assembled in front of him cheered while Iida shrugged and stepped aside.

“You gonna come along, Iida?” Kurai asked him hopefully.

“I thought about it, but my brother is taking an early evening to come and ask about how my first day was,” the other boy shrugged. “Perhaps another day, but I doubt that I’ll be getting up on stage even if I do.”

“Is this guy allergic to fun?” Kirishima asked of no one in particular.

“Not nearly as much as Todoroki seems to be,” the girl with the auxiliary jacks coming out of her earlobes muttered. When Kurai looked a question at her, she shook her head and said, “Never mind. I’m Kyoka Jiro, nice to meet you… Hikari, right?”

“Yeah,” he boy said as he cleared his throat. “I’m Kurai Hikari. It’s nice to meet all of you.”

Once he had gathered the assignments they had been handed while he was out of commission, the group headed out to the local arcade, led by Mina and Kirishima, who were positively bursting with excitement.

Of those coming along, Kurai did his best to remember the names that matched with his classmates’ faces. He already knew Mina, Kirishima, Kaminari, Jiro, Sero, and Midoriya, but the green-haired boy had elected not join them, instead going home via the same bus route as Iida and the girl, Uraraka. Among the others that had elected to come along were Tsuyu Asui, a girl that very strongly resembled a frog, which left Kurai with a pretty solid guess as to what her quirk did.

There was also the invisible girl, Toru Hagakure, who seemed none the worse for her close call that morning. Also joining them was Momo Yaoyorozu, an attractive girl with long black hair who seemed very eager to impress. Last of all were Mashirao Ojiro, the boy with the tail, and Rikido Sato, whose appearance was mostly normal, save for his large mouth and bulky muscles.

Kurai felt rather uncomfortable, tagging along with people that he’d had minimal interaction with, but he made himself go along because he knew that it would be important to form good relationships with them whenever he could- after all, someday they might end up trusting one another with their lives. Probably better to start off on a positive note, especially if it helps them ignore my earlier mistakes, he thought resignedly.

“Hey, why so glum, big guy?” a voice asked from next to him. It startled him at first, because he couldn’t figure out where the speaker was, until he realized that it was Hagakure, who had apparently dropped back to walk with him behind everyone else.

“Er, just thinking,” he stammered.

“What about?” she chirped.

“The future?” he replied lamely after thinking of a somewhat truthful response.

“That’s kinda vague,” she giggled, either ignoring or not noticing his discomfort. “Care to be more specific?”

“Well… I mean, I guess I was just thinking about what life will be like for us after we finish at U.A.,” he answered. “Some of us will probably work as sidekicks for some of the bigger pros while the lucky ones will get to start their own agencies straightaway. I was just kind of… wondering which of us will keep working together even after high school and which of us will go it alone.”

“Well, I can think of one blond pyro-freak that’s gonna have a hard time making any friends in the hero world,” Hagakure giggled again. “I think you’re gonna be just fine, though.”

“Why do you say that?” Kurai asked, though he was secretly relieved that he wasn’t the only one to find himself disliking Bakugo.

“Well, you seem like a really nice guy, and your quirk is amazing, even with that drawback we saw,” she said with what sounded like a smile. “Midoriya told Iida about how you helped him during the test, and it kind of got around the class when we asked him about you. I thought that was really sweet for you to do. Very… heroic.”

“Heroic?” he sputtered with a laugh, despite himself. “How was that heroic?”

“You helped someone who needed it with no thought to yourself,” the invisible girl replied. “And what’s even cooler, you didn’t even know you did it until somebody else pointed it out to you. If that’s not the attitude of a hero, I dunno what is.”

Her words warmed his heart as well as his face, and he found himself ducking his head with embarrassment. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “I never really thought about it that way. It just seemed like the decent thing to do.”

Hagakure laughed and said, “Well, I know who I’m gonna call if I ever need a hero in that future you were thinking of.” She started laughing even harder when Kurai turned positively scarlet at her words.

The group rented out a large room for two hours, which Yaoyorozu paid for, surprising her classmates, because the place was nice, and it couldn’t have been cheap. “I just want our first outing to memorable,” she said when asked if it was okay for her to drop that much cash on a whim. “It’s important for us to have positive experiences whenever possible.”

Huh, Kurai had thought. Guess I’m not the only one thinking about the future and how we’ll be facing it together. Either way, none of them were going to protest against saving themselves a few bucks.

Since there were a dozen of them, they decided to use the first hour on singles, then the second doing duets. There was some squabbling over who would get to pair up with whom, but eventually the matter was settled by drawing numbered straws twice, since there was enough time for them all to go twice during the duet hour.

Kurai found himself being paired up with Ojiro first, then Mina, which gave him pause. He’d only been to the arcade a few times with Iida and some of the other guys at his middle school, and he’d certainly never sung in public before, much less with a cute girl.

He had little time to think on the matter before the tablet was handed to him for him to decide which song he would be singing solo. Having always been a fan of the old Dragon Ball franchise, he decided to sing the intro for Dragon Ball Z. Hardly original, but eh, if I’m going to try and have a good time, I might as well go with something I feel comfortable with, he decided.

With Ojiro, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he and the boy had similar tastes in manga and anime, which meant that they were able to agree on which song to pick. Their choice wound up being ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ from the anime of the same name.

When it came to Mina, he was simply too embarrassed to make any suggestions, only managing to tell her that she could pick whichever song she wanted. She wouldn’t have it though, and insisted that he help pick the music. They went back and forth for a few minutes before the pink girl huffed and said, “Fine, I’ll pick! How’s your English?”

“Uh… Pretty good, why?” he asked, his apprehension suddenly growing to a new level.

“Nope!” she grinned evilly. “You said that I should pick, and now that I know you can do English, I’ve got an idea!” With that, she entered a song and handed it off to Yaoyorozu.

“I don’t even get a hint?” the boy complained.

Mina smirked again and simply replied, “Dragons.”

“Dragons…? What?”

Kurai found himself enjoying the gathering more than he thought he would. Some of the music choices surprised him, but it helped him to gain some insight into the people that sang them. Jiro acted fairly cold and standoffish, but once the old fashioned rock-and-roll started blasting out of the speakers, she completely broke out of her shell and proved to have a pretty good voice. Kirishima tried to rap, but mostly made his classmates laugh- though to his credit, he laughed along with them, so there were no hard feelings about it. Hagakure sang a song by an American named Katy Perry- something about fireworks, he thought. Yaoyorozu sang a classical piece that sounded quite difficult to do correctly- again reinforcing Kurai’s thought that the girl felt as though she had a lot to prove.

While everyone else took their turns, the classmates decided to order some snacks and drinks to help pass the time, breaking down into groups of four to a booth.

When it came time for Kurai to try, he was shaking and imagining all the ways that he could screw up. Then the music began, and he surrendered his control over to the sound of his childhood. As he belted out the lyrics to ‘Head Cha La’, he forgot that he was standing in front of potential friends and partners, and instead remembered all the weekend mornings he’d spent with Akarui, cheering on Goku and Vegeta as they struggled against one insurmountable villain after the other, always finding some way to pull through. When the song ended, he found himself a little out of breath and smiling without really knowing why.

His classmates applauded him, and he sat down back in his booth with Mina, Ojiro and Sero, his face flushed and still trying to regain his breath. “That was terrifying,” he said before gulping down some of his iced tea.

“How is that you can take on a gigantic killer robot, but getting up and shouting out to some tunes makes you shake in your boots?” Mina laughed.

“This is completely different!” Kurai protested, but all he did was get his classmates to laugh at him again. Still, the laughter felt good- he knew it wasn’t directed at him, per se, but rather meant for him.

He found himself smiling again with the thought, I can see myself being friends with people like these.

His and Ojiro’s turn came quicker than Kurai had expected, but he managed to compose himself well enough to give a decent performance alongside the boy with the tail. More importantly, he had fun, and it looked like Ojiro did, too.

Once again, they were applauded, and they returned to their seats with Kurai trying to catch his breath and trembling a little. Seeing this, Mina peered closely at him and asked, “Hey, are you doing okay?”

“Yes,” the boy breathed as he went for his drink again. “I’m just… ah… still tired from my healing session at the nurse’s.”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little disappointed. “Should we skip our turn when it comes up, then? If you’re not feeling well, we don’t have to do this.”

Kurai gave her a tired smile in response. “I’ve made it this far,” he breathed. “Why give up now?”

“You sure?” she asked.

“No, but I gotta start going plus ultra at some point, right?” he grinned weakly.

Before they began, Mina turned to him and asked, “You ever see those How to Train You Dragon movies?”

“That series that started back in the early 2000’s?” Kurai answered. “Yeah, those were great films when I was younger. My little brother still thinks they’re the best.”

“Aw, you have a brother?” she cooed. “What’s he like?”

“Can I get back to you on that?” he said as Jiro and Yaoyorozu handed them the mics. “I think we have more pressing concerns.”

“Oh, right,” Mina grinned. “Get ready, then. This song is one I’ve always loved, so you better help me make it look good.”

“Right…” the boy said as he began to sweat lightly. All of his original trepidation seemed to have returned and been amplified as the spotlight fell on them, and he found himself getting ready to sing with a girl. A very cute, very energetic girl.

This is going to be a problem if I ever fight any attractive villains, he thought as he paled a little more.

Then there was no more time to think on it the sounds of violins came out of the speakers to create a Celtic tune that he remembered hearing from a few years ago. Soon after, words began to appear on the screen, one colored blue for the male part, and pink for the girl, ironically enough.

Mina began, singing in a sweet voice to beat of the lively music.

When I was six years old, I broke my leg
I was running from my brother and his friends

Now Kurai jumped in, hesitating over the first few words, but quickly getting the hang of it. His voice was not as smooth as his partner’s, but they still complimented each other.

And tasted the sweet perfume of the mountain grass I rolled down
I was younger then

Take me back to when I

Here, the two joined voices and formed a pleasant harmony.

Found my heart and broke it here
Made friends and lost them through the years
And I've not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel

And it's real
We watched the sunset

Over the castle on the hill

(Mina)

Fifteen years old and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes
Running from the law through the backfields and

Getting drunk with my friends

(Kurai)
Had my first kiss on a Friday night

I don't reckon that I did it right
But I was younger then

Take me back to when

(Harmony)

We found weekend jobs, when we got paid
We'd buy cheap spirits and drink them straight
Me and my friends have not thrown up in so long, oh how we've grown
But I can't wait to go home

I'm on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to "Tiny Dancer"
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real
We watched the sunset

Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill

(Mina)

One friend left to sell clothes
One works down by the coast

(Kurai)
One had two kids but lives alone
One's brother overdosed

(Harmony)
One's already on his second wife
One's just barely getting by
But these people raised me and I can't wait to go home

(Mina)

And I'm on my way, I still remember
(Kurai)

These old country lanes

(Harmony)
When we did not know the answers
And I miss the way you make me feel, it's real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill
Over the castle on the hill

Done singing, Kurai drew in and released a long breath of relief. It’s finally over, he thought as he wiped sweat from his brow. Are the lights always so hot in here? He wondered. He was about to ask his partner the question aloud when he noticed that she had gotten a lot closer to him during the song without his noticing.

“That was awesome!” Mina giggled as she threw herself at the recovering boy, wrapping him up in a tight hug for a second before letting go and hopping off the stage.

Kurai was not so quick to leave- mostly because he felt as though his head had just imploded. What just happened? He wondered dumbly.

At the end of the day, Kurai flopped down on his bed, utterly spent. He had barely managed to stay awake long enough to eat dinner and finish his homework, light though load was. He had also been forced to recount his first day of class to his family, though he omitted the part about his seizure.

He had decided to tell his parents about it in private another day, one where he didn’t feel so exhausted. He knew that tiredness was mostly from using his quirk so extensively over the course of the day, and another factor would be the drain Recovery Girl’s quirk had put on his body. Then there was the effort that it had taken to get up on a stage in front of people that he barely knew, but would depend on in the days to come. Finally, there was the way that Mina had acted at the end of their song.

What was up with that hug…? We don’t know each other that well… Girls don’t make sense, he thought before sleep claimed him.

He woke up feeling refreshed and ready to face the day. I have a better grasp of who I’m going to be spending my days with, and now at least I know what to expect from Mister Aizawa, he thought firmly as he grabbed his bag from where he had put it by the door the previous evening. Plus, today is the day we get to begin Hero Basic Training.

“You gonna get to try your gear yet?” Akarui asked as he pulled on his shoes alongside his brother.

“I think so,” Kurai nodded with a grin. “The schedule says today is basic training.”

“And All Might is your teacher, right?” his little brother asked excitedly.

“Yes, and I will try to get an autograph for you,” Kurai laughed.

“You better, or I’m not helping you next time,” the younger Hikari smirked. Growing more serious, he added, “But let me know if it works out the way we planned it. I might be able to think of some improvements during lunch.”

“Will do,” Kurai nodded, also growing serious. Looking over his shoulder to make sure that there was no one close by to eavesdrop, he added in a lowered tone, “Between you and me, I need this to go right. Otherwise I might be facing hospital time again.”

Akarui’s eyes widened, but he merely nodded without a sound.

Kurai met up with Iida after he got off his bus, and the two walked at a brisk pace- it was as fast as the bespectacled student was able to get his friend to go- and talked about their previous evenings. Iida had spent his afternoon with his brother, discussing a few of his latest adventures and the lessons that Tenya could learn from them.

When it came to him, Kurai recounted the songs he had performed and the names of the students that he could remember. He told Iida about how he found himself becoming friendly with the others faster than he thought he would, after which the other boy replied that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Who’re your new friends?” Kurai asked curiously.

“Midoriya and Uraraka accompanied me to the station yesterday, and we fell to talking,” Iida explained. “I admit that I misjudged Midoriya rather harshly- he’s a bright, kind student, and I’m glad that I’m getting the chance to know him.”

“And Uraraka?”

“She’s a very pleasant, upbeat girl that will make a great hero one day,” Iida asserted. “Her compassion seems to have touched Midoriya in particular. Based on what I’ve seen of him, he’s not used to having many friends, so her companionship must mean a great deal to him.” Looking down at his friend, the engine-quirk-enhanced boy added, “I was surprised that you didn’t invite him along to the arcade, honestly. He seems to admire you to a certain degree.”

“I guess I was more tired than I thought,” Kurai shrugged, though in his head he was kicking himself. “I kept feeling like I was gonna pass out while I was there.”

“Is it some kind of aftereffect from the seizure?” Iida asked, concerned.

“Not entirely,” Kurai replied as they strolled through the entrance to the school, joining the throng of students on their way to class. “It was that, Recovery Girl’s quirk, and the mental strain of the day, I guess.”

“Be extra-careful today, then,” his friend cautioned.

“I know,” Kurai nodded. “Akarui helped come up with a little something that should help me keep a better handle on things.”

“What’s that?”

The period after lunch was abuzz with excitement- the class that all of them had come for was about to begin. Many of the students were chattering among themselves in anticipation of the arrival of the number one hero and what basic training could entail. Much to the relief of a good portion of the class, Aizawa was not there to kill the mood.

It had been a rather dull day so far since it began with English class, taught by Present Mic. Only Yaoyorozu and Iida seemed truly committed to throwing themselves into the course- everyone else, even Kurai, felt bored out of their skulls.

Mina tried to wave him over to sit with her, but he found himself frozen with indecision until the seats beside her were taken by Jiro and Bakugo, and there was no way he was going to sit near the blond kid if he had a choice. So he gave her an apologetic shrug and ducked into the back row, where he found himself sitting beside Iida and the boy with the bird head. He thought that Mina had looked disappointed, but he tried not to think about it- the more he considered her actions toward him, the more confused he felt.

The rest of the day went by quickly enough, much to his relief. Lunch was a pleasant affair when Kurai found himself being invited to sit with Iida across from Midoriya and Uraraka. He had thus far not been formally introduced to the girl, and he found her to be a charming individual, just like his friend had said. More than that, she seemed to bounce energy off those that she was around, and this trait was most obvious with their green-haired classmate, somewhat to Kurai’s amusement.

They then had Modern Literature, taught by Cementoss. That class was a little more engaging, but because of what was coming afterward, most of the students had a hard time paying attention to what the professor was teaching.

Now they were all in their homeroom, just waiting for what would certainly be the best class to begin.

Without warning, the door was thrown open to admit a towering, muscular figure that radiated power and confidence. The incarnation of heroism, the unarguable number one hero in all the world was standing in the entrance to class 1-A, larger than life. “I… Am… Here!” All Might boomed as strutted into the room, dressed in a caped outfit of blue and red, complimented by yellow gauntlets and boots. “Coming through the door like a hero!”

Exclamations of adulation and excitement swept through the class as the Symbol of Peace made himself known.

“I can’t believe it’s really All Might!” Kaminari grinned.

“This year’s gonna be totally awesome!” Kirishima agreed.

“Is that his Silver Age costume?” Asui inquired with a blank look.

“I’m getting goosebumps,” Ojiro laughed. “It’s so retro!”

Kurai held his tongue, but he had to admit, being in the presence of the most powerful hero of them all was more impressive than he had ever thought it would be. I can see why his presence alone diffuses a large number of situations, he thought admiringly.

As All Might reached the podium from which Aizawa normally spoke, the giant of a man declared, “Welcome to the most important class at U.A. High! Think of it as Heroing 101!” Sweeping his gaze across the room, he added, “Here you will learn the basics of what it takes to be a hero. And you’ll learn what it means to fight in the name of good!”

Adopting a stance that allowed him to flex his physique, he declared, “Let’s get into it! Today’s lessons will pull no punches!” With that, he whirled around and held up a flashcard that had one word in big red letters: ‘Battle!’

Bakugo immediately got excited, growling with barely contained glee, “Fight training!”

“Actual combat?” Midoriya gulped.

Oh boy, Kurai thought nervously. If I go into a fight without Akarui’s-

Continuing on as though no one had said a word, All Might boomed, “But! One of the keys to being a hero is… Lookin’ good!” He swept his right arm around to point at the wall opposite to where the door was. As he did, hidden panels in the wall slid out to reveal twenty briefcases, each numbered in tandem with their seating arrangement. “These were created by the support team based on your quirk registrations and the designs you sent in before school started!”

Kurai breathed a huge sigh of relief at that while everyone else went absolutely ballistic with excitement, cheering and whooping so loud that it was almost a full minute before All Might was able to reign them in.

“Get yourselves suited up, then meet me at training ground Beta!” he said.

“Yes sir!” the class responded.

Not fifteen minutes later, the group of freshman emerged from the tunnel that led into the faux city that was to be their de facto classroom for the session. As soon as the first of them began to emerge from the dark, All Might looked on at them approvingly and said, “They say that the clothes make the pros, and behold, young ladies and gentlemen, you are the proof!”

Their costumes were varied in appearance and functionality, and every single one spoke volumes about its wearer. Iida wore a suit of polished armor much like Ingenium, Bakugo wore massive gauntlets shaped like grenades, while Todoroki wore a suit that encased half of his body in what looked like ice, and Yaoyorozu wore an outfit that- while alluring- left very little to the imagination and seemed quite at odds with her ‘model student’ persona. There were many other costumes that caught Kurai’s eye, but he thought that none were as great as the one that his brother had helped him come up with.

He wore what at first glance seemed to be a simple gi with short sleeves, thick combat boots, and armored bracers. His pectorals and upper back were also protected by light armor that contoured perfectly to his body and would allow for easy movement, despite it looking like a tight fit. His bracers covered his forearms completely, stopping just short of his wrists so that his movements would not be impeded. The fabric was blue, and the armor was the color of an orange sunset, an homage to Son Goku, one of his favorite manga heroes. The true function of the armor was known only to him for now, and he couldn’t wait to see how well it would serve him in this particular situation.

“Take this to heart!” All Might declared as they finished assembling before him. “From now on, you are all… Heroes-in-training!” Giving them each a once-over, his already-broad smile grew even wider as he added, “This is getting me all revved up- you look so cool!”

Raising his chin up, the giant man asked, “Now… shall we get started, you buncha newbies?”

Chapter Text

All Might began the class by explaining that they would be conducting mock indoor battles in a total of ten teams over the course of five rounds. One pair of students would play the role of the heroes in the battle, while the other would pretend to be villains guarding a bomb hidden somewhere in one of the many buildings surrounding them.

The heroes would have no idea which floor the bomb would be on, while the villains would be shown directly to the faux device, in addition to having five minutes to prepare for the arrival of their classmates.

At this, Mina frowned and said, “That’s not fair! The heroes are at a total disadvantage!”

“Mmm!” All Might grinned. “That may be true, but think about it- heroes usually are put in tough spots like this, considering all the dastardly things villains will do to gain an advantage! Taking hostages, setting up explosive devices like this one, or even threatening the population of the city with bioweapons! Yet in spite of these risks, as heroes, you must find ways to overcome such odds!”

“No pressure, huh?” Kurai muttered to Iida, who remained quiet.

“Now then!” All Might boomed as he opened up a notebook- which looked hilariously small in his massive hands- and began to read off a list of the students that would be paired together.

Midoriya and Uraraka were set to be a team, which Kurai found himself glad about. It would be good for the boy to be paired with someone he was comfortable with.

Unfortunately for Iida, he was paired with Bakugo. Turning to his friend with a grimace, Kurai said, “Uh…? Try not to get caught in the crossfire?”

“I’ll do that,” the armored boy muttered, clearly a little nervous about having to work with such a volatile partner.

Mina was paired with the navel-laser boy, something Kurai was also relieved about for reasons he didn’t completely understand. She’s just a little too familiar for how little we know one another, he reasoned. He had seen her be incredibly energetic and friendly with other people, but it was still off-putting to him, being the mild introvert that he was.

However, his relief was short-lived as he found himself paired with the very attractive, barely clothed Yaoyorozu. He reddened instantly when Iida nudged him in the ribs and whispered, “Make sure to remember that you’re going into a fight, not on a date.”

“I can still use your engine parts for my bike,” he muttered back in a strained voice.

The first battle was between Iida’s team and Midoriya’s, with Kurai’s best friend playing the role of villain. All Might led the rest of the students down to a bunker where they could watch the matches in safety. However, he did alert them to the fact that this was so they could take note of their classmates’ strategies and mistakes, not for entertainment.

The battle took up most of the fifteen minutes, and although there was no audio coming through, it became more apparent than ever that Bakugo held some kind of grudge against Midoriya. He went after the green-haired boy with reckless abandon, ignoring his teammate’s urging that they work together to protect the fake bomb. He pushed the limits to how violent they were allowed to be, and at one point, All Might had to threaten him with failing the match if he continued to be so destructive.

Iida performed as best he could, defending the weapon down to the last seconds with skill and tenacity that Kurai was sure Tensei would have been proud of. The bespectacled teenager even managed to get himself to play the role of a maddened villain pretty well- though Kurai found himself laughing at Iida’s monologues a few times.

Uraraka managed to secure the bomb at the last second, making a few surprising uses out of her zero gravity quirk that Iida was not fully prepared for. This meant that the hero team won, but it did come at a price.

For his part, Midoriya fought bravely, and with a surprising amount of skill without using his quirk until the very end of the match. Unfortunately, since Bakugo wasn’t giving him enough time to concentrate properly, he was forced to use his quirk’s maximum power, which not only shattered most of the building itself in an attempt to distract both Bakugo and Iida, but also his entire arm. That wasn’t even accounting for all the burns that Bakugo’s explosions inflicted on him while he held him off. The poor boy wound up passed out and on a stretcher headed immediately for the nurse’s office- he didn’t even get to hear All Might’s declaration that his team had claimed victory.

After the freckled boy had been taken away to safety, the big man took the three remaining students back to the bunker to review their work. To the collective surprise of most of the class, All Might declared Iida as the most valued participant.

“But sir, shouldn’t it be one of the winners?” Asui asked.

“A valid question!” All Might nodded. “Why didn’t I pick Midoriya or Uraraka? Who has a guess?!”

“Sir!” Yaoyorozu said, her hand shooting up instantly. “I can tell you why. Of all the people in the exercise, Iida was the only one to truly embrace his role.” When the others mostly stared at her blankly, she put her hand down and said, “I’ll explain: while Midoriya and Uraraka did win, they only did so because this was a training simulation. His final attack was too reckless given the hypothetical circumstances, and Uraraka’s technique was much too imprecise to use around a live bomb. They took advantage of the fact that it was a fake to win the match.

“As for Bakugo, he was clearly blinded by a personal grudge against Midoriya, which clouded his judgement. His attacks were also reckless, even for a villain planning to bomb a city block, not to mention he had absolutely no thoughts about working with Iida. If anyone should have chased after the heroes, it should have been the more mobile of the two.” Here, Kurai glanced at the blond boy, fully expecting him to fly into another blind rage. However, he remained where he was, a look of shellshock plastered to his face.

Yaoyorozu continued on to say, “Iida was the only one who thought the situation through. He removed any advantage that Uraraka might have had against him to the best of his ability, even going so far as to predict- quite correctly- that she would be the one to come and attempt to neutralize the weapon. He acted the part rather well, too.”

Kurai found himself suddenly appreciating the fact that he was paired up with this girl in particular. She got in on recommendation, if I remember correctly, he thought. Guess now I can understand why.

All Might apparently was having similar thoughts, because he said, “Well… You missed a couple of things. Young Iida could have been a little more relaxed in his approach, but… Otherwise, you nailed it!” Then he let out a little laugh that seemed somewhat at odds with his booming voice and huge physique.

The next match was over almost frighteningly fast. Todoroki- the boy with red and white hair- and Shoji- the young man with six arms- were set to take the bomb from Hagakure and Ojiro. The invisible girl began the match by discarding what little clothing she did have in an attempt to sneak up on the hero team, but she didn’t even make down the first flight of stairs.

Todoroki told his teammate to go outside before he proceeded to freeze the entire building solid. Since both of the ‘villains’ were barefoot, they found themselves stuck to the ground where the ice had bound them. The icy hero-in-training was able to just walk past both of his opponents without so much as a single blow being traded, and secured the bomb in less than three minutes.

Not only that, as soon as his team had been declared the winners, he emitted a blast of heat that dispelled all of the ice that he had created. All Might praised his skill, highlighting the fact that he had managed to effectively disable both his opponents and the bomb without giving them any warning, while also managing to keep his teammate safe.

Kurai and Yaoyorozu were set up as the villains in the fourth match. The hero team consisted of Kaminari and Jiro. Once the two of them were inside the building, and out of earshot from their soon-to-be-opponents, Kurai turned to his teammate and said, “Okay, mind if we talk quirks while we’re setting up?”

“That sounds excellent,” Yaoyorozu replied with a nod. “Allow me to go first?” When Kurai nodded back, she said, “My quirk, Creation, allows me to make any non-living thing that I want. However, I have to understand the molecular structure of what it is that I want to make, or else I can’t produce the item. I also have to essentially secrete the items out of my bare skin, which why I designed my costume the way I did.”

Kurai blinked, impressed. “That’s amazing,” he told her. Also explains why the ‘perfect student’ would dress like that… “No wonder you got into U.A.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” she said with a small laugh. “The molecules to construct these things have to come from somewhere, right? The other limit to my quirk is based on how much food I have in me- that’s where the reconstructed atoms come from.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Kurai nodded. “So it’s not like you can pop out another fake bomb so we can dupe them, huh?” They had reached the first flight of stairs, and began to climb them, heading for the fifth floor.

“I could, but it would take a while, and more food than I currently have in me,” she replied. “That was a good idea, though.”

“What about technology stuff?” Kurai inquired, an idea beginning to form.

“What kind?” his partner asked. “I can make lots of things, some of them technological.”

“How about radios like the one All Might gave us?” he asked as he tapped the little earpiece currently residing in his right ear.

“I could, yes, but what would be the point?” she asked him with a small frown as they reached the second floor.

“That depends on my next question,” Kurai smirked. “Can you make something to jam the frequencies of our classmates’ radios so that they can’t talk to each other if they got separated?”

“I could fashion an E.M.P. emitter, but that would knock out our equipment too,” the girl frowned. However, in less than a second, her face lit up as she added, “But if I were to make us a new pair of radios after I set off the E.M.P…”

“Our opponents are in the dark, while we can still coordinate,” Kurai grinned broadly. “Not to mention that if this was a real bomb, you could just pop out another trigger after we fried the first one, right? Do we have a plan?”

“We do,” she nodded. “But while I’m doing that, what will you be doing?”

“I’m gonna try to keep them away from you while you guard the bomb, if that’s okay,” he answered. “Like you pointed out with Iida’s match, the more mobile of them should have gone after the heroes. No offense, but I think my quirk is more suited for going on the offensive than yours.”

“You can create energy blasts, right?” his partner asked.

“I can also use that energy to reinforce my body to make me faster and stronger,” Kurai nodded. “However, the part of my brain that triggers my quirk affects my frontal cortex. If I overuse it, I become incredibly aggressive and difficult to reason with. And if I keep using it beyond that point, I can experience a seizure, like you saw yesterday, or… even an aneurism.”

“Oh dear,” Yaoyorozu gasped, her eyes wide. “Will you be all right to take part in a battle, then?”

“Yeah,” he nodded confidently as they passed third floor. “See my armor?” he touched his chest piece with his right bracer, producing a small clank. “My brother- whose quirk basically makes him a genius- helped me design it. Not only does it help guard some of my vital spots and lend my punches some extra weight, each piece applies pressure to nerve points that help keep me calm, even when using my quirk. Downside might be that I can’t let off as much power in one go, but if that means no passing out from blood in my brain, I’m more than happy to make that trade.”

“That is quite the relief,” she agreed. “Very well, I’ll let you take them on as soon as I’ve disabled their communications. I’ll also work on reinforcing the door with some metal bars so they’ll have a harder time getting in- just in case one manages to sneak by you.”

“Good idea,” he acknowledged as they reach floor four. “You know what kind of quirks our opponents will be using?”

“Jiro has very sensitive hearing, so she’ll probably be able to locate us quickly enough,” Yaoyorozu said after a moment of thought. “She’s also mentioned that she can use her ear jacks to produce very loud sounds on contact, though I’m not entirely sure how she does it. And I believe Kaminari has some kind of electrical quirk.”

“Thought so,” Kurai nodded. “…Matter of fact, I think I saw him recharging his phone with his bare hands when we were at karaoke.”

“Then he must have an impressive level of control over his power, if he can charge a device that requires very little electricity without causing it to explode in his hands,” Yaoyorozu noted.

“Could be, I’ll watch my step around him,” Kurai promised, just as they stepped onto the fifth and final floor in the mock office complex. “Now, where is that bomb at?”

They spent the next few minutes setting up for their classmates to come in and try to wrest the weapon away from them. The first item Kurai’s teammate produced was the E.M.P. device that he had requested, warning him that she couldn’t make the new earpieces until the device was set off, otherwise they risked destroying the new coms in the same blast. With that in mind, she began to produce steel beams that she could use to reinforce the door as soon as Kurai had the new earpiece in hand and left their position.

“I must admit, this plan of yours is a little more advanced than I would expect from an average junior high graduate,” Yaoyorozu commented at one point.

Kurai laughed at that, then when she looked at him with puzzlement, he explained, “We’re in U.A. High. No one in this class can be called average.”

“You know what I meant,” she replied with a roll of her eyes. “I was admitted on recommendation, and I didn’t come up with a plan anywhere near this clever. My first instinct was to fight a completely defensive battle, and yet you have devised a plan that allows us to strike at the enemy team before they even set foot in the building.”

“Yeah, well…” Kurai shrugged. “I’m a little more strategically aware of how fights between villains and heroes usually go, I guess.”

“Are you related to a pro hero, then?” Yaoyorozu inquired.

Kurai was about to answer, but just then, All Might’s voice came in on their headpieces, saying, “Let the match begin! Good luck, heroes! Er… Also, villains! Show us what you’re made of!”

“Game on,” Kurai smirked as he held up the E.M.P. “Ready?”

“Yes,” his teammate nodded sharply, all business now.

With that, they removed their earpieces and set them a few feet away from themselves. As soon as they had, Kurai the little red button on the weapon, and immediately felt a short tingle as it activated. Less than a second after that, the lights in the building all went off at the same time that the com devices gave out little spats of electricity, frying them.

“Good thing we weren’t wearing those,” Kurai muttered as Yaoyorozu immediately fashioned him a new one. As he put the little communicator in his ear, she surprised him by handing him what looked like a grenade. “Uh…”

“It’s a flash-bang, don’t worry,” she chuckled. “I’m not as crazy as Bakugo.”

“Good to know,” he grinned back, reassured. Stepping out of the room, he said, “All right, be seeing you.”

The earpiece bleeped as he turned the corner, allowing him to hear his partner say, “Good luck, Hikari.”

The hero team was not hard to find for Kurai. Not because he was particularly skilled at detecting enemy forces, but rather because Kaminari and Jiro were arguing a little too loudly.

“I’m just saying, maybe we should head back out and see if All Might calls off the match!” Kaminari was protesting. “We can’t really do this with malfunctioning gear!”

“We’ll be fine,” Jiro insisted. “Real heroes can do the job with or without their equipment. If we wanna be pros we need to work around problems like this.”

“I tried to give ‘em a jump, but your amplifiers still might be shot!” Kaminari groaned. “Without that, we-”

“Shh!” Jiro suddenly demanded, causing Kurai to freeze in place just around the corner of the hall that the two other students were in.

To his credit, Kaminari did as she requested, speaking softly so that Kurai could barely make out, “What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone on this floor, close by,” Jiro asserted. “I think it’s probably-”

“Surprise!” Kurai shouted as he pulled the pin on his grenade and flung it around the corner.

“What the-?!”

Fzzt! Jiro’s exclamation of surprise was cut short as Kaminari caught the grenade and fried it before it could go off with a single burst of electricity.

“…Huh,” Kurai muttered, more than a little surprised. “That was… not supposed to happen.”

“A grenade, dude?!” the blond kid demanded. “Really?! I know you’re the villain, but that’s taking it too far!”

“It’s a flash-bang, genius,” Jiro told him as one of her auxiliary jacks plugged itself into the corresponding boot. “Also, get him!”

“Oh, right!” Kaminari exclaimed as he tossed the now-useless grenade behind him and launched himself at Kurai, who had settled into a fighting stance.

Electricity crackled along his arm as he aimed to punch Kurai in the face, who decided he would prefer to avoid that. So he ducked the punch and retaliated with one of his own, a straight shot to the stomach that was enhanced by his quirk, so that it sent his classmate flying into the wall hard enough to take him down for at least a few moments.

Before he could turn to deal with Jiro, however, he was blasted back by an explosive wave of sound that was akin to something like a beating drum. The source was the girl’s boots, and apparently her auxiliary jack had something to do with it. His hearing was damaged in his right ear, but the left, the one with the earpiece in it, seemed mostly unhurt.

He was able to tell this because at that time, Yaoyorozu’s voice came out of it, saying, “Kurai, are you alright?! I heard a commotion.”

“I’m all right,” he grunted as he forced himself to his feet. “Kaminari neutralized the grenade, and Jiro had some tech in her boots that lets her create sonic pulses of some kind.”

“Do you need backup?”

“No!” he replied as he dodged around the corner before another blast of sound could hurt him. “If I get captured, we still need you to safeguard the bomb! Just… I dunno, make yourself some earplugs and set up a lightning rod in case these two get past me.”

“All right,” she acknowledged somewhat begrudgingly. “But you better not lose to them.”

“Heh,” the boy smirked as Jiro came after him, planting her left leg in front of her body as she readied another sound burst. “I won’t let you down, partner.” Miming a jab, he sent a small burst of energy at Jiro’s leg, blasting the tech in the boot to smithereens and causing her to retreat hastily as she emitted a squawk of alarm.

“Now what?” he taunted her, attempting to make himself sound as villainous as possible. “I’ve taken out your best weapon, and I’ve got plenty more where that came from. Try to hit me with that sonic pulse again from your other leg, and you’ll be picking bits of shrapnel out of these walls for a week.”

As Jiro fixed him with an icy glare, Kaminari came racing around the corner, shouting, “Okay, where’s-?! Oh, he’s there.” Glancing down at Jiro’s destroyed boot, he paled slightly and added, “So, your laser thingies… Do they, uh…?”

“I’m not shooting lethal blasts, if that’s your concern,” Kurai sneered. “You heroes will live just long enough to feel the heat of my device burning through the flesh of everyone you failed to protect before you go to meet them in the next life!” He even managed to add in an evil chuckle, though he felt absolutely ridiculous doing so.

“Kaminari, you go find the bomb,” Jiro ordered. “I’ll-”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kurai interrupted. “Turn your back, and I’ll put you down faster than a rabid dog.”

“Try doing it when I’ve blown out your eardrums and blasted you out that window down the hall,” the girl countered. “You can’t fight me and chase him down.”

“Oh, I can’t?” Kurai grinned as he cracked his neck. “Trust me- this is gonna be fun.”

Kaminari glanced between his partner and their opponent for a second before he said, “He’s really good at this whole ‘fake villain’ thing…”

“What’s your point?” Jiro snapped.

“I believe him when he says that he can take us both on alone,” the electric quirk-user admitted. “Also, I don’t want him to hit me again.”

“Ugh, grow up!” Jiro snarled. “Why don’t you just hit him with a lightning bolt?”

“I already told you!” he shot back. “I can cover my body with electricity, but if I try to shoot it out, it’ll just go everywhere! You’d be zapped, too!”

“I’ll be fine, just take him-!”

Wham! Kurai shot forward so fast that he was just a blur, his fist catching Jiro completely off-guard as it struck her in the chin, sending her back-pedaling, off-balance. Before Kaminari could even conjure up so much as a spark, Kurai had blasted him with an energy bolt that smacked him up to the ceiling, then on his way down, met his chest with a roundhouse kick that reintroduced him to the wall, before he finally fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Kaminari is down,” he informed Yaoyorozu. “Jiro isn’t far behind.”

“Excellent,” the girl replied. “How are you holding up?”

“Still having trouble hearing out of my other ear, but I’ll manage,” he grinned. “See you in a few minutes.”

“You gotta be kidding me…” Jiro grunted as she stood up shakily, wiping blood off her chin as Kurai returned his attention to her. “How can he be that useless?”

“A word of advice, hero,” Kurai said he held out his right hand, palm open to face her. “Instead of just telling your teammate your demands, and then expecting that to be the reality, try actually treating them like a partner. Maybe next time you won’t lose this badly.” An explosive bolt hit his classmate and put her lights out right before she could hit him with a sound blast.

Kurai wound up tossing Jiro on top of Kaminari before sitting on the two of them to keep them in place, since he couldn’t risk asking Yaoyorozu coming down and leaving the weapon unattended. He knew that he actually could in this situation, but if it were an actual bomb, he knew that no competent villain would ever leave their weapon unattended, risking that another hero might come to prevent their actions. Whatever the case was, he waited for the teacher to arrive while he sat on top of the sleeping classmates after confirming to his partner that he had defeated both of the other students.

All Might appeared a few minutes after that, a serious look on his face, which wasn’t exactly what Kurai had expected. As his teacher approached, he said, “So… did our team win?”

“You did, but there was unintended consequence to your plan,” All Might sighed. “That electromagnetic burst not only disabled my way of communicating with you and your classmates, it also scrambled the surveillance equipment I was supposed to be using to monitor you! I was only able to catch the last few seconds of the fight after having to reboot the entire system!”

Kurai paled rapidly, sweat lining his brow. “I am so sorry, All Might,” he said with a swift bow. “The plan was mine- I didn’t think about how it could-”

“No, it’s all right,” the giant man sighed. “How could you have predicted such a consequence? That fault falls on me, as your teacher, for not warning you not to damage the surveillance cameras… Though, in my defense, I don’t think this has ever been a problem before. The cameras were made to be durable enough to withstand blasts like Bakugo’s, and even electric powers like young Kaminari! I give you full marks for ingenuity, if nothing else!”

Hearing that made Kurai feel a little better. Raising his gaze to look his teacher in the eye, he said, “I still apologize for the inconvenience, sir. I’ll accept any punishment that you see fit.”

“HAhahaha!” All Might chortled. “Come on, now! I’m not Aizawa- you did good, kid! I just wanted you to be aware of your actions for future exercises like this one!” Giving the kid a pat on the back that nearly put him through the walls, the pro hero retrieved Kaminari and Jiro before declaring, “Now let’s go get Miss Yaoyorozu and review your work!”

“But… the footage didn’t get recorded,” Kurai pointed out. “How are we gonna do that?”

“Er…”

After making sure that the two unconscious students were on their way to the nurse’s office, All Might took Kurai and Yaoyorozu down to the bunker, where the two of them gave him a play-by-play on what he hadn’t been able to see himself. Kurai was docked a few points for allowing Jiro to catch him by surprise instead of immediately pursuing an attack while the two of them were distracted by the flash-bang, even though it had failed. Despite this, and the fact that Yaoyorozu performed her role perfectly, Kurai was named the MVP by All Might due to his tactics and combat skills.

While the next round of students were setting up for their own encounter, Yaoyorozu came up to her partner and said, “You didn’t tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Kurai asked her, genuinely confused.

“You evaded telling me how it is you know how to plan for a battle like that; looking at the big picture instead of just focusing on the person in front of you,” she insisted. “How do you know all that?”

“Midoriya has that kind of stuff figured out, too,” Kurai tried, but the girl was already shaking her head in the negative.

“Whether or not he can do the same thing as you doesn’t answer my question about how you yourself know such matters,” she insisted. “You’re powerful enough, smart enough, and have the training to get in on a recommendation, but you didn’t. Why is that?”

Kurai noticed a couple of the other students looking at them with curiosity, so he motioned with his head for the girl to follow him to the back corner of the room. Once they had a little more distance between them and the others, he muttered, “You don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, do you?”

“You haven’t actually told me that you don’t want to discuss this,” Yaoyorozu replied. “If that’s the case, then simply say so.”

“No, you were my partner for today, you deserve to know a little bit about me,” he conceded with a small sigh. “You’re right, I could have gotten in on a recommendation.”

“But…?”

“But I chose not to,” he admitted.

“You-?” she gaped. “Why wouldn’t you-?”

“I wanted to earn my place here, not just have it handed to me on a silver platter,” Kurai interrupted her. “It wouldn’t feel right to me.”

“They have entrance exams for the students that get-”

“I know that, but it’s just a formality,” Kurai shrugged. “No one that’s gone through those tests haven’t passed them in the history of the school. It’s basically just a way for them to assess our potential, like Mister Aizawa did on our first day of class. That’s not the way I wanted to get in.”

“Be that as it may, you still haven’t told me how you have the skills you do,” she insisted with a frown. “Also, who would have been able to put you up for recommendation, but not done it because you asked them to?”

“My old man,” Kurai shrugged. “He’s not a pro hero, but he’s definitely a very distinguished member of the city’s community.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s the city’s Police Commissioner.”

Chapter Text

“Are you kidding me with this?” Kurai groaned. “Second day in a row!”

“Well, I suppose we should have expected something like this to happen,” Iida said with a shrug. “All Might becoming a teacher was bound to make the headlines eventually.”

Their commentary was the result of a mob consisting entirely of reporters and camera crews gathered in front of the school gates. Mere days after All Might had been announced as the newest U.A. faculty member, the media was vying for an interview with the man on campus. Their presence not only disrupted the normal morning routine for the students, it also grated on Kurai’s nerves on a personal level.

“I know, I just hate dealing with the press,” the boy grumbled in response to his comrade’s remark. “They’re always blaming my dad whenever some villain escapes the police, plus a bunch of other crap I don’t care for.”

“I understand you frustration, but remember, if they stop us, we should be courteous to them,” Iida said firmly. “They do have freedom of the press.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he argued as they approached the school gate.

As soon as they started making their way through the crowd, a female reporter came up to them and thrust a mic in their faces, asking, “You two! You’re some of All Might’s students, aren’t you?”

“What’s it to you?” Kurai asked irritably. He hated being the subject of attention for strangers, and he didn’t feel like entertaining the press after all the trouble they had caused his family over the years.

“It’s a scoop,” the reporter replied. “So are you in his class, or aren’t you?”

“We are,” Iida answered, much to Kurai’s displeasure, but he kept quiet out of respect for his friend.

“Great!” the lady practically squealed with glee. “What’s he like as a teacher?!”

“He is the personification of heroism, as one would expect,” Iida answered. “His lessons are a tad unorthodox, but effective. While strict in the classroom, he is also unafraid to show his class a more humorous side. His very presence is a reminder to me that I have a long way to go before becoming a hero that any good citizen can respect, and furthermore…”

Kurai had to hide a smile as the reporter’s face slowly wilted, realizing that she was going to get a bigger scoop than she had wanted. Unfortunately, his amusement was short-lived as another reporter, this one an older man, approached him with his own microphone.

“Hello there, young man,” he said with a smile that immediately put the boy on edge. He had long since learned not to trust media people when they seemed friendly. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Actually, I ought to be getting to class,” Kurai replied, re-shouldering his pack and making to leave, until the reporter’s voice stopped him in mid-step.

“No comment, is that what your father always tells you?” the man asked, maintaining his smile. “Keep your cover up real nice so he doesn’t have to answer-”

“I’ve got a few comments in mind for if you finish that sentence,” Kurai said, just managing to control his expression while he turned back on his heel to face the reporter. “You’re here about All Might, yeah? Then leave my family out of this.”

“That would hardly be comprehensive journalism on my part,” the man said, his tone becoming slightly condescending. “After all, the son of the Police Commissioner learning from the number one hero in the world? Everyone will be dying to follow you career, and I’m very interested in getting the first scoop on what is sure to be a great hero story.”

“If you have a question, just ask it,” Kurai said impatiently. “I have more important things to do than supply you with material for your fan fiction that you call a news channel.” Even as he spoke, he knew that this would likely come back to bite him, especially with more and more cameras pointing his way while the crews around him started murmuring, having finally recognized him- after all, he looked a great deal like his father.

“All right, I guess I’ll settle for just one right now,” the man said, his even smile widening slightly. “Does All Might encourage the truancy of the police force in Japan like your father does? Does he encourage you to do what the police should be-”

Fzzt! The reporters and cameramen all let out sudden exclamations of surprise as their equipment went dark without warning. Some of them were shouting that the vans had also been affected.

“Sorry, looks like this interview has to be cut short,” Kurai said with a smile of his own as he walked past a befuddled group of media members, the man that had been harassing him having lost the smile and practically fuming as the boy walked away. “Maybe next time, huh?”

Pausing only long enough to grab Iida, he muttered, “Come on, before they get their equipment going again.”

“Did you cause that?” the bespectacled boy asked as he was led away.

“Sort of, but it wasn’t my quirk,” Kurai snickered as they passed through the school gates, where Mister Aizawa was attempting to dissuade the press from bothering the school and its members. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handheld device with a single blue button on it. “I knew this E.M.P. grenade would come in handy again.”

“You just kept that on you?!” Iida exclaimed. “Does Yaoyorozu know you have that?!”

“Maybe?” his friend shrugged as they reached the steps to the school’s entrance. “Besides, this is hardly the time to be questioning a weird habit, mister I-have-four-extra-pairs-of-glasses-in-my-backpack.”

“My lenses have a tendency to break when I hit insects and other objects at high speed!” the taller boy protested. “It makes perfect sense!”

“And I don’t like getting cornered by the press just so they can take a dump on my family’s life,” Kurai replied. “Makes perfect sense to me.” As he finished speaking, they heard a series of rumbling clangs that caused the ground to vibrate. Turning around, they saw that there was now a second wall reinforcing the normal one, this one made up of metal and armed with stun guns of some sort.

“Looks like some people can’t take a hint,” he laughed as he headed up the stairs. “Serves ‘em right.”

“I suppose I can’t condone the actions of would-be trespassers,” Iida conceded as he followed Kurai into the school.

“All right class, listen up,” Aizawa said as soon as he walked in the room, looking even more tired than normal. He was a little late from having to deal with the media, but he clearly wasn’t going to let that disrupt his lesson plan. “There’s a matter we need to address that will impact your futures.”

Oh, jeez, Kurai thought as he tensed up. Is he gonna make us compete for the right to stay in his class again? It seemed as though most everyone else in the classroom was having similar thoughts, because the majority of them were all tensed up.

“…You need to choose a class representative,” Aizawa said at length.

I swear that this man enjoys psyching us out! Kurai thought with a roll of his eyes. However, his annoyance was only temporary, since he had more important things to consider. Class Rep, huh…?

In most schools, being the class’ representative meant a lot of extra work with very little reward, other than it looked good on resumes. At U.A. on the other hand, people that accepted the role of class leader would certainly be marked down for endorsements from pro agencies. In an already prestigious academy, it was a way to gain almost guaranteed success as a pro after graduating. Whoever accepted the job needed to be confident, intelligent, dedicated, and perhaps most importantly, able to inspire others.

Definitely not me, Kurai thought with a rueful smile as others in the class began to clamor for the position, trying to garner support from their classmates whilst also competing against them. I don’t have the head for being responsible for this bunch in any capacity.

“Everyone, calm down!” Iida shouted to be heard above the noise. When he had everyone’s attention, he said in a slightly lowered tone, “Bickering loudly amongst ourselves will get us nowhere! Whoever becomes the class representative must be able to take charge, and do it in a way that will sent an example of heroism to the others. Which is why I believe we should hold an election to decide this matter!”

“Is that really the best idea?” Tsuyu inquired. “We don’t really know each other all that well, and now we’re supposed to vote on who’s gonna represent our class for the year?”

“That may be the case, but it just goes to show that whoever does receive the most votes is able to already inspire enough of us to back them as a representative,” Iida countered.

“I can dig that,” Kirishima nodded.

“Makes sense to me,” Jiro added. There were various other agreements echoed throughout the classroom, so it seemed as though everyone was on board.

That settled, Iida turned toward Aizawa and asked, “Is that acceptable?”

To their surprise, their teacher was slipping inside his yellow sleeping bag as he muttered, “Do whatever you want, just have the matter settled by the end of my nap.” With that, he laid back and promptly fell asleep.

“Thank you for your trust!” Iida said with a swift bow. Turning around, he said, “Write down the name of the person you believe to be the best choice for our class, then pass it forward to the front. We’ll tally up the votes from there to determine the winner.”

Well, I know who I’m voting for, Kurai thought with another grin as he reached for a pen and paper.

When the scores were all up on the board, Kurai had to re-read it a few times to make sure that he hadn’t read it wrong. The only people that got more than one vote were Momo Yaoyorozu with two marks, and Izuku Midoriya with three.

Iida only got one? He thought, bewildered. But I voted for him… which means he backed someone else?! Who…? His thoughts trailed off as he saw Iida hunched over at his desk, looking very disappointed while Izuku and Momo were named as class representative and deputy, respectively. Come on, man, he thought sadly. Really?

In a way, he understood. His battle partner had shown excellent strategy and skill with her quirk during their class, so her becoming deputy made sense to him. The green-haired boy had shown remarkable grit, talent, and power in his match against Bakugo, and had inspired the rest of the people in his class to push themselves as hard as they could in their own battles. So it also made sense to Kurai that he would be chosen as the class rep. Still…

This role would have been perfect for Tenya, Kurai thought with a grim expression. Bummer. I know he would have made Tensei proud, being class rep on top of getting into U.A… Looking up at a shocked Midoriya, he hoped that the three people that had voted for him knew what they were doing.

The class broke for lunch after second period, which saw Kurai sitting with Izuku, Ochaco, and Tenya. Midoriya was having a hard time stomaching his food with his nerves rattled as they were.

“Look guys, I’m not sure that I’m cut out for this job,” he mumbled, idly poking at his rice. “There’s a lot of pressure on me that I wasn’t expecting.”

“You’ll be great,” Iida said through a mouthful of ramen. “Your calm attitude and quick thinking in addition to the power you demonstrated will see to it. Those are the reasons I voted for you, anyway.”

Both Izuku and Kurai did a double-take when they heard that. “Wait, you were one of the three?!” the green-haired boy exclaimed.

“Hold on, you can’t expect me to believe me to believe that you didn’t want the job,” Kurai interjected, looking askance at his friend.

“Hikari has a good point; you seemed really bummed out when you got outvoted,” Uraraka said. “You totally look the part, too.”

Iida shrugged and replied calmly, “Wanting a job and being suited to it are very different things. If I’ve learned anything from the Iida Family Agency, it’s that.”

“Agency?” Midoriya repeated, causing Tenya and Kurai to stiffen in their seats as they realized the taller boy’s error.

“Hey, that brings me back to a question I’ve been meaning to ask you guys…” Uraraka said as she looked at the two of them with a curious grin. “You come from money, don’t you?”

“Uh…” Kurai said dumbly, blinking a few times before he could form a proper answer. “Not really? I mean, we’re not so wealthy that we buy yachts on a whim, but I guess we’re… well off?” The question struck him as odd, but then again, they did come from the Sommei Private Academy, which featured a largely elitist student body. Maybe they looked the part?

Iida glanced between the three of them for a few seconds before he let out a long sigh and muttered, “I was afraid people would treat me differently if they knew about my family.” When all Midoriya and Uraraka did was stare at him more intently, he gave vent to another sigh before straightening himself and saying, “The people in my family have been heroes since the first generation of pros- you might say it’s in our blood.”

“That’s so cool!” the other two students exclaimed.

“Oh boy, here we go,” Kurai said with a slight roll of his eyes. He’d heard this speech so many times now that it was a little annoying to him. Still, he knew how proud Tenya was of his family’s history, so he didn’t make his protest too loudly.

Feeding off of their classmates’ enthusiasm, Iida asked, “Have the two of you ever heard of the Turbo Hero, Ingenium?”

“Yeah, I know all about him!” Midoriya grinned, much to no one’s surprise. “He’s a super-popular hero with sixty-five sidekicks working with him at his agency! Wait…” It must have clicked with the boy then, because he started to say, “Don’t tell me-”

“He’s my elder brother!” Tenya declared proudly with a large smile. “Ingenium is an unmatched field commander who honors the hero code! So as the second son of the Iida family, I strive to be just like him!”

“Your brother is awesome!” Uraraka practically squealed. However, her eager attention quickly returned to Kurai as she asked, “But wait, how do you guys know each other, then? You came from the same school like Deku and Bakugo did, but you seem to get along way better.”

“Our families have been friends since before I was born,” Kurai answered, deciding that if Iida wanted to trust these guys, then he would, too. “Iida’s dad was a pretty good hero back in the day, and he was known for being super helpful to the police force, where my old man was a detective when they met. They wound up busting a nasty smuggler’s ring together, which took a combination of a few successful raids and some all-out battles between heroes and villains before it was all over. In the process of it all, they became good friends, and when my father kept rising through the ranks of the police force, they found themselves working together more often than not. Now Ingenium is the one helping out my dad in the field while Iida and I study to become the next generation of heroes.”

“Your dad’s a detective?” Midoriya inquired. Before Kurai could answer, Midoriya began to mutter, “No, wait, you said your dad kept rising through the ranks, and since you’ve gotta be at least fifteen years old, and if he was a detective before you were born, that means your dad’s been on the police for something like twenty years, which would make him at least a captain, or maybe a department chief, or-”

“If you want, I’ll tell you who he is,” Kurai volunteered mildly, derailing Midoriya’s rant. The green-haired boy began to apologize profusely, only to have Kurai raise an eyebrow, causing him to clam up entirely. “Thanks,” his classmate chuckled. “My dad is the Musutafu Police Commissioner, Shigeru Hogo-sha.”

“Wait, what?!” Midoriya and Uraraka exclaimed.

“I thought you said your last name was-?!” she started to ask.

“My brother and I are registered in the school system under my mom’s maiden name so we can avoid drawing attention to ourselves,” Kurai interrupted as he made a motion for them to lower their volume. “I’ve grown used to using the name in public, and it’s what Iida calls me, so I’m not really used to telling people about it anymore.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Izuku nodded. “These days, police get a lot of flak since heroes catch a lot of the bad guys, but even so, it’s a really good profession, one that a lot of people underappreciate.”

“Yeah, but villains would no doubt try to take advantage of my brother and I if they knew who we were, one way or the other,” Kurai shrugged. “I wanted to be a police officer as a kid, support my dad’s life choices and all that, you know? But once it became clear how powerful my quirk was, Father urged me to go into the hero course if at all possible. He told me that whether I wore a cape or a badge, he would be proud of me. At the same time, though, he didn’t want to see me held back by the restrictions that being on the force would put on me.”

“So what’d you tell him when you applied for U.A.?” Uraraka inquired, her eyes wide with fascination.

Kurai grinned broadly before he said, “I told him I’d do my best to be a hero that he and mom could be proud of, on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“No capes!”

That sent everyone into a fit of laughter that took a little while to settle down, especially since they had seen All Might sporting his Silver Age costume not days ago, with its resplendent blue-and red cape. As they started to calm down, Iida wiped at his eyes and said, “Ah… But back to the original topic- my voting for Midoriya.” When he had the others’ attention, he continued, “I may want the job of class rep, but I believe Midoriya is better suited to the job than I. After all, he figured out what the judges were really looking for during the practical exam. We’ll need someone with that kind of foresight if we’re to be the best students we can be.”

“Actually, about that…” Midoriya started to say, only to be interrupted by the loud sound of the alarm bell going off.

“Fire?” Kurai guessed as he and the others shot to their feet.

“Level three security breach!” a female voice announced over the P.A. system. “All students and faculty, please evacuate to your designated areas.”

“Anyone know what that means?” Iida asked of no one in particular.

“It means that someone managed to force their way past the security barriers!” a third year student exclaimed as he scrambled to get out of his seat. “This has never happened in my three years here!”

“They got past this school’s defenses?” Kurai asked incredulously as he and the other three students began to make their way out, along with everyone else in the cafeteria. “That’s bad.”

“You think?!” Iida snapped as they reached the crowded exit, having to yell to be heard over the mess of frantic students. “At least everyone is reacting quickly!”

“Yeah, but they’re also panicking!” Midoriya shouted, just before he was swept away by the crowds.

Kurai engaged his quirk to shoulder his way through the other students while keeping a tight grip on Iida and Uraraka. “C’mon!” he growled as he all but dragged them to the windows at the side of the hall. “Let’s see who’s causing this!”

“Whoa!” Iida yelped.

“Ow!” Uraraka cried. “Hikari, you’re hurting us!”

“Sorry!” he apologized, loosening his powered-up grip just a bit. “I don’t wanna lose you guys in this mess! We’re gonna have a hard time finding Midoriya as it is, I- Are you kidding me?!” His outrage was invoked as soon as he saw who it was that had made it past their school’s security measures.

“What?!” Iida asked, alarmed. Then he was pressed against the window alongside his friend, affording him a clear view of what Kurai was so mad about. “It’s the press from earlier?!”

“Why do those vultures ruin everything?!” the other boy complained. “Can’t even go to school without them screwing it up!”

“Hold on, if it’s just a group of reporters out there, then there’s no need for all of this panic!” Iida realized aloud. Trying to raise his voice to be heard by everyone nearby, he started to shout, “It’s okay, everyone! It’s just the-ack!” Another shove from a second-year student saw him firmly squashed against the glass wall.

“Well, that didn’t work!” Kurai grunted as he pushed back, allowing his friend some breathing room. “Any other bright ideas?!”

“As a matter of fact, yes!” his friend grunted. “Uraraka?!”

“Yeah?” she replied from where she was being shoved next to him.

“Make me float above everyone else with your quirk!” The girl looked a little bewildered, but did as he asked, touching her hand to his shoulder while he said to Kurai, “Once I’m up, throw me to the spot above the stairs!”

“You sure about that?” he asked as Iida began to float above them. “It might be a rough stop!”

“Just do it!”

“And that, my friend, is why I voted for you as our class rep,” Kurai said as they walked into their classroom, finally having been given permission by the faculty to return to their normal classes. It had taken some time, but the police had shown up and gotten rid of the reporters, arresting a couple of them when they resisted.

Watch them spin it as me tattling to my dad about that incident this morning, or saying that he wants to ignore the freedom of the press, he thought with a heavy sigh.

Iida had actually been able to get ahead of the majority of the panicking mass of students, and grab their attention by standing on top of the exit to the staircase. He had further been able to calm them down with the news that they had nothing to fear from the mob of the press that had forced its way on campus, reminding them that even if it had been a real villain attack, they were U.A. students- panicking and mobbing was not behavior befitting a school of their renown.

The student body had been able to proceed to their designated areas from there on without the fear of being trampled. Now they were filtering back to their homerooms to await their instructors.

“So it was you that voted for me,” Iida remarked as they made their way to his seat. “I thought as much. It means a lot, even if I think your vote was misplaced.” He sat down with a slightly rueful smile and pulled out his homeroom notebook.

Taking that as a sign that the conversation was over, Kurai patted him on the back and left with the words, “I don’t think so. You’d be the best class rep in U.A.”

Once Mister Aizawa returned to the classroom, he told the class representative and deputy to step up and deliver their first address to the class. “So, uh…” Midoriya began, shifting awkwardly. “There’s something I should clarify.”

Yaoyorozu looked at him, confused- apparently whatever he had to say, he hadn’t discussed with her beforehand. Still, she kept her peace while she waited along with everyone else to hear what it was that Izuku had to say.

He didn’t keep them waiting for long. “I just wanted to say thanks to those that voted for me… but I’m not cut out for this,” he said quietly. Several of the students in the room murmured in surprise, but Kurai made no effort to contain his grin- he had a feeling he knew where this was headed.

Midoriya went on to say, “At the least, I don’t think I should be here, because there’s already someone more qualified than me who should lead us.” Looking at his taller friend with a determined tilt to his chin, he added, “Iida was the one who was able to calm us all down earlier, and he did it in a way that also managed to inspire a lot of us. He kept his head in what could have been a real crisis- which is what a real hero would do. He’s the one that should be class rep, not me.”

Iida looked dumbstruck, and even more so when his classmates began to chorus an agreement with Midoriya’s decision. Then his dropped jaw was raised, and he looked as if a new purpose had infused him as he got up from his seat to stand in front of Izuku. The green-haired boy grinned and held out his hand for Kurai’s friend to shake, which he did readily.

“Thank you, Midoriya,” Iida said somberly. “If you believe in me, then I will do my best to uphold our class’ expectations.” Turning to Aizawa while the other boy went back to his seat, he asked, “Is this alright, sir?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the man grumbled as he rolled over in his sleeping bag. “Congrats, you’re the new class rep.”

“Thank you, sir!” Iida replied with a sharp salute. The majority of the class offered him their congratulations, though some of them managed to poke fun at him at the same time.

Only Yaoyorozu seemed visibly disgruntled by the turn of events. “Hello?” she complained to no one in particular. “I got one more vote than he did.”

“Congrats, pal,” Kurai said as he clapped Iida on the back on their way out of class that afternoon. “I told you my vote wasn’t misplaced.”

“You’re gonna be great, Iida,” Uraraka agreed. She and Izuku were walking with them on their way out of school, intending to head for the bus station.

“I’ll bet Ingenium is gonna be really proud of you!” Midoriya added.

“Thank you,” the new class rep said with a nervous grin. “I admit, I am excited to see how he reacts.” Turning to his best friend, he asked, “Would you like to come tell him with me?”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Kurai chuckled. “Much as I would love to visit your brother, I feel like this is something you should tell your family alone. We’ll celebrate this weekend, yeah?”

“All right, I like the sound of that,” Iida nodded. “I’ll inform my parents- perhaps we can get our families together again for lunch.”

“Sure thing, I’ll ask my folks, too,” his friend said as they took a step down the stairs. He was about to add that they should ask about a barbeque when someone calling his name from up the hall stopped him.

“Hey, Hikari!” He turned back to see Mina jogging toward him with a big grin on her face. “Got a sec?!”

“Yeah!” he called back. Turning to the others, he said, “Go on ahead without me. I’ll catch up in few minutes.”

“We’ll wait for you by the front gate,” Midoriya promised him as they left, lightly pattering down the stairs.

With them gone, Kurai walked toward Mina, meeting her at the halfway point between their classroom door and the stairs. “What’s up?” he asked as she came to a stop. He still felt awkward around the attractive pink girl, but after being so keyed up from the false alarm earlier, just about anything else in comparison seemed relaxed enough to him.

“Well, it’s a Friday afternoon, and I was wondering if you had any plans for tonight or this weekend?” she asked with a large grin. “I feel like we hit it off during the entrance exam, and when we sang together at Karaoke, I had a blast! I was hoping maybe we could hang out again if you had some free time?”

“Oh, uh…” he stammered. “I, uh…” A thought occurred to him, and he narrowed his eyes slightly as he asked, “Is this another thing where I’m gonna be forced by peer pressure to sing in public?”

“Nah, it’s just me,” Mina giggled. “So, whaddya say? Wanna hang?”

“Sure,” he said before better sense got ahold of him, another thought stealing into his mind at lightning speed, even as her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Hold on a sec…”

“Wassup?” she asked with a slightly cocked head.

“Are you… asking me out?” he asked, paling a little bit.

“Uh… I guess?” she shrugged. “Hadn’t really thought about it like that, since you seem like the kinda guy that likes to take these things slow, but if I misjudged you-”

“You didn’t,” he admitted with a nervous laugh. “Sorry, this is new territory for me. I’m not, uh… the most socially linguistic guy around.”

“Well then, we’ll just be two U.A. students chillin’ out,” she grinned brightly, seemingly unaffected by his reticence. “Sound good?”

“That I can do,” he said with a sigh of relief. “Does Sunday at lunch sound good?”

“Sure!” Mina said happily. Once they had traded contact information, she declared, “It’s a not-date!”

“Great,” he grinned, then froze as she skipped away, apparently to join up with Jiro, Yaoyorozu, and Asui. “Wait, a not-what?!” he called after her.

“I’ll explain it on Sunday!” she laughed over her shoulder.

“…I do not understand girls.”

Chapter Text

“All right, I’ll see you guys later!” Kurai called down the hall as he put his shoes on. “If I’m late for dinner, don’t wait up!” It was Sunday and noon was fast approaching, which meant that he needed to get going if he was going to meet up with Mina in time for lunch.

“Just remember that if you’re out past ten, I’m sending a squad car after you!” his father called back, bringing a smile to his face.

“Wait, Kurai!” Akarui called as he dashed down the hall. “I need to tell you something!”

“What’s up?” the elder Hogo-sha asked with a raised eyebrow.

“There was a bonus surprise item I included with the original design of your costume that took longer for the safety board to review,” the other boy answered. “I just got an email saying that it passed regulations!”

“Wait, shouldn’t I have received that?” Kurai frowned.

“I hacked your email,” his brother said unashamedly.

“You-! Again?!”

“Well if you don’t want me breaking into it, come up with a better password than your celebrity crush’s hometown and birthday,” Akarui admonished him. “In any case, the item will be added to your costume by your next hero training class.”

“Did you at least figure out a way to let me release more energy without blowing my top, then?” Kurai grumbled, more than a little put out by his brother’s occasional habit of intruding on his privacy with his quirk.

“Not yet,” Akarui replied. “Still working on that. But I thought that given the simplicity of the design, it wouldn’t hurt for you to have something that helps you to stand out among other people, especially those with flashy support items.”

“Wait, so what is it, then?”

“Sorry I’m a little late!” Kurai called as he jogged toward a waiting Ashido. They had agreed to meet at a mall, which made spotting her a little more difficult than normal, but it wasn’t as though Ashido was a difficult person to pick out of a crowd. “My brother stopped me on the way out, so I missed the first train.”

“Not a problem,” she grinned as she wove around a group of young adults to come face-to-face with him. “I was actually running a little late myself, so now I don’t feel as bad about it.” Kurai blinked a couple of times as he took in the sight of Mina in a bright yellow sundress, all smiles as she usually was.

“I feel totally underdressed,” was all he could think to say, glancing down at his jeans and orange t-shirt with the kanji symbol for ‘turtle’ detailed in black and white on his back.

“Don’t worry about it,” she laughed as she slapped him on the shoulder. “One of the advantages of a not-date is that you don’t have to worry about dressing up nice if you don’t want to!”

“Yeah, but…” he said awkwardly as he tried not to stare at her attire. “You clearly went out of your way to look nice for this, and now I feel totally lame.”

“Loosen up,” she told him, still grinning as he reddened slightly. “We’re just hangin’ out, got it? I woulda dressed this way if I was here with any of my friends or family, ya know?”

Kurai wasn’t sure that he bought that, but he recognized her effort to make him feel less uncomfortable, so he forced himself to nod and smile back. “Gotcha,” he said. “Where did you wanna go for lunch?”

“Ooh, there’s this place that makes really good natto with okra!” she exclaimed, grabbing his hand and leading him away through the crowd.

“Don’t people eat that for breakfast?” he asked as he all but stumbled after her.

“Who cares?! It’s the best!”

To her credit, the food was pretty good, even if he didn’t totally understand her absolute love of the stuff. “So explain something to me,” he said as he started to eat. “What exactly is the difference between a date and a ‘not’ date?” All around them were patrons sitting down to take a break from their shopping, forming a nice set of background noise for the pair that wasn’t so loud that they needed to shout to be heard.

“Well, when people are on a date-date, there’s stuff like the guy pays for everything, tells the girl how pretty she is, walks her home, that kinda stuff,” she answered. “On a not-date, both people pay for their own things, there’s no mandatory hand-holding or compliments, and when they leave the place, he doesn’t have to see her home.”

“Oh,” Kurai said through a mouthful of rice. After swallowing, he asked, “So, if you weren’t hanging out with me, what do you usually do on your weekends?”

“Probably be hanging out with the girls or watching horror/suspense movies,” Mina answered. “You?”

“Well, I’ve got all my studies and homework done, so I’d likely be working on my motorcycle or spending time with my brother,” he replied with a shrug. “I think I mentioned him when we-”

“Wait a sec, you’ve got a bike?!” Ashido interrupted, almost spitting out her food in the process. “I totally had you pegged as mister no-risk-and-straight-A’s-in-school.”

“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or an insult,” he said with a quizzical look at her.

“Neither, really,” she giggled. “Just what I thought. Me, I’ve got two older brothers that are both in college.”

“You get on well?”

“Not really,” she shrugged, her smile dropping in favor of a more neutral look. “Both of ‘em are super-smart and got into university on scholarships. Me, I’ve always been something of a slacker, so I guess they always kinda looked down on me for that.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Kurai said sympathetically. “But hey, you got into a pretty prestigious academy, and for heroes, no less, so there’s that.”

“I know, I can’t wait to rub in their faces when they come home during summer break,” the girl grinned mischievously. “And my mom and dad were totally supportive of me becoming a hero, which meant a lot to me.”

“I know what you mean,” Kurai smiled as he poked at his food. “My folks were really proud that I made it into U.A. Akarui, too.”

“Is he your brother?” Mina guessed. “What’s he like?”

“Well, if I’m the next All Might, then he’s the next David Shield,” Kurai laughed, making Mina smile. “The kid is a genius among geniuses- provided his quirk is in effect.”

“His quirk makes him smart?” she asked.

“Yeah, but it works based on how much sunlight he’s getting,” the boy answered. “The sunnier it is, the smarter he gets. Even moonlight can boost his IQ, but it’s not as effective. During the night, he’s mostly normal in terms of intelligence, unless he goes outside for direct exposure. He actually helped me to design my costume.”

“Wow, that’s really cool that you have a brother who supports you like that,” Ashido said wistfully. “If he’s so smart, I assume there’s more to your costume than meets the eye?”

“Oh yeah,” Kurai nodded immediately. “It applies pressure to nerve points that help keep me calm whenever I use my quirk, otherwise it’s a risk that I’ll blow my top and lose control.”

“Yeah, I remember you looked pretty steamed toward the end of the entrance exam, and that time that Mister Aizawa told us that he lied about the practical test,” she recalled, looking upward as if trying to envision the events.

“I’ve told a few others about the drawbacks to my quirk, but I guess it never came up with us,” Kurai realized. “Well, long story short, if I use my quirk too much, I get so angry than I have an aneurism.”

“Yikes!” Mina yelped. “I thought my quirk’s drawback was bad, but that’s just awful! Take you and Midoriya, I’m not sure which of you has it worse.”

“Hey, we both have some pretty awesome powers that come with those drawbacks,” Kurai shrugged. “Besides, I’m training so that I can increase the amount of power that I release before I hit that point. What happens when you overuse your quirk?”

“Well, you know I use acid, and my body is pretty much immune to the stuff,” Ashido replied before taking a healthy gulp from her soda. “If I use it too much, or don’t keep the P.H. factor in check, it can eat up my skin wherever I secrete it. Super painful.”

“Ouch,” Kurai agreed. “Still, based on what I’ve seen of your quirk so far, I think you’ve got a pretty good shot at being a pro.”

“Pfft, when I’m competing against people like you, Todoroki, and Yaomomo?” the girl scoffed. “You’ve all got way more powerful quirks than me, and you’re super smart, too.”

“I doubt that any of us are any smarter than you,” Kurai said with a slight frown. “Maybe more dedicated to our studies, sure, but you wouldn’t have made it into U.A. if you didn’t have pro potential.”

“Yeah, but studying text books and all that is so boring,” she groaned as she leaned her head back in her seat.

“I agree, but I make myself do it anyway,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I enjoy it, but I’d rather hit the books now so that when I’m a pro, I don’t have to worry about textbook junk again.”

“I wish I was that motivated,” the girl grumbled. “I can barely make myself do my homework, forget studying for tests.”

“I’ll help you study,” Kurai volunteered.

“Huh?” She jerked her head back up, looking surprised. “You will?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Iida and I study together pretty often during the week. Why can’t we do the same? Akarui has figured out shortcuts to memorizing stuff that most professors don’t even know about yet, so he’s a big help, too.”

“Seriously?!” Mina exclaimed, a delighted smile lighting up her face again. Then her expression changed to a confused one as she sat back in her chair. “Huh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I got excited about studying,” she muttered. “Never done that- it’s really weird.”

“Hey, whatever gets you motivated,” Kurai replied before finishing his own drink. “Say, you mentioned being into horror movies, yeah?”

“Yeah-huh!” she nodded, her movements returning to their usual state of exuberance. “My favorite is that Ridley Scott movie, ‘Alien’!”

“The one where the alien impregnates the host and then tears ‘em up when he comes out?” Kurai asked with a slight grimace. “That thing gave me nightmares for weeks when my cousin made me watch it!”

“I know, it’s awesome!” she laughed.

“Thrill seeker, are you?” Kurai asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yep!” she grinned. “I’m pumped for the 50K remastered version coming out this Christmas!”

“Hold on, didn’t you say you were into ‘How to Train Your Dragon’?” Kurai inquired, bewildered. “Those are totally different genres!”

“I like American movies, especially the classic ones,” she answered. “Anime tends to get a little repetitive after a while.”

“What, buff guys roiding out next to girls with half their clothes missing, and then screaming messages about love and how family is more important than anything else?” Kurai asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m guessing you’ve had this conversation before,” Mina smirked.

“Hey, you like creepy-ass aliens that murder space scientists, I like watching Goku and Vegeta turn on the blond to beat the living daylights out of anyone stupid enough to mess with them,” he shrugged. “To each their own, right?”

“Fair enough,” the girl laughed. “Since we’re on the subject, wanna go see a movie now that we’re done with lunch? I heard that Star Wars: The Jedi Crusader was supposed to be really good.”

“Oh man, that’s out already?!” Kurai all but yelped. “I totally forgot since I was trying to get into U.A. and keeping up with the classes since school started! Crap!”

“I take it you’re not a Trekkie, then?” Mina giggled.

“Pfft, the Enterprise can take a trek out of Star Wars’ path to glory!” Kurai replied as he grabbed Mina’s hand and all but pulled her out of her seat. “C’mon, I wanna catch the next showing!”

“…So, did you like it?” Mina asked as they walked out of the theater, a blank look on Kurai’s face, his lips moving without any sound coming out.

“Are you kidding me?” he answered, finally turning to look her in the eyes as he grabbed her by the shoulders with a huge grin. “That was the best movie since Rogue One! We got to see the genesis of the Chosen One’s prophecy, Jedi Knight Revan and Alek in action- not to mention Bastilla Shan being played by Shino Sosaki was a surprise, but she did a bang-up job! Then there was the appearance of Emperor Vitiate right at the end, oh man, was he cool!”

“It’s almost frightening how much you resemble Midoriya right now,” Mina laughed, causing her classmate to turn red with embarrassment almost instantly, which just made her laugh even more.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbled once she had settled down a little.

“Pfft, don’t worry about it,” she grinned. “It’s actually pretty cute that you get so fired up about this stuff. I didn’t think you had that kind of spunk.” Her compliment embarrassed him further, so he just shut his mouth and followed her away from the movie theater.

They spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through various stores, from a bookstore to a clothing shop. However, since they were on a ‘not-date’, Mina did not make Kurai appraise her in different outfits, much to his relief.

“Even if we were on a date-date, I don’t think I could help you there,” he told her as they left that shop. “I don’t have any sisters, and my own fashion is questionable by the standards of the rest of the world. Case in point.” He pointed at his dragon ball shirt for emphasis before he realized that Mina had a very mischievous expression on her face. “Uh… Ashido?”

“Nothing,” she said in a sing-song tone as she walked past him.

“That was not nothing!” Kurai protested as he jogged a few steps to catch up with her. “What’d I do? Or, what did you do? Who did what?”

“You just mentioned a situation where we were on a real date without freaking out about it,” she shrugged, maintaining her smile. “It’s nice to know that on some level, you’re not opposed to the idea.”

Her words caused him to stop in place, face blank. Am I opposed to it? he thought after a moment. He had never thought much about dating, and anytime in the past that he’d had a crush, he had been too shy to act on it. Now that he thought about it, though, he supposed that dating Mina might be kind of nice. He normally took time to warm up to people, but she had melted his normal sense of reluctance and managed to make the afternoon pretty fun and relaxed (for the most part).

Still, it had only been the one afternoon, and they hadn’t known each other for very long, he reasoned. Maybe with a little bit more time, we’ll see, he decided. After all, pros had to consider the fact that villains tended to target the family members of heroes if they had the opportunity. I suppose since we both want to be heroes, it’s a little different, but then there’s the issue of being able to keep our heads in the game during a crisis, and not worrying about each other.

“Hey, you okay?” Mina asked him as she waved a hand in front of his face, bringing him back to the moment. “You spaced out here for a sec.”

“S-Sorry,” he apologized. “You just… caught me off-guard.”

“Yeah?” she replied with a subdued smile. “Was I wrong, then? About you thinking that it’d be okay if we tried dating for real?”

“Well, to be fair, you kinda sprung that on me,” he answered with a nervous chuckle. “Honestly? You seem like a really cool girl, Ashido. Thing is, I’ve never been on a real date before, and I’m usually so busy trying to be a good student that I don’t really know how all that is supposed to work. Plus, I’m… well, like I said, I’m not the most social guy around. Really awkward.”

“Yeah, and I’m the girl that most people pass off as an airhead who doesn’t know what’s going on around her,” Mina shrugged. “But you didn’t treat me like that, so I thought maybe you were interested, ya know?”

“I can’t say that I’m… not interested,” Kurai said, stumbling over the words a little bit. “I’m just a cautious guy, you know? My main concern is that we haven’t known each other for very long. Other than that, uh… Yeah, you seem really nice.”

“I guess that’s as good as I’m gonna get for today,” Mina replied, her smile brightening up again. Leaning closer to the boy, she said in a lowered tone, “But I won’t wait around forever, buddy. If I feel like you’re keeping me dangling for too long, I’m outta here.”

“I can respect that,” he said as she started to pull back. “And if I figure things out too late, well then, that’s on me.”

“Glad to know where we stand,” the girl replied as she straightened up. “Do you wanna grab some dinner in a little bit? There’s a park near here where we can hang out until then.”

“Sure,” Kurai nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Sweet!” she exclaimed, pumping her hands up in the air like an excited child. “I guess since I picked our lunch, you can choose what’s for dinner.”

“As long as you don’t hate ramen,” he grinned, trying not to laugh as her face fell at the mention of what was perhaps one of the most common dishes around. “Kidding! How about some tempura?”

“All right, I can get behind that.”

“So, I heard that you had an eventful Sunday,” Iida said as he and Kurai approached the stairs that led up to their classroom. The shorter boy tripped and would have caved his face in on the stairs had not Iida’s quick reflexes saved him. “Are you alright?!” he asked as he helped Kurai straighten up, alarmed.

“I dunno,” he answered. “That depends on what you heard. Also who told you.”

“I went by to see if you wanted to work out after lunch, but Akarui told me that you were out with a girl,” Iida answered.

“That little-!” Kurai started, then forced himself to calm down with several deep, measured breaths. “Yeah, I was on a ‘not’ date, apparently,” he finally said as he started heading up the stairs.

“A ‘not-date’?” Iida asked, bewildered. “What is that?”

“Like a real date, except the girl pays for herself, and there are no hard feelings if things don’t work out,” his friend answered. “…I think.”

“Was it someone in our class?” the class rep asked, his eyes piercing behind his glasses.

“What happens if I say ‘yes’?” Kurai asked cautiously.

“Then I would say that you’re a moron for risking the disruption of our class dynamic like that!” Iida replied sternly. “Our fellow students are trying to become pro heroes, and we may all one day end up working together in life-or-death situations! Imagine if things didn’t work out between you and this girl?! That could upset our ability to work together! People would take sides, and-!”

“A little louder, why don’t you?” Kurai interrupted, forcing himself to stay calm, even though the heat was visible in his cheeks. “I think that there’s a group of third-years that didn’t hear you.”

Realizing that he had raised his volume unnecessarily, Iida apologized with a short bow to his friend. “I am sorry if I overreacted,” he said, keeping his tone lowered now. “But my point still stands. I can’t tell you what to do, only make you aware of the very serious risks that may come of a romantic entanglement.”

“I’m aware of them, Tenya,” Kurai replied quietly. “And I haven’t made up my mind about the whole thing yet. You know me- I try to take things in as much as possible before putting myself in a situation, because once the die is cast, there’s no taking back the roll you’ve made.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Iida nodded. “May I ask who it is?”

“You can, but I’m not inclined to answer, since you’re more than likely to scare her off before I get the chance to properly think about the whole thing,” Kurai smirked.

“I would never!” Iida protested. When all his friend did was stop on the stairs and raise an eyebrow at him, the other boy relented a little. “Well, maybe I would,” he admitted. “But I would only be doing it for your sake!”

“You gotta let me take my own risks, pal,” Kurai told him as they walked up the last few steps to the level with their classroom. “Otherwise, how will I know if it was a mistake or a positive choice on my part?”

“I’ll figure out who it is on my own, then!” Iida declared.

“I really will use your legs for parts on my bike.”

“All right, everyone, listen up,” Aizawa told them as he took his place at the podium, the class quieting instantly. “Today’s hero training is going to be different than what you’ve had so far.”

“Different how?” Sero asked. Since their first class with All Might, the big man had been teaching them about the legal side of quirk use, such as what restrictions would still be in effect once they had their hero licenses. Now, it seemed as though they might be getting a chance at some more live action.

“Today’s class will be rescue training,” Aizawa responded, immediately stirring up the class. Some were apprehensive about the strenuous exercise that it would no doubt be, like Kaminari and Hagakure, while others like Kirishima and Asui seemed excited about the chance to get out and show off some of their skills again. Kurai found himself in the latter category, especially since it meant that he would be able to test out his new gear- provided that costumes were allowed.

“I’m not done,” Aizawa announced warningly, which got all of his students to quiet down again quite nicely. Once he was certain that he had their attention again, he said, “We’ll be heading to an off-site facility, where you’ll be supervised by three teachers- myself, All Might, and another faculty member.”

Three teachers? Kurai thought with a frown. That seems excessive. Did the break-in from the media really scare the faculty so much that they’d triple security for a field trip?

Whatever the case for the extra protection was, the matter fell from the minds of the students as Aizawa clicked a button on a remote that he held, causing their hero gear to pop out of the wall in numbered order. “You can wear your costumes for this exercise,” he announced, “But remember that you’re not quite used to them yet, and as such, they might impede certain aspects of your powers. Choose wisely, then get outside. We have a bus that leaves in fifteen minutes, and I expect that none of you will be late.”

Well, my costume kinda makes the difference between me being able to use my quirk effectively or possibly being killed, so…

“You decided to leave off the helmet, huh?” Kurai remarked once he met up with Iida outside the main campus building dressed in his complete hero costume, the extra item that Akarui had designed for him hanging from his sash at his right hip. Other than the mentioned item, Iida was fully clothed in his hero costume.

“I thought it appropriate,” the other boy shrugged. “The helmet is good for protection against incoming projectiles and the like, but it also impedes my vision a fair amount. Given that we’ll be rescuing people today, I thought it best to have my vision clear.” He added a slight amount of emphasis on the last two words as he looked his friend in the eye.

“Not telling you who it is,” Kurai sighed as he started walking toward Midoriya and Uraraka, who were standing in front of the bus that would be taking them to the training site.

“Stop being childish!”

“Says the one who won’t let sleeping dogs lie,” he tossed over his shoulder. Facing back up front again, he said, “Hey, Midoriya, Uraraka.” Noticing a distinct lack of hero gear on Izuku, save for some gloves, elbow guards, and a jaw protector, he felt compelled to ask, “Where’s your stuff?”

“Deku was just telling me that his is still in the repair shop after his fight with Bakugo,” Ochako explained. “Bummer, huh? I thought his costume was cool.”

While the green-haired boy began to protest that his outfit was nothing compared to some of the other students in the class, Kurai muttered, “Deku? Isn’t that what Bakugo was calling you?”

“Y-Yeah…”

“Isn’t that kind of a rude name?” the Energon-user inquired with a slight frown. He’d thought better of Uraraka.

“Well, I’ve decided to give it a new meaning,” Izuku said firmly, surprising Kurai. “Like I told Kacchan during our fight; from now on, Deku is going to be the name of a hero.”

“Plus, I thought it sounded like a cute name!” Uraraka added with an innocent smile. “Gives me a ‘can-do’ vibe!”

Oh, now I get it, Kurai thought with a small grin of his own as Midoriya reddened again. Out loud, he said, “Sorry for the misunderstanding, then. Uraraka is right- it will be a good hero name. Simple, easy to remember, rolls off the tongue nicely.”

“I know, right?!” the girl said excitedly. “It’s great that Deku already has a name picked out for when he becomes a pro- what about you, Hikari?”

“Actually, I was thinking about calling myself K-”

The sound of a shrill whistle blast drew the attention of everyone to the bus door, where Iida stood resplendent in his polished armor, holding a whistler in his right hand as he shouted, “All right, everyone! Form two lines in the order of roll call so that we may load the bus quickly and efficiently.”

“Where’d he get that whistle?” Midoriya wondered as they all began to do as he had commanded, since it seemed as though he would only blow the whistle at them louder and louder until they did what he asked of them.

“I got it for him as a joke…” Kurai muttered as he got into line.

“Seems like it flew over his head,” Izuku laughed quietly.

“The bus’s open layout ruined my boarding strategy,” Iida complained from where he sat near the front of the bus, dejected.

“You need to learn how to lighten up, Iida,” Ashido giggled as she patted him on the back, though she did throw a wink at Kurai, who was seated right next to her. He managed to keep his reaction down to a faint grin, so that Iida wouldn’t see.

“Well, if we’re pointing out the obvious, then there’s something I wanna say,” Asui asserted. She was sitting in between Midoriya and Kirishima, and turning to the former, she said, “It’s about you, actually.”

“Wha-? Me?!” he sputtered.

“Uh-huh,” she nodded, her large eyes staring up at him unblinkingly. “Your quirk reminds me of All Might’s quite a bit.”

Kurai glanced over at his new friend as he heard that. He hadn’t really thought about it that way, but it lent itself to the idea that he admired the Number One Hero a lot more than most people did, due to having a similar power. Izuku’s startled reaction furthered the thought, since Iida had told him that the kid tended to get flustered whenever talking about his own power in comparison to any pros’.

“Hang on a sec,” Kirishima said. “You’re forgetting that Midoriya hurts himself if he tries to use his quirk too hard. All Might doesn’t have any weaknesses like that.”

“Still, the similarities are there,” Kurai said, throwing in his two cents. “Maybe Midoriya and All Might are distant relatives?”

“You never know, sometimes people are born with random quirks that don’t have anything to do with their parents,” Mina asserted. “My cousin has a quirk that lets her make plants bloom when she sneezes on them, but her dad breathes underwater while my aunt can see the music notes of whatever song she hears.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Izuku nodded rapidly. “My dad breathes fire, and my mom has some telekinetic capabilities, but I got this power-up quirk.”

“Must be nice, having something that simple and flashy,” Kirishima said as he raised his arm and solidified it into the likeness of a living rock. “My ‘Hardening’ quirk is useful for smashing bad guys, but it’s not very showy.”

“No way, I think it looks great!” Midoriya countered. “With a quirk like that, you’re easily pro material!”

“He’s got a point, but if anybody here has pro quirks already, it’s Hikari, Todoroki, and Bakugo,” Kaminari said from the back half of the bus, having apparently been listening on their conversation.

“Yeah, but Bakugo’s always angry, so no one’s gonna like him,” Asui said, causing Kurai to burst out laughing.

The blond boy, predictably, took exception to that. “The hell’d you say?!” he screamed as he jumped out of his seat and leaned over the railing to rant at the frog-girl. “I’ll kill you!”

“See?” Asui said as she pointed at the rageaholic teenager.

“She’s got a point,” Kaminari said with a smug look on his face as Bakugo turned to glower at him. “It’s pretty telling that even though we’ve only known each other for a few days, we can identify your personality as flaming crap mixed with garbage.” This sent Kurai into another fit of hysterics, which did nothing to improve Bakugo’s mood.

“You’re gonna regret the day you applied to this school!” he roared at the both of them.

They managed to make it to their destination without Bakugo setting somebody on fire, much to Midoriya’s apparent relief. Iida was apparently too busy sulking to notice the playful looks that Mina kept giving Kurai, so that was a relief off of his shoulders. Everyone else was too busy either laughing at Bakugo or getting excited for their upcoming training, so that they almost missed Aizawa’s announcement that they had arrived.

Upon disembarking, the class was greeted with the sight of an enormous, domed building that must have been two miles in diameter. Once inside, an even more impressive view awaited them.

A massive set of stairs led down to a water fountain that branched off in seven directions. One area looked like a city in ruins, while others simulated natural disasters, such as fires, landslides, hurricanes, a shipwreck, and an area that sported some sheer cliffs.

“How’d they fit all of this in one place?” Kurai wondered aloud.

“Also, where do they get the cash for all this stuff?” Kirishima added.

“Can I have your attention, please?” A strange, static-riddled voice got the attention of the students, most of whom had been admiring the impressive establishment. When they looked at the top of the stairs in front of them, they saw a short person in what looked like a space suit, topped by a black bowl that seemed to be staring at them with two large, white eyes. “Hi there!” the suit waved.

“Oh, wow!” Midoriya immediately exclaimed. “It’s the Space Hero, Thirteen! She’s saved hundreds of people from natural disasters!”

“Are there any of these guys you don’t know about?” Kurai asked his friend with a chuckle. “Or are you a walking encyclopedia of hero profiles?”

“Sorry…” the other boy mumbled.

“Don’t be.”

“This is gonna be so great!” Uraraka exclaimed, resembling her green-haired friend in attitude at that moment. “Thirteen is one of my all-time favorite heroes!”

“I’m glad to see you all here,” the heavy-set hero said in a friendly tone. “I’ve been wanting to show you this: the Unforeseen Simulation Joint!” Waving her arms to indicate the disaster zones within the dome, she added, “But you can just call it the ‘USJ’!”

Like Universal Studios Japan? Kurai thought, unknowingly echoing the thoughts of just about every member in his class.

“Hey, Thirteen,” Aizawa said as he walked up to be in front of his class with the other teacher. “Where’s All Might? Did he book an interview and forget that he had class?”

Kurai didn’t hear the teacher’s answer, but he hardly cared at the moment. Whether or not All Might was present, he could tell that his was going to be an exciting lesson.

Thirteen- having apparently finished her private conversation with Aizawa- moved a few steps forward, saying, “Okay, kids. Before we begin, there’s just one thing I want to say. Well, two. Maybe three? No, wait, four or five-”

“We get it,” class 1-A said in unison.

“All right,” Thirteen began. “I’m sure some of you know about my quirk, Black Hole. I can use it to suck up any matter within range and turn it to dust in my hands. While this power has allowed me to save a lot of people, it’s important to remember that such an ability could very well kill somebody if used improperly.”

She allowed the students a moment to consider the implications of what she was telling them, then continued her lecture. “In our superhuman society, all quirks are registered, and stringently regulated, which often makes us unaware of just how dangerous they can actually be. But, thanks to Aizawa’s quirk assessment and All Might’s combat training, you have an idea of your limits, and what harm you could potentially cause others if you use your quirks recklessly. So I advise you to carry over what you learned from those lessons to this one.”

Giving them all a funny little bow, the pro hero declared, “That’s it from me! Thanks for listening, guys.”

As the class applauded her, Aizawa muttered, “Great… Now that we’re done here, we should get-”

Fzzt!

Whatever else it was that his teacher said, Kurai didn’t register. A loud buzzing sound coming from the lights that illuminated the dome caused him to look up with a frown, elbowing the person to his right as he did, which happened to be Kirishima. At the same time, a strange shiver raced down his spine, serving to put him on edge.

“What’s up?” the red-haired student asked as he followed his classmates’ gaze. “Huh? Why are the light-?”

“What in the heck is that?!” Kaminari asked with no small amount of surprise, pointing down at the water fountain, which was now only sending out spurts of water, instead of maintaining a steady flow. In front of it, a dark shadow was growing rapidly, and Kurai felt that shiver go down his spine again.

“I don’t get it,” Kirishima said as the void began to vomit out freakish-looking monsters and people armed with deadly weapons. “Is this part of the training?”

“Are we getting started already?” Kaminari added as he took a step forward. “I thought we were rescuing people.”

“Stay back!” Aizawa barked with more intensity in his voice than his students had ever heard from him.

Oh boy, Kurai thought, a horrible suspicion coming to the forefront of his mind. Almost unconsciously, he held out his left arm to keep Mina from advancing to get a closer look.

“What’s going on?” she asked him- or Aizawa, he wasn’t sure since he was keeping his own eyes fixed on the ever-growing mass of nightmares. Among them stepped two figures from the darkness that could only be described as demonic. One, pale and thin, with what looked like severed hands gripping him at his elbows, shoulders, neck, and face. The other, a black and red hulking brute that surpassed All Might’s size with jagged teeth coming out of a beak that sat underneath his… Is that his brain?!

“This is real,” Aizawa said tightly as he slipped on his yellow goggles without looking at them. “Those are villains.”

Crap.

“How’d they get in here?!” Ashido asked in a frightened voice.

“Good question,” Thirteen muttered, looking around her. “The alarms aren’t going off, either.”

“Then it’s likely that they have someone among their number that has a quirk capable of jamming the security measures,” Todoroki said as he took a few steps forward. The normally reclusive boy was now showing a steely resolve as he looked down on the villains that were presumably coming after them. “They are fools for trespassing here, but it’s clear they’ve thought this out. The only the only thing that I don’t understand is what they hope to accomplish by attacking us here.”

“Whatever it is, it’s none of your concern,” Aizawa asserted as he walked up to the first step on the staircase. “Thirteen, get outside with the students and alert the main camp- On second thought, if they’re jamming our security measures, then I’d be willing to bet that they disrupted our long-range coms, too. Kaminari, try to use your quirk to get a signal through to the rest of the school faculty.”

“Yes sir,” the boy answered, his brow immediately bending downward as he tried to do what the teacher was ordering.

“Wait, are you planning on fighting all of them by yourself?” Izuku asked the black-haired man nervously. “Your quirk isn’t suited for that! Your specialty is one-on-one, maybe a group with an ambush tactic! Not a small army like that!”

Aizawa looked over his shoulder at his student and said, “You can’t be a pro if you only have one trick.” To his peer, he said, “I leave them in your hands, Thirteen. Keep them safe.” With that, he launched himself down the stairs at surprising speed, dark hair and scarf flying as he went out to meet the dark forces.

Chapter Text

From above the scene of battle, Kurai and Midoriya watched as Aizawa tore through the ranks of villains with seemingly little effort, never hesitating, striking swiftly with unnerving accuracy. “Wow, I guess he doesn’t need any help,” Izuku muttered.

“This isn’t the time to be analyzing!” Iida called back from where the rest of the class was retreating. “We need to get out of here!”

“He’s right,” Kurai said as he turned his back on the battlefield. “C’mon. Much as I hate to leave someone to their own devices like this, it’s out of our hands.” Setting off at a swift jog, he and Midoriya hurried to rejoin their class’ retreat.

They were about halfway to the exit with the sounds of battle fading behind them, when Kurai felt that uncomfortable shiver race down his back again. Before he could call out a warning to his comrades, a shadowy vortex opened up between them and the exit gate, growing to be at least four times their height. Unlike when it appeared at the fountain, however, the shadow now had a pair of gleaming yellow eyes near the top, which glared down at them with undisguised malice.

And from the shadow spoke a powerful, echoing voice. “Hello there,” it said to them as they skidded to a stop, Thirteen at the head of their group. “We are the League of Villains. I know it’s impolite, but we decided to invite ourselves into this little haven of justice.”

While the voice was speaking, Kurai quietly readied his quirk for a barrage of energy blasts. Running from villains when his teacher told him to was one thing. But if an enemy was standing in their way of escape, he was prepared to not hold back out of self-defense.

“Wouldn’t you all agree that this is a fitting place for All Might to take his last breath?” the shadow-villain asked of no one in particular. “I believe he was supposed to be here… I suppose there was a change in plans that we could not have foreseen.”

“Hrah!”

“DIE!”

Bakugo and Kirishima launched themselves forward, the former unleashing a devastating explosion while his comrade hardened his body to both protect himself from Bakugo’s blast and tear through the dark villain.

“Kirishima, Bakugo, DUCK!” Kurai roared as he thrust his hands forward, sending out a barrage of yellow energy blasts into the smoky haze that Bakugo’s attack had left behind. Even before the assault connected with their enemy, the two students had rolled backwards, out of harm’s way.

Unfortunately, Kurai realized that none of their attacks had been successful when his Energon bursts slammed into the wall and door behind the villain. “No good!” he growled. “I don’t know that we can hit this guy!” But I’ll bet that he can hit us.

His suspicions were confirmed when the dark mist reformed from the remnants of the smoke, something metal glinting from within its depths. “You live up to your school’s reputation,” it said ominously. “But I have no time to waste on playing games with children. Now I’ll scatter you across this facility to meet my comrades- and your deaths!” Shadowy tendrils shot out from the void, reaching for each of the students, even as the darkness itself washed over them. On reflex, Kurai shut his eyes and braced himself for a physical impact.

“Hikari!” he heard someone shout, just before he felt a jerking sensation, followed by a brief sense of weightlessness. The instant he opened his eyes, he was slammed on his side into a rough, rocky terrain. However, he had excellent reflexes that saw him to transforming his fall into a summersault that landed him right back on his feet before he could go further down what appeared to be a small mountain of dirt and rubble.

This looks like the landslide zone, he thought as he took in his surroundings, confirming to himself that he was, in fact, still within the USJ. At least we didn’t get separated too badly- assuming everyone else is still in the complex.

“Looks like we have company,” a calm voice said from a few feet to his left. Kurai turned to see Todoroki standing next to him, a neutral expression on his face as he gazed down the slope, where at least twenty villains were headed their way, chuckling ominously.

“Well, seeing as they’ve gone through the trouble to get themselves invitations, why don’t we give them a proper welcome?” Kurai asked as he held two glowing balls of energy in his hands.

“I’ll immobilize, you disable them,” Todoroki nodded as he took a few paces to the left. From his right foot, a sheet of ice washed forth, freezing every villain in his line of sight solid, leaving only their faces uncovered.

“Nice,” Kurai commented before hurling blast after blast at their exposed faces, knocking all of them out cold within a few seconds, save for one, a tall, muscular man with sandy-colored skin. “Let’s see if we can’t get some answers out of these morons.” His comrade nodded in agreement, already on the move.

“This is embarrassing,” Todoroki said as he strode toward the remaining villain. “Losing to a couple of children? For God’s sake, put up a real fight.” One villain that had managed to avoid the first ice blast erupted from the dirt to take a swing at the dual-quirked boy, only to have Todoroki move his head to the side and grab his club with his right arm, freezing him in place just like the rest.

“Listen up,” he said as he allowed the would-be ambusher to fall on his face without a backward glance. “If you stay frozen, your cells will begin to die as your body succumbs to hypothermia and frostbite. Now, I want to be a hero, so that doesn’t have to happen- we can avoid unnecessary cruelty.” Stopping in front of the sandy-colored villain to place his wintry hand on his exposed face, he added ominously, “But I can only do that if you tell me what it is that you hope to accomplish here.”

“Th-The b-big bird g-guy!” the villain stammered as he tried to speak through his body’s attempts to shiver. “He’s s-sup-posed to b-be able t-to k-kill All M-Might!” As Todoroki withdrew his hand, the villain sniffled, “P-Please, th-that’s all I kn-know!”

“That wasn’t very hard,” Kurai commented as he hit the last two villains with an Energon burst apiece. “These guys seem like they’re small-time, not elite criminals.”

“True, but it doesn’t seem as though they themselves plan to kill All Might,” Todoroki replied as an intense wave of heat began to emanate from his left side. “My bet is that they were meant to kill us while All Might fought that monster they mentioned.” Letting out a derisive snort, he added, “They severely underestimated us.” By now, all of the unconscious villains had been freed from their icy shells, though the two students doubted that they would be getting up anytime soon.

“To be fair, we did just get out of junior high,” Kurai said with a shrug. “How many kids our age do you know of that would be able to handle this kind of situation like we did?”

“Speaking of which, you kept your cool under dire circumstances even better than most of our classmates would have- and likely are,” his classmate remarked as he looked him over with an appraising eye. “I didn’t see you get in on recommendation, though it seems as though you easily could have.”

“My father is Commissioner Hogo-sha,” Kurai replied. “And you, you’re Endeavor’s son, right?” Todoroki stiffened with surprise, but before he could say anything, Kurai preempted him by saying, “Yeah, I notice stuff, too. In any case, I think we have better things to do than discuss our pedigrees. These guys plan to kill All Might? I say we get to work disrupting that plan.”

“How so?” his classmate inquired. “From what I can tell, there are four or five people here that are truly dangerous, unlike these thugs. If it is their plan to kill All Might, and they went through so much trouble to sneak in here quietly, they may have well found a way to do it.”

“Even so, it doesn’t sit well with me to just wait around for another villain to jump us,” Kurai said with a negative shake of his head. “I’m headed to the central plaza to join up with Mister Aizawa. At the least, he needs to hear about this, and maybe he’ll have new orders for us.”

“All right,” Todoroki agreed. “In all honesty, I don’t really see any other course of action, given the circumstances. You go ahead- I’ll catch up and make sure no villains are following us.”

“Thanks,” Kurai acknowledged as he used his quirk to reinforce his limbs so that he could run ahead at high speeds. “Watch yourself, Todoroki.”

“You do the same.”

Kurai made it to the plaza just in time to witness something out of a nightmare. The pale man with hands gripping his body all over was laughing as the black-and-red monster was beating Aizawa into a bloody pulp. Judging from the amount of the red liquid staining the ground, he wasn’t even sure that his teacher was still alive. All around that grotesque scene, there were perhaps a dozen villains left that the pro hero hadn’t managed to get around to.

Pushing his quirk to the maximum that his costume would allow, he shot forward, clearing the space between himself and the brutish monster in the blink of an eye, reaching for his brother’s gift as he did so. Let’s hope that this thing works! he thought in a brief moment of panic.

Hitting a silver button on a cylindrical object about a foot in length, he felt some of his power being drained, but only for a split second. A yellow blade flashed to life as he swung it at the monster holding his teacher, right at the elbows.

The next instant, he had Mister Aizawa slung over his shoulder a few dozen yards away from the beast, which was now missing its arms from the elbows down, a blank look on its grotesque face that showed no signs of pain or surprise. The thick appendages twitched a couple of times by its feet, but other than that, the monster stayed completely still.

“That’s freaky,” he muttered as he threatened any of the other villains that were dumb enough to get too close to him with his sword. A ‘photon blade’ his brother had labeled it, though they both knew it was just to avoid a copyright strike from Disney Studios. “All right, you all saw what my saber did your big ugly friend over there,” he said warningly. “Stay back, and no one else ends up in pieces!” The weapon had been modeled after the swords of Zakuul royalty, a style that Kurai had long been enamored with.

“You… stupid kid…” Aizawa grunted, surprising his student. “I told you… to run…”

“Tried that, we got warped to the landslide zone,” Kurai informed his instructor. “I know Todoroki is on his way, and I suspect that the rest of the class was scattered to other places in the USJ. I can’t account for anyone else, though.” The whole time, no one made a move, except for the pale man, who was scratching his neck furiously, muttering feverishly, though Kurai couldn’t tell what he was saying.

“You need… to leave while you can,” Aizawa urged him. “That monster… he’s as strong as All Might.”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed,” Kurai muttered as he eyed the beast. “Is he even human?”

“Don’t know… Run, Hikari. I won’t tell you… again.”

“Don’t worry, I can get behind that idea,” his student agreed in a lowered tone. “I’m really not too interested in finding out- Is that guy regenerating?!” His exclamation of surprise was drawn out when the hulking monster’s arms began to spit out new muscles, bones, and skin. If Aizawa had something to say, it didn’t come out as anything more than a slight grunt as he passed out of consciousness.

“Nomu here has super-regeneration,” said a nasally, hoarse voice. Kurai looked over to see the hand-face villain giggling as his henchman finished growing back his arms. “Even if you can get past his shock-absorption with your sword, it won’t stop him from coming back, even if there’s just one little speck of his flesh left.”

“Wait, which is it?” Kurai frowned. “His quirk lets him heal, or absorb impact?”

“Both,” the skinny maniac laughed. “He’s been bio-engineered to take down the so-called Symbol of Peace.”

“Cool,” Kurai deadpanned before hurling an energy blast at the villain, resulting in a small explosion. “Stupid villain,” he added. “Monologuing is how the good guys win half the time, don’t you know?”

“Sorry, you were saying?” the nasally voice said from within the dust that the bolt had kicked up.

“Oh, damn,” the boy muttered. ‘Nomu’ had apparently put himself between his boss and the teenager, taking damage on the surface of his body from the laser, though the impact of the resulting explosion had done nothing to him.

Setting Aizawa down with his free hand while keeping his saber activated and in a threatening position, Kurai asked, “Okay, so what now? I apparently can’t hit you because of your giant bird-brain there- plus I can’t really leave my teacher- and you can’t let him near me, because if he does get close, I’ll turn him into sashimi.”

The pale man laughed hysterically, saying, “You think you can take on the ultimate weapon that was created to kill All Might?! You’re strong, kid, but nothing like that piece of trash.”

“Wanna bet?” he said, hoping that his bluff might unsettle his opponents, even just a little. He knew he was more powerful than the average pro already, but he was nowhere near All Might’s power. Not unless… Nope! Not going there!

The stalemate was broken when a duo of green-haired students broke onto the scene. Izuku punched out a couple of villains with his right hand, his left tucked close to his body the whole time. Asui roped up a few of the crooks with her tongue and smashed them into the others, taking care of the last of the minor threats.

“Hikari!” Midoriya called over his shoulder as he kept an eye out for any reinforcements. “Are you okay?”

“Just dandy, now that you guys are here,” he grinned, relief flooding his limbs. “What took you so long?”

“We were dealing with some villains in the shipwreck zone,” the frog-girl answered. “Midoriya thought we should come here and help out Mister Aizawa if we could.”

“Well, you can still do that,” Kurai told them as he leveled another energy blast at Nomu and the boss. “That big guy messed him up pretty bad from what I could tell. He needs medical attention, stat.”

“Sure,” Midoriya nodded. “But what about you?”

“I’m gonna keep these guys busy until reinforcements show up,” he answered tightly. “Hopefully Kaminari got a message out.”

“You’re taking an awful risk,” Asui pointed out. “That guy took out our teacher, and you think you can fight him off?”

“I’m not a pro, I know,” Kurai replied, his eyes keen for any movement from their enemies. “But I’m not gonna let these guys get to any of you, just the same.”

“Shigaraki,” said a familiar voice that chilled the students, just before the shadow villain appeared beside the thin man.

“Kurogiri…” he replied, sounding annoyed. “Did you block their exit like I told you to?”

“I scattered the majority of the students across the facility, but there were a few that I was unable to disperse,” his henchman answered. “One of them got outside, and will likely return with faculty members of U.A.”

While he was speaking, Kurai made urgent motions with his blade for Midoriya and Asui to leave with their teacher. Fortunately, they did so, though it was clear that the boy was reluctant to leave his friend alone.

Meanwhile, Shigaraki was scratching his neck in a frenzy again, this time hard enough to make himself bleed from some shallow cuts. “Kurogiri, you fool…” he seethed. “If you weren’t our exit, I’d tear you apart, atom by atom!”

“Hey, Hands-On!” Kurai taunted him. “How’s about you pack it in and leave now, while you can? Teachers will be here any minute, and then you guys are screwed.”

He thought that Shigaraki might be looking at him from behind the hand covering his face, but it was almost impossible to tell. However, he did stop scratching himself before saying, “You pesky little brat… I may not be able to kill All Might today, but… Hehe… Nomu, kill him.”

Knowing what was coming, Kurai swung upward almost before the beast moved, slicing his arm off again as he leaped backwards, narrowly avoiding the claws on Nomu’s other hand. This guy’s too fast! He thought, sweat lining his brow. It’s gonna be do or die, I suppose.

Nomu was already charging at him, so he did the one thing he could think of, hurling his sword at the monster, its own momentum carrying it directly into the path of the whirling light. There was a sound akin to water hitting a red-hot piece of metal, then Nomu’s top half fell off of its waist, sliding to a stop just inches from where Kurai leaped away from.

That buys me a few seconds, he thought as Nomu’s lower and upper halves started crawling toward each other awkwardly, the flesh yearning to be whole once again. Strangely, no blood spilled out from the grievous wound, though it hardly mattered to Kurai.

Mother, Father, forgive me, he thought with heavy heart as he yanked off his gauntlets and tore his chest piece away from his body, leaving him in nothing but a plain old gi. But if I don’t do this, my classmates might not live to reach their own potential. I can’t let that happen.

“You’re quick, but surely you realize that no one is coming in time to save you, right?” Shigaraki laughed. “You’re not a pro. You’re just a child playing hero. You can’t beat Nomu.”

“Even so,” Kurai growled, his fighting blood fully aroused, now that the pressure points to keep him calm were no longer being applied. “I will fulfill the obligations expected of a hero, and fight evil, just as my predecessors always have!” He could feel his every sense sharpening as the air around him began to swirl, drawing upward like a miniature tornado. A blue light sparked in his eyes while his hair stood on end, orange electricity crackling along his body. “You wanna kill All Might and my friends?!” he bellowed as energy flashed between him and his enemies. “You’re gonna have to make it past me!”

“Fine,” Shigaraki shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you have a flashy power, you’re still not-”

Blam! Crack! Crunch! Kurai landed three blows in the time it takes to blink. The first two were delivered to the shadow villain, Kurogiri, rending the armor that Kurai had glimpsed before, and could now see clearly. The man in the dark gasped and groaned in pain, collapsing where he stood. The third punch socked Shigaraki in the stomach, sending him splashing into the water, and certainly breaking multiple bones.

Before he could celebrate, however, Nomu was upon him, reaching out to envelop him in a spine-shattering bear hug. Instead of trying to completely dodge, Kurai charged at the thing, nothing but a blur of orange and blue as he unleashed a blast of energy that tore through Nomu’s side, and created enough of an opening for him to escape.

Where before the boy had unassuming features of black hair and brown eyes, now he was ablaze with an aura that matched his short orange hair and complimented his deep blue eyes. His speed was astounding, his strength awe-inspiring, and the power he exuded, terrifying.

Whirling around with all the force of his body, Kurai slammed Nomu with a devastating kick that sent ripples across the water and generated a strong enough wind blast to shatter many of the lights in the USJ. However, it seemed to do nothing to the villain himself, because as soon as he was done regenerating his flesh, he went right back to trying to vivisect Kurai.

The boy was just too fast at this point, though, and he nimbly dodged swipes and even attempts to bite him. When Nomu finally threw a proper punch, Kurai countered with one of his own, stopping the blow in its tracks, though he could tell that his knuckles were going to bruise badly from that. Good, he thought with a fierce satisfaction. I’m strong enough to counter his brute force now, even if just barely.

Switching gears, he began to let loose with a series of punches that Nomu mostly managed to block with his own fists, though Kurai did manage to get in a few shots. However, he did not possess Nomu’s resilience to physical force, and so when the bird-faced monstrosity finally did manage to get a good shot in, he went flying into the fountain, destroying the stone and vanishing in a cloud of spray.

Not good… he thought as he coughed up blood, feeling the same substance beginning to trickle down his lip from his nose. Gotta end this now, if it’s gonna happen.

“Hey, Beak Freak!” he shouted as he forced himself to jump high into the air, where he could get in a clean shot from above. Nomu’s gaze snapped up to where he was with a predatory gleam in its normally vacant orbs. “I got something for you!”

Letting out a strange squawking scream, Nomu leaped up at Kurai, even as orange energy began to gather in between his palms, which he held at his side. “I’ve been saving this one!” he crowed once Nomu was about halfway up to him. Thrusting his hands forward, he roared, “Kamehameha!”

An orange pillar of light blazed out of his hands, smiting Nomu just before it could reach the young hero-in-training, disintegrating most of its body, and sending the remains down to crash into the ground, whereupon an explosion blew his head and left arm in separate directions.

Landing hard enough to create a small crater, Kurai became aware of a few of his classmates standing nearby, presumably having come to help subdue their enemies. Kirishima looked in awe of his power, Todoroki seemed surprised, while Bakugo was staring at him with some kind of mixture of a grudging respect and… fear?

Ignoring them for the moment, he turned toward Shigaraki and Kurogiri, both of whom were standing up painfully. “I beat your monster!” he shouted as he levelled his hands at the both of them. “Surrender or run!”

“No…” Shigaraki hissed, furiously scratching at his neck and shoulders, where some of his hands had been torn away. “No, no, no! It wasn’t supposed to go this way! Nomu can’t be beaten by All Might, much less one of his stupid kids!”

“Surrender or run!” Kurai repeated, more blood dripping from his nose, even as he began to feel a stabbing pain in his head, his arms trembling with the effort of keeping them up.

Shigaraki flinched at the words, and for a moment, Kurai thought that he might call it quits. However, much to his displeasure and worry, Kurogiri grunted out, “Do not be deceived, Shigaraki… He is in no condition to fight us- Nomu clearly wounded him. He’s barely standing right now. We can at least destroy this student of All Might’s as revenge for our losses today, if we work together.”

Kurai tsked and fought to maintain consciousness as the pain in his head grew worse.

“Yeah…” Shigaraki nodded, calming down almost as quickly as he had become upset. “You’re right. Okay, let’s kill him, and then get outta here.” So saying, he began to stalk toward the student, apparently ignoring the pain from his wounds.

“Not so fast!” Kirishima declared as he moved between the villains and his comrade. “You want him, you’re gonna have to go through us.”

“I don’t care about that loser, but I’m still pissed at this guy for warping us!” Bakugo snarled as he stood by Kirishima, levelling his gauntlet at Kurogiri.

“The students of U.A. will not fall so easily to the likes of you delinquents,” Todoroki added as he stood on the other side of Kirishima, his right side poised to freeze the water that Shigaraki was standing in solid.

“You’re not hurting anyone else today,” Kurai grinned savagely, even as his vision began to flicker and dim. “Because… ugh…” The last thing he saw before he fell into darkness was Nomu, fully reformed, charging at his classmates.

“I think he’s waking up.”

Ngh… Shut up… Kurai’s mind felt slow, and trying to summon any memories was like trying to find a single fish in the ocean.

“He’s been talking his sleep the whole while, how do you know he’s going to wake this time?” a deeper, familiar voice asked.

“Judging by how much his eyes are moving underneath the eyelids, he’s either having a nightmare, or about to awaken,” said another voice that Kurai recognized. “Given that he isn’t attempting to toss and turn like he has during previous REM cycles, I find it more than likely that he is coming around.”

“Go away,” Kurai grunted.

“See?” the second voice chuckled. “Wake up, Kurai. You’ve kept mother and father waiting and worried long enough as it is.”

Huh?

In a flash, his memories of how he had lost consciousness returned. Battling villains alongside Todoroki, rescuing Aizawa, and lastly, his clash with the monster, Nomu.

His eyes shot open in a panic, only for him to hiss in pain as his optical sense was assaulted by a bright light. “Ow,” he grunted.

“Take it easy, son,” he heard his father say as a strong hand gripped his shoulder. “You’ve had quite the experience.”

“Hello, Dad,” he replied, keeping his eyes shut as his head continued to throb painfully. “Sorry to worry you and Mother.”

“There will be time for us to be upset about your actions later on,” the man laughed softly.

“We’re just glad that you’re safe now,” he heard his mother say from somewhere to his father’s left. “And although your father is correct, we will be upset about the risk you took later on, we are also proud of you.”

“You are?” he managed to crack open his eyelids so that his eyes could get used to the bright light of a hospital room before he slowly began to unveil the covered orbs. “I don’t think I even managed to save my classmates…”

“Actually, everyone is fine, except for a kid with green hair,” Akarui said from the opposite side of the bed. “Apparently he broke his legs or something. All Might showed up in time to beat up that crazy bird-brain before he could get to your classmates.”

“That’s a relief,” Kurai sighed. “I am sorry I overused my quirk, but that Nomu thing would have killed me and my teacher if I hadn’t acted as I did.” Another moment’s alarm prompted him to ask, “Mister Aizawa! Is he-?!”

“He was in very bad shape, but it could have been much worse,” his father interrupted him. “He is expected to make a full recovery, though there is a chance that there will be permanent damage to his eyes.”

“I understand,” the recovering student sighed, disappointed at the news. It was good that his teacher’s health would recover, but he sincerely hoped that defending his class had not cost him his career as a pro hero.

“You were admitted with multiple lacerations to your back and arms, not to mention some cracked knucklebones, all on top of your aneurism. It’s a good thing that Recovery Girl assisted with your treatment- the doctors expect you to make a full recovery,” his mother informed him. “Though you’ll likely have some lasting migraines for a couple weeks, so they want you to take it easy.”

“According to your classmates, you could give All Might a run for his money,” his father said as Kurai was finally able to focus his gaze on the man. He looked almost exactly like Kurai, except with about twenty years and a goatee added.

“Hah,” Kurai laughed with a pained grimace. “Maybe, but I bet he doesn’t end up in the hospital like me after fighting villains like that.”

“Actually, he had to be seen by Recovery Girl, but he got out after one night,” Akarui corrected him, surprising his brother. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry. That green-haired kid was telling us about it outside.”

“Outside?” Kurai repeated. “Are my classmates waiting on me?”

“Yes, Iida and a few other kids have been coming here for the last couple of days,” his mother nodded. She was a short lady with purple hair and eyes, which attributed to her quirk, ‘Ultraviolet’. She had often joked that it wasn’t fair how she had been the one to carry and give birth to her sons, only to have them both come out looking like their father. “They’ve been quite worried, but the hospital only allows family in until a patient regains consciousness. If you’re feeling up to a visit, we can send them in, three at a time.”

“Sure,” Kurai nodded. “Tell them to temper their expectations, though. I feel terrible.”

“We’ll let them know to keep it short,” his father assured him.

“Hey, who’s the pink girl?” Akarui asked. “She seemed really-”

“Let’s go, Son,” Hogo-sha said firmly, escorting his youngest progeny out of the room with an arm around his shoulders. “You can taunt your brother later.” His mother left with them, only pausing long enough to give him a kiss on the brow.

Kurai smiled, leaning back into the soft pillows that had enveloped his head as he cast his eyes about the room. Now that he was alone, he could see that he was in a private hospital room, featuring what he assumed was a fully furnished bathroom, a bench that could be turned into a pullout bed, and a large open window that afforded him a decent view of the city. He could hear machines beeping behind him, and feel electrodes on his chest and back, but he really didn’t feel like moving to examine them more closely.

As the minutes ticked by, he wondered how long exactly it had been since he had lost consciousness. Judging by the IV drip in his arm and lack of thirst despite an empty stomach, it had likely been at least a day, maybe two or three.

He was wondering how he was going to catch up on school work when the door to his room was opened, and in came three people, muttering quietly among themselves. “Hey guys,” he grinned weakly as he recognized his friends.

“We’re so glad you’re awake, Hikari!” Uraraka exclaimed as she ran around to be on the opposite side of the bed from the door. She was carrying a small vase full of some white flowers, Kurai wasn’t sure which kind. “Deku and I got you these!” she added as she placed them on the window.

“Thanks, you guys,” he said sincerely, touched by the gesture, even if he wasn’t much of a flower guy. Turning to Midoriya and Iida, he added, “I was glad to hear that you all made it out of that mess okay.”

“Yeah, well, it was a close call,” Izuku laughed nervously. “Thankfully, Recovery Girl has been able to get me back on my feet.”

“I was able to reach the teachers in time to bring reinforcements,” Iida informed him. “But I doubt that they would have made it in time if you hadn’t held off those villains and rescued Mister Aizawa.”

“I get the feeling our class would have managed somehow,” Kurai chuckled painfully. “How long was I out?”

“Three days,” Midoriya informed him. “Classes are cancelled until next week, cos of the attack and police investigation, but we all go back on Monday.”

“Here’s to hoping I can make it out of here in time,” Kurai sighed.

“If you don’t, we’ll be sure to bring you notes and homework so that you don’t fall behind,” Iida assured him, causing Kurai to roll his eyes.

“What a relief,” he said, making no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

“Studies are important, and it’s not as though you’ll be doing much else!” his friend objected.

“Except for, you know, recovering from bleeding out of my brain,” Kurai said wryly.

“Yeah, maybe let’s just let him take it easy, Iida,” Uraraka giggled.

“Who else has been stopping by?” Kurai asked, eager to get away from the topic of school work. Just thinking about straining his mind right now made him feel queasy.

“Well, let’s see…” Midoriya muttered as he thought about it. “Su stopped by on the first day with Kaminari and Jiro, but they’ve been staying home since then.”

“They did say that they wanted to know when you woke up, though, so I’ll tell ‘em later,” Uraraka informed him.

“Kirishima and Ashido have also been here regularly with us,” Iida added. “Oh, and Todoroki is downstairs as well. We tried to ask him why he came by today, but he hasn’t said much of anything to any of us. Still, he’s been waiting with us, so we assume that he’s here to see you.”

“He did mention that you two wound up working together against the villains,” Izuku remarked. “Maybe he wants to see if you’re okay.”

“That’d be awfully nice of him,” Kurai smirked. “And kinda out of character.”

“Regardless, it’s good to see you on the mend,” Iida said with a smile. “You really had us all worried, Kurai.”

“Sorry, but I thought protecting everyone at the risk of my own life was kind of what a hero would do,” he smiled lightly. “That’s what we’re training for.”

The trio stayed talking with Kurai for a little while, but they left after about fifteen minutes, aware that there were other people that wanted to see him. Bidding him farewell, they promised to come visit him in the morning.

Next to visit was Kirishima and Todoroki. Before he could wonder why Mina hadn’t come in with them, the exuberant redhead was standing next to him, saying, “You, my friend, are the definition of manly!”

“Huh?” Kurai blinked in surprise while Todoroki stood to one side, his expression blank as ever, making it impossible to tell his current mood.

“Dude, you took on a monster that All Might had to beat, and you almost won, too!” Kirishima grinned. “That takes guts, power, and skill! I’ve never seen anything like what you and All Might did!”

“I’m just glad I lived through it,” Kurai grunted. “Also, let’s not do yelling. My head might still kill me.”

“Whoops, sorry,” his friend replied, making a conscious effort to lower his volume. “I’m just glad to see you doing okay. Feels like we’ve been waiting forever for you to wake up.”

“I just came in today,” Todoroki muttered.

“Yeah, speaking of, how’d you know he was gonna wake up today?” Kirishima asked him. “Are you psychic on top of your ice and heat?”

“No, I just had a gut feeling,” the other boy answered.

“You know, you don’t have to stand all the way over there,” Kurai told him.

“I’m fine,” he replied quietly.

“Okay…” Kurai said as he glanced at Kirishima, who shrugged in confusion. “Well, thanks for helping me out back at the landslide zone.”

“Likewise,” the half-and-half boy replied as he moved toward the door, apparently already leaving. “By the way, Ashido is waiting just outside the door. Said she wanted to talk to you alone.” Then he was gone without a sound.

“I can never get a read on that guy,” Kirishima muttered.

“That’s the longest interaction I’ve had with him outside of a fight, but I get the feeling that’s as social as he gets,” Kurai shrugged. “And here I thought I was the introvert.”

“Yeah, man, you seemed really quiet when we all started getting to know each other, not to mention you embarrass way too easy,” his friend grinned crookedly. “But you’ve got a real fire in that heart of yours’. I get the feeling that when people joke about you being the next All Might someday, they might be closer to the truth than they originally thought.”

“There’s only one All Might,” Kurai said with a negative shake of his head. “One Symbol of Peace.”

“Only as long as you keep telling yourself that,” Kirishima told him as he stepped back. “I’ll let Ashido in now, since she wanted to talk to you by herself. Word of advice, though?”

“Huh?” the recovering boy asked, bewildered by the sinking feeling he had in his stomach.

“If you ever break her heart, super-powerful quirk or not, I’m gonna make sure they move you from a hospital ward to the morgue,” the redhead said with a wicked grin before he opened the door, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. Then the look was gone, and he departed with the words, “Get well soon, buddy.”

“Yeah, I’ll… do that,” Kurai replied, feeling supremely uncomfortable now. My classmates are all weird, he decided.

No sooner than he’d formed the thought than did a messy mop of pink hair and yellow horns pop through the door, followed quickly by Mina, who shut the door quietly behind her. “Hey,” she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.

“Hi,” he said with a small wave from his right arm, the one without the I.V. sticking out of it. “Everyone said you wanted to talk to me alone?” As he phrased the question, he felt an uneasy stirring in his chest, though why exactly that was, he couldn’t fathom.

“Yeah, I did,” she said shyly, not moving from her spot in front of the door. “Now that I’m here, though, the words aren’t coming out like I planned them.”

“Did you forget who you’re talking to?” he said with a forced smile as he pointed at himself. “I think the only person more uncomfortable than me in social situations is Midoriya.”

“I guess that’s true,” she grinned back, but he could tell that she was forcing it, too.

When the silence between them began to stretch, Kurai said, “Hey, mind coming closer? I’m having to strain my neck to keep looking at you over there.”

“Oh, sure!” she said as she crossed the room to his bedside. “How, uh…? How are you feeling?”

“Well, my head is killing me, but I think the suspense might beat it,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “What’s up, Ashido?”

“W-Well…” she said, scuffing her foot on the floor as her cheeks blushed lilac. “I was just really worried about you, ya know? Wondering if you were gonna wake up, and all that…”

“Is that it?” he asked, confused. “I’m fine. Just a little nosebleed… from my brain. Nothing a three-day nap won’t fix.”

“Hikari, I’m serious!” she said, her caramel eyes flashing with traces of anger. “You almost died! That’s really scary!”

“I know, I know,” he said calmly, in an attempt to soothe any injured feelings. “I’m taking this seriously, I promise. I just try to deal with my fear by laughing it off, is all. It’s how I cope.”

“I guess I should be impressed that you cope with it at all,” she said, the anger in her eyes fading as her shoulders slumped. “I’ve always known that heroes have to risk their lives for others, but what you and our teachers went through just made it more… I dunno, real, I guess.”

“Reality check, huh?” Kurai asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“I guess I’m already more or less numb to that reality,” the boy said somberly. When Mina looked a question at him, he asked, “Remember how I told you I have a cousin?” When the girl nodded that she remembered, he continued, “My father and his brother- my uncle- joined the police force around the same time. Both of them advanced rapidly through their precinct’s ranks, and now my dad is the Commissioner for Musutafu.”

“I thought I recognized him,” Mina nodded. “That explains it. But where does your uncle come in on this?”

“There was a battle with some villains about ten years ago, when I was little,” Kurai replied. “My dad and uncle ended up in a firefight with some of the bad guys, and they were badly outgunned. Most of the men and women with them were killed or retired from the force due to permanent injuries before the pros showed up. Within minutes, All Might and Endeavor had the villains rounded up and in cuffs. Unfortunately, our Number Two Hero was feeling pretty cocky, and he missed one of the villains that had a needle quirk. He was aiming to stab Endeavor, but my uncle saw what was happening and put himself between the villain and his target.”

Closing his eyes, he sighed as he went on to say, “Killed him on the spot. Left behind my aunt and older cousin. Endeavor came to the funeral, supposedly to pay his respects, but he looked like he was in a hurry to get somewhere else the whole time. I remember being really angry with Endeavor for not caring that my uncle basically sacrificed himself for his sake, and wondering why we revered heroes so much, if that’s what they were really like.

“But All Might was there, too, and I overheard him telling my cousin, Shukin, that even though his father wasn’t a pro, he was the real hero that day, having seen the job through to the end. It was then that I seriously thought about becoming a hero- because All Might recognized that it’s not even those with the most power that are heroes, but the people that risk everything to see justice done. I want to be a person that honors my uncle’s sacrifice, whether I’m a pro hero or not. I certainly don’t want to be a hero like Endeavor, a man who looks and acts the part in public, but couldn’t care less about the people that he’s supposed to be protecting.”

“That’s why you acted the way you did,” Mina said softly as he opened his eyes again. “You’d rather see everyone else safe, even if it meant losing everything you had going for you.”

“If my life is the price for keeping others safe, I will pay it gladly,” Kurai nodded. “That, to me, is the mark of a real hero.”

“That’s really noble,” his friend said. “Kinda makes what I came to say easier and harder at the same time.”

“Come again?” he asked, now feeling really confused.

“You know how when we hung out on Sunday, I told you that I wouldn’t wait around forever?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I take it back,” she said with slumped shoulders. “I’ll wait until you give me a direct ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Cos I know I’m never gonna find a guy willing to risk his life like that for his friends.”

He blinked a few times in utter surprise before he said, “You do know we go to a school where people train to do exactly that, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing,” she said earnestly. “A lot of people train to become that way- most of them aren’t already here with that mindset. And I don’t think that any of those people would give a slacker like me a second look, you know? You didn’t run away screaming, or laugh at me. And now that I know you’ve got a real hero in there,” she pointed at his heart before adding, “it’s hard for a girl to wanna give up even a shot at being with somebody like that.”

“Oh boy,” he said blankly. “You do like to move fast, don’t you?”

“I go with my gut, what can I say?” she said, her cheeks coloring lilac again. “So… do I have a shot?”

“Can I answer that when my brain doesn’t feel like it just got punched by a sword?” he asked. “I’m not saying ‘no’, but I don’t think I can make a decision like this when we’re recovering from a life-and-death episode, both physically and mentally, in my case.”

“I promise my feelings are genuine,” she told him earnestly.

“And I believe you,” he replied gently. “But you did say you’d wait as long as necessary to hear my answer, yeah? Then please give me a little time to think about all this. The part of my existence that’s supposed to be making these decisions is kinda broken right now.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” she nodded, a little embarrassed. “I shouldn’t expect an answer right now, you’re right. But… soon?”

“Soon,” he nodded. “Promise. And… I doubt it’s my brain damage talking when I say that our chances are pretty good.” He managed a smile at the last, which saw her own face light up.

Then she blinked and asked, “Wait, do you have brain damage?!”

“Not entirely sure yet, but the doctors are apparently pretty confident in my chances of full recovery, especially since they’re letting me have visitors right after I’ve woken up,” he said with a pained laugh. “But if Iida actually brings me homework while I’m in here, I might conveniently pass out again.”

Mina laughed at first, then became more thoughtful. “What if… I brought you class stuff?” she volunteered shyly.

“Really?” Kurai asked with an impish grin. “You’d be willing to touch not one, but two piles worth of homework?”

“Only if you help me with it,” she replied with a matching smile.

“You’re really going out of your way to get me to say yes, aren’t you?”

“I won’t lie- it is a factor,” Mina admitted. “So how about it?”

“Sure, as long as Iida doesn’t find out,” he nodded. “He thinks dating within the class is a bad idea, so if he sees us visiting- even just to do homework- he’ll jump to conclusions.”

“Is it a bad idea?”

“Not sure yet, but we’ll likely find out sometime in the next few weeks,” Kurai chuckled. “Thanks for offering to bring my schoolwork, Ashido.”

“Drop the last name,” she said with a cheery smile and a wink. “Call me Mina.”

“You know, before I met you, I needed way more time to be comfortable with calling someone by their first name,” he half-laughed. “But you certainly have a way of disarming people with your charm, Mina.”

“Does this mean I get to call you Kurai?”

“I get the feeling you’d do that whether I give you permission or not.”

“You’re not wrong!”

Chapter Text

Kurai had to spend a total of two weeks in the hospital under close observation from his doctor and nurses, due to the chance that his brain might start bleeding again if he didn’t take it easy, both physically and mentally. He had severely overextended his quirk fighting against a monster that had taken All Might, the Number One Pro Hero, to defeat. Given all that, he would have expected to be bored out of his skull, but things had changed for him as of late.

Kurai had never been a particularly social person, and as a result, the only person he stayed in touch with from his middle school was Iida, who he still attended classes with. That didn’t bother him, though- he was happy being friends with the young man, and he got on very well with his family, so he never felt lonely or depressed about his lack of friends.

Now though, somehow, he had found himself with a new wealth of companions, without even meaning to. There was still Iida as his best friend, of course, but often seen with his class rep these days were Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka, both eager and kind-hearted students that had an irrepressible sense of contagious energy about them. Kirishima was an incredibly eager young man that constantly sought to become as manly a hero as possible, and had been one of the first people in the class to welcome Kurai into his social circle. There was also Ojiro, Asui, Hagakure, Jiro, and Kaminari, who he didn’t know as well, but had each come to visit him during his stay in the hospital.

The one person that he had expected to come see him, but hadn’t, was his training partner, Momo Yaoyorozu. They had worked very well together, and had even talked at some length about their own stories on how they got into U.A. High, so it now puzzled him that she seemed to have no interest in talking to him, especially given his current state. He had thought that they might become friends, but then again, he wasn’t the best at reading social situations. Maybe she didn’t much care for him, and their working well together had just been a result of previous combat lessons.

However, in contrast to that, there was another person that he looked forward to seeing more and more with each day that passed. His classmate, Mina Ashido, the girl that had confessed to having feelings for him, made sure to visit him each and every day, even on the weekend. Upon her- rather heartfelt- confession, he had told her that he needed some time to think about what them becoming romantically involved would entail, though he had admitted that he was positively inclined toward the notion.

His caution was mostly due to two main factors, the first being that he hadn’t known Mina for very long, and he was slow to befriend people in general, exhibited by his only real friendship prior to U.A. being Iida. The other stemmed from said friend being opposed to romantic relations with classmates and potential coworkers, due to the strain it could put on them in the field, which was especially risky for pro heroes. However, having thus far not been able to determine who his crush was, the bespectacled boy had been unable to deter Mina from continuing her amorous approach to his friend.

Having little to do in the hospital besides visits from his friends and family, he had considered these two negatives thoroughly, comparing them to the possible positives that could be born of a romantic entanglement with the girl.

She was fun, unpredictable, a social butterfly, peppy, optimistic, all of the things that he was not. Normally, he would gone out of his way to avoid such a person, but she had somehow melted his normal defenses against such people, and it had nothing to do with her acid quirk. It was nice spending time with her, be it just the two of them, or a group setting. He supposed there was a truth to the old saying ‘opposites attract’.

He was, for a fact, attracted to the girl. Others might have been put off by the black-and-caramel eyes, the short horns sprouting out of her head, maybe even her bright pink skin, but he found all of those traits strangely endearing. Then again, his favorite pro hero was Gang Orca, a decidedly odd-looking man, so he supposed bizarre appearances made little to no negative impact on him.

As for the two negatives, he realized that best friend or no, Iida was not going to directly stand in the way of his decisions regarding his friends, much as he might want to. Not to mention that the atmosphere of class 1-A seemed to have a positive effect on one’s social barriers. Meaning, of course, that it more or less disintegrated them- it just seemed to take differing amounts of time to work on certain individuals.

As the days crawled by, he began to feel bad about keeping her waiting, despite her insistence that he take his time in giving her his answer. She was his friend, and romantic potential aside, she deserved better than to be strung along by his indecision, even if it wasn’t technically his fault.

I do like her, Kurai finally thought to himself during his first conscious Monday in the hospital. Just articulating it in his head made him feel as though a burden had lifted off his shoulders, but it was quickly replaced with a new one. How do I tell her?

He supposed the best way would be to just come out and say it the next time that they were alone, but he had no idea how handle himself in such a situation. He’d had crushes before, sure, but they were always surface attraction, and he had never possessed the courage to act on them.

Why is this so nerve-wracking? he asked himself repeatedly. She likes me- she said so herself! She put herself out there first! I have the easy part, so why is my heart doing jumping jacks?! Though he applied logic and reason to the situation for hours, he could not stop the dryness in his throat, the trembling in his arms, and the heartbeat that outright refused to slow down.

After all, the heart is a creature not tamed by such things as levelheaded thinking and cold calculations. It is a raging, fiery beast that is calmed by one thing alone- unconditional love. Every human being seeks that soothing embrace, even from such a young age, and though few enough are lucky enough to find it, they begin that search with reckless abandon as soon as they are able to understand what love is.

Of course, conflicting with that desire is the raw, animal terror of having one’s heart broken, the part of a person’s soul that wishes to remain unharmed. By venturing nothing, nothing is gained, and nothing is lost- keeping your desires locked away means safety.

These two primal entities conflict often within humans, and the mind is the battlefield on which they duel. Often in youth, the desire to love and be loved wins out in controlling the actions of the person experiencing these wants. But if the resolve to remain unhurt in the most intimate of ways stays strong during those fragile years, it becomes harder and harder for love to take root within, until there is no chance that person can ever truly love or be loved.

This battle and its potential outcomes are one of the most frightening things that people can experience, yet there is no escaping it. One of the few things we can control, however, is how quickly we act upon- or against- our desires.

Kurai decided to act sooner rather than later, lest his courage fail him, and he lost his chance to experience a new kind of love, one not familial or friendly, but that of young romance.

He was preparing to deliver the speech that he had spent the last thirty minutes working on when his door opened, and he turned toward the door after hearing a light knock to greet what he thought would be his (hopefully) future girlfriend. Instead of seeing Mina Ashido walk through the door, though, he was greeted by another familiar face.

“Hey, Hikari,” Izuku Midoriya said with a friendly grin as he stepped through the door, followed by his ever-present companion, Uraraka.

“Ack!” he all but yelped, flushing a deep red as he backpedaled, nearly falling over in the process.

“You doing okay?” the other boy asked with concern. “Do you need me to call a nurse?”

“No, just…” Kurai breathed, forcing himself to calm down. “You guys surprised me.”

“Sorry, we are a little early,” Uraraka said with a cheery smile. “Mister Aizawa has been letting us out early so we can train for the Sport’s Festival coming up.”

“That’s in two weeks, rats!” Kurai grumbled, his embarrassment forgotten in his annoyance. “That means I get half the training time that everyone else does!”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine!” the girl said encouragingly. “The only person I can see giving you competition is Todoroki.”

“Don’t count out Kacchan,” Izuku replied. “He might be a jerk, but his quirk and his control over it are nothing to laugh at. I would know, having had to fight him.”

“Eh, I’m with Uraraka,” Kurai shrugged. “Yeah, he’s got skill and power, but his temper is his biggest weakness, and it’s easy to exploit. But speaking of controlling a quirk…” He met Izuku’s eyes as he said, “Heard you broke your legs last week.”

“Y-Yeah…” the other boy stammered. “I saw the villains moving to attack All Might after he was messed up from fighting Nomu, and I just moved in without thinking. Fortunately, the other pros showed up before I got hurt any worse.”

“We can’t rely on luck every time, though,” Kurai muttered. “I wanna propose a trade, Midoriya.”

“Bwuh?” his friend said blankly, Ochaco looking on with a mixture of confusion and interest.

“You were able to control your quirk a lot better after I told you about my focusing method, right?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” Midoriya nodded. “I still hurt myself a bit, but it sure was better than having broken bones.”

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve spent a lot of time studying pro quirks and how they work, yeah?” Kurai continued. Again, his friend answered in the positive, so he said, “Okay, then I want you to study my quirk, and see if you can help me figure out how to use it without almost killing myself every time I need to use my ascended power. In return, I’ll help you to better control your own quirk so you’re not a glass cannon anymore.”

“A-Are you sure?” Izuku asked, his eyes wide. “I mean, I know a lot about quirks, sure, but I’m not a doctor…”

“All the doctors ever tell me is not to exert myself that hard again,” Kurai said with a dogged shake of his head. “I refuse to believe that I have this power, but can only use it at the cost of risking death each time I do use it. You’ve helped reinforce that idea by the efforts you’ve exerted to better control your own abilities.” Extending a hand out to his friend, he asked, “So, how about it, Midoriya? Sound like a fair trade?”

“I can’t promise success,” the boy answered as he gripped Kurai’s hand. “But I will promise to do my best, Hikari.”

“I can accept that,” Kurai grinned. “Thanks.”

“Do you know when you get out of the hospital so you can start being training buddies?” Ochaco giggled.

“If all goes well, Thursday or Friday,” Kurai answered as they released their grips. “By the way, do you know if Iida is coming by today?”

“He said he was going to do some training with Ingenium since he’s town until tomorrow morning,” Izuku answered. “He did tell you that he said ‘hi’, though.”

“Got it,” the recovering boy nodded. “Did you bring my school work, then?”

“No, Ashido said she would bring it at around four,” Uraraka replied, her short brown hair waving as she shook her head from side to side.

“But there is someone else who wanted to see you,” Izuku said with a bright grin as he glanced up the clock. “He said he’d be stopping by right about now…”

As if on cue, the door burst open to admit a heroic mass of muscle topped by golden hair and a smile so perfect it would put dentists out of a job. “I am here!” All Might declared loudly, nearly giving Kurai a heart attack in the process. “Come to see my heroic student on his way to recovery!”

“Not if I get another surprise like that,” the boy grumbled under his breath as he kept himself steady with the railing on his bed. However, he honestly couldn’t be mad that All Might had taken the time to visit him. Raising his voice so that he could be heard, he said, “I’m surprised to see you, sir, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a pretty cool surprise.”

Behind All Might, Izuku and Ochaco departed, saying that they would come back when their teacher left.

“HAhaha!” All Might guffawed. He was dressed in a yellow suit and blue tie instead of his hero attire, but Kurai figured that the man had to take the stuff off at some point. “I’m just glad to see you doing so well, young Hikari! I’m told that you put up quite the fight against those dastardly villains! That was pretty risky, but all things considered, you did quite well!” Flashing another million-dollar smile, the giant man added, “Take pride in what you did, saving your classmates’ lives from the League of Villains, especially in the face of something that many pros would have run from!”

“Thank you, sir,” Kurai said with a short bow. “That means a lot, coming from you- both as my teacher, and as a great hero.”

“You are welcome, young Hikari!” All Might replied with an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Well, I know this was a short visit, but I should let you kids catch up, and allow you to recover from your ordeal! Farewell!” With that, he turned to leave, muttering, “I hope that wasn’t a media circus gathering outside…”

“Wait, All Might!” Kurai said impulsively. “There’s… something I need to ask you.”

“Hmm?” The pro turned back to face him, a puzzled look on his broad features.

“Do you…” he hesitated, unsure if what he was about to ask was appropriate or not.

“Is everything all right, young Hikari?”

Kurai was surprised by the genuine concern in his teacher’s voice, but it encouraged him nonetheless. “Do you remember the fight against the Penta-Gram Family?” he inquired solemnly. “About ten years ago?”

“That’s not a battle I’ll forget in a hurry, young man,” All Might answered gravely. “Too many good men and women fell that day.”

“I know, sir,” Kurai said sadly, his eyes falling to the floor. “I guess I really wanted to know if you remembered a funeral you attended- that of lead Detective Hogo-sha.”

“Yes, I remember him,” the blond man nodded. “A good man, a great hero in my book. Saved Endeavor’s life, as I recall.”

“Left behind a wife and son,” Kurai added, surprising his instructor.

“How did you-?!” All Might paused, bewildered. “Wait, are you the lad from the funeral?! His son?!”

“No sir, but close,” Kurai replied as he met those darkened blue eyes with his own brown ones. “He was my uncle, sir. The boy you talked to was my cousin, Shukin. I just wanted to thank you for giving his death meaning, sir. Without you, those yakuza scumbags would have gotten away, and I think that would have made his loss all the worse. Sorry to spring this on you, sir, I just never… had a chance to say so before now.” He sniffed, surprised at the tears pooling his eyes. “He is a large part of why I decided to become a hero. That, and your efforts to save my family after he was gone, however small your own contribution was.”

“Young man, I have seen few men as brave as your Uncle,” the hero told his young charge. “You should be very proud of his courage, and that you share blood with him. I am glad to know that his sacrifice was not in vain, if it helped set you on a path that honors him.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kurai said with another bow to his instructor.

He was surprised when the towering man returned the gesture and replied, “The honor was all mine, young Hikari. I wish you a speedy recovery.”

All Might left soon after, ushering in Ochaco and Izuku once more before taking off in a hurry, apparently having noticed the gathering crowd of media outside the hospital doors being held back by the police detail that Kurai’s father had assigned to the building. It was under the pretext that there were victims of the USJ incident still recovering inside the building that allowed him to post a detail as he had, but Kurai had laughed at the notion, knowing that he was the only person left from that encounter that had yet to be discharged. His father was worried about him, and while the gesture was touching, it was only now that he was beginning to appreciate it- dealing with the press would have been way too much stress on top of everything else.

Mina! Somehow in visiting with All Might, he had forgotten that he was supposed to be getting a confession of his own prepared.

“Crap!” he muttered out loud, startling his friends. He reddened instantly when he realized that he had interrupted something that Midoriya was saying, and further, that he hadn’t even been paying attention to what he was saying in the first place. “Uh… sorry.”

“Are you still having a hard time focusing?” Uraraka asked worriedly. “Do you need someone to come check on you?”

“Yes? No!” he muttered. “Gah, stupid headaches…” He sat down on the bed heavily, saying, “I’m having trouble figuring something personal out, but I don’t think that my recovery has much to do with it… probably.”

“Do you need help?” Midoriya offered kindly. “I can keep a secret, I promise.”

“Me too!” Uraraka added enthusiastically. “I know I can come off as super-go-lucky, but I know how to keep my mouth shut if someone asks me to.”

“Probably a good trait to have as future pros,” Kurai chuckled wryly. “I don’t really know why I’m saying this, but… I’ve always had a hard time trusting people, but you and a bunch of our other classmates are starting to just kill that particular habit of mine.”

“So you’ll tell us?” Izuku asked with a friendly grin.

“Only if you swear to secrecy, especially from Tenya,” Kurai sighed heavily.

“Oh, is this about Mina?” Uraraka asked innocently, causing Kurai’s heart to accelerate to an alarming pace.

“You-?!” he gasped. “Does he know?!”

“Wait, what is this about Ashido?” Izuku asked, confused.

“No, Iida doesn’t know, I promise!” the girl said quickly, looking over at the machine registering his heartrate. “Please, I didn’t mean to scare you, Hikari!”

“Oof…” the boy groaned, forcing himself to calm down before a nurse was called in to check on him. “Between you guys and All Might, I might end up needing a triple by-pass before my stay here is over.” Looking straight at Uraraka, he asked, “Did Mina say something?”

“Not really, but it was kinda obvious from how much she worried about you,” the girl answered with a charming smile. “Seriously, it’s like you’re all she can talk about whenever she texts me. ‘How is he? Is he doing okay? Is he allowed to go home yet?’ Pretty sure I get those messages every time I’ve come in ahead of her. Multiple times, too.”

“Oh…” the boy said, flushing scarlet. “But, uh…? How’d you know it was her when I asked you to keep it secret from Tenya?”

Here, Izuku’s eyes registered recognition as he connected the dots. “So that’s why he’s been asking us if we know about any classmates that you’ve gotten especially close with!” he exclaimed. “But, I don’t get it. I haven’t ever seen you and Ashido together during school. You’re usually hanging out with Iida and us.”

“We’ve hung out a couple times outside of school…” Kurai admitted, still embarrassed at someone else figuring things out. “She wants us to be an… item? Dating, she wants us to date. Exclusively.”

“Aw, that’s so great!” Uraraka cooed. “She’s so nice, and you’re really cool, Hikari!”

“Doesn’t it all seem a little sudden, though?” Midoriya pointed out. “We’ve all only known each other a couple weeks, right?”

“Keep telling myself that,” Kurai mumbled. “But… the more I try to come with reasons not to date her, I keep finding more to say that it’ll be a good thing.”

“So when are you gonna tell her?!” Ochaco asked excitedly, practically bouncing up and down as she demanded details.

“I was going to today- I thought that she’d get here before anyone else,” Kurai answered. “That’s why I was so surprised to see you guys walk in instead of her.”

“Oh, that makes sense now,” Izuku muttered. “I thought you acted kind of weird when we came in, but I just thought it might be a side effect of the aneurism, or maybe some of the medications they’ve been having you take. There’s also the fact that you have to stay in here all day that could make you more jumpy, plus all those monitors probably don’t help with getting a solid night’s rest. Not to mention there’s the possibility that some of us might have to deal with some kind of PTSD from now on, which raises a whole new set of problems for us to-”

“Midoriya, please stop it!” Kurai shouted to be heard over his friend’s newest mumbling spree.

“Sorry!” the green-haired boy yelped. “I forget I’m doing that out loud sometimes!”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Deku,” Uraraka said kindly. “There are way worse habits to have, you know! Plus it’s great that you have all that knowledge so you can be a better hero and help out Hikari!”

“Oh yeah!” Izuku remembered. “When do you wanna start training together?”

“Soon as I get outta this place,” Kurai replied. “Since the Sports Festival is coming up in two weeks, we’ve got a lot of work to do. I think they’ll let me walk around outside in the courtyard starting tomorrow, so we can at least get you practicing on keeping better mental control of your power.”

“Sounds good!” Izuku said excitedly. “Thanks so much, Hikari!”

It was about an hour between the times that the pair of students left and when Mina came to visit. Those sixty-odd minutes were some of the tensest of Kurai’s life to date. I can face down Nomu and career villains without breaking a sweat, but talking to one of my classmates? No, that’s the hard part!

Her arrival was heralded by a few light taps on his door, which had him instantly sitting bolt upright in his bed. “Come in,” he called, trying not to let his voice tremble as he did.

This time, to his relief, the person he had been expecting to see came through the door with a bounce in her step, and an irrepressible smile. “Hey!” she chirped as she came in, carrying a large bag full of what he assumed were school books.

“Hey,” he replied, trying to smile, but only managing a slight twitch of his lips. Why is this so scary?!

“I brought your school stuff like I said I would,” she told him as she dropped the bag by his bedside. “Also, mine, cos you know, I wanted to study with you. Is it still cool if we do that?”

“Frosty,” he managed to joke, which set her to laughing.

“Oh man,” she giggled. “If this is how you start your studies, I might just become a believer in hittin’ the books.”

“Do we really have that much work to do?” he asked doubtfully.

“No, Mister Aizawa is actually taking it a little easier on us for some reason,” Mina answered as she started pulling out textbooks. “Whether it’s because of the attack on the USJ, or the upcoming sports fest, he’s giving us extra time to train our combat skills. He’s even letting us use the testing grounds to work out after class.”

“Yeah, Uraraka and Midoriya were telling me about that,” Kurai nodded. “They stopped by about an hour ago.”

“Yeah, Ochaco said that they were,” the pink girl nodded as she pulled out a math book.

“So why all the luggage?”

“I didn’t wanna bring all your stuff over here more than once, so I just decided to go for broke,” she answered as she continued rummaging through the bag. “I think that’s it… Okay, Mister Ectoplasm assigned us a few math problems that I really shouldn’t be having such a hard time with. Midnight wants us to read chapter three by Wednesday… Oh, and Present Mic wants us to translate a song of our choice from Japanese to English…”

“Us?” Kurai asked.

“Yeah, we can do the assignment in pairs if we want, but then we have to turn in a total of three songs, instead of just one apiece,” she nodded, looking thoughtful. “I volunteered to partner up with you since you weren’t allowed back in school yet.”

“Thanks,” he said, touched by the gesture. “But do we need to translate it word for word, or does he more or less want us to write cover lyrics?”

“At least one needs to be word for word in order to prove that we understand the assignment, but if you do one or two of the other ones as a cover that matches the rhyme and meter pattern, then he’ll give you extra credit,” Mina replied. “There’s a band called Radwimps that I like…”

“Oh yeah, they featured their music in that classic movie, ‘Your Name’,” Kurai nodded. “Great film, largely because of their music.”

“You’re just as big a nerd as Midoriya, aren’t you?” Mina laughed, making him shift uncomfortably in his bed. “Oh come on, it’s kinda cool that you know that much trivia and know how to be a great hero already.”

“Still got a long way to go on that last one…”

“Seriously, are you two long-lost relatives?” she laughed again. “I’m starting to think that me studying here isn’t gonna happen unless you stop making me laugh.”

“Actually, before we get to that…” Kurai said, his heart beginning to race again. “There’s something else that we… No, something that I should say.”

“Okay…” Mina said, immediately on edge. “Did you, uh…? Make up your mind, then?”

“Yep…” He tried to tell her what he’d been wanting to say all day, but for some reason, his tongue was suddenly in knots. Curse my inability to have a conversation with a pretty girl! he seethed silently.

While he was wrestling with himself, Mina sagged a little bit and mumbled, “I get it. I guess it was too much to hope that the first guy tha-”

“Stop right there!” Kurai exclaimed, a little louder than he had meant to, and startling the poor girl. “I, uh… I’m not good at these things. Words. Fitting them together, making sense… Good gravy, how am I botching this so badly?!”

“I’m confused now…” Mina said slowly. “From your words, it seems almost like you wanna tell me that you like me back, but your face says ‘ragefest’. What’s happening?”

“What you said!” he burst out. “No, wait! I’m mad at me, not you, but I do think you’re really nice, and pretty, and fun, and I’m… just ruining this whole thing aren’t I?” He paused, his face blank. “This is not how I saw this going.”

“Me neither…” Mina said, her cheeks turning lilac. “The first time I met you, I thought you were so cool and collected… I still think you’re really cool, and now that I know you’re really a giant dork, it makes you way cuter.”

“Ack!” he said in a strangled voice, feeling as though his face was on fire. “Is everyone out to kill me with embarrassment and surprises today?!” He thought the heat in his face might actually trigger another aneurism.

“I’m sorry!” Mina giggled. “I really am! But here I was preparing myself for the worst, and you go and say the opposite of what I expected, and the way you do is just too funny!”

“Kill me,” he begged as he buried his head in his hands. “Get Nomu in here and kill me before I slowly die of embarrassment.”

“Can’t do that,” Mina grinned as she moved closer to his bedside. “I have a very strict policy against allowing my boyfriend to die.”

There was smoke coming out between his fingers, Kurai was sure of it. “I am really bad at this,” he said, muffled by his palms. “I am probably going to be the worst boyfriend to ever exist.”

“Meh, I wouldn’t know,” Mina shrugged. “I’ve never dated anybody before.  This is gonna be all new for me, too. Also really fun and exciting, I think.” Slowly, gently, she pried his hands away from his flustered face as she sat down next to him. “Hi there.”

“Hi…” he said slowly, a nervous grin on his face. “So, uh…? Is that it? Are a thing now? I have no idea how this works.”

“Yes, silly, you’re my boyfriend, I’m your girlfriend, yadda yadda,” she giggled as she kept his hands in hers’. “Congrats, we’re gonna be dating each other from now on.”

“Oh,” he said dumbly, prompting another laugh from her. “Uh… what now?”

“That depends,” she said mischievously. “Do you still want to study, or did you wanna do something else?”

It took him a couple of seconds to register the implications of what she was suggesting, and when it did, he immediately fainted.

“Oops,” Mina said, surprised. “Didn’t expect him to do that.” Smacking herself in the face, she grumbled, “Nice one, Ashido. You finally get a boyfriend, then you rush things, and now he’s broken. …At least we’re in a hospital.”

He didn’t take long to wake up, but when he did, he was pale as a sheet, a stark contrast to the tomato shade that he’d been exhibiting up until that point. His eyes flicked open to scan the room, immediately seeing Mina’s horns sticking out over a history book, though he could see nothing of her face, the way that she was holding it.

“Uh…” he began, causing her to visibly tense up. “I messed up again, didn’t I?”

“…Not any more than I did,” she said in a very small voice. “Sorry, Kurai. I got way ahead of myself.”

“Little bit,” he agreed, though he did manage a small smile, in spite of himself. “I know you’re a go-for-broke kind of person, but… Yeah, didn’t expect that.”

“I’ve only got movie stuff to go off of,” she admitted bashfully, still hiding her face from him. “I always thought that people start off these kinds of things with a big ol’ kiss, but I guess I forgot that you’re more reserved when I got caught up in the moment.”

“Reserved, yes,” he nodded. “Opposed to getting a kiss from you? Not really- you just took me by surprise, and on top of everything else today- and last week, I guess- I didn’t know how to respond. So, my brain just decided to cop out. Sorry…”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” she said, peeking over the edge of the textbook at him. “I’m the one who rushed things. But… It is nice to know you aren’t opposed to… that.” He thought that she might have been blushing, but it was hard to tell.

“Maybe some other time?” he asked carefully.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” she nodded, thumping her horns on the pages on accident. “Argh, stupid things…”

“I like ‘em,” Kurai said without thinking.

Mina froze in place. “Eh?”

“Uh… Your horns?” he said cautiously, not sure if he was about to really step in it, or if she was just surprised to hear somebody compliment them. “I think they’re kinda cool- really completes your look.”

“You do?” she asked, the book lowering just a little bit more, allowing him to fully see her wide eyes. “My horns are… cool?”

“You’re talking to a guy whose favorite hero is Gang Orca, so yeah, I think they look cool,” he nodded, feeling a little more confident about his compliment since it seemed as though she was taking it as such. “You’ve got a really unique look, Mina, a good one. That’s just part of it, but it’s impossible for me not to notice.”

“No fair, you said you weren’t good at this!” she complained jokingly as she lowered her book to show that she was, in fact, sporting a heavy blush. “Everyone else just either tries to ignore my horns or calls them freaky, but here you are calling them cool, and saying that I look good!”

“Was I not supposed to say that?” Kurai asked, confused. “This is getting me all turned around again…”

“No!” she said urgently. “No, it was nice to hear. Thank you, Kurai.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with a nervous smile. “Should we, uh… get to studying?”

“I guess,” the girl said heavily. “I’ve been trying to focus on this stupid history reading, but my brain isn’t cooperating.”

“Well, then I guess we’ll call this our first study date,” Kurai said as he held out his hands. “Lemme see my math book, and we’ll get to work on that. Reading we can do separately just as well as alone, but you said that you were having issues with mathematics. Let’s see if I can’t help you out in that department.”

“Okay…” she grumbled, reaching for the requested item. “But once you get outta here, you’re taking me on a real date, got it, buster?”

“Yes ma’am,” he smirked. I guess that wasn’t so bad after all.

Chapter Text

“Hyah!”

“Groh!”

The sounds of combat echoed in Training Facility Beta as Izuku Midoriya and Kurai Hikari exchanged blows with one another, both of them gaining speed and confidence the longer they sparred.

“Nice footwork!” Kurai panted as he sidestepped a kick from his friend before grabbing the extended limb and using it to flip and pin Midoriya in place. With a tired grin, he added, “But remember what I told you about using your legs for offense. They’re great to use once you’re certain that you enemy is worn down so much that he can’t do this to you. If he’s still fresh, you’ve just killed your own balance and as good as handed him the fight.”

“Yeah…” Midoriya grunted. “I underestimated how much stamina your quirk gives you…”

“Wasn’t even using it,” Kurai laughed as he let the other boy go, wiping sweat off his brow. “But I think we might be at a point where we can start using our quirks against one another in matches like this.”

“Whoa, really?!” Izuku asked excitedly.

He and Kurai had been training almost nonstop since the boy had been discharged from the hospital three days ago in order to get themselves ready for the U.A. Sports Festival; a combat/physical fitness competition that would pit the entirety of the freshman class against one another on day one. Not only would it be broadcasted worldwide, it could land those that did well the best scholarships and offers to intern at choice agencies.

Both students had things that they wanted to learn from the other, so they had been trying to make the most of their time before the event. Kurai had plenty of power and the training to control it to a reasonable degree, but there was a limit to his power that put his life at risk anytime he tried to surpass it. Knowing that his classmate had a vast wealth of knowledge about how quirks worked, he had offered to train Izuku to use his own power-up quirk so that the boy wasn’t constantly hurting his body every time he wanted to use it, in exchange for exploring alternative methods to trigger his own quirk.

So it was that they spent just about every minute of their free time training their bodies and minds for combat, with Kurai giving Izuku some pointers for hand-to-hand combat while the green-haired boy researched a variety of quirks that required intense concentration, trying to see if any might benefit the two of them.

However, as of yet, neither of them had used their quirks against each other in combat, even a sparring bout like the one they had just finished. So it was little wonder that Midoriya was surprised by Kurai’s suggestion.

“Are you sure we can handle it?” his friend asked nervously. “I mean, what if we accidentally use our powers too much and hurt ourselves, or worse, each other?”

“Well, we need to start taking a practical approach sometime soon,” Kurai shrugged as he walked over to where he and Izuku had left their water bottles. “The Sports Festival is less than a week away now. If we don’t step it up, both of us are going to be regretting it.”

“Somehow I don’t see you having a problem in the competition,” Izuku laughed nervously. “After all, you were able to keep up with a villain that almost got the better of All Might…”

“Nearly at the cost of my life,” Kurai reminded him as he tossed his partner his water bottle. “I need better control of my power, too. Otherwise, it’ll be a close call against people like Todoroki, maybe even Bakugo. So, I say that now we’ve reviewed some of the basics of unarmed combat, we move on to fighting with our quirks. Besides, we’re cleared to go to Recovery Girl if we get hurt during this session, so we can experiment, just a little. I’m not saying go a hundred percent at each other, but all the same, let’s kick it up a notch.”

“O-Okay,” Izuku stammered nervously before taking a sip from his bottle. “You’re the one who has more combat experience, I guess…”

“Yeah, being a police officer’s son, you learn self-defense isn’t exactly an option,” his friend grinned. Taking a moment to quench his own thirst and douse his head with some water to cool off, he then put his bottle back and approached his training partner while Izuku put down his own container. “So, let’s see how you throw a punch while using your quirk.”

“All right,” Midoriya nodded, taking up the karate fighting stance that Kurai had shown him, setting his left foot forward just a bit while settling into a slight crouch. His fists came up, the right one in front of his heart, and the left held at shoulder height at a sharp angle. A red line of veins lit up his right arm as his brow dipped with intense concentration, drawing Kurai’s eye to the limb while he settled into his own stance in preparation to block the incoming attack.

“Remember, don’t immerse any more than your hand in the waterfall,” he reminded his friend, recalling back to the advice that he had given him during the practical exam at the beginning of the semester.

“I got that,” Midoriya muttered. The next instant, he darted forward, his fist speeding through the air toward Kurai’s stomach at a rate most eyes couldn’t hope to track.

However, Hikari had some of the sharpest reflexes in class 1-A, and so he easily knocked the blow aside before chopping at Midoriya’s ribcage, sending him reeling and gasping for air.

“No fair…” the green-haired boy wheezed. “You didn’t say you were gonna hit back…”

“We’re still sparring,” Kurai snickered. “I thought that would’ve been obvious.”

“Well… okay, that’s on me,” Midoriya gasped. “But what happened? I had perfect control over it that time- I only used something like five percent of my power. The only thing that hurts is where you hit me, but my arm is fine.”

“Your arm moved faster than the rest of you,” Kurai told him. “Why didn’t you use your quirk to power up your entire body? Not only are you advertising what would otherwise be a really solid attack, you’re leaving the rest of your body open- case in point, I was able to hit you in the chest pretty easily.”

“My entire body?” Midoriya repeated. “I guess… I hadn’t thought about that before. Usually I’m just summoning up my quirk to launch an attack and then letting it go once I’m done. I guess that would make the rest of me pretty slow by comparison, not to mention I lose time when I transfer the power from one limb to another. But if I could use it all over my body at once, that would actually enhance my reflexes by a lot, if used correctly. The issue will be maintaining my concentration on my quirk at the same time that I’m moving and actually using it to attack and defend, or even just move in general-”

“Any day now,” Kurai said dryly, not for the first time a tad annoyed at his friend’s mumbling habit.

“Sorry!” the other boy yelped.

“Back to what I was saying,” Hikari said with a relieved sigh. “If you pump the energy through your whole body, I imagine you and I could end up being on pretty equal footing- with enough practice on your part.” He added the last part with a slight grin to take any sting out of his words.

“No, no, you’re right!” Midoriya said excitedly. “So, do you use a different mental image for using your quirk throughout your whole body? I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do it since whenever I’ve used your method so far, I just stick whichever part of me that I use in the waterfall.”

“Well, like I told you before, it’s more instinct than anything at this point,” Kurai told him. “But… Well, let’s see if we can’t change things up a little? Close your eyes.”

“Okay,” Midoriya nodded as he did so.

“Picture that waterfall again, with you standing in the lake that it pours into,” he told his classmate. “Got it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good,” Kurai muttered. “Now, imagine a dam being built at the point where the water goes over the edge, slowing the flow until it’s just a steady little stream, instead of a torrent. That dam is your own restraints on your power, because your body can’t take on the entire waterfall yet, understand?” When Midoriya affirmed that he did understand, his partner grinned and said, “Then take a step into the stream where the waterfall used to be. Let what power you can withstand wash over your whole body, not just one or two limbs.”

Midoriya nodded again, his brow bent heavily in concentration as he remained silent. However, it wasn’t long before those red veins of energy began to crawl up his legs, this time spreading throughout his entire body, even as his muscles shivered with their newfound strength. The moment that the veins reached his hair, Midoriya opened his eyes, which were glowing brightly, even as green lightning began to dance across his body.

“Heh…” he grinned crookedly. “You’re a… good teacher, Hikari.”

“Nah, you’re just a quick study,” Kurai said with a bright smile of his own. “Now come on! Let’s see what you can really do with that quirk of yours! Energon versus… uh…? Wait, what do you call your power?”

For a second, Midoriya looked nonplussed, but then his smile was back as he settled into his fighting stance. “Full Cowling,” he declared. “I may only be able to do five percent for now, but someday I think I might just be a challenge for you, Hikari.”

“I expect so,” his friend laughed. “Let’s do it!” Charging forward, he aimed a jab at Midoriya’s face, intending to stun him as to rob him of his concentration and disrupt the use of his quirk. He had been able to take his friend by surprise multiple times with this tactic, and he saw no reason for that to change, especially given that Midoriya was just beginning to understand how to use his own power better.

So it was a big surprise when Izuku leaped out of the way at high speed, shooting toward one of the buildings that lined the street of the faux city fast enough that the green electricity trailed behind him. He landed feet-first on the concrete wall, then shot back toward Kurai, drawing his fist back for a right hook.

Now, the other boy might have been surprised, but he hadn’t made it into U.A. with record-breaking combat scores for nothing. “That’s more like it!” he shouted he performed a reverse tumble, out of the way of Izuku’s attack. The missed punch had thrown him off-balance, but the summersault was a good way to recover it while evading his classmate’s strike. He is fast, he thought as he got to his feet while Midoriya turned toward him. Faster than I would have expected…

“Thank you for helping me make it this far, Hikari,” Midoriya said with a tight smile. “I promise I’ll do what I can to repay your kindness…”

“Don’t worry about that for now,” his classmate grinned back as he held out his hands, a yellow bolt of energy appearing in front of each one. “Let’s just see how long you can keep your new skill going!” Without another word, he unleashed a barrage of energy bolts that would stun, not really wound, his classmate.

Midoriya yelped and shot up, clearly startled, but he still managed launch himself up and over the Energon blasts, all while heading toward Kurai with his right fist drawn back. Hikari immediately ceased his barrage the instant that Midoriya left the ground, his attacks leaving holes in the buildings behind his friend. As the green-haired boy came down with the full force of his body, jump, and quirk behind the blow, Kurai let out a yell and delivered a punch of his own, aimed to counter Midoriya’s.

The pavement beneath them cracked, and windows shattered around them as a shockwaves blasted out from their point of contact. For a split second, Midoriya thought that Hikari would buckle under the force of his blow, but then there was a blur of motion, and Midoriya found himself being grabbed by the arm and hurled into a wall, grunting as the air was forced out of his lungs, and he felt the effects of Full Cowling drain out of his body.

“Ugh…” he grunted as he slid to the ground, already able to feel bruises forming on his hand and back. “Well, that went about how I expected.”

“Not me,” Kurai told him as he shook his own bruised knuckles. “You took me by surprise, Midoriya. That’s some speed you’ve already got, and that punch would’ve floored most of our classmates. If that’s only five percent of your strength, I’ll be hard-pressed to keep up, even when you hit the halfway mark.”

“Yeah, but I can’t hit people long-range with energy blasts like you can,” Midoriya pointed out. “Plus, you’ve got that transformation when you get fired up enough. You might not have proper control of it yet, but I can tell that it’s gonna be a real ace card for you someday.”

“Thanks, man,” Kurai grinned. “Whaddya say we take a break for a few minutes? We’ll have to work on maintaining your concentration during combat- I noticed you dropped the power as soon as I hit you hard enough, which could prove to be a real disadvantage in an actual fight.”

“That sounds good to me,” Midoriya replied. “We can go over my notes- I’ve found a few things on quirks that have to do with maintaining a steady emotional trigger that might help you out.”

“Great!”

It was nearly nightfall when the two youths left Recovery Girl’s office, having come in covered in bruises and scrapes. The old lady hadn’t exactly been happy about the fact, but she did remark that it was an improvement from bleeding out of the brain or shattering one’s bones. After thanking her, they started toward the path that would lead them off of school grounds and toward the bus station.

“Hey guys, wait for us!” They stopped just outside the school gate to turn back and smile a pair of familiar faces. Ashido and Uraraka were jogging toward them, both looking every bit as tired as the two boys felt.

“Hey,” Midoriya said with a friendly wave as they came closer. “How was your training today?”

“If I throw any more acid, I think I’m gonna melt myself,” Ashido groaned as she walked up and leaned on Kurai unexpectedly, almost throwing him off-balance. “Can you just carry me all the way to the bus station?” she asked him plaintively.

“Sorry, I’m just as wiped as you are,” he grunted as he helped her straighten up. “We started sparring with our quirks today, and it wound up being more taxing than we thought it would be. Just got out of Recovery Girl’s office.”

“Boo!” Mina pouted. “Worst boyfriend ever.”

“Whoa, Deku, you used your quirk and didn’t mess up your arms?” Uraraka said eagerly as she practically bounced up and down in front of the green-haired boy. “That’s so great!”

“Y-Yeah, it’s all thanks to Hikari,” he stammered nervously. “He showed me how to use Full Cowling so I don’t hurt myself whenever I throw a punch or kick.”

“No fair!” the pink-haired girl said as she took a step back from the black-haired boy. “You and I haven’t done any training together since you got outta the hospital! Not to mention that you still owe me an actual date!”

“Well, why don’t we all train together tomorrow?” Kurai suggested sheepishly, feeling bad about the points that she raised. It did seem as though he should be spending more time with her outside of mandatory school activities, seeing as they were a couple. The problem was, he had next to no idea how to go about dating someone, and so felt as though he was completely botching everything that he was supposed to be doing as her significant other.

“That’s a good start,” Mina sighed. “I guess with the festival coming up soon, we should focus more on training than on leisure time.”

“I’ll treat you to dinner on Sunday?” Kurai tried again. “Just the two of us?”

“There we go,” Mina giggled as she gripped his hand with her own and started pulling him toward the exit. “C’mon, we’ve got a study session to get to.”

“You just want my mom’s coffee jellies again!” he yelped as he was all but dragged along by his over-enthusiastic girlfriend. He could hear Izuku and Ochaco laughing at him as they followed, so he vowed to get them back in some way later on.

“They’re goooood!” Mina laughed in response to his claim.

“Hey, you know we have to let them come too, right?” he told her. “I told my parents it was a group study!”

“But if we get there first, I get more coffee jelly!”

“You guys go on, we’ll catch up!” Uraraka said with a shooing motion while she and Midoriya deliberately began to decrease their pace.

“Yay!” Mina whooped. “Alone time!”

“All right,” Kurai grinned sheepishly as he and Mina boarded the bus, taking a couple of seats in the back, away from the half-dozen people that were riding the same transport. Fortunately for his self-confidence, all of them were either on their phones or dozing. “I can’t argue against a bus ride with just the two of us… Plus however many strangers are there…”

“You just suck the romance outta everything, don’t you?” the pink girl pouted playfully. “That’s okay, I’ll just double down and make this the best bus ride ever!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to kill the mood, so to speak,” Kurai apologized as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I keep telling you, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“We don’t need to have an idea, so stop worrying about it so much,” she told him as she nuzzled his shoulder affectionately. “We’ll do our own- however awkward- thing. I like you, you like me, everything else is just details. We’ll figure it out as time comes.”

“I wish I had your sense of confidence,” her boyfriend sighed. “I always try to plan everything out in advance, so ‘winging it’ is a new one for me.”

“Then here’s to sprouting wings,” Mina giggled before tugging on his shoulder and giving him a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Maybe someday we’ll fly, huh?”

Had Kurai been walking, he would have fallen over and smashed his face into the concrete. Mina seemed to have a habit of taking him by surprise, and in ways that would leave him seized up and with the sensation that his head was about to implode. He couldn’t even speak, he was so stunned.

“Wow, if I knew my feminine charms were this strong, I woulda registered that as my quirk back in kindergarten,” she laughed as he turned red enough to rival All Might’s silver age costume.

His only response was to reach up and touch the anointed flesh, feeling the heat suffusing it, his poor brain trying desperately to come up with some sort of response to the confused rush of feelings and hormones that was now flooding his body. Unfortunately, his mind was already extra worn out from trying different techniques in order to keep his brain from bleeding after using his quirk too much, so all he wound up doing was mumbling, “Th-thanks… that was… n-nice…”

“Aw, you’re too sweet,” she giggled before throwing both arms around his shoulders to envelop him in a not-so-gentle hug.

And this, kids, is how I died of embarrassment at age fifteen, Kurai thought helplessly. Still, it didn’t stop the smallest of smiles from working its way onto his face as she all but cuddled him from her seat.

After a week’s worth of intense training- sometimes with Iida and Midoriya, sometimes with Mina and Uraraka- a proper date at the movies (Mina made him watch ‘Dracula: Count of the Undead), and a promise from Kurai’s father that he would be at the event with the rest of his family, the day of the U.A. Sport’s Festival had finally arrived.

The classes were assigned to a single waiting room each stationed underneath the stadium where the competition would be held, after getting changed into their P.E. uniforms. While they waited, Mina and Kurai made a point of not interacting in an overly familiar manner in front of their classmates. Outside of Kirishima, Midoriya, and Uraraka, no one explicitly knew that they were a couple, though Kurai suspected that Jiro knew, due to her own quirk lending her the habit of eavesdropping on things unintentionally. Not even Kurai’s family had been told as much, but he was sure that they all knew what was going on anyway. The habit was mostly to keep Iida off their backs, but they also didn’t want to cause too much of a stir in the class, not to mention they had no idea how Mister Aizawa would react if he knew about it.

Beforehand, the two of them had promised not to hold back, should the festival require them to compete against each other, as it wouldn’t be fair to either of their prospective careers as future heroes. This was a chance to be scouted by pros and their agencies, so they couldn’t afford to waste time on any potentially injured feelings. It had been a relief to Kurai that Mina had so readily agreed about the subject when he had tentatively brought it up, even going so far as to tell him that if he got in her way, she would ‘melt his butt’.

Now, it seemed that something had managed to throw a wrench in her happy-go-lucky attitude. “Man, I wish we could wear our costumes!” she was complaining while Ojiro stretched his arms next to her. “It’s hard to stand out in these!” As she spoke, she stretched her uniform flat against her midriff, a frown on her face.

“Well, I guess it makes things more fair that way,” the boy with the tail answered. “I mean, not everyone in the school gets costumes like we do.”

“Then why’s Kurai get to wear his arm guards?!” she said as she pointed at him, surprising the boy from where he stood next to Midoriya.

“Hey, I’m not the only one,” he protested as he pointed at Aoyama, who was wearing his clunky belt. “We had to fill out paperwork to use support items. I’m wearing these to help keep my power and temper in check.” Sure enough, the gauntlets that Akarui had designed for him were settled tightly on his wrists.

“Of course mister ‘Super Saiyan’ needs training wheels,” Bakugo snorted derisively. Kurai ignored him, though he secretly took pride in being compared to his favorite fictional characters, even if it was coming as an insult from the class’ resident hothead. Most of the class was sore at the blond kid, since apparently he had managed to single-handedly insult just about everyone in the first year while Kurai was still in the hospital.

Kurai was about to elaborate further on his need for the bracers when Iida burst into the room, shouting, “Everyone, get your game faces on! We’ll be lining up in ten minutes!”

“Man, I wonder what they’ll be throwing at us for the first round?” Sato said, already looking nervous.

“It does not matter what the obstacle is,” Tokoyami asserted with his unshakeable demeanor. “We must surpass it.” There was a round of general agreement from the class as the raven-headed boy fell silent.

“Midoriya. Hikari.” The two boys turned to see Todoroki approach them, his expression as neutral as ever.

“What’s up, Todoroki?” the green-haired boy asked politely.

The half-and-half young man glanced at each of them before saying, “From an objective standpoint, I’m stronger than you, Midoriya. And while I can’t match your raw power, Hikari, I have a far better understanding of my abilities than you do.”

“What’s your point?” Kurai asked with a frown, immediately on the defensive. This was an unexpected hostility from the boy, especially given how they had worked together against the League of Villains.

“Midoriya has All Might in his corner, and people in our school, even the upper classmen, are saying that you could be the next Symbol of Peace, Hikari,” Todoroki answered, looking at each of the boys in turn. Midoriya looked down at this, while Kurai reddened rapidly at the news- he knew that people had been saying as much when he first entered the school, but now it seemed as though the rumor had spread to the rest of the school following his battle against Nomu. “The only thing that you need to understand in relation to those facts is that I will beat you,” their classmate asserted.

“Why the sudden declaration of war?” Kurai demanded, now doubly confused. “Why now?”

“We aren’t here to be friends,” the other boy snapped, cold fire in his eyes. “Or did you forget that this is a competition?”

“He’s right,” Midoriya muttered. When everyone looked a question at him, the boy continued on to say, “Of course you’re stronger than me- you got in on recommendations, after all.” Here, he lifted his eyes to declare, “But don’t think for one second that I’m just gonna let you leave me in the dust, Todoroki. I’m shooting for the top with everything I’ve got, too.”

The heterochromic boy shrugged and turned around with the single word, “Fine.” Then he walked out of the door, leaving the tense atmosphere behind him.

“He may be right, but he didn’t have to be a jerk about it,” Kurai muttered.

“Worry about it when the competition has begun,” Iida urged them. “Right now, we need to get moving out onto the field!”

As the class walked down the dark hallway at which a bright light concluded its passage, they could hear the voice of Present Mic, clear as day, even at a distance. “YOU KNOW ‘EM! I LOVE ‘EM!” he was saying. “THIS CLASS OF HEROES-IN-TRAINING HAVE COME OUT ON TOP OF AN ACTUAL VILLAIN ATTACK, AND NOW THEY’RE READY TO SHOW THE WORLD WHAT PLUS ULTRA LOOKS LIKE! IT’S HERO COURSE’S CLASS 1-A!”

The roars of the crowd actually managed to compete with the pro’s powerful voice, which surprised a lot of the students as they finally came out into the daylight amid a crowded stadium full of citizens and pros alike. Still, many of them did their best to smile and wave while Present Mic introduced the other classes one by one, knowing that their future employers could be among them. Kurai and Midoriya led the pack alongside Iida, Uraraka, and Ashido. The two girls were among the more enthusiastic of their party, while the boys were all grim about the mouth, determined to be focused on nothing but the trials ahead.

“Present Mic’s overdoing it a little, don’t you think?” Kurai muttered just loud enough to be heard by Iida.

“Well, this is the most televised event each year,” his best friend shrugged. “Besides, it’ll help get us acclimated to the pressure of working in public as pros.”

“Ach… Fair point,” the first boy grumbled.

“Besides, it’s not as though we have to get up and speak to a crowd of this magnitude,” Iida added, managing to keep a completely straight face as he did so.

Kurai glared up at his taller friend and said, “I think I hear my motorcycle asking me for an upgrade in its engine…”

“You’ve been threatening me with that for years, we both know you’d never do it,” the bespectacled boy said smugly as they came to stand in front of a raised platform that rested on the grassy area.

“Keep pushing my buttons, let’s test that theory,” Kurai grumbled. Looking up, he stiffened and immediately looked back down at the ground in front of him as he hissed, “Are you kidding me?!”

“Everyone, quiet!” a female voice commanded, accompanied by the sound of a whip cracking. The source of both was an attractive woman with long black hair, bright blue eyes, and a… dominatrix outfit?! With a flogging whip?!

“That outfit should come with a warning label,” Kaminari muttered as he and most of the other male student population tried not to stare too openly at the R-rated heroine, Midnight.

“Is it really appropriate for high school teacher to be wearing that?” Tokoyami grumbled in agreement. They had all had the woman teach them the subject of Modern Art, but she was usually dressed in a business outfit, not her hero costume.

Kurai could feel Mina elbowing him subtly from his left, and his ears picked up on the soft sounds of her trying to hold in her laughter. She knew that he was easily flustered around attractive girls, and Midnight could still turn heads, even without her costume, so it was a prime opportunity for someone like her to poke fun at her boyfriend.

“Now, for the student pledge, we have Kurai Hikari!” the woman announced suddenly, surprising several of the students in class 1-A.

Avoiding meeting the teacher’s eyes, Kurai forced himself to walk up the short steps, and onto the podium, where a microphone was waiting on a stand for him. He had been told by Aizawa, upon his return to the school, that he would be expected to deliver the class pledge, seeing as he had scored the highest on the entrance exam. This of course terrified the young man to no end, being expected to speak in front of a large group of people, but he found no sympathy with his instructor, and Iida had only been able to offer advice on public speaking that Kurai himself had looked up before- not to mention that he thought the whole situation was hilarious, so Kurai had given up on trying to get his friend to help him.

As he stood there, with thousands- no, millions- of silent eyes upon him, he decided that he would rather be back fighting Nomu again. “Hello, Japan,” he began in a shaky voice, though he managed not to stutter. “And to all those watching at home… I, uh… hope you enjoy the festivities here today. I would only ask that as we compete today, students and audience alike should keep in mind the reasons that we are here at all. We’re… not here to play games. We aren’t here to show off. We’re here because each of us wants to make an active impact on the world, be they in the hero course or not.”

He paused, the memory of his uncle’s funeral flashing through his mind. “As we compete here today, I ask that we all… remember those that have gone before us, and remember the sacrifices that they made to give us the world that we have. I also hope that we keep the future in mind, because when we leave U.A., it will be in our hands to shape the world that comes in the next few decades.

“I suppose what I’m really getting at is that today isn’t just about a contest,” he said as he swiftly wiped at his eyes. “It’s about the people that we want to be, and showing the world who that is. So win or lose, I encourage my classmates to remember who they are, and who they want to be.” Pausing for a quick intake of breath, he then concluded, “Thank you.”

Done talking, he stepped off the podium amid a thunderous applause. Most of his classmates were among those applauding, and even some of the other classes added their hands to his praise.

“Dude, that was such a macho speech!” Kirishima exclaimed.

“I never knew you could speak that well!” Sato added.

“I totally thought you were gonna pass out up there!” Hagakure said, though from where, he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Well spoken, Kurai,” Iida said approvingly.

“Yeah, nice job!” Mina said with a huge grin and a thumbs-up that set Kurai to smiling himself, despite still reeling from his public speaking.

Midnight didn’t give them much of a chance to talk among themselves, though. “All right!” she shouted as she brandished her whip. “Time to cut the chatter! Let’s see what fate has in store for you all! Let’s announce the first game!” So saying, she pointed with her whip at a screen atop the stadium that was still big enough for everyone to see its display clearly.

As soon as she had spoken, the words on the screen began to shift, blurring rapidly in a mixture of colors that reminded the onlookers of a lottery machine. However, it didn’t take long for them to stop moving, displaying the words ‘Obstacle Course’ with a green border around them.

“The rules are simple enough,” Midnight announced. “The course is four kilometers, set to go once around the stadium, with the finish line being exactly where you started.” She licked her lips suggestively as she added, “I don’t want to restrain anyone… at least, not in this round. So don’t leave the course. Other than that, you are free to use your quirks to your heart’s desire!”

“That lady is creepy,” Kurai muttered.

“Contestants! Take your places!”

The eleven classes all gathered as close as each of them could to the exit gate that would lead them out of the stadium, and onto their first challenge. Near the front were the hero course students, all of them looking to get going the instant the buzzer sounded.

“You ready to go, Midoriya?” Kurai asked as he kept his eyes focused down the massive hallway. “Iida?”

“Yeah, thanks to your training,” his green-haired friend answered as lightning crackled along his body.

“I’ve been practicing with Tensei, so I’m more than ready,” Iida added. “Good luck to us all, but let’s not hold back. This is a competition, after all.”

“I have no intentions of doing so,” Kurai declared as he willed his power to begin flowing through him, feeling the tension in the air building to an almost unbearable level. “May the best hero win.”

No sooner than the words had left his mouth than did the buzzer go off, prompting a massive rush of movement from the two-hundred-odd students that were competing in the race. Kurai, Midoriya, and Iida all took off with explosive speed, getting ahead of nearly everyone else instantly.

A chill in the air warned Kurai that Todoroki was on the move, so he immediately leaped in the air, remembering that his classmate could only send his ice travelling along an existing path, not just shoot it wherever he wanted it to go. Midoriya seemed to have a similar idea, because he jumped up, hit the wall, and began to ricochet back and forth between them at high speed, all while heading toward the exit. Most of the other students got frozen in place as Todoroki covered the entire exit in a healthy coat of ice, using his natural athleticism and control of the substance to pull ahead of the pack, ignoring the angry yells that his classmates were hurling at him.

Kurai, on the other hand, decided not to waste his breath, instead unleashing a burst of Energon at the ground where he landed so that he wouldn’t slip on the slick surface. Iida, he could see in his peripheral vison, was more or less skating on the ice, using his engines to propel himself along without actually needing to move his feet. Midoriya nearly ate snow, but he managed to break the ice where he landed, giving himself a solid foothold before he took off after Todoroki at high speed.

He’s been holding out on me, Kurai realized as he watched his friend go, a smile slowly lighting up his face. Well, I guess I don’t have to feel so bad about doing the same! With another surge of energy powering his limbs, he took off after his classmates with a series of powerful jumps, using his energy bolts to break up the ice wherever he needed to land.

Todoroki, Midoriya, and Hikari were the first ones to arrive at the first active hurdle in the obstacle course, though there were plenty of people that caught up as they sized up their opponents.

“Oh hey, a metal piñata,” Kurai laughed as he gazed a half-kilometer’s worth of robots, all of them replicas of the ones that he and the others had fought against in order to make it into U.A. “My birthday isn’t for months, though.”

“That’s a lot of zero-pointers,” Midoriya muttered as he pointed at the giants that towered above all the other metallic constructs. For indeed, there were at least twenty of the massive machines- and all of them were staring down at the approaching students.

“Hmph,” Todoroki muttered before he charged forward, kneeling close to the ground as the robots began to advance on him. “It seems they went to a lot of trouble for all this…” he added, almost to himself. A wave of ice erupted from the ground, freezing every robot in his path as it rolled toward and reached for him. “But I wish that they would have prepared something a little more challenging. Especially since my ‘dear old Dad’ is watching.” Taking his hand off the ground, he resumed his run, making his way beneath the robots to leave his competition behind.

“Let’s go!” Midoriya exclaimed, but Kurai held up a hand to stop him. “Hey, what are-!”

“We can go, but be careful!” he told his friend as he pointed up at the frozen enemies, which were beginning to groan as the ice trapping them cracked. “He froze ‘em off-balance!” With that knowledge in mind, the two used their enhanced speed and reflexes to charge through the mess, even punching through some of the weaker parts of the robots whenever one fell in their path.

It took them a little while, and now Kurai was positive that he could hear Bakugo screaming something at them from behind, but it didn’t matter at the moment. First hurdle jumped, bring on the second! Kurai thought as he and Izuku led the charge in the race to catch up to Todoroki.

Chapter Text

“Ah, dang,” Kurai muttered as he and Midoriya came to an abrupt halt. Stretching before them was a yawning chasm, out from which sprang stone pillars of varying sizes, all connected by cables that they supposed were the way one was meant to cross over. About a kilometer or so on the other side, the course resumed its normal track. The issue was simply in how to get there, as the gaps between the pillars were anywhere from fifty to a hundred meters, with a drop so deep between them, one could not see the bottom. “Somehow, I don’t see many people outside the hero course going across this, even with these ropes.”

“Yeah,” Midoriya said as he took a running start. “Guess it’s a good thing we’ve been training so hard!” With a burst of green lightning, he was in the air, clearing the gap between himself and the nearest pillar in a mere second.

Kurai was surprised- his friend had more guts than he had originally given him credit for, taking a literal leap of faith as he just had. Can’t let him show me up, he thought as he reinforced his limbs with his own power before taking off in pursuit of Midoriya and Todoroki, who was already more than halfway across the chasm. After all, it’s not as though I’m here to be his coach. First place, here I come!

Putting on an extra bust of speed, he easily pulled up alongside- then passed- Izuku, calling back, “Sorry pal, but I think I’ve done enough to help you! You’re on your own from here on out!”

“That’s fine by me!” his friend called back with a grin. “I’ll still beat you!”

“Doubt it!” With that, Kurai was bounding from one pillar to the next, using his muscles in addition to unleashing Energon blasts behind himself whenever he touched the ground to generate explosions that launched him even further than normal. Thanks for the idea, Bakugo.

No sooner than he’d formed the thought, than did he hear a series of explosions that sounded like they were getting closer by the second. Speak of the devil…

He had just cleared the chasm when the loudest explosion yet boomed over his head, accompanied by Bakugo shouting, “Guess that flashy power of yours isn’t so great after all! Later, loser!” With that, the temperamental blond student shot ahead of him, nearly burning him with an explosion from his hands, and causing him to stumble as he was blinded by the heat and smoke.

When his vision cleared, he scowled. Bakugo had put more distance between them than he was comfortable with, and he had a feeling that Midoriya would be catching up to him soon, among other students with speed-enhancing quirks. Okay, no way I’m losing to that guy, he vowed to himself.

Redoubling his speed, he ran for all he was worth after Bakugo, readying an energy bolt in each hand as he did so. He came within a striking distance just before they rounded a corner, whereupon he let loose with both two energy bolts, aiming so that they would collide just above Bakugo’s head.

His quirk did not allow him to make his energy bolts explode whenever he wanted to- they had to make contact with something in order for that to happen. However, after some experimentation, he had discovered that one of his blasts colliding with the other was more than enough to create the desired effect.

Kaboom!

An explosion bigger than he had anticipated slammed Bakugo into the ground so fast that the other boy didn’t even have time to yell. Then, as if that weren’t strange enough, the instant that he hit the ground, another explosion tossed him up and backwards, causing pink smoke to billow up from the ground. He landed in front of Kurai, winded and possibly unconscious, judging from the lack of yelling that was happening.

What in the…?

That’s when he saw the sign with the red skull on it, just before the track widened out into an open area for about a half-kilometer. “Land mines?!” he yelped, realizing what had caused the second explosion. “Seriously?!” As he looked back down at his opponent, he realized that while he was, in fact, out cold, it was likely the triple impact that had knocked him out, not the landmines themselves.

Looking out at the field, he saw Todoroki picking his way carefully among the path, avoiding all the mines as swiftly as he could. They weren’t too hard to spot, give how the earth had been dug up and then repacked to put them underground. The issue was that there were so many, it was difficult to manage any kind of speed while avoiding having your legs blown off.

Actually, these are probably flashbangs, not actual bombs, Kurai thought with a frown as he began to pick his way across the field, leaving Bakugo where he was. He had gone about fifty feet when he heard the sounds of people running behind him. They’re closer than I’d like, not to mention that Todoroki is still in front of me… Let’s see if I can’t slow them down?

Engaging his quirk again, Kurai sent three blasts ahead of him, arcing them so that they would land in front of Todoroki before firing a single shot behind himself. Both attacks had the immediate desired effect, causing several land mines to explode, forcing the people behind him to slow their approach as some of them charged ahead and ended up triggering more land mines, while Todoroki was taken completely by surprise, stumbling in his footing for just the fraction of a second.

Which was the only mistake that Kurai needed him to make. As he stumbled, Todoroki triggered a land mine than blinded him and caused him to stumble back, creating another explosion. As he struggled to regain his footing, Kurai surged ahead, jumping forward while using his quirk to both enhance his strength and aim blasts at any spot that he predicted that he would land on. He stumbled once when he mistimed a blast, but he was able to recover before he wound up fumbling like his classmate.

He was just about to clear the land mines when a wave of cold shot up from behind him, and froze his legs in place, stopping him in his tracks. “Nice try,” he heard Todoroki say just before he skated by. “But it’ll take more than that to stay ahead of me.”

“And you think that this is enough to stop me?”  Kurai shot back. Willing his energy to flare outward, he shattered the ice imprisoning him before taking off at a run on the path that Todoroki had made, careful not to crack through and trigger any more mines. “You’ve only bought yourself a couple of seconds!”

“And that’s all I need,” came the cool reply.

Kurai was about to make his own comment when something rather unexpected happened. First, there was loud explosion at the rear of the landmine zone- too big to be a buried bomb. On instinct, both students looked back, expecting Bakugo to come at them in a fiery rage, but what they saw was nothing short of stunning.

“Midoriya?!” Kurai exclaimed in surprise as he watched his friend shoot up and out of the smoke at a speed that surprised both him and Todoroki. The boy had a big smile on his face as he landed between his classmates, shattering the ice as green energy continued to crackle along his body. Then there was another explosion that launched him forward, leaving them both in the dust with looks of intense surprise on their faces.

Damn, that’s what I should’ve been doing! Kurai thought as he and Todoroki forgot one another in their bid to catch up to the green-haired boy, the half-and-half young man still looking stunned at his classmate’s new abilities.

“Since when has Midoriya been able to do that?!” he panted as he was just managing to stay ahead of Kurai with his ice.

“Since I taught him!” Kurai answered with traces of pride in his voice.

“Then I suppose fortune favors him greatly, with both you and All Might in his corner,” Todoroki replied as the entrance gate loomed before them, causing them to take a sharp turn into its depths. “But I don’t rely on fortune.”

Too late, Kurai realized that Todoroki was dragging his hand on the side of the wall in preparation to use his quirk. Before he could properly react, a wall of ice at least a foot thick had formed between them, causing Kurai to slam into it face-first, stunning him for a second.

“Dick move!” he shouted as he shook his head to clear it. With another yell, he unleashed a beam of energy at the wall that caused it to splinter on impact. Charging forward, he already knew in his heart that he was too late.

Sure enough, as he ran back into the stadium, he could hear Present Mic saying, “AND ANOTHER ONE FROM THE HERO COURSE’S CLASS 1-A, IN THIRD PLACE, IT’S KURAI HIKARI!” The crowd applauded his efforts, even as others began to trickle in from behind him while he caught his breath.

Looking over at Midoriya, he wasn’t surprised to see his comrade standing still, almost dumbstruck at the thought that he had managed to claim victory. I’m gonna need to be more careful around him during the rest of this festival, Kurai thought, though he was happy that his friend had done so well, in light of how it was once a struggle for him to use his quirk at all.

Looking up into the crowd, he turned to a set of box seats where he knew that his family was sitting. He could just barely make them out, given the distance between them, but he could see his mother and brother waving excitedly and cheering for him, while his father was no doubt looking on with his own quiet approval. As he waved back with a smile, he felt glad to know that his family was there to support him that day.

He turned around in time to see Iida coming in behind a couple of other students, one with long green hair and a guy that looked like he had no lips to cover his teeth. Waving him over, Kurai called out, “Hey! Nice to see you made it!”

“If I can’t even win at a race, how am I supposed to stand out as speed-type hero?” his friend complained. “This is humiliating.”

“Aw, come on,” Kurai laughed. “What’d you get, fifth place? Sixth? Either one is still pretty good.”

“Sixth,” Iida nodded as he wiped sweat off his brow. “I suppose you’re right. It could have been much worse.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I lost out to Todoroki and Midoriya,” Kurai said as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Yes, I expected such a showing from you and Todoroki, but I must say, Midoriya was quite the unexpected surprise,” his best friend said as he looked over at their classmate. “I thought that he couldn’t use his quirk without hurting himself.”

“We’ve been training together since I got out of the hospital,” Kurai admitted. “A pro-quo, if you will, was made. I help him figure out how to use his quirk without shredding his bones, and he helps me figure out how to use my transformation without killing myself.”

“Seems a fair trade,” Iida nodded as he adjusted his glasses while more students came staggering into the stadium. “And it explains why you were so busy most afternoons these past couple of weeks. Did you both benefit from the exchange, though?”

“I’d say so,” Kurai replied with a slight grin.

“DAMMIT!” Both students gave a start of surprise when they heard Bakugo screaming as he flew into the stadium over everyone’s heads, landing in a clear spot, breathing hard and growling through his teeth. Once he managed to stand, he bellowed, “Where’s the bastard that blew me up?!”

Iida looked down at Kurai who was assuming an innocent air. He did, however, preempt his taller friend by saying, “Just don’t make eye contact.”

Once a certain number of students had crossed the finish line, Midnight announced that the race was over, and that the other students could return to the stadium on their own time. As for those that were already inside the arena, she called them over to gather in front of the podium again. Even though everyone had just been competing against one another a few minutes ago, some friend groups clumped together, like Iida, Midoriya, Uraraka, Ashido, Asui, and Kurai.

“Now then,” Midnight began, brandishing her whip as she gestured toward the screen she was standing in front of. “What do we have in store for you next? A nightmare? Or a fantasy?” The way she asked the last part made Kurai very uncomfortable.

Once again, the screen began to spin like a lottery machine, too fast for the eye to follow the individual options that were flying by, right up until the words ‘Cavalry Battle’ appeared amid a yellow frame. “We have a classic one for you!” Midnight announced.

“Like the playground game?” Kurai muttered out loud. “I was never allowed to play that one…”

“Why not?” Midoriya asked him.

“Back when I didn’t have my quirk under control as well as I do now, I was a lot stronger than other kids my age,” he answered flatly. “I wound up hurting some of my classmates on accident. I wasn’t allowed to horse around like the others anymore, and no one really wanted to be around me because of that incident.”

“The rules are simple!” Midnight was now saying, heading off any further discussion on the subject. “Each of you may form teams of anywhere between two and four people, with each person having points assigned to them based on their placing in the Obstacle Course!”

“Oh, so different teams will have different point values based on the people making up the team,” Uraraka commented.

“Yeah-huh!” Mina grinned.

Apparently, Midnight heard them, because she cracked her whip at them and shouted, “How about you all shut up while I explain the rules!” With the students subdued, she went on to grumble, “Starting with forty-second place, the value is five points. From there on, each spot gets an additional five points added to their score, so forty-first gets ten points, fortieth is worth fifteen, and so on, until…”

A scoreboard appeared on the screen as Midnight added with a wicked smile, “The person that came in first place is worth… ten million points!”

Everyone immediately turned to look at Midoriya, who looked as though he just might pass out from that particular piece of news. And suddenly I’m glad I didn’t make first place, Kurai thought with a measure of sympathy for his friend. If his team gets taken down, the group that did it will have just as good as won this round.

“That’s right,” Midnight purred. “If you can take down the number one player, you will certainly be able to move on to the final round.” After allowing herself a coy grin, she went on to say, “Each team will be given a headband based on the points they total up to. These are worn on the head.” As she spoke, illustrations matching her words appeared on the screen, in this case, a picture of All Might wearing a band that read ‘50’ on it. “You can steal the headbands of other players, and these must be worn around the neck. However, while you are allowed to use your quirks as much as you desire, you may not make another team fall over, or shove them out of bounds. I’ll slap you with a red card, disqualifying you.”

Kurai was fairly certain that it physically pained Bakugo to hear that.

“If your team goes out of bounds on its own, you will also be ejected from the game,” Midnight added. “Other than that, do as you please! You’ve got fifteen minutes to choose your teams! So get moving, chop chop!” With a final crack of her whip, Midnight stepped aside, while a countdown for fifteen minutes appeared on the screen.

Kurai immediately found himself swarmed by people who wanted to join up with him, which set him on edge a little- he still didn’t do well with crowds. It was understandable, given that he would already have plenty of points himself, plus his battle skills were the subject of much admiration among the majority of the school.

“Pick me!” Sato was saying.

“No way, I’m your guy!” Sero interjected.

“You’ll need my quirk!” That was Jiro.

“I don’t wanna beg, but please!” Aoyama whimpered.

Kurai looked around at all of them before shrugging and saying, “Sorry, guys. I’ve already got a team picked out.” Ignoring his classmates’ protests and cries of disbelief, Kurai walked over to a grinning Mina as he asked, “So, how about it?”

“Totally!” she nodded. “I’m glad we get a chance to work on the same team, at least this once!”

“Me too,” he said with his own smile. “But I do have one other person in mind…”

“Tall, glasses, engines in his legs?” Mina guessed.

“Huh,” Kurai blinked. “I’m surprised you aren’t upset about me wanting him on the team.”

“Why would I be?” she shrugged. “Sure, he’s kind of a hard case, but he’s super-talented, and smart. Plus, he’s your friend. Why wouldn’t I be okay with him on our team?”

“I… don’t know,” Kurai realized aloud. “Huh. I worry about stupid things, don’t I?”

“Uh-huh!” she giggled. “Mind if I ask Su to join us? She’d make a great rider.”

“Actually, that’s a pretty great idea,” Kurai nodded. “Sure, go find her. I’ll get Iida.”

He found his friend, having just walked away from Midoriya and Uraraka, a grim set to his mouth. “Hey, pal,” Kurai said as he approached, catching the bespectacled boy by surprise. Looking over his shoulder, he asked, “Turned down Midoriya? I thought you guys were like the golden trio of our class?”

“Golden quartet, if we include you,” Iida replied with a subdued smile that gave Kurai a sinking feeling. “But yes, I turned him down. And I’m afraid that I won’t be joining you, either, old friend.”

“Seriously?!” Kurai exclaimed. “I haven’t even made my offer yet!”

“I know, but I’ll tell you the same thing that I told Midoriya,” Iida replied, his tone kind enough. “You’re a great friend, and I couldn’t be prouder to be in the same class as you. But right now, we’re rivals in this competition, aiming to claim the number one spot for ourselves. As much as I wish it were otherwise, only one person can be the best. And since this competition has begun, I’ve lost to you and Midoriya both. So please don’t take it as an insult when I tell you that I need to do my best to defeat the both of you.” With those words, he bowed to his dumbstruck friend before walking over to join Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari.

“Damn,” was all that the boy could think to say. That did not go the way I thought it would.

He was further surprised when Mina walked up to him, saying that Asui had chosen a different team, too. “Huh…” he said blankly, movement catching in the corner of his eye. With a sudden jolt, he grabbed Mina and said, “We can still work with this!”

“Huh?!” she squawked in alarm.

He stopped in front of Midoriya and Uraraka, both of them looking more or less dejected. “Hey guys,” he said with a light grin. “Got room on your team for two?”

“Hey!” Izuku said, immediately perking up. “Are you guys sure? I mean, everyone is gonna be after us because of my headband… It won’t be easy.”

“Pfft, this competition isn’t gonna be easy no matter what team we’re on,” Mina said dismissively. “At this point, we’re better off working with friends that know what we’re all about! Plus, it’s not like any of our quirks are something to scoff at. We can work with this!”

“Yeah!” Uraraka said excitedly. “I’d like to work with you guys, too!”

“I think we have a pretty solid team here,” Kurai added. “I think I might even have something in the way of a formation, too.”

“Hold it right there!” shouted a high-pitched girl’s voice, the owner sounding a little… unhinged? “I saw him first!” They all turned to see a girl with pink hair and binoculars approaching them on some kind of hover boots. Then she thrust her face invasively close to Midoriya and shouted, “Team up with me, person in first place!” She was also decked out in an assortment of other items that led Kurai to believe that she must have been from the support course- only they carried around that many gadgets.

“U-Uh…” Midoriya stammered, unsure of how to respond to her powerful personality.

“Hey, why do you think you get to just come in here and join up?” Mina demanded. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we got here first, not you. Go find another team!”

“No way!” the girl shouted back. “Everyone’s gonna be watching the guy that came in first, so I want to use that to my advantage! If he starts wearing my inventions, my beautiful babies are sure to be noticed by hero support companies! It’s a sure way for me to win!”

“Did’ja miss the part where my friend said to go find another team?” Kurai said with a frown. “We’re full. Please, go away.”

“Not happening!” the girl shot back, her eyes still fixed on a very nervous Midoriya. “I’m Mei Hatsume, and I’ll be joining your team, person in first place!”

“Uh… th-thanks for the offer, b-but I can’t just abandon my friends,” he replied hesitantly. “I’m s-sure that there’s another team you could join that’ll help you get noticed…”

“Not as fast as if I’m with you!” she insisted, the word ‘no’ apparently not registering in her head. “Let’s ditch these extras!”

“Extras?!” Mina and Uraraka exclaimed, furious with the new girl.

“Man, she and Bakugo would get along great,” Kurai commented.

Her last comment only seemed to harden Midoriya’s resolve. “The answer is no,” he said more firmly now. “I can understand you wanting to join up with me, but I won’t be partnering up with anyone who thinks that their comrades are unnecessary. Sorry, Hatsume, but you’re going to have to find another team to join.”

“Fine!” the girl said as she turned on her heel and hovered away. “But I’ll bet people will still wanna hire me if my tech takes down the guy at the top!” And with that, she was off, laughing the whole way.

“That was weird,” Kurai muttered. Turning back to Midoriya, he added, “Thanks, by the way- for sticking up for us.”

“N-No problem,” the boy said as he reddened, noticing that Uraraka and Mina were smiling at him appreciatively. “A-Anyways, we should strategize.”

They walked off the area where the Cavalry Battle would take place, almost up against the wall and away from other students so as to have some privacy. “Okay, I’ve got a plan, too,” the green-haired boy said once they all sat down together. “Would you like to go first, though?” he asked Kurai.

“Sure,” he replied with a sharp nod. “I’m thinking that if we have Uraraka as the lead with me as the rider, your Full Cowling and Mina’s Acid combined will make us pretty mobile, not to mention people aren’t gonna wanna chase after us so fast if it means stepping in acid, which gives us breathing room. Uraraka’s Zero Gravity would also mean that she could pull us along with a lot less effort, not to mention I can keep people at a distance with my Energon blasts, and whack ‘em with my fists if they get too close for comfort.”

“Actually, that’s pretty close to what I thought up, but with one major difference,” Midoriya said excitedly. “In my version of the plan, we have Uraraka and me in the back, with Ashido up front. If she uses an acid that isn’t super corrosive, we can use it to slide around a lot faster with me and Uraraka doing the pushing from the rear, since everyone but her would be weightless. I think you as the rider is the safest bet, though, since you would be the best at keeping people back, so long as we don’t make anyone fall over.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Kurai nodded as he looked down at his gauntlets. “These have been doing a good job on limiting my power thus far, so I have perfect control over my faculties. The only issue I had today was when I blasted Bakugo, and the explosion was a lot bigger than I thought it would be- almost like he blasted himself somehow.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Midoriya replied, surprising his classmate. Seeing that a further explanation was required, he added, “Bakugo’s quirk works like nitroglycerin that’s secreted from his palms, which he can then blow up. It seems to me like when you hit him, you must have made more of the stuff ignite than he meant to, which is why the blast would have been so much bigger than you expected.”

“Good to know,” Kurai nodded, filing the information away for later use. “For now, though, we need to decide on a game plan. I’m fine either way, but to me it seems that it’s a question of speed versus stability.”

“How so?” Mina asked.

“Think about it,” Kurai replied patiently. “If you’re the lead horse with Midoriya and Uraraka pushing, we’d absolutely be faster for it. However, if the two of them don’t exert the same amount of force, we could end up flat on our faces if Midoriya pushed harder than Uraraka with his quirk. On the other hand, with my idea, we won’t be nearly as fast, what with her having to pull us all along, even if we’re weightless. We could only move as fast as she could run- no offense.” He added the last part with an apologetic bow towards his classmate.

“No problem,” she said, a thoughtful look on her face. “You’re right, we do need to think about this carefully, and we can’t afford to delude ourselves about our abilities right now.”

“I say we go for speed,” Mina declared. Turning to Kurai, she laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Sorry, sweetie, but I think Midoriya is right on this one.”

“In this kind of competition, we can’t really afford to play it safe,” Izuku asserted. “We have to take some risks if we’re gonna hold on to our headband.”

“I dunno, shouldn’t we try to play it safe since we’ll be on defense?” Uraraka pointed out. “Maybe our efforts shouldn’t be focused on speed so much as making sure we’re stable.”

“Hmm…” Kurai mused as everyone waited for him to cast his own vote. After a few moments of quiet thought, he said, “Let’s follow Midoriya’s plan. He’s right- we can’t afford to play it safe when there won’t be any safety for our team in the first place.”

“Team Midoriya!” Mina grinned as she put her hand out. “C’mon, let’s do it!”

“Team Midoriya,” Kurai agreed as he laid his hand on top of hers’.

“Team Midoriya,” Uraraka added, putting her hand on Kurai’s.

“T-Team Midoriya,” Izuku stammered as he put his hand on the top of the pile. Firming up his chin, he said, “Let’s go beyond, guys!”

“Plus Ultra!”

Chapter Text

“Ready?” Midoriya asked as he set his feet firmly on the ground.

“Ready,” Uraraka answered as she prepared her quirk.

“Good to go!” Mina declared as she started secreting a mild acid from her feet.

“Let’s do it,” Kurai nodded as he wrapped the coveted headband underneath his hairline. Checking to make sure that his gauntlets were still properly secured, he conjured two glowing balls of energy just as the timer announcing the beginning of the cavalry battle went off.

Fifteen minutes, he thought as he cast his eyes about, noticing that everyone was already targeting their team. We can evade the others for that long… I think.

“We need some breathing room!” Mina exclaimed as the others began to get nervous from the proximity of the other teams closing in on them.

“I’m on it!” Kurai grunted as he flung his arms with intent, hurling a barrage of Energon blasts in front of their opponents. The purpose was to deter them from approaching with any great amount of speed, and since he couldn’t actually hit them with the intent to make them fall, he made sure to aim carefully.

The series of small explosions that erupted across the field mostly did the trick, with a few notable exceptions. Todoroki’s team charged through the debris, his group comprised of Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, and Iida as acting the horses, with the bespectacled young man taking on the role of lead horse. Coming up from the left, also undeterred by the show of power was team Bakugo, the crazed blond student riding atop a combination of Kirishima in the front, with Sero and Hatsume in the back.

“Wait, why’d Hatsume team up with a guy that came in eighteenth?!” Uraraka shouted in surprise as Kurai urged them to get ready for a jump.

“Bakugo’s attitude sucks, but his power is no joke!” Kurai replied as he checked to make sure that Midoriya was getting ready to make the leap with Full Cowling.

He was. “Kacchan’s quirk is also easy to spot, so it stands to reason that Hatsume would team up with him if she wants to get noticed!” the green-haired boy added as verdant lightning danced across his body. “We’re all set!”

“Sorry, Midoriya, but you’re goin’ nowhere fast!” Sero shouted before he extended his arm and wrapped up his target in strong tape from his elbow.

“I told ya you’d regret not teaming up with me!” Mei laughed maniacally as she fired off some kind of trip wire that wrapped itself around Mina, who squawked in alarm as she was caught. “If I take down the guy in first place, everyone’ll see my babies for how brilliant they are!”

“The only one who’s taking anybody down is ME!” Bakugo roared as he launched himself forward unexpectedly, leaving his team behind in a cloud of smoke that seemed to surprise them as much as his opponents. He stretched out his hand as he flew at Kurai, his eyes wild as he screamed, “DIE!”

“Reverse jump!” Kurai shouted.

“We’re on it!” Midoriya yelled as he heaved mightily, flexing his muscles to snap Sero’s tape like it was wax paper, while Mina melted through the wire entrapping her, even as Uraraka erased their group’s gravity so that Midoriya only had to lift her weight as he jumped back and out of the reach of Bakugo, who cursed as Sero’s tape snatched him back from hitting the ground. Underneath the escaping team, several groups looked up at them with surprise.

“Guys, we’re gonna be landing soon!” Uraraka alerted them.

“Wait, how do we brace for a backwards landing?!” Mina asked desperately as she bent her knees to absorb the incoming impact.

“We don’t,” Kurai asserted as he readied his quirk. “Get ready for a forward landing, on my mark. Mina, calibrate- mark!”

“Set!” she called up almost instantly after that.

The phrase was used by them during training in order to coordinate each other’s current reaction times, so that if one of them needed to call for a maneuver from the other, they would know exactly how quickly the other could respond. And in a situation like this, timing was everything. Judging distances with an eye that had been honed to a practitioner’s level over the course of the last ten years, Kurai unleashed twin beams of Energon behind them, generating an explosion that changed their reverse descent into a forward one.

“Now!” he shouted.

Mina sprayed a coat of mild acid in front of her, allowing them to slide further forward, and away from a handful of student teams that were already chasing after them. Their opponents, not knowing entirely what it was, either tried to avoid the liquid entirely, or wound up slipping and sliding through the grayish substance. Kurai’s team could smell burning rubber, but Mina had assured them that the substance wouldn’t eat through their shoes as long as they didn’t have to resort to such a tactic too many times.

The issue is, most everyone else is out to get us! Kurai thought as sweat lined his brow. Glancing at the clock, he realized that not even three minutes had passed since the second round had begun, and already they were having too many close calls.

We need to change tactics, he thought grimly. “All right, if we keep running away, we’re just gonna tire ourselves out,” he told the others. “New plan- go on the offensive!”

“Are you crazy?!” Mina shouted back at him. “We need to defend your headband to the death, not be going after other people when we’ve already got enough to worry about!”

“Precisely my point!” he countered as he blasted a spot in front of a charging trio that were aiming to sideswipe them, forcing the other students to swerve away from them. “We have too many people to worry about already! At this rate, one of us might make a mistake that costs us our ticket to the finals! We need a back-up plan for if we lose the ten-million headband!”

“He’s right!” Midoriya agreed. “Pros always need to be planning ahead for fallbacks and unexpected consequences!”

“Who do we target, then?” Uraraka asked.

“Whoever comes near us!” Kurai roared as his hand shot out, punching a purple-haired student in the face when he came too close, using his other hand to grab at his headband and rip it free as they recoiled angrily. Tying the band around his neck, Kurai added, “If they know that we’re taking headbands from people that challenge us, they might think twice about trying to take the prize. And if someone does manage to snag it, then we can still advance on our gathered spoils of combat.”

“Wow,” Midoriya said as he looked up at his teammate nervously. “That punch was kinda vicious, Hikari.”

“Sorry, couldn’t be helped,” Kurai replied grimly. “I can’t afford to second-guess my actions here, what with everyone after us.”

“Won’t they be after us even more now?!” Mina asked as she swerved to avoid another charging group, which Kurai zapped and then stole a pair of headbands from. “We’re adding up to be an even bigger target than before! People are gonna want those back!”

“People will be after us either way,” her boyfriend said with a negative shake of his head. “Like I said before, we need a fallback plan.” Glancing at the numbers gathered in his hand, he muttered, “I think we have somewhere around eight hundred extra points now.”

“I’d feel better if we had a little more than that, but I doubt we’re gonna get the chance,” Midoriya said nervously as the temperature around them began to drop. Kurai realized then that a wall of solid ice was forming to his left, the source coming from behind them.

“Crap, we gotta move!” he said as he twisted in his seat to look back at Todoroki’s team, rapidly approaching them with grim faces. “Get ready for another jump!”

“I don’t think so!” Iida shouted at them, even as another wall of ice, this one even higher than the other, sprang up in front of Kurai’s team, effectively wedging them into a corner with no way out- or so their attackers would have liked to believe.

Approaching at a much more measured pace now, Todoroki declared, “I’ll be taking your headband now, Midoriya, Hikari.”

“Not happening,” Kurai said stubbornly, noting that the half-and-half teenager had already gathered a few headbands himself in addition to his own, worth 665 points. In a lower voice, he added, “Stay to his left.”

“How come?” Uraraka asked, even though she and the others moved to do as he asked.

“Todoroki doesn’t ever use his left side in combat,” Midoriya answered for him. “I don’t know if it’s because it gets harder for him to use the more he uses his ice, and that’s what he prefers to do in combat, or it’s something else entirely. Either way, he doesn’t use fire to attack, and we can exploit that, right Hikari?”

“I’m surprised you managed to sum that up without throwing up a concordance,” Kurai said with a grin and a thumbs-up to his friend, who reddened a little. “But yeah, he’s right. And thanks to this ice wall, it’ll take a while for any other students to get in, if they even can. By my estimate, we’ve got a little less than ten minutes to go, so the longer that this drags out, the better it is for us.”

“Besides, if things get a little too tense in here, we can always just blast or melt our way out,” Mina grinned while Todoroki frowned at them.

“Good point,” Kurai nodded. Lowering his tone a little, he leaned forward and asked, “How are your feet doing? They aren’t strained too badly from all the acid?”

“Nah, not when it’s mild like the stuff I’ve been putting out,” she answered. “Why, what’s up?”

“Can you make some stronger stuff and put it between us and them?” he requested as he straightened up. “I’ll feel a little better if Iida isn’t so inclined to just jet over here at top speed.” He had noticed that their opponents were wearing roller skates, which allowed them to slide along as fast as Iida’s Engine Quirk could push them- Yaoyorozu’s doing, he was certain.

“You got it, sweetie,” she grinned as he reddened a little, her feet now oozing out a substance that coated the ground in front of them with an acid that hissed as it began to eat away at the concrete, causing their classmates to blanch at the sight.

“Are you crazy?!” Iida shouted at them. “That could really hurt somebody!”

“Not against the rules, buddy,” Kurai smirked confidently as they maintained their distance. “See, if we threw the stuff at you and hurt you, it’d be on us. But now it’s just sitting there, which means that if you step in it, that’s your fault. And while Todoroki’s long-range attacks are impressive, they get more imprecise with distance. He can’t hit us with an ice barrage without risking us falling over due to the attack- you’d all be disqualified for that.”

The grimaces that he received in response was all Kurai needed to know that he was right. Unfortunately, in his desire to isolate the team with the ten million-point headband, Todoroki had backed himself into an untenable position, a fact that he had realized just a little too late.

“What happened to your declaration of war?” Kurai said as he taunted the other boy. Shifting his gaze down to look at Iida, he couldn’t help but add, “And you, pal? I thought you were gonna do your best to surpass me?”

“Be careful,” Midoriya warned their rider, cautious of him becoming overconfident now that they had a few moments of respite from the other students. “He didn’t get into U.A. on recommendation for no reason. He’ll come up with something, given enough time.”

“Yeah, good point,” Kurai replied, realizing that he was growing dangerously close to acting in arrogance. “Thanks, Midoriya.” Keeping his eyes fixed on his opponents’, he asked, “How’s everyone holding up?”

“I’m not even feeling nauseous yet, so I’m okay,” Uraraka replied, even as Present Mic announced that there were only five minutes remaining in the competition.

“My feet are a little achy now, but I’ll be fine,” Mina assured him, her voice flavored with a cheeky grin.

“Full Cowling is working great thanks to all of our training, so I’m not even bruised from using my quirk,” Midoriya added with a smile of his own. “We might actually be okay here!”

“Think again!” A warped, booming voice bellowed, even as a shadow obscured the sun.

“What the-?! Move!” Kurai shouted as he realized what was headed for them. They got out of the way just in time for Shoji to land where they had been, his arms wrapped around his back to form a dome made of flesh and bone, from which a monstrous shadow with orange eyes was erupting, bellowing at them with the head of a raven.

“Whoa!” Midoriya exclaimed as the three teams all took up positions to form a rough triangle. “Is that… Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow?!”

“Looks like,” Kurai nodded, his eyes flicking back and forth between their two enemy teams. “I don’t remember it being that big and powerful, though.” He had seen the quirk in action only once, back during their basic combat training with All Might, and that was through surveillance footage. Either he was holding back during his match, or that footage was of a lesser quality- and U.A. is able to afford all the nice toys, so I doubt that was due to a bad feed… But I also didn’t think of Tokoyami as the kind of guy to hold back.

Regardless, Shoji and Tokoyami- they all assumed that the other student was hiding out in the flesh-dome that Shoji had made- were on the side of Todoroki that his ice powers came from, so even if they had almost taken Kurai’s team by surprise, their position was now the most unstable.

Even so, Kurai had energy blasts at the ready, just in case the shadow monster came at them. He wasn’t sure that his bolts would do anything against it, but there was no point in not trying if it came to that. Besides, since the thing wasn’t really a student, he could probably let loose on it if it got too close for comfort.

“What’re you-”

Whoosh. Kurai was cut off as the shadow erupted into a blur of motion that was too fast for even him to track; and he’d gone up against Nomu. A shallow scrape began to weep on his forehead, and when he clutched at it, he realized with a terrified start that the headband was gone. “The hell?!” he gasped as he looked over at Shoji, who hadn’t even moved.

“Lookin’ for this?” The shadow atop his back waggled the ten million-point band in front of the massive student before retreating into the shell that it was coming from. Off to the side, Todoroki’s team looked just as shocked by the new turn of events as Kurai’s team felt.

“Since when was he that fast?!” Midoriya gaped. Kurai could practically see the wheels turning in his friend’s mind, so he tapped him firmly on the head, causing the green-haired boy to look up at him with wide eyes.

“Theorize later,” he told him as he wiped more blood off his brow, ignoring the stinging that it produced. Clutching at his neck, he felt a measure of relief as he was able to say, “We’ve got the other headbands. We should have enough to pass on to the next round.”

“No, we can’t just settle like this!” Midoriya insisted. “We’re supposed to be aiming for the top; plus ultra, remember?!”

“Midoriya, that thing just took my headband faster than Nomu took a swipe at my intestines, there’s no way I can match him with my gauntlets on!” Kurai told him firmly. “I wanna come out on top too, but not at the risk of losing what we’ve already worked to achieve! Besides, blood keeps getting in my eyes- if I’m not careful, I’ll end up blinded, and then how will I defend against any incoming attacks?”

Even as he spoke, Tokoyami’s Shadow began tunneling through the ice wall to escape, Todoroki urging his comrades to follow them, Kurai’s team already forgotten in the pursuit of the prize headband. Seeing this, Mina muttered, “We’re probably better off just staying here, guys. We can defend ourselves easier, plus once everyone realizes that Shoji and Tokoyami have the ten million, they’ll likely forget that we’re even here.”

“Yeah, I’d feel safer with that plan,” Uraraka agreed.

“…Okay, then,” Midoriya nodded, mindful of the scoreboard that he could see above one of the ice walls. “We’re sitting at third place right now, and there’s only a couple of minutes left in the game. If we maintain that until the last minute, then we’re fine. But if we drop down to fourth, we can’t afford to play it safe- we’ll need to hunt for other headbands, too.”

“I can agree to that,” Kurai nodded, once again wiping at his forehead nervously, wincing as his abrasion protested angrily. “I still really want to know how Tokoyami powered up his quirk like that, though…”

The group made it to the final round, though it was a close thing. The team stayed inside of the icy fortress made by their opponent, Mina’s guess about being forgotten by the other teams proving to be prophetic. In the last ten seconds, the scoreboard rearranged itself a few times, with the end results being something of a surprise.

First place was Team Shoji, which had been comprised of himself, Tokoyami, and Asui. The last member surprised the other students- they hadn’t even realized that she was there in the first place. Although after a moment of thought, it did make sense that the two training partners would team up again.

Team Todoroki came in second quite handily, followed closely by Team Bakugo, who had made a last-minute comeback after being robbed of their points by a team from Class B.

There was a large gap in the numbers between the explosive boys’ team and Kurai’s, but they managed to scrape by into the finals with just sixty more points than the people in fifth place. Still, it was relief to have made it into the next round, where everyone would be able to stand out in a singular nature with the setting of a combat tournament.

“That was closer than I would have liked,” Midoriya sighed as the team dissolved, Kurai finally ripping off one of the sleeves on his uniform to make a bandage for his head, which Mina helped him tie in place.

“Hey, we made it, and that’s the important part!” Uraraka said cheerfully.

Midoriya smiled at her and replied, “Yeah… You’re right, Uraraka.”

“Good job, all of us,” Kurai said as he grinned at the others, swaying a little dizzily as he stood in place, Mina moving to help keep him upright. “I’m really glad that we were able to… uh, work together to move on.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Ashido asked him worriedly as they began to make their way out of the ice wall, him leaning on her for support.

“I feel pretty light-headed,” he admitted. “I shoulda bandaged myself a lot sooner…”

“Ya know, you’re the last person that should be needing a lecture about head wounds,” she said with a mild frown.

“Sorry…” he sighed.

“Are you gonna be able to stay for the announcement of the tournament brackets, or should we take you to see Recovery Girl?” Uraraka asked worriedly.

“As long as I have help standing up, I should be okay,” Kurai grunted. “But… I might need help remembering the match-ups.”

“Yeah, you’re going to see the nurse,” Mina decided with a huff and a small grin as they stepped out of the cold barrier. “Come on, big guy.”

“We’ll let you guys know about the lineup when we meet up for lunch!” Midoriya told them as they walked off the field.

“Sure!” Mina called back with a wave. “See you guys in a bit!”

“Hold on!” The pair was surprised to see Tokoyami running up to them, short on breath as he stopped a few paces away. Looking at Kurai with a concern that surprised the couple, he asked, “Are you all right? I tried to hold Dark Shadow back, but I was only able to just barely control him as he was.”

“He’s gotta get to the nurse now, cos he’s been bleeding pretty bad from his head,” Mina said a little irritably. “Why’d you hit him that hard?!”

“I wasn’t trying to hit him, merely have Dark Shadow grab the headband,” the other young man replied earnestly. “The creature has a mind of its own, you see. Sometimes he’s harder to control, especially when he’s more powerful, and he was resisting my commands to remain docile.” Bowing deeply to Kurai, the raven-headed boy said, “I am truly sorry for injuring you so badly, Hikari. I promise that it was a mistake, one that I will do my best to avoid in the future.”

“It’s okay,” the other boy said tiredly with a smile. “You got me by surprise, that’s for sure. But if we fight in the tournament, I’ll be ready for you next time. Count on it.”

“I will,” Tokoyami said as he straightened up. “I wish you good luck, Hikari.”

“Thanks,” Kurai laughed as Mina led him away. “I think I’m gonna need it.”

Fortunately it was only a quick visit to an irritated Recovery Girl that fixed him up, though she did mention that she disliked having such regular customers. After giving her a promise to be more careful in the future, Mina and Kurai were headed up to the cafeteria, where they would have a healthy meal waiting for them with their friends.

“I wonder who we’re gonna have to fight in the first round,” Mina thought aloud as she intertwined her hand with Kurai’s, causing him to blush a little at the confidence of her grip. “Is there anyone in particular that you want to fight, Kurai?”

“Um, maybe Kirishima?” he answered. “His defensive powers would make for an entertaining match against me, let us both show what we’re made of without needing to hold back too much. What about you?”

“I wanna fight Su if I can,” Mina replied immediately. “She’s super agile, so it’d be a good test to see if I’ve gotten more accurate with my acid. Plus I’m no slouch when it comes to dodging, either.” Giving him an impish look, she added, “I gotta say that I’m surprised that you don’t wanna fight Iida. Aren’t boys always trying to outdo their friends and all that?”

“That’s a given,” Kurai chuckled. “I dunno, I guess I just didn’t think too much about it, since we’ve always been rivals in that sense. It was just something I kind of felt like would happen anyway.”

“I guess that… kinda makes sense?” Ashido giggled as they turned down the hallway to head for the main building. “Let’s just hope that we don’t have to fight each other, you know?”

“Why, are you afraid?” he tried to tease her, only to see the look in her eyes and realize too late that he had just walked into a trap.

“Yeah, afraid that I’ll have to melt that cute butt of yours’,” she laughed as he turned a deep scarlet, the sound ringing and redoubling down the passages.

“Stop doing that!” he begged.

“But you’re just so adorable when you turn that color!” she giggled. “I can’t help it!”

“Ah, Kurai!” Iida said with a welcoming smile as he waved the pair over once they entered the lunch room. They saw that Uraraka was with him, three empty seats surrounding them, but with Midoriya nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, pal,” Kurai said as they approached to take their own seats, food already having been set aside for them. “Congratulations on making it to the final event.”

“Likewise,” his taller friend smiled back. “Sorry if I offended you before the match. It was not my intent to harm our friendship.”

“Not at all, I get where you were coming from,” Kurai replied before digging into his food hungrily. “All’s well that ends well, huh?”

“Exactly my thoughts,” Iida replied with a sharp nod. “I have to say, I didn’t expect you to include Ashido in your team with Uraraka and Midoriya. Though I must admit, her acid quirk made it all but impossible for us to approach you with any sort of aggression.”

“Uraraka and I have been training with each other, so we figured we could work together,” Ashido half-lied quickly, before Kurai got tripped up. “It worked out well enough, right?”

“Yes indeed!” Iida nodded again.

“Speaking of Deku, have either of you guys seen him?” Uraraka asked a little worriedly as she looked at the empty seat next to her. “I haven’t seen him since we finished the cavalry battle.”

“Nah, we went straight to Recovery Girl’s office, then came here,” Mina shrugged. “I’m sure he’s probably just updating that notebook he’s always using to record data about quirks that he notices.”

“Probably,” Kurai nodded. “Hey, did they announce the brackets for the tourney yet?” Even though the first events varied from year to year, the Sports Festival always ended with a battle tournament.

“Not yet,” Iida answered with a negative shake of his head. “I believe they mentioned something about extra activities for the teams that didn’t advance, so it may be some time before we are told who it is that we will be fighting.”

“Aw man, the suspense is gonna kill me…” Mina groaned.

“Here’s to hoping that we can test our mettle against one another, eh, Kurai?” Iida asked his friend challengingly.

“Just don’t go running home when I beat you,” Kurai replied with a good-natured smirk. “I know where you live.”

The hour-long lunch break passed by quickly enough. Midoriya joined them about fifteen minutes into it, but simply replied that he’d been in the bathroom when he was questioned about where he’d been. The five of them ate and talked, laughing at various stories told by Kurai and Iida at each other’s expense. Kurai supposed it was fun getting to have some down time after a morning full of adrenaline and aching muscles.

Once their leisure time was up and Kurai had obtained a new P.E. outfit, the entirety of the freshman class was once again on the field of the arena. Midnight stood before them on the podium, the massive screen behind her coming to life with the image of a tournament bracket fully mapped out, save for the names missing at the bottom sixteen slots.

“Now that the preliminary matches are over with, it’s time to announce the order in which the matches of the final event will be held!” she declared, brandishing her whip. “However, due to the uneven number of students that made it here, we have left it up to the team that came in fifth place to choose a member of their group to advance in the finals!”

While said group began to debate among themselves as to who should get to move on, Kurai and his friends all exchanged nervous glances. The reason for their apprehension was obvious- which of them would be pitted against one another? Who would they have to knock down in order to advance their standing in the tournament?

These questions burned in their minds with a fever pitch for a few minutes, until Midnight announced that a student named Tetsutetsu would be advancing. For some reason, this seemed to irritate Kirishima, but Kurai couldn’t figure out why that would be.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Midnight declared as she pointed up to the screen, which began to fill in with the names of the students that would be competing in the battle event.

The rounds were arranged thusly:

Round 1: Kirishima vs. Tetsutetsu

Round 2: Shoji vs. Midoriya

Round 3: Todoroki vs. Sero

Round 4: Asui vs. Kaminari

Round 5: Iida vs. Hatsume

Round 6: Hikari vs. Ashido

Round 7: Yaoyorozu vs. Tokoyami

Round 8: Uraraka vs. Bakugo

Mina and Kurai immediately exchanged a look, she giving him an impish grin while he reddened slightly. For all his assurances before the festival, he hadn’t actually expected to end up going head-to-head with her in open combat.

This thought process was interrupted by Iida, who clapped his friend on the shoulder as he said, “Best of luck to you in your first battle, Kurai. I hope to see you in round two.”

“Y-Yeah,” Kurai replied distractedly, looking up at him. “Same you to you, pal.”

He noticed that Uraraka looked very nervous, and it was no wonder why. She has to fight him, of all people? He thought with a wince. I feel bad for her… There was no question in his mind that Bakugo would unleash all of his destructive powers against her, gender notwithstanding. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter to the blond kid- he would crush anyone that stood against him.

Then again, if he and I both make it to the semi-finals, maybe I can show him what it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot, he thought grimly.

He barely registered Midnight’s announcement that there would be a series of mini-games for all students to compete in, if they so chose. Apparently it was an opportunity for students to stand out a little more to any scouts in audience if they had done poorly in the previous events, or if they just wanted to have a little fun. Kurai knew that it would be better for him if he skipped the bonus games, especially with how much he had been using his quirk for the previous events.

As he walked off the field, he was joined by Mina, who slipped her hand into his, much to his surprise. “Everyone can see-” he began, only for her to squeeze his hand tighter as she grinned up at him.

“Let ‘em see,” she told him. “I just wanted you to know that no matter which way our fight goes, I’m not goin’ anywhere, ‘kay? I meant what I said when this festival started. No hard feelings, no holding back. You gonna be okay with that?”

“S-Sure,” he nodded, relieved when he saw that Iida was preoccupied with talking to Midoriya and Uraraka, and so hadn’t noticed Mina’s display of affection. “I just… I thought we were keeping this on the down-low?”

“I know,” she smiled brighter at him. “But I also think it’s important that you understand that what’s coming up won’t be a negative thing for us, too.” Before he could say anything else, she tugged on his arm and said, “C’mon. Let’s go chill out before the fights get started.”

“…All right,” he said as he allowed her to lead him off the field. “What’re we gonna do while the bonus events are happening?”

“Dunno yet,” she giggled. “We’ll wing it.”

“You know I hate doing that!”

“Yeah, but you like me enough that you’ll put up with it.”

“True…”

Chapter Text

“You did well out there, Son.” So said Kurai’s father as he released his child’s hand from his grip. “It would have been better had you been able to get in on a higher scoring, but I suppose that the fact that you advanced to the final round at all is commendable.”

“Ouch, backhand much?” Kurai said while feigning offense.

He, Mina, and his family were in the box that held their seats for the events, taking the chance to catch up before the battle tournament began. As the police commissioner of Musutafu, it was only natural that the Hogo-sha family be invited to see the rising of the next generation of heroes that would help them protect the city. His mother and brother had already expressed their congratulations, as had his father, albeit with more reservation than the others.

“It is the truth,” his father now told him. “You’ve advanced in each round, but you haven’t been leading the pack, like I know you can. You do yourself a disservice if you don’t give it your all.”

“I’ve been wearing Akarui’s gauntlets so I don’t overtax my quirk,” Kurai said with a small frown. “I’ve been working on a new way to use my powers, but it’s not foolproof yet. I don’t want to risk what I don’t have to.”

“I believe the old saying goes, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, right?” Akarui mused aloud. When everyone turned to look at him, he shrugged and said, “Kurai has always tended to ere on the side of caution, and it’s served him well. He has no reason to change his methods now. But at the same time, if he does not seize the power he holds as his own, his standing may grow stagnant in the eyes of his superiors.”

“Does he always sound like he just ate a dictionary?” Mina asked him in aside.

“It’s the early afternoon, so his quirk is at its peak right now,” Kurai answered her in a low tone. “I call it the ‘smartass hour’.”

“Language,” his mother said sternly, to which he bowed and apologized.

“As I understand it, you two will be fighting each other during the sixth match,” Akarui commented as he examined Mina with a critical eye. “I determine the chances that Kurai will emerge victorious at sixty-two percent.”

“Wha-?!” Kurai sputtered. “Why that low of a chance?!”

“Hey, it’s better than my chances at winning, apparently,” Mina laughed nervously as she scratched her head. “Though I do gotta admit that I’m curious as to how he came up with that number myself.”

“Simple,” Akarui asserted confidently. “Kurai has overwhelming speed and power at his disposal that can stand up to skilled career criminals, but he cannot fully control it, unlike Ashido, who has a far better handle on her powers- at least, to the extent of not putting her life at risk whenever she goes all-out. Her natural athleticism also plays into her chances of victory, because although Kurai is also physically fit, he has had to work harder to achieve his sense of balance and strength. Finally, there is the matter of Kurai’s hesitation to harm his friends, especially those that he is close to, which will likely lead to uncertainty in his movements, be they intentional or not.”

“Wow, go for the throat, why don’t you?” Kurai asked him, irritated.

Seeing this, and noticing the clock on the wall, Mina tugged on his arm and said, “We should probably get going. The first match will be starting soon, and the students get closer seats than we do up here.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” her boyfriend nodded as they began to back away. Bowing swiftly to his parents, he bade them farewell.

“Good luck, Kurai,” his mother said before they left the room. Fixing a smile on Mina, she added, “I would wish you luck, too, but that would be wishing ill against my son.”

“No worries, I gotcha,” Mina grinned back. She liked Kurai’s family- they got on well, and they always treated her as a good friend whenever she was around. “See ya later!”

“Hey Mina, good luck,” Akarui said with a cheeky grin, prompting his father to swat him on the head, eliciting a yelp from the younger boy.

“Fight well, Son,” Hogo-sha said firmly as the couple reached the door and began to walk out. “Bring honor to your future hero name.”

“Yes sir.”

With that, the two of them were alone in the hall, save for a few staff members in charge of seeing to the enjoyment of the elitist citizens watching the games. Mina gave Kurai an impish grin that set his face to coloring before she even said a word. “I don’t like that look,” he said nervously.

“Aw, c’mon,” she giggled. “It’s true that the first match is gonna start in a few minutes, but we don’t have to watch it with everyone else, do we?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“I would prefer that we did,” he said, his voice going up a couple of octaves while his cheeks heated up a little more, and his mind began to wander involuntarily. Adding a bit more steel to his quavering voice, he added, “We could end up fighting whoever wins these matches, and I’d like the chance to study them in person so I can plan ahead.”

Hearing the subtle change in his voice, Mina realized that she needed to back off on the subject. “Okay, sorry,” she said, her own cheeks tinted with a lilac color. “We’ve just been working hard this morning, I thought that maybe you’d like some alone time for us to unwind a little.”

“Tempting as that is, I’m not comfortable putting us in any… compromising positions,” he said awkwardly as they began walking down the hall, towards the staircase that would take them to the lower levels. “I have certain boundaries, Mina. I’d ask that you respect them, please.” His voice was kinder now, though it still did not brook any arguments.

Seeing the determined look in his eyes, the girl knew that this was one area that they would need to approach when he was comfortable, not before. She thought it was probably due to his stricter upbringing- her parents had only ever told her to be careful whenever she decided that she wanted to have any kind of physical relationship with a guy, but other than that, they apparently felt that she was capable of making her own choices.

She wasn’t exactly wanting to go all the way with Kurai- they hadn’t even had a first kiss yet- but she was definitely interested in heating things up a little. But if he’s not cool with that, I’m not gonna push it, she decided. It’s not worth making him mad.

“Can I still hold your hand?” she asked him innocently, and she was happy to see a little smile appear on his face as he gripped her hand gently.

They returned to see that a concrete fighting stage had been set up by Cementoss, with him and Midnight acting as the referees for the upcoming fights. It was their job to stop any fights that were too violent or posing a permanent risk to the health of their students. The battles would be decided by either a knockout, one student going out of bounds, or a surrender.

To avoid attracting any suspicion from Iida about the nature of their relationship, Kurai sat between his best friend and Midoriya, while Mina sat beside Uraraka, who was on Midoriya’s left. At least we’re able to have a conversation this way without arousing any suspicion, Kurai thought as he leaned forward on his elbows, prepared to pay rapt attention to the incoming fights.

The first match was between their classmate, Kirishima, and another student with a steely hardening-type quirk, Tetsutetsu from class 1-B. In fact, their quirks were so similar, that the fight dragged on to the point where both of them knocked each other out simultaneously with a pair of vicious uppercuts. The crowd had enjoyed the fierce display that the two students put on, but they were ultimately confused about how the winner would be decided.

Eventually, Midnight had the two unconscious boys removed from the field, and announced that once they had recovered, they would have a simplified rematch in the form of an arm-wrestling contest. In the meantime, she called for the second match, which would pit Midoriya against Shoji.

While the two students left their seats allotted to their class, Kurai went to walk with the green-haired boy for part of the way onto the field. “Nervous?” he asked his friend.

“A little,” Midoriya nodded with an uneasy smile. “This is gonna be the first time that I use Full Cowling against a person other than you in combat.”

“Not true,” Kurai said with a cocked head at Midoriya. “You used it against Bakugo, and those villains.”

“W-Well, I meant that it’ll be the first time where I’m not in constant danger of breaking my bones,” the other boy said quickly. “I guess I’m just nervous that if I don’t maintain proper control, I’ll end up hurting myself, or worse, somebody else.”

“You’ll do great,” Kurai laughed easily, clapping his classmate on the shoulder. “I better see you in the arena for the final round, got it? I wanna see who wins in a fight without holding back, you know?”

“Yeah…” Midoriya said with a smile of his own. “I do know.”

The freckled boy stepped out into the sunlight amid a thunderous applause, a determined set to his shoulders as he held his head high. Walking up the steps, he thought, I can do this. All Might is counting on me, believes in me. And with all the training that Hikari has put me through, I’ve got control of One For All at five percent. I may not be able to handle All Might’s power at its full capacity yet, but this’ll be a good way to tell how well I can fight against unexpected opponents.

For he knew that Shoji, his classmate and opponent, would be tricky to deal with. As the muscular student walked up to the other end of the arena, Midoriya felt a sudden wave of apprehension wash over him. The six-armed young man was immensely strong, and due to his ability to change his hands into other sensory body parts, he didn’t really have any blind spots. The only apparent weakness that Izuku could determine was that the other boy had no long-range capabilities.

I don’t either, at least not at five percent of my power, he thought as he took a fighting stance, Midnight calling them both to the ready. If I hit him from long range, I’d have to break my fingers, maybe even my hand- I’ll avoid that if at all possible.

“BEGIN!” Present Mic shouted at them, snapping Midoriya out of his reverie.

Shoji wasted no time, charging straight at his classmate while bringing his right arms back for a mighty blow that Midoriya knew would clobber him if it landed. Gotta get inside his reach! Green lighting dancing along his body, he shot forward at high speed, to his opponent’s surprise, and punched him square in the gut, shouting, “Texas smash!”

It was a telling blow. Shoji, not having expected Midoriya’s new speed, didn’t even have time to brace himself for the impact, and wound up stumbling backwards, eyes wide and gasping for breath. However, he was far from going down.

Shoji was a small mountain made of muscle, so he wasn’t knocked back very far, and he quickly righted himself to see Midoriya smiling at him from where he had landed the punch.

Inwardly, Izuku was ecstatic at his new abilities. Yes! He silently crowed. I really can fight! Emboldened, he began to advance on Shoji with quick darting movements, springing from side to side, forward, then back, never giving his opponent a chance to relax, because he never knew which feint would turn out to be the real attack.

Or so Midoriya would have thought. Putting on an extra burst of speed- nothing that would injure him- he dashed at Shoji from the left, intent on striking him in the head to go for a quick knockout.

Instead, his classmate’s middle left arm shot out and wrapped its fingers around his neck, much to his surprise. The other two arms waved in front of Midoriya’s face, one sporting an eye, the other, an ear. “I saw you slow down a bit when you were getting ready for your attack, and I heard your feet hit the ground a little harder than they had been,” Shoji informed the green-haired boy as he peered at him from above his face mask. “You gonna surrender, or do I have to throw you out of bounds?”

“No way!” Midoriya grunted. Raising his arms above his head, he slammed them down on Shoji’s elbows, bending the joints painfully and forcing him to release his grip. Hitting the ground for only a split second, the freckled boy body-checked his opponent, forcing him back a few steps, this time careful to escape the reach of his arms as soon as the blow had landed. His shoulder ached, but no more than if he had used it against someone normally in a fight.

“Gotta say, Midoriya…” Shoji panted, winded from the two blows to his stomach. “I either expected you to have sent me flying with a broken arm, or to have captured you by now. You improved in ways I never imagined.”

“Your quirk always surprises me, too,” Midoriya grinned back. “I didn’t realize that you could analyze a person that fast, even with additional sensory input.”

“Well, intel-gathering is what I specialize in, not combat,” the bigger student admitted. “But I don’t work out for fun, either.”

“I’ll say,” his opponent agreed, rubbing his neck where the massive hand had grabbed him. “So, what now? Do we keep fighting, or will you surrender, Shoji?”

“I’d hardly be pro hero material if I gave up that easy,” the six-armed boy answered as he readied himself for another fight. “Let’s go, Midoriya!”

“All right, you asked for it!”

The battle between Midoriya and Shoji went on for nearly ten minutes, and by the end of it, both boys were covered in bruises from head to toe. However, Midoriya finally managed to get the upper hand by using Shoji’s massive weight against him. He grabbed the giant student by two of his left hands and used them as leverage to upend him, slamming Shoji out of bounds, though by the looks of things, Midoriya only just managed to handle the crushing weight the way that he did.

When the green-haired boy was declared the winner, the two classmates shook hands and walked off the arena, presumably to go see Recovery Girl. Kurai sat back with a sigh of relief once they did, leaning back in his seat as he felt the tension of the last few minutes drain away.

“That was close,” he muttered.

“But Midoriya certainly showed a good fight,” Iida commented. “I’m impressed that he’s improved so much in so little time.” Turning to his best friend, he added, “You must be a good teacher, Kurai.”

Laughing at that, Kurai said, “I hardly needed to teach him anything. Midoriya has plenty of talent, and his knowledge about heroes in general doesn’t hurt his advancement with his quirk. I think that even without my help, he would have figured out a way to use his powers without hurting himself.”

“Yeah, but he probably would’ve done it slower,” Uraraka pointed out. “You’re pretty incredible too, Hikari.”

“Thanks for saying so,” he replied, a trifle embarrassed.

After Midoriya and Shoji returned, the next battles flew by. Sero fought against Todoroki in the third battle, but it was no contest. In an overwhelming display of raw power, Todoroki froze Sero in seconds- along with half of the stadium- forcing the tape-armed boy to surrender.

Next up, Asui fought Kaminari, but again, it was a short fight. Kaminari attempted to electrocute his classmate with an indiscriminate blast of lightning, but the frog-girl leaped above the range of his attack, rendering him into a babbling idiot due to overusing his quirk. From there, it was easy for her to use her tongue to capture him and send him out of bounds- not too violently, either. Apparently she didn’t want anyone to view her finishing move as harsh.

The fifth match took longer, but only because it was so bizarre. With Kurai cheering him on as he left, Iida took to the stage against Hatsume, but the gear he was wearing… had not been on him when he left the seats.

“What is all that?” Kurai asked of no one in particular as he took in the sight of his best friend decked out in some new support items that included- but were not limited to- bracers on his legs, and a jetpack of some kind on his back.

“Those look like Hatsume’s gadgets,” Midoriya noted as he peered over the edge of his notebook. In every match that he had not participated in, he had been taking notes nonstop. “But why is Iida wearing them…?” He appeared thoughtful, then a look of dismay came over him as he muttered, “Don’t tell me…”

From there on, the fight essentially became one giant advertisement for inventions that Hatsume had created, with Iida being an unwitting/unwilling participant. It lasted for about fifteen minutes, and Kurai found himself laughing at his friend’s helplessness as he was subjected to item after item for the sake of Hatsume’s performance. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was certain that Akarui would be taking note of her devices, his hyper-intelligent brain analyzing and determining possible improvements for his own inventions. However, most of him was too busy being amused by Iida’s naivety.

In the end, Hatsume walked off the stage, apparently done with her advertising to any potential support item companies that might want to recruit her in the future. Iida was indignant at her attitude towards the festival, and her using him as a walking ad, but in the end, he had technically won, so he would be advancing to fight whoever won the next match.

As Midnight called the match ‘over’, Kurai and Mina exchanged a look, then stood up and left the seats to go to their respective starting points. They only stopped just outside the entrance to their class’ seating area to exchange a hug, then went their separate ways.

No holding back, Kurai vowed to himself as he walked down the stairs to the first floor, where the arena would be waiting for him. We need to do this. We need to prove that our relationship won’t affect our performance as heroes in the future.

“AND NOW, ANOTHER COUPLE A STUDENTS FROM HERO COURSE’S 1-A, IT’S KURAI HIKARI VERSUS MINA ASHIDO!!!”

Kurai emerged into the sunlight with Present Mic’s announcement booming in his ears, and the roar of the crowd competing with his volume. He paused and blinked a few times to re-adjust his eyes to the bright light before resuming his measured pace onto the concrete arena.

Up above, Present Mic continued his exhortations, saying, “SHE’LL MELT YOUR DEFENSE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WITH THAT SICK ACID QUIRK SHE’S GOT GOIN’ ON, BUT HIKARI’S NO SLOUCH! HE BROKE EVERY RECORD IN THE ENTRANCE EXAM TO GET INTO U.A., AND HE’S KEPT HIS TEACHERS AND REAL-LIFE VILLAINS ON THEIR TOES! RIGHT, ERASERHEAD?!”

“They both have good potential, but it’s yet to be seen whether or not they can properly channel their talents at their peak efficiency,” the more modulated voice of Shota Aizawa replied. “Ashido has a good quirk, but she’s too carefree in her use of it. Hikari, on the other hand, has powers that put the average pro to shame, and he has decent control over it. The problem he faces is that when he gets too worked up, it’s lights out for him.”

“HARSH, BUT THEY’RE YOUR STUDENTS!” Present Mic replied. “I GUESS YOU’D KNOW!”

“Yeesh, did they have to lay it out so plainly like that?” Kurai asked as he and Mina came within speaking distance.

“Eh, ignore ‘em,” she grinned confidently as she stretched her arms. “They don’t know what kinda training we’ve been up to, so they don’t have a real clue about how we’re gonna handle this fight!”

“I think Mister Aizawa might have some idea,” Kurai answered as he settled into a Shorin-Ryu fighting stance. “Regardless, I guess it’s time to see which one of us is the better fighter.”

“Ha!” Mina laughed at him. “Like I keep tellin’ ya- I’m gonna melt your butt!”

“Why are so fixated on that?!”

“BEGIN!” Present Mic’s announcement set aside whatever response Mina might have come up with, and the battle began.

The girl started things up by sliding across the stage in a zig-zag pattern, using the acid coming out of her feet to speed along the ground while Kurai took note of her movements, judging her speed, her dexterity, and factoring in what he knew of her reaction times before he readied his countermeasures.

With a sudden shout, he spammed Mina with an energy barrage from his hands, yellow bolts of pure energy that caused small explosions wherever they struck. She was nearly taken by surprise, but she utilized her natural flexibility to dodge and weave around the blasts so that they all missed her, even as she continued to get closer and closer to her target.

Kurai wasn’t the only one throwing things, either. Mina began to toss globs of acid at him, forcing him to either counter with his own powers, or to dodge the attacks entirely, which forced him to stop his assault, even if for less than a second. Still, it was enough for her to continue her advance on him, her confidence growing by the second.

That is, until she got in close, whereupon he stopped hurling bolts at her and smiled challengingly, which set off alarm bells in her head. Too late, she realized that he was now close enough to touch, which was very much to her disadvantage. Initially, she had thought to build up enough velocity to slam into him, and knock him off-balance, but his continuous attacks had killed a lot of her momentum.

Kurai reached out with great speed and grabbed her arm, which he then used to pull her closer to him, their faces nearly touching. “Uh…” she stammered, for once the one who wasn’t sure of what was about to happen.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” he told her, a cocky grin still plastered on his face. Then- using his quirk to power his limbs- he twisted her around in his grip before leaping up and body-slamming her into the ground, knocking the wind out of her and scraping her left arm and cheek.

“Ow!” she yelped before jerking her head back to smash her skull into his face, and feeling a fierce satisfaction when he yelped and released her, scrambling backwards as he muttered something that was muffled by his hands.

She got to her feet unsteadily, turning around to see him clutching at his mouth, where blood was seeping out. Giving her an annoyed look, he said, “Split my lip and bit my tongue.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll kiss it better after we’re done here,” she teased him.

“…I don’t have a comeback for that,” he admitted. Cupping his hands by his side, he added, “But I do have this.” Yellow light pooled between his hands, causing Mina’s eyes to widen as she took an involuntary step back in fright.

“Hang on, isn’t that the attack you used against that bird-brained freak from the villain attack?!” she gulped. “I know we said no holding back, but come on!”

“Don’t worry, restrained as I am, this won’t kill anybody,” he assured her as the ball of light began to grow in size. “It’ll still hurt though, so if you wanted to surrender now, I won’t hold it against you.” The ball between his hands was the size of an apple now.

“N-No way!” she declared as she began to skate back at him, acid dripping from her fingers as she readied a solution that would cause temporary blindness if it hit him, but do no permanent damage. “That attack takes time to charge, doesn’t it? So all I gotta do is beat you before it’s ready!”

“It’s ready,” he answered calmly, the orb now the size of a large orange.

“Oh, crap!” she yelped as his arms began to move toward her.

“Kamehameha!” The yellow laser flew at her- then passed overhead as she slid underneath it with almost inhuman flexibility, even as she slid toward her boyfriend, a devilish smile on her lips.

“Gotcha!” she declared as she gathered her legs up under her while looking into her classmate’s eyes and seeing surprise registered there. “I knew you couldn’t resist using that move, so I planned for it!” Springing up with all of her momentum and body weight behind the blow, she clocked him in the chin with an uppercut that lifted his feet off the ground and nearly rendered him insensate.

Nearly.

As he found himself toppling backwards, Kurai transformed the fall into a reverse tumble that landed him a few feet away from Mina, who now realized that her gambit hadn’t paid off the way that she thought it would. “Uh oh,” she said as he aimed his palms at her.

“I agree,” he nodded as he aimed carefully for her legs, striking each one with a bolt that cut her feet out from under her, sending her falling face-first into the concrete.

She cursed and started to get up, but a foot on her back told her that wasn’t an option. “Please surrender,” she heard Kurai say kindly. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to. Regardless of how we feel about one another, I never seek to make my enemies suffer if I can help it.”

Mina sagged under the weight of his foot and leg, groaning. Part of her wanted to keep up the fight, but she was smart enough to know that her position was untenable. Even if she could get Kurai off of her back, he probably had an Energon burst ready to go that would strike her in the head to knock her out. There was no point in antagonizing him anymore.

“I surrender,” she called out loud enough for the judges to hear.

“Ashido gives up!” Midnight declared, setting the crowd to cheering. “Hikari wins and will advance to the quarter-finals!”

As the teacher spoke, Kurai moved his foot and helped his girlfriend up, much to her appreciation. “Man, you hit hard, you know that?” she told him as she forced her bruised legs to work as well as they could. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t take her full weight.

“You were the one who insisted that we not hold back,” Kurai told her, though he did appear contrite that he had caused her pain. As they spoke, they began to walk off the field together, both of them needing to visit Recovery Girl again.

“Yeah, but now I’m regretting it a little,” she admitted with a pained laugh as they made their way off the stadium grounds. “Totally thought I had you after that Kamehameha, but I guess you had a contingency plan even for that. Congrats on your win, though.”

“You did almost get me,” he chuckled back. “And I didn’t plan my last moves, those were just… reactions, I guess. I’m not like Midoriya, I don’t plan everything ten moves in advance.”

“Uh-uh, you don’t get to point out shortcomings after you’ve won,” she grinned at him. “You beat me, so now you have to make me feel better about it.”

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized sincerely. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Kiss,” she giggled as they rounded a corner.

“Bwuh?!” he gaped.

“You heard me,” she told him, her grin widening in spite of her own cheeks flushing lilac. “Isn’t it supposed to be like that, you know, guy kisses girl after winning his big fight?”

“I… I…” His brain was incapable of forming cohesive responses at the moment.

Recalling their earlier conversation, Mina realized that she might have pushed things too far again. Casting her eyes down, she meekly said, “Sorry, guess I got kinda caught up in the moment there. I know you have your boundaries, so I won’t make you do anything that you’re not comfortable with, okay?”

She was about to add more when she felt a pair of lips press hesitantly against her cheek, causing her to stop in place, along with Kurai, who withdrew from the contact as though he’d been burned. Locking eyes with him, she touched her cheek and said, “Did you just…?”

“Yes?” he answered hesitantly. “I… You’re an affectionate person, I get that. I’m reserved, and I guess I’ve been keeping you at an arm’s length, which is probably hard for you. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not fair that I keep making all the rules, so I figured that would be a good way to show it, and-”

Mina silenced him with a tight hug, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder as she said, “That was nice. Thanks, Kurai.”

“Y-You’re welcome,” he stammered, his arms going back to encircle her body.

Anything else that they might have said was interrupted when they heard someone cough- loudly. Stiffening with surprise, the couple slowly turned their heads to see a familiar figure not ten feet away, glaring at them from behind a pair of glasses.

“You two have some explaining to do,” Iida said sternly.

Chapter Text

Kurai froze. Iida glared. Mina looked between the two of them nervously, though she did not move from her boyfriend’s side.

“I see that you ignored my advice, Kurai,” the bespectacled student said sternly. “I told you that becoming involved in a romantic entanglement within our class could interfere with the dynamics of our class, maybe even put lives at risk! This is the height of irresponsibility!”

“I don’t think that this is the height of irresponsibility,” Kurai said with a slow shake of his head.

“Then what would say it is?!” Iida demanded indignantly.

“I dunno, how tall is Bakugo?”

“Kurai, I’m trying to be serious here!”                                                              

“So am I,” Kurai deadpanned. “I’m failing. And I’m sorry for that. It’s just that I seem to remember telling someone that it was none of his business, and here he is, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong!”

“Guys, can we not do this right now?” Mina requested nervously as the two boys glared daggers at each other. “Kurai and I both have injuries we need to have treated, so we should really be on our way to the nurse’s office.”

“While I’m tempted to argue against you due to this situation probably being your fault, I can agree that you need to have your wounds looked at,” Iida grumbled as he adjusted his glasses. “I was coming down here to congratulate my friend on his win, but I suppose it’ll have to wait until after I’ve given him a reminder of what’s important.”

Now Kurai was indignant. “Excuse you?!” he demanded. “First of all, don’t go pointing fingers at my girlfriend when you don’t know the whole story. Second, you don’t get to determine which aspects of my life are more important than others!”

“I do when they concern the safety of our classmates, who I am bound by my position to protect!” his friend hurled back.

“Guys, please!” Mina begged. “This isn’t the time or place for this. If you have some kind of problem with each other, settle it in the next fight, okay?”

Kurai and Iida glared at each other for a few more minutes before exchanging curt nods. “We’ll settle it in the ring,” Kurai confirmed.

“Very well,” the taller boy said as he turned around and began to walk away.

Kurai let out a long, heavy sigh once he was out of sight. “And that is why I didn’t want him to know,” he mumbled.

“I’m so sorry, Kurai,” Mina said as they resumed walking towards Recovery Girl’s office. “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble like this.”

“No, I should’ve been more upfront with him,” the boy replied dully. “At least then he would have found out from me, instead of walking in on us like that. I hope that once we can have a proper conversation without being all riled up, he’ll come around to the idea. Or at least, he won’t be lecturing me about it at every opportunity. Regardless, nothing that just happened was your fault.”

“I still feel bad about it, though,” she remarked. “If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, let me know.”

The two saw Recovery Girl, then returned to their seats, a little surprised when they didn’t see Iida, Uraraka, or Midoriya sitting where they had been. “D’ya think Iida is interrogating them?” Mina asked as they took their places, waving in response to the greetings that their classmates were giving them.

Apparently during their time spent with the nurse, Tokoyami had already defeated Yaoyorozu, and the next round was set to begin in a few minutes.

“Ochaco went to go get ready for her match with Bakugo,” Asui informed them from where she sat behind them. “Iida and Midoriya went to go check on her.”

“Ah,” Kurai nodded in understanding as he realized that Bakugo was also missing from their number. “That fight is gonna be hard to watch.”

“You don’t think that she can win, do you?” Mina asked him worriedly, to which he slowly shook his head.

“Her quirk isn’t suited for fighting- leastways, not like Bakugo’s is,” he replied grimly. “The other issue is her attitude.”

“Whaddya mean by that?” asked Jiro, who was sitting next to Asui. “You saw her getting pumped for the festival the other day. She’s just as determined to win as the rest of you.”

“I’m not talking about her drive in general,” he replied quickly. “Don’t get me wrong, I think she’ll be a great hero someday. But she wants to be a rescue hero, not a fighter, you know? Bakugo lives for this kind of thing. That’s the difference I was trying to highlight.”

“He makes a good point,” Shoji said as he folded his arms. “But don’t you think Bakugo would hold back just a little for her?”

“Not likely,” Asui said bluntly. “From what we know about him, Bakugo never holds back. It doesn’t matter who gets in his way, he does everything he can to destroy them.” The others all grimaced as she spoke, but none of them could refute her words.

“Still, she hangs out with Midoriya quite a bit, and he’s good at coming up with some unorthodox strategies,” Kurai said, trying to lift the spirits of the others. “Who knows? Maybe he’s got a plan in mind that’ll let her stand on equal footing with Bakugo- or at least, give her a shot at winning.”

The next battle proved to be harder to watch than Kurai would have imagined, made only more so by the fact that Uraraka nearly defeated Bakugo. The blond student was relentless, unleashing blast after blast at his competitor, with her tenacity matching his own in nearly every way. Time and time again, she hurled herself into the explosions, heedless of the damage it had to be doing to her body, all while slowly building up to her own counterattack.

With the rubble generated by Bakugo destroying the stadium piece by piece, she gathered a meteor showers’ worth of rocks high above the stadium before releasing them, gravity hurling them at a surprised Bakugo, who looked to be nearly taken aback for a moment. However, he quickly recovered and destroyed her attack with an explosion bigger than any that his classmates had ever seen him produce. With that, Uraraka hit her limit and was knocked out by her own exhaustion, leaving Bakugo standing victorious.

The whole match, Iida and Kurai spoke not one word to each other, with Midoriya and Ashido unable to think of a way to break the tension.

While she was taken to the nurse, and Cementoss worked to repair the stadium following the damage the last match had caused, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu had their rematch in the form of an arm-wrestling contest. At first it seemed to be just as even of a match as their combat had been, but eventually, Kirishima’s Hardening quirk was able to outlast Tetsutetsu’s steely build, and with a roar of victory, Kurai’s classmate claimed victory. The two of them even seemed to reach a level of respect for each other after the fact, with Kirishima helping his former opponent to his feet, and leaving with a hearty handshake.

“Well, there goes the last person not in class 1-A,” Kurai remarked as he leaned back in his seat. “I guess our experiences with the USJ incident gave us a bigger edge than I would have thought.”

“Wow, puffing up on your hot air, are we?” Everyone in class ‘A’ looked up to their left to see a blond boy with condescending blue eyes looking down on them from above a wall that separated them from other classes’ seating areas. “If you’re really so much better than us, why’d it have to go to a tiebreaker, huh?!”

What’s with that guy? Kurai thought, just before a large hand appeared behind his head and chopped him in a nerve point, rendering him unconscious.

Before anyone could ask what had just happened, a girl with orange hair popped up with an apologetic smile and said, “Sorry about that. He doesn’t know when to stop sometimes.” With that, she disappeared behind the wall.

“Who were they?” Kurai asked, their appearances having stuck a chord in his recent memory.

“They’re from class 1-B,” Kaminari answered for him, looking a little disgruntled. “Apparently Bakugo did something to make him mad, cos he’s been out to get us the whole festival.”

“Great…” Kurai muttered. As if we don’t have enough competition already, having to go up against each other…

The next match to be settled was Kirishima against Midoriya. It took a little longer to set up, with the stadium having been so badly damaged, and with Kirishima needing a little time to recover from his consecutive matches, but before too much time had passed, Midoriya found himself standing a few-dozen yards away from his next opponent.

“Yo, Midoriya,” Kirishima said with a friendly grin. “Think Bakugo might kill me if I beat you before he gets the chance?”

“Maybe,” Izuku laughed nervously. “But I wouldn’t count me out just yet.”

“Never, man,” his opponent chuckled. “I know you’re strong, and you’ve gotten wicked fast since the USJ incident, but I’m betting that your punches are gonna shred your skin once they hit my quirk.” As he spoke, he flexed and hardened his arms to the rock-like consistency that his powers allowed.

Crap, he’s right, Midoriya thought as he took up a fighting stance that Kurai had shown him. Maybe if I can send him flying with a shot at one hundred percent? No, that’s too reckless- the kind of thing that Mister Aizawa warned me not to do.

“BEGIN!” Present Mic bellowed.

With a raw-throated yell, Kirishima charged at Midoriya, fists ready to strike. “Let’s do this, man-to-man!” he called out before he aimed a punch at his classmate’s stomach.

In response, Midoriya leaped over him with Full Cowling, landing behind his attacker and swinging his legs to sweep Kirishima’s out from under him. It was a dance move that Mina had integrated into her fighting style, and Izuku had taken careful notice of how she did it, even going so far as to getting her to give him a few pointers. Now his training had paid off yet again.

Pressing his attack, he aimed a kick that Kirishima rolled out of the way to avoid, throwing him off-balance for a second as he tried to regain his footing. The redhead disengaged his quirk to grant him more fluid movements as he made his escape, but immediately went back to his rocky state once he was balanced again.

All around them, the crowd cheered, with Present Mic providing his loud commentary to add to the hype. “Nice moves, Midoriya,” Kirishima laughed. “How long can ya keep it up, though?”

“Long enough to beat you!” the freckled boy grinned back, charging into battle with lightning tickling his limbs. That’s it, he thought as he and Kirishima began to exchange blows. All quirks have a limit. Mine is determined by how strong my body is, but Kirishima’s is different. Is it a time limit? Is it based on his stamina? Or something else entirely?

Whatever the case was, he couldn’t hope to outmuscle his classmate. This would have to be an endurance match if he was to have a chance at winning without breaking his bones.

Up above, Kurai, Uraraka- who had come up from the nurse’s office- and Iida were on the edge of their seats, each of them hoping for the best for their friend. Mina, on the other hand, while becoming friends with Midoriya, still wanted her friend from middle school to do well, so she was cheering him on in spite of her boyfriend’s choice for victor.

“Who do you think will win?” Iida asked of no one in particular.

Without thinking, Kurai answered the question. “Kirishima has an advantage with close combat since every time that Midoriya hits him, he gets the skin on his hands torn up, or at least bruised,” he muttered aloud. “But Midoriya has shown extreme resilience to pain on a few different occasions, so that might not even matter. I think it’s gonna boil down to whoever has more gas in the tank.”

“Deku has this,” Uraraka chimed in. “He’s the most determined guy I’ve ever met- he won’t let something like a little scrape or being tired stop him.”

“I agree, his tenacity is something to behold,” Iida nodded to the both of them, though he did not look directly at Kurai.

“Aw come on, give Kirishima a little more credit than that!” Mina pouted. “He took on some of those wackos from the League of Villains alongside Bakugo, and then he was still ready to go!”

“That may be, but I think he’s just about hit his limit,” Kurai said as he pointed down at the two combatants.

“Argh!” Kirishima grunted as one of Izuku’s bruised fists slammed into his arm, causing a large red mark to appear on his softened skin that was already turning purple. “Dammit!” he growled as he backed away from his opponent.

“You gonna surrender?” Midoriya offered. “I don’t wanna keep this up if it’s gonna hurt you too badly.”

“No way!” Kirishima said vehemently. “Real men don’t give up just cos they got a little bruise! I’m gonna be a hero, and that means giving it my all until I drop, not before!”

“All right,” Midoriya nodded, the energy of his quirk flaring brightly around him. “Let’s do this, then!”

Kirishima grunted in acknowledgement, then started forward again, putting everything he had left into his right arm, the uninjured one. “You’re on, Midoriya!” he cried as he swung his fist at his classmate.

Too late to dodge, Midoriya acted on reflex, shooting more power into his right hand as he countered, slamming Kirishima’s hand with his own, even as he cried out in agony while his bones cracked. It wasn’t one hundred percent of One For All’s power- perhaps a third or so- but it was still enough to send Kirishima flying off the arena and against the wall next to the exit, knocking him out immediately while the wind howled from the force of Izuku’s strike.

Gritting his teeth, Midoriya ignored the pain, the cheering crowds, and Midnight’s announcement that he would be proceeding to the semi-final round, only seeing Kirishima’s unconscious body hitting the ground as he stumbled toward him, his hand bleeding, throbbing, and discolored. “Kirishima…” he grunted out. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

“Ha…” He was surprised when he heard his classmate letting out a weak chuckle from where he lay. “You… got me pretty good there… Midoriya.”

“Kirishima?!” Renewing his efforts to reach his injured classmate, he found himself kneeling beside the battered student, who had a grin plastered on his face, despite the bruises covering his arms.

“I just managed to harden my back when I hit the wall, so I should be okay after I see Recovery Girl again,” Kirishima explained. “Congrats on your win, buddy. You totally earned it.”

“Th-Thanks…” Midoriya groaned as he sat down, cradling his injured hand while they waited for the paramedics to take them away.

“Aw man,” Mina groaned as she leaned back in her seat. “I totally thought Kirishima had him there.”

“It was closer than I would have predicted,” Kurai admitted as he pulled out his phone. “I should ask Akarui to send his predictions to us, as well as any weaknesses that he notices for me to exploit.”

“You can’t do that!” Iida cried as he shot to his feet and began waving his arms wildly, though he seemed less hostile now than when he had confronted Kurai and Mina. “That’s cheating!”

“Where in the rules does it say that I’m not allowed to ask for help in formulating a strategy?” Kurai said as he texted his brother without looking up. “If I recall, you had no issue with Uraraka getting help from Midoriya.”

“That’s totally different!” Iida protested. “Your brother has an I.Q. of over three hundred right now! He could probably predict what the play-by-play will be an hour before it happens!”

“Hey, good heroes surround themselves with people that lend to their own strengths,” Kurai said as he put his phone in his pocket and looked up at Iida with a slight frown. “How many sidekicks does Ingenium have?”

“I-!” Iida paused, then sat back down. “All right, fair point. I suppose it is a hero’s duty to collect as much information as he can before entering a dangerous situation.”

“Besides, I’ll share his intel with anyone that wants to see it,” Kurai offered, turning to include the rest of his classmates.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Asui said as she raised a hand. “My opponent is Todoroki, so I’ll need all the help I can get.” The half-and-half boy was nowhere to be seen, though his classmates assumed that he was probably in one of the prep rooms, getting ready for his fight with the frog-girl.

“Of course the extras need help to get along further than those of us with actual powers,” Bakugo sneered as he walked into their midst and claimed his seat.

“Says the one that almost got beat by one of our least combat-ready classmates,” Kaminari snickered, triggering Bakugo’s volatile temper.

“The HELL’D you say?!” he screamed. “I wasn’t almost beat! I was just getting started!”

“Even so, to level your powers at a frail girl like that was pretty messed up,” Sero commented, not seeing Uraraka’s face falling at his words.

“You idiot,” Bakugo grumbled, though less fiercely than they all expected. “I definitely wouldn’t call her ‘frail’.”

Everyone looked over at him in surprise as he glared down at the arena without another word. Did… did he just hand out a compliment? Kurai thought, utterly shocked at their classmate’s declaration.

He was snapped out of it when his phone buzzed with a text from his brother. Scanning the text quickly, he winced, then handed it over to Asui, whose face remained passive while she read her chances of victory. When she handed the phone back, she shrugged and said, “That’s about what I expected. Still, gotta try my best, right?”

“You got this, Su!” Uraraka said encouragingly. “Plus Ultra!”

Tsuyu Asui most certainly did not have ‘it’. Todoroki got her much the same way that he defeated Sero, though with notably less violence and grandeur. Since her biology was so similar to a frog’s, she did not hold up well against his ice barrage, the cold putting her to sleep in less than a minute, thereby disqualifying her from competing anymore.

Like in his previous match, Todoroki took the time to free his opponent from the ice, and this time even went so far as to warm her back to good health before walking off the stage.

Asui looked disappointed in her performance, but it was really just a draw of horrible luck- there was no possible way that she could have withstood Todoroki’s freezing attacks. Her body simply couldn’t handle it.

As she was taken off the field on a stretcher, Kurai turned to Midoriya and muttered, “So it’s you against Todoroki in the semi-finals. Good luck with that one.”

“I’m gonna need it,” his friend laughed nervously. “Do you mind asking your brother to draw up some stats for me? I’ve got my own notes on Todoroki, but I wouldn’t mind a little extra help.”

“Sure thing,” Kurai nodded as he pulled out his phone.

“Don’t take too long about it,” Iida said as he walked away from his seat. Over his shoulder, he added, “Our match is next. We’ll settle things there.”

“Looking forward to it,” Kurai replied without looking up.

Once Iida was gone, Kirishima- having rejoined them along with Midoriya, both of them having their injured arms wrapped in bandages- asked, “What’s up with you guys? I thought you were tight.”

“We are, but we’re currently having a difference of opinion on something of a delicate matter,” Kurai replied as he finished sending his text.

“Is it about you and Ashido?” Jiro asked calmly, nearly giving Kurai a heart attack.

“Seriously?!” he demanded as he shot to his feet and glared at her. “Why’d you blurt it out like that?”

“Dude, chill,” Kaminari laughed. “I think everyone but Iida knew. You guys aren’t exactly subtle.”

“Wha-?! Everyone?” he gaped as he looked around at his classmates. “Seriously?!”

“Seriously,” Tokoyami said flatly. “No one said anything because we all figured that it didn’t really matter to us, nor was it any of our business.”

“I guess Iida didn’t get the memo,” Mina giggled. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

“Mon cher, you cannot deny the sparkles of rom-”

“Aoyama, you seem like a decent enough- if strange- individual,” Kurai interrupted him swiftly. “But for the love of all things good, keep your commentary about my personal life to yourself.”

“Ah, how gauche of me,” the purple-eyed young man said dramatically. “My sincerest apologies, mon frere.”

“Dude, are you even actually French?” Sero asked him.

As his classmates began to talk among themselves, Kurai’s phone buzzed again, signaling a text from his brother. Pulling it out he was surprised to see a simple message. It read, ‘Put your friend on. As for Iida, ditch the gauntlets.’

“Uh, Midoriya?” Kurai said as he prodded his friend’s shoulder before handing him the phone. “My brother says to call him with this. I’ve got a match to get ready for.”

“Yeah,” his friend nodded as he accepted the device. “Good luck, Hikari.”

“Yeah, do your best!” Uraraka grinned at him. “I’ll be cheering for you and Iida both!”

“Hey, Saiyaman!” Bakugo’s voice stopped Kurai just before he left. Turning around, he saw the red eyes of his classmate glaring up at him as he said, “You better not lose to Glasses down there. I’m wanna kill you myself.” Standing up and pointing accusingly at him, Bakugo continued, shouting, “You, Deku, and that icy-hot bastard have been ignoring me this whole time, and I won’t put up with it anymore! You hear me?! I’m gonna destroy you and prove that I’m the number one student here!”

“Good luck with that, Blasty McSplode,” Kurai said with a dismissive wave as he walked away, Mina following him with a little laugh. “You’ve gotta make it past Tokoyami first.”

“WHAT THE F-!”

“Calm down, dude!” From there on, they left the sounds of Kirishima trying to restrain Bakugo behind them.

Once they reached the prep room, Kurai set about removing his gauntlets, as Akarui had suggested. Seeing this, Mina’s eyes widened as she exclaimed, “Wait, are you sure about this, Kurai? You could-”

“Akarui suggested that I should,” he answered calmly. “It’s risky, I know, but Iida is not someone I should take on without needing to prepare for the worst. He’s cunning, more so than most people give him credit for. I’m sure he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve that even I don’t know about.”

“And what about your own trick?” she asked worriedly. “Are you sure that you’ll have a good enough handle on it to not have a repeat of last time?”

“I am… ninety-two percent certain,” he replied with a strained smile. “I wish I could be totally certain, but then, hardly anything in life is.”

“Just…” She gripped his right hand as he freed it from the armor, and said, “Please make it off that field safely, okay?”

“I will,” he said as he pulled her into a hug, still feeling a little awkward in doing so. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

Time to face the music once again, Kurai thought as he took to the field amid the thunderous applause, the concussive volume of Present Mic, and into the line of sight of his best friend, now rival for this battle.

“Good luck,” he called to Iida.

“Same to you,” he replied neutrally.

Adding a crooked grin to his face, Kurai allowed his power to begin flooding his limbs as he said, “Your concern about my relationship is that it’ll prove to be a distraction to our pursuit of becoming heroes, yeah?”

“Correct,” Iida said as he took a running position. “What is your counterpoint?”

“This match,” Kurai answered confidently. “If my choices are distracting me from becoming a hero so much, then I imagine that you’ll be able to beat me. However, if it doesn’t factor into my ability to perform as a hero should, then I’d say that you’re wrong.”

“So am I to assume that if I win, you will end your relationship with Ashido?” Iida asked after Present Mic shouted at them to get started.

“I’ll at least put it on hold for the remainder of our time at U.A.” Kurai replied. “What happens after our education is complete is entirely up to me.”

“Fair enough,” Iida nodded, ignoring Present Mic as he demanded to see some action. “And if I lose, I am to cede my ideals concerning inter-student relations to you, right?”

“Yep,” Kurai answered, energy beginning to swirl in his right hand, growing larger by the second. “So if you’re so determined to see us apart, you’d better bring your A-game, pal.”

“If you insist!” Iida shouted, sprinting forward at high speed, leaping up high as soon as Kurai unleashed a barrage of energy from his left hand, the orb in his right hand done growing, now swirling like a small globe, and getting faster and faster with every moment that passed. As Iida descended, he unleashed a devastating kick that would have sent Kurai flying out of bounds had it hit.

Instead, his opponent jumped out of the way with a speed that rivaled his own third gear, the orb in his right hand still gaining speed in its rotation. Iida hadn’t seen this move before, but he knew it couldn’t be good news if Kurai was focusing on it so much. It wasn’t a Kamehameha, but something about it still seemed familiar…

He’s getting uncertain, good, Kurai thought as he once again resumed his left-handed assault with Energon, keeping his right hand as still as possible. Almost there…

Iida began to run in an arc, trying to angle in on Kurai’s right side, but the boy simply turned to match his opponent’s trajectory, keeping the speedy hero-in-training at bay. However, the longer he kept Iida running in a circle, the more time he had to shift into higher gears, making him faster and faster as the seconds trickled by. But by the same token, the more that Kurai used his quirk without his restraints, the more powerful and aggressive he became.

Then, Iida accelerated to a speed that Kurai had never seen before, the ports on his legs spitting out blue fire and propelling him so fast that he was little more than a blur. “Recipro Burst!” Iida roared, charging directly at Kurai, dodging the Energon bursts with such finesse that Kurai knew this couldn’t be a recent development.

He practiced this technique just for the festival, Kurai realized as his friend came within reach, a wild grin splitting his face. Too bad he’s not the only one!

Certain that his new technique was at its maximum power, he thrust his hand forward to collide with Iida’s leg, knowing that his friend would be aiming for his left shoulder. He always aimed to strike with his right leg, his primary attacking limb, and with the way that Kurai was standing, his left side was more vulnerable to attack.

There are some things that you need to work on, too, old friend.

Letting his power flow freely throughout his entire body, Kurai turned into Iida’s strike, thrusting his right palm forward, the hand holding the swirling orb, as he bellowed, “Rasengan!” The orb repelled Iida immediately on contact, swirling energy streaming outward as it flung him away at rocket speed. The orb stayed attached to Kurai’s hand, spitting out sparks and streams of energy until it finally fizzled out, Iida having been sent completely out of bounds.

“JEEZ, YOUR STUDENTS ARE INSANE!!!” Present Mic called out. “THAT MOVE WOULDA FLOORED ANYONE BUT THE TOP TEN!”

“Perhaps, but it takes too long for him to charge it up for it to be practical against anyone but a student,” Aizawa countered, causing Kurai to glare up at him, annoyed. Unaffected, his teacher added, “Perhaps with time he can mold it into something formidable, but for now it’s just a nice light show.”

Instead of shouting up at his teacher like he wanted to, Kurai forced himself to restrain his temper and went to go check on his friend, grumbling to himself as he did. He did note that it was easier to do so than he had expected, and resolved to thank Midoriya once he had the chance. He was right about how to channel it.

About a week before the Sport’s Festival, Midoriya had approached Kurai with a new method for triggering his quirk, one that might take the strain off of his frontal cortex.

“I’ve been doing some research in my downtime, and I came across something interesting,” the freckled boy had told him during one of their breaks from sparring. “The frontal cortex is where a lot of reactionary stuff happens, like where our emotions transmit commands to the rest of our bodies, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m very much aware of that,” Kurai had commented dryly.

“Right, sorry,” Izuku had apologized. “But I also read that a lot of scientists think it’s where short-term memories convert into long-term. I was thinking that might hold the key to you triggering your quirk safely, or at least with less risk than it usually carries.”

“Oh?” Kurai asked, intrigued. This was the first time someone had brought up memory conversion in regards to his quirk. He was definitely interested now.

“Well, I was thinking, maybe your frontal cortex is doing too much of the work, and that’s why you keep getting aneurisms,” his friend explained. “What if even though the trigger is in the front of your brain, you could keep it going by using other parts of it- using older memories to sustain those emotions- to take the stress off at least a little bit?”

“Huh…” Kurai had mused, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “That’ll take a while to master, if it even works, since I’ve been using it this one way for so long. But it has merit… Thanks, Midoriya. I’ll definitely give it a shot.”

Now, as he helped Iida to his feet, he did have a headache, but it was nowhere near the excruciating levels of pain that had plagued him before now whenever he used his quirk so aggressively. It was hard, maintaining a flow of memories that sustained the emotions that he needed to fuel his quirk, but it had paid off.

“Seems I wasn’t the only one keeping a secret move in mind for this,” Iida grunted as he got up, grimacing as he put weight on his left leg, the one that was mostly uninjured. His right leg, on the other hand, was at least fractured, maybe even broken. “Well played, Kurai.”

“So we’re cool on the whole ‘Me and Mina’ thing?” he asked hopefully as he helped his friend to limp towards the robots that were bringing out a stretcher.

“I’m still not happy about it, but per our agreement, I will speak nothing further on the matter,” Iida replied thinly. “Just bear in mind that I said what I did with good reason.”

“Believe me, I tried to keep what you said close to heart, but…” Kurai shrugged as he laid his friend on the stretcher. “I guess the heart and reason don’t go hand-in-hand.”

“Hmph,” Iida grumbled as he was wheeled away. “Congratulations on your victory. I suppose if I had to lose to anyone, it was best if it was you.”

“Hikari will advance to the semi-finals!” Midnight announced amid a still-cheering crowd. “Let’s find out who his opponent will be!”

“You were amazing!” Mina exclaimed as he walked into the hallway just outside of their seating area. “I could barely keep up with how fast you guys were fighting, but you sure know how to handle yourself, huh?!”

“That’s because I had something worth fighting for,” Kurai replied quietly, his eyes distant. While Mina looked a question at him, he silently mused on how foolish it had been of him to stake his relationship with this girl that had been nothing but kind to him on a test of arms.

What if I had lost? He thought grimly as his arm moved almost of its own will, wrapping around Mina and pulling her close to him. He’d have been bound by his word to do as Iida had requested, even as his friend was now obliged to stay silent on the matter of their relationship. She’d never forgive me for that.

“Hey, Kurai?” Mina said nervously. “You’re kinda squeezing me. I need to breathe.”

“Sorry,” he apologized as he loosened his grip, but still kept her close. “I’m just… starting to understand something.” He had never before realized that despite her energetic approach to everything, she was actually a soft, gentle person, someone he really enjoyed being around. Now that he had been at risk of losing this close proximity to her, it made him appreciate her presence in a way that was unfamiliar to him. However, he couldn’t deny that it was pleasant, being able to be this close to her.

“What’s up?” she asked him as she drew back far enough to look him in the eye. “Did you and Iida settle things out there?”

“Yeah,” he nodded with a small smile. “We did. And now I have a better understanding about why you like being close to me, you know, physically.” Her eyes lit up in surprise, so he added, “It’s still new to me, this wanting to be close to somebody beyond a platonic sense, but I’m glad that I’ll be experiencing these feelings with you. I just wanted you to know that.”

“Aw, you’re sweet,” she giggled as she leaned back into the hug. “I’m glad to be with you, too. Life is way more fun and exciting this way.”

“Get a room, you two,” Tokoyami muttered as he walked past them, causing the couple to yelp in surprise. Apparently his match was set to start sooner than previous ones due to the minimal damage done to the battle stage.

“S-Sorry!” Kurai said helplessly as their classmate rounded the corner, ignoring them.

“I didn’t realize that we’d been here that long,” Mina remarked as they disengaged and began walking back to the seating area. “Let’s get moving before Bakugo gets out here and yells at us.”

“He might actually set me on fire after what I told him earlier,” Kurai grinned. “Or at least, he’d try.” Mina’s laughter gripped him like a warm jacket as he led her back to their seats.

Chapter Text

“I don’t get it,” Midoriya muttered as he scribbled in his notebook. “Based on what we all saw during the Cavalry Battle, and his previous combat performances, I’d have thought that Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow would have given him victory over Kacchan. Then again, he’s pretty persistent when it comes to fighting… Or anything really.”

The raven-headed boy was walking off the field, having been forced into surrender by Bakugo’s ferocious attacks during their match. He appeared dejected as he departed, but then, it was often hard to get a good read on the other boy’s emotions.

“I have a theory on that,” Kurai said in a lowered tone while he peered down at the victor, who was glaring back up at him. “I’m no Akarui, but my best guess is that the shadow monster probably works better in the dark, and Bakugo’s explosions wouldn’t exactly be conducive to that desired environment.”

“Uh… In Japanese, Einstein?” Mina asked him blankly.

“Remember how Tokoyami stole my headband during the Cavalry Battle?” he replied as he leaned back in his seat.

“Kinda hard to miss that,” Uraraka laughed nervously. “We were there.”

“Yeah, he made your head bleed really bad, and I’m still kinda mad at him for it,” Mina huffed, her arms crossed.

“Okay, but do you remember how he was hiding in Shoji’s arms?” Kurai asked as he jerked his head toward the mentioned student, who looked to be in conversation with Sero. “He would have been in almost total darkness, which if I’m right, means that he would be way stronger than if he was being exposed to sunlight and flashbangs like the ones Bakugo can make.”

“It’s an interesting theory, but we can’t be too sure unless we asked Tokoyami about it himself, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would discuss his weaknesses so readily, especially given how-”

“Midoriya, you’re doing it again!” Kurai muttered as he hung his head, causing his friend to yelp and cover his mouth. Looking over at the green-haired boy, Kurai asked, “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your match with Todoroki?”

“I imagine that it will be some time before the stadium is repaired from Bakugo’s explosions,” Iida said sharply, his right leg bandaged up. “There’s no need to rush, Midoriya.”

He had been injured in his fight with Kurai, the final blow from his friend having caused multiple fractures to the bone, and severe damage to the engine inside his body. Even after a session with Recovery Girl, he would still need to stay off of the leg for a few days, not to mention that his family doctor/mechanic would need to do some repairs to the engine itself.

“Actually, I could do with some extra prep time,” Midoriya replied to his friend. Looking over at Kurai, he asked, “Mind coming with me to discuss strategy? It might help to have someone else’s opinion on what to do when I’m fighting our class’ most capable student.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, pal,” Kurai chuckled as he moved to follow his classmate. “You beat everyone in the race, so I wouldn’t count yourself out just yet. Besides, I’m sure Akarui is already coming up with something for you to work with.”

“Yeah, he kept asking me questions, but I never got an actual strategy from him,” Midoriya replied as they exited their seating area, Uraraka and Iida calling for him to have good luck as they did.

While they walked, Kurai dialed his brother’s phone, listening to the ringtone for a few seconds before Akarui picked up. “What’s up?” he heard the younger boy say.

“Midoriya’s match starts soon, he needs whatever intel you can provide,” Kurai answered. “You have something?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just taking me a little longer to put things together,” Akarui muttered. “The sun’s past its zenith, so I’m not as fast as I was earlier.”

“Right, sorry,” Kurai apologized. “Mind if I hand you over to him?”

“Go for it.”

“Here,” the black-haired student said as he gave his phone to Midoriya. “Akarui says he’s got something.”

“Thanks,” Izuku nodded as he took the phone while they turned a corner. “Midoriya here… Uh-huh. Good point… No, not without breaking something. …That might work, but it’d be really close. …No, you’re right. Okay, thanks, Hikari.” Hanging up, he handed the phone back to Kurai, who looked a question at his friend.

Seeing it, Midoriya said, “Unfortunately, your brother and I agree that there are a lot unknowns about Todoroki and his fighting style for me to come up with a full-proof plan to beat him.”

“Nothing’s ever full-proof,” Kurai shrugged as he pocketed the device. “Did you at least come up with something that’ll let you fight him without breaking your bones? I saw how you panicked at the end of your fight with Kirishima.”

“Yeah…” Izuku laughed nervously as he scratched the back of his head. “I don’t wanna do that again. Your brother was telling me that what we’ve seen of Todoroki so far shows that he doesn’t move his body a whole lot- he lets his quirk do a lot of the fighting for him, and there might be a way I can take advantage of that.”

“How so?” Kurai was intrigued. After all, if he beat Bakugo in the next match, he could end up fighting either Todoroki or Midoriya, so any knowledge that he could use against them would be helpful.

“My reflexes have been improving a lot since you helped me to get a handle on Full Cowling,” Midoriya replied quickly. “Todoroki primarily relies on his ice, which is good for me, because if he used his fire, there wouldn’t be any cover for me to avoid those kinds of attacks. If I can use the ice that he creates as way to get closer to him by jumping around on it, then I can use my quirk to engage him in close combat, which is what I’m more suited for.”

Kurai found himself frowning as he said, “He’s good at close combat, too. When we were at the USJ, a villain jumped out from behind us, one that we initially missed. He took a swing straight at Todoroki’s head from behind, the guy didn’t even flinch. He grabbed the pipe that the guy was going to use to brain him, and used it to freeze him solid.”

“Seriously?!” Midoriya yelped. “But I can’t engage him in a long-range fight, not without breaking my hands!”

“Not to mention that if you start using his ice as a jungle gym, he might catch you by surprise, or you could just slip and fall- ice doesn’t exactly give you much traction for your footing,” his classmate pointed out. “I’d try to keep to the ground as much as possible.”

“No, he’ll expect that,” Midoriya muttered as they entered the waiting room. “He was able to trap us during the cavalry battle, so he’ll remember how well it worked. He’s not going to give me any breathing room.”

Kurai thought about that for a few moments before he said, “Then I suppose close combat is the better option for you. At least that way he can’t mass any avalanches like he did with Asui and Sero.”

Midoriya nodded as he sat down, looking at his hands as he said, “Yeah, Akarui said that if long-range wasn’t an option for me, the only way to win would be to catch him off-guard with a frontal attack. Fortunately, I think I can clear the starting space between us in two seconds, maybe less.”

“The risk you run there is that you might get a face full of icicles,” Kurai said with a grimace. “Be careful, will you?”

“Of course,” Midoriya grinned nervously. “I’ll just go on out and beat the most decorated student in our class.”

“Hey, most decorated doesn’t mean the best,” Kurai said as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Good luck, Midoriya.”

He was smiling as he closed the door behind him before turning around and finding himself face-to-face with Endeavor.

Kurai immediately tensed up, adrenaline surging through his veins as he beheld a man who was nearly All Might’s size, and with flames decorating every other inch of his body, obscuring his face in the place of a beard from which bright blue eyes stared down. Of all the people in the hero realm, he was the only one that Kurai genuinely hated, and to now have such an unexpected encounter with the man definitely startled him.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded a little more harshly than he had meant, but holding firm under the man’s piercing gaze.

Endeavor’s eyes narrowed as he said from above his crossed arms, “I’m here to see the boy about to face off against my son. I have something that needs to be said, if you’re done in there.”

“Leave a message,” Kurai snapped, a small part of his mind shocked and appalled by his rudeness. “This area is for students and faculty members only, so take a hike.”

“Who do you think you are?” Endeavored growled ominously, his flames growing in volume and heat as he lowered his hands to rest at his sides. “Where I go is my business, and you’d be wise to stay out of it, small fry. If you have some kind of problem with me, I suggest you-”

“My name is Kurai Hogo-sha,” the boy interrupted him, adding emphasis to the surname.

“And what is that supposed to be to me?” Endeavor asked haughtily.

“First of all, it means that if you so much as singe one of my hairs, you’re gonna have the Police Commissioner of the city to answer to,” Kurai replied, a hint of smugness creeping into his own voice now. “He’s my father. And two, your lack of knowledge just goes to highlight another difference between the number one and number two heroes.”

Endeavor heaved in a deep breath and made a small motion with his body, as if he might strike Kurai for his insolence, but after a second thought, he merely scowled, “What does that buffoon have to do with your attitude problem, kid?”

“My attitude problem?” Kurai half-laughed, his disrespect for the man growing by the second. “I don’t expect you to remember the victims of every tragedy you witness, but I would have thought that you’d remember the Penta-gram family, and how a certain police officer gave his life to protect you, seeing as you were too busy looking good for the cameras.”

“Police off-” Endeavor paused, his fiery brow dipping heavily. “Penta-gram, huh? Yeah, I remember them. A lot of cops died, and that was before I even got there. Whatever high horse you’re on, I suggest you get off it before I-”

“Officer Hogo-sha took a metal needle created by a villain to his heart during the aftermath of the battle,” Kurai interrupted him, his eyes matching the fury in Endeavor’s. “It was meant to kill you. And afterwards, when I attended his funeral, you didn’t even offer a word of condolences to the grieving widow and son that my uncle left behind. You showed up, looked somber for the cameras, and then took off.”

“What do you want, an apology?!” Endeavor snarled as he reached for Kurai’s shoulder, intending to shove him out of the way. “Your uncle died because he made a stupid move, not-”

A small hand wrapped in an aura of orange that rivaled Endeavor’s flames shot up and grabbed the massive man by the wrist, a shocking amount of force stopping him in his tracks. Dark blue eyes glared up at the man, followed by Kurai’s voice saying, “Don’t touch me or any of my friends. And don’t ever disregard the sacrifice my family made for you, Endeavor.” All around the pair of them, the lights were flickering while the air began to move away from Kurai’s angered form.

Endeavor yanked his hand back, throwing Kurai slightly off-balance, but instead of continuing to advance on the student, he stormed past him with the parting words, “I look forward to watching my Shoto crush you once he finishes your little green friend in there.” Then he was gone, lumbering up the stairs

Kurai watched him go, a fierce pride entering his heart for a moment as he willed Energon to stop flowing through his body, returning his eyes and hair back to normal. Fortunately, the waiting rooms were pretty much soundproof, so he doubted that Midoriya would have heard any of that. Good, he thought as he went in the opposite direction of Endeavor. He has enough to worry about without Endeavor showing up to lord it over him how much better his son is than him.

Once more, Izuku found himself standing amid the swelling cheers of the U.A. Sport’s Festival. He had made it so far- farther than many would have dared to dream. He was standing in the ring for the semi-finals of one of the most televised events in the world, ready to face off against the son of the country’s number two hero. If he could beat Todoroki, he would be in the finals, standing against Kurai, his friend and now coach, or Kacchan, his former friend and bitter rival. Neither prospect appealed to him, but if that was what it took to make it to the top, he would give it his all, just like All Might would.

But first I have to beat Todoroki, he thought as he met eyes with his opponent, whose face remained as passive as ever. I’ll win, All Might! I’ll be able to show the world that one day, I will be there for them!

Taking a combat position while Todoroki settled into his wide horse stance, Izuku powered up with One For All, green lightning racing across his body, a burst of wind emanating from where he stood. As he did, he could feel the temperature begin to drop as his classmate readied his ice powers. Both of them were ready- now it was up to Present Mic to get things started.

Kurai had just returned to his seat with Mina and the others. Something on his face must have shown his mood, because Iida frowned at him and asked, “What happened to you?”

“Huh?”

“You look like someone just killed your dog in front of you, and now they’re wearing it like a festive hat,” Kaminari pointed out.

“Dude!” Mina said with a short glare at him, to which he raised his hands in a defensive gesture.

“While crudely put, what Kaminari says is true,” Iida said as Kurai fixed his gaze on the arena below them, where Midoriya and Todoroki had yet to appear. “Is something troubling you?”

“I ran into Endeavor,” Kurai answered quietly. “He wanted to talk to Midoriya.”

Iida and Mina immediately picked up on why he now looked so put out, but everyone else was excited, many of them asking how it was to meet the number two hero in person. Before his temper could get the better of him again, Iida preempted his friend by saying, “Surely Endeavor can’t be that impressive, given that one of our teachers is All Might!”

Kurai gave him a grateful look before nodding to the others and saying, “Yeah, he’s not that great. Honestly, I found him to be pretty rude, trying to barge in on Midoriya’s prep time.”

“I’ve heard that’s he’s not exactly a nice guy to hang out with,” Asui added from where she sat. “He’s a lot better at fighting bad guys than sitting through interviews, I guess.”

“I guess,” Kurai mumbled as the others continued the conversation on their own while he stared down at his lap. He felt Mina’s arm drape across his shoulders, and he relaxed a little at her touch. Speaking softly so that the only ones that could hear him were Iida and Mina, the people sitting next to him, he said, “I lost my temper at him. Just for a second, but I wanted to fight him so bad right then. I wanted to make his pay, to suffer for what he-”

“But you didn’t,” Iida interrupted him firmly. “You may have been angry, Kurai, but you didn’t act on your impulses. Heroes aren’t allowed to hold grudges, and by refusing to allow your passions to guide you, you’ve shown that you will be an honorable hero one day.”

“Iida’s right,” Mina told him before he could protest. “The best part is that you managed to hold yourself back when nobody was watching, which means that whatever you did or didn’t do in that moment, it shows who you really are when it comes to dealing with your hatred.”

“But I-”

“But nothing, Kurai,” Iida insisted.

“Iida, I almost picked a fight with the guy just because he was there,” Kurai said, frustrated with himself. “That’s not what a hero would do. It’s not what a good man would do.”

Iida looked as though he was about to say something, but just then, Present Mic began to announce the next battle participants.

“BEGIN!” the loud pro hero bellowed.

The instant that the first syllable left his mouth, both students made their moves. Todoroki unleashed a barrage of ice that would either sweep Midoriya away, or freeze him in place. However, Izuku had no intention of being taken out like his classmates had been.

With Midoriya’s Full Cowling going at five percent, he shot to the side at an angle that put him closer to Todoroki on his opponent’s left side, and away from the direct line of attack. The ice still came close, but not enough to hurt him as he charged at his classmate, green lightning blazing across his body. Gotta get in closer…

As he predicted he would, Todoroki shifted his body so that he could aim another ice barrage at him, the icy storm racing away from his foot faster than the average man could run. Instead of trying to dodge to the right again, Midoriya shot off to his left, toward the ice wall that had been made by Todoroki’s first attack. The half-and-half boy’s eyes registered surprise as Midoriya slammed into the cold wall feet-first, hard enough to crack the ice and ensure a solid landing.

While Present Mic praised Midoriya’s reflexes, the boy himself began to ricochet back and forth between the two walls almost faster than Todoroki could track, but getting closer by the movement. Before he could use the ice to trap his opponent, Izuku was upon him, slamming his fist into Todoroki’s face and sending him reeling, only stopping when he used a small cluster of ice to support himself.

“Rrrgh…” he growled as the green-haired boy skidded to stop with the two ice walls behind him. “You’ve improved a great deal, Midoriya. I shouldn’t have underestimated the favorite of our number one hero.”

“All Might’s got nothing to do with this fight,” Midoriya replied with a fierce determination in his eyes. “And neither does Endeavor! You could have gotten me with a fire blast while I was using your ice to get in close, but you’re not using your full potential!”

“Why do you care if I use my fire?!” Todoroki snapped as he straightened, the air around him plunging to the negative degrees. His eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to him, and he spat, “Did my monster of a dad bribe you or something?!” Without waiting for a response, he charged forward, shouting, “Now I’m mad!”

Before Midoriya could formulate a response, he was forced to dodge his classmate’s attempted grip strike, which would have frozen half his body if Todoroki had managed to grab him. “I just told you!” he grunted as he dodged around to the icy boy’s back before punching him in the side with a kidney shot that Kurai had shown him. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this! It’s just you and me now, and like everyone else in this festival, we’re supposed to be giving it our all to win this!”

“How I use this power is up to me!” Todoroki coughed, reeling from the blow that had been dealt to him. Using his ice power, he sent a wave of cold in reverse to trap Midoriya by his feet, catching the boy by surprise. “And I don’t need that bastard’s power to win, see? You can’t move, you’re done.”

“I’m done… when I say I am!” Izuku screamed before striking downward with his left hand. Todoroki leaped backwards as the ice exploded, narrowly dodging razor-sharp shards of ice as he did. Midoriya cried out in pain as his hand was sliced open, along with several other cuts appearing on his legs and torso.

Up above, Kurai swore and all but leaped out of his seat as he watched scarlet cover his friend’s hand and other parts of his body. “Midoriya, what are you doing?!” he cried.

“Are you crazy?” Todoroki gasped as the blood began to pour from a set of deep cuts that ran from his opponent’s hand up to his elbow, melting the ice embedded in them, and causing Midoriya to sway dizzily. “Why did you do that to yourself? You could die from blood loss like that!”

“I wanna live up to the expectations that people have for me!” Izuku grunted as he gripped tightly at the wounds with his uninjured hand. Raising his eyes to meet Todoroki’s, he added, “So many people have helped me make it this far, and I can’t let them down by misplacing the faith that they put in me! So I’m giving it my all- just like… you should be!” Without warning, his body lit up with his power again, and he shot forward, punching Todoroki in the gut with his good hand.

He barely even registered the pain of the blow that nearly pushed him out of the ring as he gasped for breath, trying desperately to hold his ground against the boy who had started out from the bottom of their class, only to rapidly rise in his pursuit to be the best that he could.

“If you wanna reject your father, that’s your business,” Midoriya grunted. “But right now… Stop screwing around! If you aren’t going to use your full power, you don’t deserve to be here!”

“I can beat you…” Todoroki protested with a pained grunt. “With one hand, I will defeat you, Midoriya. I refuse… to use my left side.”

Midoriya hissed through the pain in his mangled hand before shouting, “The power is yours! It’s your quirk, not his!”

“What are they yelling about?” Kurai wondered as he stared down at the match that had come to an apparent standstill. “And why isn’t Midoriya finishing things? He’s gonna pass out if he doesn’t end it soon.”

“You know Deku,” Uraraka murmured, almost as if she were speaking to herself. “Once he sets his mind to accomplish something, it doesn’t matter how beat up he’ll get. He just keeps pushing on until the job is done. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, but at what cost?” Kurai asked grimly.

No sooner than he had spoken than did a huge blast of flames erupt from the stadium, heating the entire area so rapidly that the students found themselves sweating profusely in seconds. “Is that-?!” Iida shouted, his eyes wide as they beheld the spectacle before them.

“Todoroki’s using his fire!” Uraraka yelled to be heard above the rushing noise.

In spite of the raging heat, Kurai paled as he muttered, “Oh, not good.”

“You’re helping your opponent…” Todoroki said as he felt the traces of frost that had begun to build up on the right side of his body melt away into vapor. Meeting Midoriya’s fierce gaze, he continued, “You’re a fool. Didn’t you want to win this?”

“I wanted to win it the right way,” Midoriya replied with a grin as green energy crackled along his body. The force of the flames had pushed him back several meters, but now he stood tall and strong, despite his blood loss.

“I want that too,” his opponent declared as he straightened himself with a smile of his own. “I’ll win… I’ll be a hero!”

For a moment, the two of them simply stood, not registering the sounds of the screaming crowd, unaware of Endeavor’s exhortations toward Shoto, ignoring the aching wounds that covered their bodies. They were simply two men ready to put everything on the line in order to achieve their goals. And yet…

“Why are you smiling?” Todoroki asked his opponent, who looked puzzled. So he added, “In this hopeless situation, you still smile? You must be crazy.” This got Midoriya to renew his fighting stance with a fierce look in his eyes. “Don’t blame me for what happens next,” the half-and-half boy warned him, even as the flames cooled to be replaced by the beginnings of an ice barrage bigger than anything Todoroki had ever made before.

In response, the pressure that Midoriya’s power gave off intensified, so much so that the clothing on his left leg and right arm were torn to shreds while he gritted his teeth and prepared for what he knew would be his final attack. My bones will break, but I don’t have any other choice now! He thought as he braced for the agony that was to come. I have to risk it if I’m going to beat Todoroki at his best!

There was tremor in the ground as the concrete beneath them began to shift, which must have been the work of Cementoss, one of the referees, but the combatants ignored even that.

The ice storm was on its way, and Midoriya easily cleared it with One For All’s full power, making a beeline straight for his classmate. “Come at me with your full power, Todoroki!” he screamed.

The instant before he could lay waste to the other boy with a Detroit Smash, the flames were back, and the explosion they created instantly destroyed the entire fighting ring. The referees were blown away by the powerful attacks colliding, and rubble shot out in every direction, forcing many people in the stands to take cover from the onslaught.

Kurai unleashed bursts of Energon at pieces of rock that came too close to hitting him and his classmates, but the howling wind and dust made it difficult to keep track of every potentially lethal projectile.

“This is crazy!” Kaminari yelped.

“What’s happening down there?!” Yaoyorozu shouted.

As if it had been waiting for somebody to ask that very question, the maelstrom finally stilled itself and ceased hurling concrete pieces at everyone. Kurai looked around to make sure that nobody had been hurt, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that they were safe. However, his anxiety returned as he realized that the air around the stage was so filled with dust that he could not see what was going on, or even if there was a fight still happening.

“Ugh…” Present Mic groaned, having lost much of his usual volume. “What just happened…? Eraser, what the heck is up with your students?!”

“The air around the arena had been thoroughly cooled and then expanded when heated up by the flames,” Aizawa answered as though explosions like this happened as often as the sun rose and set.

“Wait, that’s what caused the explosion?!” Present Mic exclaimed. “How hot did that fire get?!” There was the sound of someone scrambling to get up, followed by the man saying, “Jeez, I can’t see a thing! Is the fight still going on?!”

“No…” Midnight’s voice echoed from within the dust cloud. “Outside the ring… It’s Midoriya! He’s out!” There was a sound of a whip cracking, followed by Midnight announcing, “Todoroki is the winner! He advances to the finals!” The crowd began to cheer again as the dust cleared away to reveal that Midnight’s descriptions were indeed correct- Todoroki was battered, but he was still standing within the remnants of the battle area, while Midoriya had slammed against the far wall, his left leg and right arm sticking out and odd angles.

Kurai sank back in his seat, feeling disappointment come over him. “I really wanted him to win,” he murmured.

“They both put up an excellent fight,” Iida replied. “I’m sure that this will still present many opportunities for Midoriya, placing in the top four. I wouldn’t be- Hmm?” The tall boy paused and pulled out his cell phone, his eyes widening slightly as he stood up. “Sorry, it’s my mother,” he said as he walked away. “I’ll be right back.”

As he left the seating area, Kurai noticed that Uraraka looked pretty bummed about the outcome, too. “I thought Deku could beat him,” she mumbled.

“Hey guys, Iida’s right,” Mina said in a more upbeat tone. “Midoriya did a great job of showing off his new skills, and he’s gonna be a medalist for the year! That’s nothing to sneeze at, you know?”

In spite of himself, Kurai felt her energy becoming infectious enough to put a smile on his face. “Yeah, you’re right,” he nodded. Turning back to Uraraka, he asked, “Do you want to come with me and Mina to visit him in the nurse’s office? I’d like to make sure that he wasn’t permanently injured.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” the gravity-nullifier nodded as the three of them rose to exit the area. They made it out into the hall when Kurai noticed Iida, who looked as though he’d been physically struck in the stomach and clenching his phone like it was a snake trying to strangle him.

In an aside to Mina, he said, “Go on without me. I need to talk to Iida real quick.”

“Sure,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek before walking away with Uraraka.

He barely registered the contact, though. Iida remained rooted to where he was as he stared at the ground with a numb horror that settled a stone in Kurai’s stomach that seemed to grow heavier the closer to his friend that he got. What has him spooked that badly? He thought worriedly.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” he asked his friend as he stopped a couple of feet away. “You don’t look very good.”

Iida’s arm went limp as he turned to Kurai with a dark, haunted look. “It’s Tensei…” he said hoarsely. “My mom just called. She said… He… A villain got him.”

Kurai felt the blood drain from his face upon hearing those terrible words. “I-Is he…?” he could hardly speak, his throat had so quickly constricted. The thought was just too horrible to bear- Tensei had been like a lovable Uncle to Kurai and Akarui for many years now; to imagine a world without him in it…

“I don’t know yet,” Iida replied with a pained look. “But… If I’m being honest, my mother didn’t sound very confident.”

Chapter Text

It was with a somber face that Kurai walked into the nurse’s office, where Recovery Girl was finishing up her treatment of Midoriya while Uraraka and Mina looked on passively. Izuku himself looked a little worn out, but otherwise healthy as he turned to smile a greeting at his friend. “Hey, Kurai, how are-” He paused as he saw the look of sorrow on the other boy’s face before asking, “Is everything okay?”

“No, it’s not,” he said heavily as he gave the teacher a short bow as a way of greeting. “Pardon the intrusion, Ma’am.” Turning back to his friend, he elaborated, “Iida just got a call from his family- Ingenium was attacked by a villain and was wounded, badly.”

There were various exclamations of disbelief from his friends, and even Recovery Girl looked startled, so he held up his hands for silence before continuing, “I don’t know any more than that. Iida’s headed to the hospital to be with his family, but he did tell me to wish you a speedy recovery, Midoriya.”

“I’ll call him later to see how he’s doing,” the green-haired boy nodded seriously. Holding up his bandaged hand, he said, “The damage wasn’t as bad as I initially thought.”

“He’ll have some scars, but there’s no permanent damage done to his muscles or tendons,” the aged heroine informed Kurai. Scowling at her patient, she added, “Though through no skill of his- he got lucky, plain and simple. And from now on, I’d better not see you risking your well-being in such an irresponsible manner, young man. If you get injured because of your own carelessness again, I won’t heal it.”

When Uraraka and Mina started to protest, Recovery Girl smacked them on the head with her cane, interrupting them both. “I know that his quirk is difficult to control, but his temperament is the real enemy here,” she said sternly. “If he continues to take such risks, there’s a chance that he could irreparably harm himself, or worse, be killed by his own carelessness.” Fixing her sharp gaze on Midoriya, who had yet to voice a protest, she added, “I know that being a hero involves risks, but never should you ignore the potential consequences that can be avoided, even if it is difficult. Am I clear, young man?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded as he gazed down at his bandaged arm.

Nodding sharply, the old woman said, “Let the scars on your hand be a reminder. Now go on, all of you. I need to be ready for the next person that comes in.”

“You sound certain that someone will be coming in,” Uraraka said as she winced while rubbing her tender head where Recovery Girl had smacked her.

Looking balefully at Kurai, the teacher said, “He’s fighting Bakugo next. I get the feeling that we’ll be lucky if they don’t kill each other.”

Since the stadium was still under repairs due to the vast destruction that Midoriya and Todoroki had wreaked upon it, Kurai and his friends took the time to grab some drinks before the fight could get underway. At Kurai’s insistence, they joined him in the prep room assigned to him, where they could speak in relative peace and quiet.

“Are you feeling nervous at all?” Mina asked him worriedly. “I know I am.”

“I’m more worried that I’ll get carried away and really end up hurting him than anything,” Kurai replied evenly as he stared down at the half-empty apple juice he had chosen to drink. “I know he’s skilled and all, but he has a weakness that’s almost too easy to exploit.”

“Kacchan does have a temper, sure, but he didn’t place second in the entrance exams’ combat assessment for nothing,” Midoriya reminded him. “His reflexes are insane, and he adapts quickly when he’s backed into a corner.”

“He might have come in second, but I was the one that came in first, remember?” Kurai replied. “And that was before you helped me get a better handle on my transformation.”

“Are you gonna use that power on him?” Uraraka asked, appearing a bit concerned. “The last time you used it, it was against that Nomu thing, and it didn’t end well for either parties involved.”

Kurai shrugged at that. “Like I said, I’ve got a better handle on that power now, and honestly, I doubt I’ll even need to use it against him,” he told her. “All of this aside, I know how to turn Bakugo’s power against him, too.”

“Wait, you can?” Mina asked curiously. “How does that work?”

“Bakugo made the mistake of telling Midoriya exactly how his quirk works,” Kurai recounted, causing Izuku’s eyes to light up with recognition. “His palms secrete something like nitroglycerin, which he can then ignite on command, producing the explosions we’re all familiar with, remember? I accidentally figured out how to prematurely trigger those explosions during the obstacle course, which will really throw him off when I fight him, since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know that I can do that.”

“Wow, you’ve planned this out almost as thoroughly as Deku,” Uraraka said, impressed.

“Maybe his habits are rubbing off on me,” Kurai chuckled in a hollow tone.

“It doesn’t sound like you’ve taken your own weaknesses into account, though,” Midoriya pointed out. “What if he managed to draw the fight out long enough to trigger an episode? He’s not stupid, and your weakness is known to pretty much everyone in the class because of what’s happened during our first day, and the USJ incident.”

Kurai nodded, acknowledging his classmates’ concern. “It is true that the longer the fight goes on, the more likely that he is to win. However, his quirk must have a physical limit, too. I’d be willing to bet that he won’t want a drawn-out fight, either. Haven’t you noticed that every fight he’s been in, he tends to go for the quick win via overwhelming power?”

“Yeah, cos he can make blasts big enough to level a house,” Mina muttered sourly, still apparently fearing for her boyfriend’s safety.

“True, but that suggests to me that he doesn’t like endurance contests,” Kurai told her. “Akarui shares my sentiments, and while he’s not as smart as he was an hour ago, his observational skills are still a lot more astute than ours’ right now.”

“Well, I suppose he’d have the most reliable opinion since he’s been able to view everything from a neutral viewpoint,” Midoriya nodded, though he still appeared troubled like the others. “Even so, don’t underestimate Kacchan.”

“I won’t,” Kurai promised them. Putting a half-grin on his face, he asked, “Seriously, do you guys have that little faith in me?” Truth be known, his apparent confidence was a mask. His fight with Iida had been riskier than he’d anticipated, and if the battle against someone he knew well had been so close, he was less confident against someone who he knew little of, other than his powers and volatile temper.

Then again, one might argue that because he knew Iida so well, the same was true in reverse, which could have been the cause for the close call. It was difficult to say for certain, but he knew that nothing was set in stone until it was in the past. For now, it was all he could do to keep his tension at bay as best he could, and trust that his own powers and training would see him to victory.

He noticed that Mina was refraining from being as physically affectionate as she normally was, for which he was grateful. He didn’t know if she was doing it because she knew it would set him on edge out of reflex, or if it was due to the presence of their other friends, but either way, he was able to relax just a little more.

He was drawn out of his thoughts when Midoriya answered his inquiry about their confidence in him when he said, “We know you’re strong, Hikari. But nothing’s for sure.”

“Even so, we’re gonna be cheering you on from the sidelines,” Uraraka said as she gave him a thumbs-up.

He was about to reply when he heard the bell announcing that it was time for him to head out. Standing up from the seat he had taken, he grinned at them all and said, “I’ll be sure to give him one for each of you.”

“Yeah!” Mina said with a forced smile. “Kick his teeth in!”

“W-Well, maybe just do your best, yeah?” Midoriya laughed nervously.

“Of course,” Kurai chuckled as he opened the door to leave. “See you guys after the match.”

The crowd was reaching an almost frenzied state when the two competitors emerged under Present Mic’s announcements. “THESE TWO CLASSMATES ROCK HARDER THAN MOST, EVEN AT U.A. HIGH!” he screamed, stirring up the crowd even further. “KATSUKI BAKUGO RANKED SECOND IN THE ENTRANCE EXAM’S COMBAT TEST, AND HE’S SURVIVED A BATTLE WITH ACTUAL VILLAINS! BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, WE’VE GOT KURAI HIKARI, WHO BROKE THE RECORD FOR MOST POINTS SCORED IN THE BATTLE EXAM, AND WENT HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH A VILLAIN THAT GAVE EVEN ALL MIGHT TROUBLE! WHO’S GONNA WIN IT AND HEAD TO THE FINALS?! I CAN’T WAIT TO FIND OUT!!!”

“You’re overdoing it,” Aizawa muttered as the two students stepped into the bounds of the combat field.

Kurai had to agree with a slight grimace- it was clear from Bakugo’s enraged expression that he did not like being described as a second fiddle. Well, at least that gives me a head start on pissing him off, he thought as he settled into a combat stance. Here’s to hoping that he doesn’t die of an aneurism before we finish things.

“Hey, Saiyaman!” the blond student shouted while Present Mic and their homeroom teacher began to argue, slightly startling Kurai. “You better not hold back against me!”

“Come again?” his opponent asked as mildly as he could with the background noise of the crowds.

“I want you to come at me with that power you used on that bird-faced freak from the USJ!” Bakugo snapped. “I want the whole world to know that I beat you at your best!”

Kurai’s right eyebrow shot up in response, even as he sensed the moment for the battle to begin approaching. It’s almost like he’s begging me to take advantage of his ego, he thought as he drew in a breath to reply. “I seriously doubt you’d be worth the effort it takes to maintain that level of strength,” he told his enemy in as bored a tone as he could muster, despite his already-racing pulse.

“What the hell did you say?!” Bakugo snarled viciously, his eyes blazing with hatred. “You think I’m not worthy of your full power?!”

Kurai wasn’t yet certain that he wouldn’t need the power-up, but he pushed that concern aside for now- his goal was to infuriate the other boy so much that he wouldn’t be able to think straight. And I know his biggest trigger, he thought as Present Mic gave them ‘go’ signal.

Forcing extra disdain into his voice, he said, “Honestly, the only ones in this school that could give me a run for my money- transformation or not- would be Todoroki and Midoriya. You’re not even in their league.”

Bakugo’s left eye twitched above his bared teeth.

That was the only warning Kurai had before his opponent was upon him, a fiery smoke cloud left in the wake of a monstrous explosion that had propelled him across the arena in less than a second. “Don’t ever compare to that NERD, you cocky BASTARD!” Bakugo roared, his right hand coming up for a blazing right hook.

Kurai reacted faster than conscious thought, reinforcing his body with as much power as he dared while meeting Bakugo’s open palm with a fist preceded by twin sparks of Energon that ignited on impact- and triggering a brilliant explosion a second before Bakugo had meant it to occur.

The unexpected impact meant that Bakugo didn’t have time to properly brace himself for it, while Kurai had already prepared his body to withstand the blast. Even so, Kurai was nearly thrown off-balance while his enemy was sent reeling from the force of his own power.

Both boys recovered quickly, but Kurai was slightly faster, having mentally prepared for this outcome. Leaping forward at a speed that rivaled Midoriya’s Full Cowling, he lashed out with a kick that just missed striking Bakugo’s shoulder, but still gave him a shallow cut on the cheek from the force of the glancing blow. Kurai slid past him and unleashed an energy bolt, not giving his opponent any time to breathe, much less come up with a counterattack strategy.

Then again, Bakugo was a largely instinctive fighter. He used an explosion to propel himself upwards, then used another to come at his opponent from above, allowing gravity to add to his already-considerable momentum. Kurai hit the ground to brace himself and kicked upward, this time connecting a solid blow with Bakugo’s stomach that sent him flying back, cursing and coughing violently.

Springing lightly to his feet, he thought, Can’t give him a chance to cool down and start thinking rationally. If he formulates a strategy, his natural disposition for combat just might be enough to get past my defenses.

That in mind, he taunted his opponent again, saying, “Sheesh, with an aim that bad, it’s a wonder you ever hit anything. I don’t get why Midoriya is so intimidated by you.”

“Give me five seconds and YOU’LL SEE!” the explosive student seethed, springing right back into the fight, much to Kurai’s satisfaction.

Just as planned.

“Wow, he’s really working Kacchan up,” Midoriya muttered as he and the others watched from above, scribbling in his notebook all the while. “I didn’t think he had it in him to be that mean.”

“He’s a lot smarter than he lets on sometimes,” Mina mused as she watched the fight intently, wincing at every explosion that nearly roasted her boyfriend. “But taunting Bakugo is still pretty risky, even with his skills.”

“I know,” Uraraka muttered, also appearing worried. “When I tried to keep him distracted, all I ended up doing was ignoring my own limits until there wasn’t anything I could do, I was so worn out.”

“Yeah, but Hikari has a lot more gas in the tank that you do when it comes to fighting,” Asui pointed out bluntly from where she sat behind them. “Bakugo is pretty scary, but you gotta remember that Hikari keeps his emotions hidden a lot of the time. I get the feeling that he can be as nasty as he needs to be, given the right circumstances.”

“You and that damn nerd are gonna learn your place!” Bakugo screamed as he flew past Kurai in an attempt to blast him out of the stadium, only to be thwarted again by his classmate’s reflexes. “You’re nothing but a bunch of extras that’re in my way!”

“So glad I can fill the role,” his opponent chuckled. “I’ll be happy to get in your way anytime, Bakugo.”

“Shut up!” the explosive student seethed. “You think that just because you’ve got that damn nerd and Raccoon Eyes as your cheerleaders, you can beat me?! Don’t be STUPID!”

“…You shouldn’ta did that,” Kurai replied with a calm that he did not feel. His plan was proceeding as he had desired- Bakugo was working himself into a frenzy, attacking aimlessly at every opening he got. The obvious drawback was that the more worked up he got, the more powerful the explosions were, and the greater chances that Kurai would make a mistake that got him seriously injured.

However, Bakugo had made slanders against someone that Kurai cared about very much- and he would not stand for it. That in mind, he threw all caution to the wind as he asked, “By the way, how’s it feel to play second fiddle to Todoroki? You know, cos it turns out that he can make an even bigger explosion than-”

Bakugo’s enraged scream was so loud that it actually rivalled the thunderous sounds produced by his quirk. This was all that Kurai needed to hear to know that he had pushed his opponent far enough to commit to an all-out frontal attack born of an animal fury- no strategy, no cohesive thought whatsoever. Bakugo shot up high into the air, leveling with some of the lower seats in the stadium before he began to surround himself with powerful blasts that sent him hurtling at his enemy, spinning like a top to build even more heat and momentum as he transformed himself into a human missile aimed to blow Kurai out of bounds with vicious force.

“Howitzer… IMPACT!”

Kurai stood still, as if transfixed by the angry boy’s attack, before he did something very simple- he ducked and leaped forward with the assistance of Energon, just under Bakugo’s attack line at the last possible second of escape. As his opponent unleashed a massive blast to counter his own velocity and prevent himself from flying out of bounds, Kurai sprang up and spun on his heel with his hands coming to rest by his ribcage, yellow light pooling between them to grow into an orb the size of his clenched fist.

Bakugo spun around as soon as he landed on his own feet, breathing heavily, and his hands smoking and shaking. His eyes went wide as the orb Kurai was creating grew a few more inches in diameter and the boy himself shouted, “Kamehameha!”

On instinct, Bakugo flung himself into the air with another explosion, only to give a grunt of pain as he started to curl into a ball in midair, his arms screaming in protest at the overuse of his quirk. Only then did he notice that Kurai hadn’t actually used his attack- merely used the name as a way to trick him into attempting an escape. Even worse, he was virtually helpless in the air now, his quirk having been forced past its limits.

He saw the smug grin on Kurai’s face, followed by the words, “Who’s the ‘deku’ now?” Then the light struck him, obliterating all conscious thought and sending him flying out of bounds to smash into one of the walls.

Kurai lowered his arms as he saw his opponent fall to the grass, letting out a huge sigh of relief when Bakugo stayed down. He knew that he’d probably just made a permanent enemy of the blond boy, but the prospect no longer caused any apprehension. I was able to beat him without transforming, he thought as he listened to Midnight declare him the winner, and the cheers of the crowd complimented the fact. His head was killing him, but at least he wasn’t bleeding and in danger of needing another brain operation. I’ve improved, he thought with a satisfied smile.

He looked up, first to where his family sat, where he could see them clapping and smiling down at him with great approval. Then he turned to see his classmates, most of them also grinning and cheering for his success, with the exception of Kirishima, who merely nodded firmly as he leaned back in his seat with folded arms.

It made sense, he supposed- out of all the people in their class, he was the only one that might have called Bakugo a friend, so it stood to reason that he was disappointed at the other boy’s loss. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t dislike me now, Kurai thought as he walked off the field while waving to the crowds as casually as he could force himself to.

The thought bothered him a great deal more than he thought it would- then again, Kirishima was one of Mina’s older friends, and a likeable guy himself. It made sense that he wouldn’t want the redhead as an enemy. It’d probably be best if I make sure we’re cool sooner rather than later, he decided, resolving to talk to the other boy alone as soon as possible.

He ran into Todoroki on the way up to their class’ seating area, quite by accident. The two of them froze in place as their eyes met from across the hallway, but only for a second. Each one saw surprise in the other, then they set their shoulders and walked toward each other at a steady pace, though the heterochromic boy now kept his eyes downcast.

Todoroki looked troubled, Kurai thought as he drew nearer to his classmate. Before he could stop himself, he halted in place a few feet away from his soon-to-be-opponent and asked, “Are you doing okay, Todoroki?”

The half-and-half young man stopped and raised his eyes to look directly at Kurai with a strange, almost hollow, look. “Midoriya,” he said simply, startling his classmate.

“What about him?” Kurai had to ask when it seemed that Todoroki was not about to be forthcoming with his words.

“You’re friends with him, right?” Todoroki asked, his expression unreadable as he gazed down at his left hand.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Kurai nodded, cocking his head curiously. “It’s kinda hard not to be friends with the guy.”

“Is he always so… helpful?” the other boy asked blankly.

Kurai raised an eyebrow before he replied, “I mean, it depends on what you need help with. But overall, yeah, I’d say he’s a very helpful guy- he’s helped me to understand my powers better than before, for example.”

“I know the feeling,” Todoroki murmured as he lowered his hand and looked at Kurai again. “You’re lucky to have a friend like him, Hikari. Not to mention a family that supports you…”

Kurai’s brow knitted together as he sensed that there was more to that last statement than a cursory glance would show. “Let me guess,” he started, not completely aware of the fact that the aftereffects of his quirk might have still been affecting his normally reticent behavior. “Endeavor’s not exactly ‘Father of the Year’ material, is he?”

“No,” Todoroki said tightly as his gaze sharpened with traces of anger. “What would you know about it?”

“He was responsible for my uncle’s death,” Kurai shot back as his own eyebrows clenched. “Clearly you have issues with the guy, but trust me when I say that I get it. Maybe not to the extent of whatever he’s put you through, but I can understand hating him.”

Todoroki’s eyes widened, then narrowed once again. “I suppose I’m not so alone in my disgust for that scumbag as I originally thought,” he muttered as he resumed walking past his next rival. “I’ll see you on the field, Hikari.”

“I’ll be bringing my best,” Kurai asserted. “I hope that you do the same.”

“…We’ll see,” Todoroki replied without turning around.

He was received warmly by his classmates when he reached their booth, several of them cheering at his victory. Even Kirishima, who had initially looked disappointed with Bakugo’s loss, came up to give Kurai a grin and a fist bump.

Mina kept hanging on to him, which he attributed to her relief that he was still in once piece. He was still getting used to receiving open affection from the girl, but he was also enjoying it more than he thought he would. Midoriya seemed to hold him in a higher regard than before for some reason that he didn’t really understand, but he decided to ask about it at a later date.

The only one that didn’t congratulate him, or even look his way, really, was Yaoyorozu. She kept a fixed stare on the stadium as it was repaired, a stubbornly blank look on her face. What’s her deal? he thought, once again confused by her behavior.

Ever since the day that they had worked together in combat training, she had seemed to want nothing to do with him, which made no sense no matter how much he thought about it. They had clicked in training, working together flawlessly to secure the win. They had even spoken in confidence after the session, and he could think of nothing that he had said that could be construed as offensive. So why has she acted like I don’t exist since that day?

“Hey, Hikari!” Uraraka’s voice snapped him out of his reverie, causing him to blink rapidly before focusing his eyes on the peppy girl, who looked up at him with a cheerful smile. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I just think Bakugo might’ve scrambled my brains a bit,” he half-lied. His left ear was still ringing a little from the abuse that it had endured, but it wasn’t too bad. “What were you saying?”

“I was asking if you wanted to do something to celebrate tomorrow, since we get the next two days off of school,” Mina said in a slightly exasperated tone. “Even if you lose to Todoroki, you get second place, which is pretty good!”

“Uh, sure,” Kurai said a little blankly. “I heard about this place called Dagobah Beach that’s supposed to be a really nice place to hang out. Maybe we could all go out there tomorrow, or on Friday?”

“Hang on, isn’t that the place where all the trash gets dumped?” Asui asked.

“Nah, I heard that it got cleaned up real well earlier this year,” he answered with a negative shake of his head. Then he appeared thoughtful as he added, “Although, I might not be able to stick around to celebrate, now that I think about it.”

“What?! Why not?!” Mina demanded. “Why wouldn’t you attend your own celebration?”

“I might need to go visit Iida’s family,” Kurai answered solemnly. “Ingenium has been a good friend for a long time, and I wanna be there for Iida if he needs help.” Those words sobered up the atmosphere quite a bit, and no one spoke for a few moments.

When someone did break the ice, it was Kaminari, who said, “Well, let’s not worry about all that stuff yet. You’ve got a final match coming up, dude, and we’re all gonna be rooting for you, got it?”

“Not Todoroki?” Kurai laughed softly. “I think he just might be the crowd favorite, especially after his match with Midoriya.”

“We’ll be cheering for the both of you,” Izuku answered on behalf of the others. “Either way, this match is sure to be a great one.”

“It’s gonna be totally plus-ultra!” Kirishima grinned crookedly. “I’m so fired up just thinkin’ about it!”

“Tag in?” Kurai joked, setting the others to laughing. “I don’t know how good my chances are against this guy.”

“You totally got this,” Mina said as she squeezed his arm tightly for a second. “You’ve come out on top through this whole competition, and I have faith that you’ll bring it home.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her as he said, “I actually placed third in the race, and we barely made it to the battle event, remember? I dunno that-”

“Oh, just take it!” she scolded him, causing Uraraka and Midoriya to laugh at the two of them.

Chapter Text

“You’re gonna do great.”

A smile decorated Kurai’s mouth as he said, “Thanks, Mom. Tell Dad and Akarui that I’m really glad they came to watch. Love you.” With that, he hit the disconnect button and handed the phone over to Mina, who smiled brightly at him.

“I’m really proud of you,” she said as she pocketed the device. She, along with Uraraka and Midoriya were once again gathered in the prep room, waiting for the signal that it was time for the battle to commence.

“You got this, Hikari!” Uraraka said with a big thumbs-up. “I know we’re all classmates, but I really do hope that you win. Nothing against Todoroki or anything- I just think that you’ll be a great hero someday, and that this is a chance for you to shine early!”

“I can’t wait to see what other surprises you have in store for us!” Izuku added, his notebook and pencil in hand. “Maybe I’ll think up some new moves for us to try while I watch!”

“Thanks, you guys,” Kurai told them, marveling once more at how only a few weeks ago, these people had been total strangers to him. Now they were among his closest friends, and he was very happy about that fact. “Your support makes all the difference.”

“Hey, do you guys wanna take a picture real quick?” Mina asked, pulling out her own phone. “I totally forgot until now that we were all on the same team for the cavalry battle! Maybe someday we can take a picture when we’re all pros, and it’ll be like a before and after!”

“Yeah, I’m down!” Uraraka said as she held out her hand for the device. “Here, just let me set it to a timed mode.” Mina let her handle the phone so that she could use her zero gravity to hold it in place mid-air while everyone else gathered in front of the camera.

Izuku and Uraraka ended up standing next to one another on the left, both of them wearing big smiles, while Mina and Kurai each ended up putting one arm around the other, also smiling for the picture. There was a clicking sound, and Uraraka went to cancel her quirk and grab the device so that they could all see how it had turned out.

When it had gone around to each of them, with Izuku receiving it last, he said, “I think this is gonna be a really great ‘before’ and ‘after’, you guys.”

“And here’s to everything in between,” Kurai said as he bumped fists with the other boy. Just then, the buzzer sounded that indicated that it was time for him to head out. “That’s my cue,” he said as he stepped away from the small group. “I’ll see you guys after the match.”

“Good luck,” Mina said before she pecked his cheek, leaving him a little red-faced and smiling as he left.

“ALL RIGHT, LADIES AND GENTS, YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE!” Present Mic declared as Kurai and Todoroki took to the stage. “BOTH FROM THE HERO COURSE, WE’VE GOT SHOTO TODOROKI AND KURAI HIKARI! BOTH OF THEM SCORED NUMBER ONE IN THEIR ENTRANCE EXAMS, BUT ONLY ONE CAN BE NUMBER ONE HERE TODAY! ERASER, ANY THOUGHTS?”

At least he kept it short this time, Kurai thought as he stepped up onto the concrete field at the same time as his opponent, who wore a blank look on his face again.

In response to Present Mic’s inquiry, Aizawa said, “Both of them have the potential to be incredibly talented heroes, but their skill level and lack of finesse puts them both at high risk whenever they overuse their quirks.”

Kurai made a face as he and Todoroki reached their designated spots, saying, “Would it kill him for once to just say, ‘They have potential’, and leave it at that?”

“He’s not wrong,” Todoroki answered, surprising Kurai- he had honestly expected to be met with the silent treatment again. “We have a lot to learn.”

“BEGIN!”

Present Mic’s declaration interrupted what Kurai had been about to say, and Todoroki wasn’t going to give him a chance to finish, either. With a blast of subzero temperature, the heterochromic boy sent forth a wave of ice that instantly buried Kurai in its depths.

“WHOA!” Present Mic exclaimed. “TODOROKI STARTS THINGS OFF WITH A BANG, JUST LIKE HE DID AGAINST EVERY OTHER STUDENT SO FAR! IS IT POSSIBLE THAT WE ALREADY HAVE A WINNER DOWN THERE?!”

“Unlikely,” Aizawa said dryly. “The attacks are powerful, but predictable. Hikari’s a smart kid, so I doubt he would have gone into this fight without some kind of a strategy in mind.”

There was a rumbling sound that began to emanate from the ice, along with a yellow glow that began to shine from within the mini-mountain.

“Man, Todoroki done goofed,” Mina said with a nasty grin as they watched the light and sound build in its intensity.

Midoriya was already writing rapidly in his notebook, muttering his thoughts aloud. “If Todoroki had been able to definitively bury Hikari, it wouldn’t have been a bad move, but it’s likely that he used Energon to counter the ice enough to create a space for him to hide out in and charge up one of his stronger attacks. On the other hand, Todoroki is pretty mobile when he uses his ice to surf around, so Hikari will have to be careful with how he uses his attacks, or else he risks overusing his power…”

“Are we sure Midoriya doesn’t have two quirks like Todoroki?” Mina asked in an aside to Uraraka. “Cos I don’t know how anyone can talk or write stuff down that fast without taking a sec to breathe.”

However, the other girl wasn’t looking at her friend, but at the stadium, pointing and saying, “I think Hikari’s about ready to get started.”

BOOM!

The ice exploded upward from about halfway up the frozen mountain, sending chunks and shards in all directions, forcing Todoroki to dodge some of them, but he managed to keep his eyes fixed on the source- Kurai, now standing just below the crater that he had made in the ice. He had a grim look on his face as he held a large ball of Energon by his side- a move that his classmate knew all too well. After all, he’d first seen it in action against Nomu, and again recently when Kurai had defeated Bakugo, so he knew exactly what it was capable of doing.

“Your ice won’t hold up against this, but a concentrated form of plasma might,” Kurai said pointedly as the orb grew a little brighter.

Todoroki’s eyes narrowed at the implication that his classmate was making. He knew very well that his flames would be better suited for fast-paced dueling at long range, but there was no need for Kurai to remind him of that. Why are he and Midoriya so vested in helping others, even when they haven’t been asked? He wondered, resentment and frustration warring with his desire to be free of his hatred, even if only for a few seconds again.

His mind flashed back to his fight with his green-haired classmate, and the words that had lit a fire in him; “It’s yours! Your quirk, not his!”

This power is mine, he thought, though his body refused to acknowledge. But it came from him and his ambitions, not my will…

“Todoroki!”

The boy looked up, startled to realize that Kurai hadn’t blasted him yet, even though he’d had plenty of an opportunity to do so. “Neither of us have given our best to be here, have we? Not really fair to our classmates, when you think about it.”

“So what?” Todoroki shot back.

“Maybe we can extend each other a little courtesy and stop holding back!” Kurai shouted right before he launched his Kamehameha straight at his opponent, who swiftly made an ice ramp in order to surf away from the attack.

He misjudged the reach of the resulting explosion, however, and it wound up throwing him off his ice, and nearly out of bounds. However, he managed to stop himself with a cluster of ice crystals that he put between himself and the edge of the arena. He whirled around to glare at Kurai, who was bounding down the ice that had been meant to keep him prisoner, cracks forming every time that his feet struck the freezing surface until he came to a stop on the concrete, both of his hands holding sparks of Energon in them.

“What do you say?” he asked as his palms turned to face Todoroki, who could feel frost beginning to coat the right half of his body. “I don’t want to have to flatten you without giving you a fighting chance.”

“You’re overconfident,” Todoroki grunted as he got to his feet properly. “If I used my flames, you’d be overwhelmed. You can’t use your full power without risking a fatal seizure, right?”

“Wrong,” Kurai replied, the sparks of energy in his hands dying as he closed his eyes. The ground around him began to rumble, cracks forming in the stone beneath his feet while an orange aura began to build up around him.

“HEY, WHAT’S HIKARI DOING?!” Present Mic demanded, only seeing that the match had come to an unexplained standstill.

Todoroki tried to take advantage of his opponent’s lowered guard, but before he could, he was nearly knocked down by a burst of air that raced away from Kurai as his body transformed, his dark hair and eyes becoming a fiery orange and deep blue, respectively. The ascended student looked down at his opponent and said, “It’s like we were discussing- Midoriya’s a big help.”

“He… helped you gain control of this?” Todoroki asked as he forced himself to stand up tall in spite of the racing wind and stray energy sparks.

“And I’ll bet that he helped you with your fire,” Kurai answered with a sharp nod. “This isn’t about just our own pride on the line, Todoroki. We owe it to the people that have helped us advance this far to give it our all.”

The other boy still looked indecisive, but both of their attention was caught by a familiar voice shouting, “What are you waiting for, Shoto?! Use your fire!” They both glared up at Endeavor, who was looking most displeased by the way that the match was going.

“Butt out!” Kurai roared back, his temper rivalling the fire of his aura. “If you’re not in the ring, then we don’t need your opinion!” Endeavor swelled ominously, but neither of the boys made a move to resume the match.

“WHOA!” Present Mic shouted with a nervous laugh. “UH, HOW’S ABOUT WE ALL GET BACK TO FIGHTING AND KEEP THE CHIT-CHAT TO A MINIMUM, YA DIG?”

“I can’t give him the satisfaction,” Todoroki told Kurai, ignoring the people around them calling for the fight to resume. “He wants me to be like him, and if I use the power that his blood gave me…”

“Our blood doesn’t define who we are!” Kurai insisted. “We get to choose what we do with our gifts, no one else!” He saw something in Todoroki’s eyes, then. Something like recognition, he thought. “Now come on! Let’s see which one of us can set the standard for our generation!”

It took a moment, but then he finally saw what Izuku had tried so hard to awaken in the previous round. It started as a spark in his eye, but then the frost on Todoroki’s body evaporated, followed by a blazing fire that covered the left side of his face, melting the ice around them as Kurai felt a smile stretch his face.

“Now that’s more like it,” he said, his power surging through him while even the melted water began to evaporate in the wake of the fire.

“I never took you as one to enjoy a fight, Hikari,” Todoroki commented as he took a wide stance.

“Normally no, but when I have this much power running through me?” he grinned fiercely as light began to gather in his right hand. “I think even the most pacifist of souls would be tempted to go just a little wild.” The energy began to whirl like a vortex, and Todoroki recognized the beginnings of the attack that had taken Iida out of the fight.

“You wanted my fire?” he asked as he aimed his left palm at Kurai. “Here you go!” Flames blasted out of his hand, scorching the air ferociously as they headed straight for his classmate.

Kurai flooded his limbs with Energon and launched himself out of the way of the powerful attack, knitting his brows together as he concentrated on getting his energy built up to the momentum that he needed for the Rasengan, as well as maintaining his transformation without utilizing raw, unrestrained emotions as the fuel.

He felt the air chill rapidly as Todoroki sent another ice barrage at him, the ice spikes reaching up high in an attempt to trap him in midair. Using his left hand, he blasted the fingers of cold while continuing to build up his finishing move, though the effort was starting to give him a headache.

Landing on a clear patch of concrete, Kurai unleashed a trio of Energon bursts at Todoroki in an attempt to buy himself some time, but the boy’s fire effectively canceled them out, even causing them to detonate prematurely in the space between them. Ducking the roaring flames, Kurai rolled to the side a few times before he realized that he was not going to be able to use his Rasengan to smash Todoroki out of bounds like he had with Iida.

Still, he had a half-finished one in hand, and it would be a shame to waste it, he thought. Settling into a half-crouch, he slammed the whirling orb into the ground, breaking it apart and knocking several fragments up into the air. Springing upward, he lashed out with a series of bewilderingly fast punches and kicks, sending each piece of rubble big enough to use as ammunition straight at Todoroki, who was now forced to dodge on another ice wave.

Willing more Energon into his legs, Kurai dashed to the side in order to intercept Todoroki’s current path, smashing into the boy himself and sending them both crashing through the ice, delivering cuts and bruises to the both of them as the barrier shattered. They ended up rolling on the ground, nearly falling out of bounds again as they began to wrestle to and fro. Todoroki tried to burn Kurai, but the other boy increased the energy output on his right arm so much so that his opponent couldn’t actually touch his skin.

The orange-haired boy managed to get the upper hand when he elbowed Todoroki in the temple, stunning him and giving him the space he needed to get away and concentrate on reinforcing his body with more Energon instead of just expelling it outwards. As his classmate got to his feet unsteadily, he leaped further away, clearing half the arena in the time it takes to blink, energy whirling in his hand again.

This time, Kurai thought, his head aching abominably at this point. His only consolation in the pain of using his advanced powers was that he did not feel pressure building up in his nose that would indicate a bleed from an aneurism.

“That trick again?” Todoroki called out from across the way as he raised his left hand. “It didn’t work last time, so why would it now?”

“Well, if I told you, that’d take the fun out of it!” Kurai laughed right before he launched himself straight at Todoroki, startling him just enough to make him hesitate for a crucial second. As he flew through the space separating them- mere inches above the concrete flooring- the orange orb in his hand suddenly accelerated in its growth and rotation speed, reaching the proper attack size just in time for Kurai to be right in front of his opponent, a fierce grin on his face.

“I thought-”

“Wrong.” Kurai interrupted Todoroki right before he slammed the orb into his classmate’s stomach, through a barrier of ice that the other boy tried to put up as a last-ditch defense. “Rasengan!” His smile widened, certain of his victory while the orange sparks exploded everywhere, sending Todoroki flying up into the air.

He was nearly out of bounds when, with a massive effort, he unleashed a blast of fire at the sky, one so hot and powerful that it sent him flying back toward a very surprised-looking Kurai. “What?!” he yelped just before he was forced to dodge, Todoroki sliding to a smooth stop on a ramp made of ice, the flames on his left side having died down.

“You almost had me, Hikari,” his opponent admitted breathlessly. “But you’re still not hitting as hard as when you fought Nomu… I thought that we weren’t gonna hold back here.”

“I’m trying something new,” Kurai admitted, keeping his guard up for the slightest hint of ice or flame. “My powers aren’t as strong as they were, but I think you can agree that I still pack quite a punch.”

“You do,” Todoroki nodded as he stood up straight, abandoning his combat stance. “But I don’t think that the power matters, in the end. We’ve both given our best here, right?”

“Yeah,” Kurai said with a slight frown, unsure of what his classmate was up to.

“Then I can be satisfied with that,” the dual-quirked boy said with a peaceful look on his face. “You and Midoriya have given me a lot to think about today, Hikari. But the one thing that remains clear to me, is that I will not be his pawn, no matter what it costs me.”

Kurai’s gaze flicked over to Endeavor, who, like most of the crowd, appeared puzzled by the latest standstill in what had been a very start-stop fight. His eyes returned to Todoroki, who still hadn’t moved an inch. “What’s he got to do with this?” Kurai demanded, still not understanding.

“For once, I’m going to make sure that he has nothing to do with it,” the other boy answered as he turned on his heel and promptly walked out of bounds, stunning Kurai, and everyone else in the stadium. He looked over his shoulder long enough to say, “I know that out of everyone here today, you’ve fought the hardest to be standing where you are, Hikari. The win is yours.” With that, he headed toward the exit tunnel, ignoring the protesting cries of the crowd, and the furious look that Endeavor was giving him.

“Er, Todoroki stepped out of bounds!” Midnight said amidst a combination of confused shouts from the stadium. “Hikari is the winner of this match, and the First Year Tournament! Congratulations!”

Kurai could hardy register the words of the professor, such as they were. His mind was too busy racing as he released his newfound power amid his heavy breaths. Did I really earn that? He thought, feeling dazed as he sat down, lightheadedness washing over him. Or does it just mean that his hatred for Endeavor means more to him than being number one?

Either way, he was the winner of the U.A. Sports Festival for his year.

After having his bruises and scrapes bandaged, Kurai was taken to a section underneath the stadium by Cementoss, where he found himself standing among the other finalists of the tournament, Todoroki, Midoriya, and- a barely restrained Bakugo. Kurai actually froze in place for a second when he saw the kid, tied up with multiple ropes to a cement pillar, with irons over his hands, and raging impotently through a muffler that had been placed over his face. His ferocious struggle redoubled as soon as he saw his victorious opponent come into the room.

“Uh… What?” he asked of no one in particular. Midoriya was standing next to the blond student on a podium marked with the number ‘3’, and he looked rather uncertain as to whether the chains and ropes would actually hold the crazed student.

“He has been trying to escape in order to fight you again, it seems,” Cementoss said as he directed Kurai to stand on a higher podium marked ‘1’. Todoroki was on his right, opposite of Midoriya and Bakugo, in the second-place spot.

The heterochromic boy kept his face blank, but Kurai noticed that the hard light had left his eyes to be replaced by a more thoughtful look. I’ll see if I can’t make sense of what really happened later, he decided, turning to look down at Midoriya with a grin, which his friend returned.

“Congrats,” he told him.

“You too,” Izuku laughed as they exchanged a fist bump. “Mina was really excited for you, by the way.”

“Here’s to hoping that I survive the bone-crushing hugs, then,” Kurai laughed, doing his best to ignore Bakugo’s furious screams. “How about you? Is Ur-” He stopped, some unknown instinct telling him to shut up now, shut his mouth and not even finish thinking what he had been about to utter.

“What’s up?” Midoriya asked, also appearing as though he were trying to focus on anything but Bakugo.

“Sorry, I meant to ask, did your Mom call you?” he stammered as he scratched behind his head. “I’m sure she’s proud of how far you got.”

“Yeah, she actually called me while Recovery Girl was healing my hand,” Midoriya answered. “She was worried, of course, but she did say that she was proud of me.”

“Sounds about right for a good mom,” Kurai laughed lightly while Cementoss went to kneel beside the platform that they were all on. “I haven’t actually even had a chance to talk to my family, and they’re here in the stadium.”

“All right now, get ready to go up,” Cementoss told them. “All Might will be giving you the medals in front of all of your classmates, so do your best to be ready for the cameras.”

“How is anybody supposed to be camera-ready when we’ve got him set up like that?” Kurai asked dryly while he jerked a thumb at a still-struggling Bakugo.

“I said to do your best,” Cementoss said with an apologetic look. “Sorry, but the principal insisted that he be a part of the ceremony. He earned his place up there, just like you earned yours’ at the top.”

“Fair enough,” Kurai shrugged as the ceiling above them began to recede, admitting sunlight and the sound of a cheering crowd once more. As soon as the roof had been retracted wide enough, Cementoss sent them up with a moment’s thought.

The entirety of the first year was assembled before them in the stadium, with Midnight standing between the two groups. Cameras innumerable were flashing and recording this moment- which boded poorly for Bakugo’s future career, Kurai thought with a small smirk.

Then he shook himself internally, thinking, Since when did I get so mean?

He saw his friends in the crowd, all of them wearing big smiles as they looked up at their classmates. He saw Mina throw him a kiss, so he decided to respond with a wink and a grin of his own, which set her to smiling even wider.

“Here they are, the winners of this year’s sports festival!”  Midnight announced, interrupting the silent exchange. “Well done, all of you!” Turning to look up at the edge of the stadium, she added, “But of course, there’s only one man worthy of distributing the medals- you all know who it is!”

“HA! Hahahaha!” All Might’s laughter boomed down from the lip of the coliseum as his silhouette emerged from the same spot. “Citizens!” he called down, just before he leaped off of the mile-high roof to crash down next to Midnight. “I am here to hand out the medals!”

Unfortunately, it seemed that he and the R-rated heroine had failed to coordinate beforehand, because at the same time he was talking, she accidentally overrode him, saying, “It’s the number one…! Hero…”

All Might gave her a frustrated look, prompting her to make an apologetic gesture and say, “Sorry, kinda ruined that, didn’t I?” She quickly recovered, though, and went to retrieve a small board that had four white-and-red straps hanging over the sides, saying, “Since you’re here, All Might, why don’t you start the presentation?”

The massive man laughed it off and took a bronze medal from the woman before walking up a short set of steps to stand in front of Midoriya and Bakugo. Turning to the green-haired boy first, he said, “Young Midoriya, congratulations. You worked hard to make it here, and it shows. Even if you didn’t win, you can go home knowing that you did your best, even if there still is room for you to grow.” With that, he placed the medal over his student’s neck, before wrapping him in a warm embrace. Midoriya looked as though he might faint from sheer happiness at the words of praise from his idol. “Very well done, young man.”

“Thanks, All Might,” Izuku managed to squeak out. “That means a lot to me, coming from you.”

The number one pro laughed heartily as he stepped back and patted the young man on the shoulder with a surprising gentleness that Kurai wouldn’t have thought possible with such a massive frame.

Briefly turning around to grab the other bronze medal, All Might paused when he stood in front of Bakugo, chained up like a feral animal and breathing heavily, apparently having at long last run out of the energy necessary for such violent struggles. “This, er… seems like a bit much, doesn’t it?” he asked of no one in particular as he quickly undid the muffler on his student’s face. “There we are.”

Kurai braced himself for a round of loud verbal abuse, but all Bakugo did was growl viciously at his teacher before snarling, “All Might…”

“Hmm?”

“You can keep that piece of garbage!” he roared, startling the large man and causing his classmates to wince and edge away from him slightly. “There’s no way I’m sharing the same placing as a weakling like Deku!” Midoriya flinched and visibly deflated as he clutched at the piece of metal hanging from his neck.

“Come on, now,” All Might said in a placating tone. “This is a learning experience, Young Bakugo! You earned this spot by your own sweat and blood, never mind the efforts of your classmates. If you are unhappy with the place you earned, then let this medal serve as a reminder that you can always do better!” He tried to put the strap over the boy’s neck, but Bakugo continued to protest, until All Might was forced to jam the fabric between his teeth, effectively forcing him to be quiet again, much to the collective relief of his classmates.

Putting on another big smile, All Might approached Todoroki with the silver medal in hand. “Young Todoroki, congratulations,” he said quietly. “I know you must have had a reason for throwing the match, but as your teacher, I feel the need to remind you that you should never waste an opportunity, especially one right in front of you.”

“I know, sir,” the boy said as his instructor placed the ribbon around his neck. “But I honestly believe that Hikari would have won, in the end. And… there are some things I need to sort out before I can really begin forging my own path. I felt that I didn’t have the right to stand up to someone so earnest in giving it his all, trying his best to become a hero like you.” His blue and brown eyes rose to meet All Might’s as he added, “I also want to be a hero like you, someday. So I promise that I’ll remember everything I learned today, and use it to achieve that dream.”

“That’s good, then,” All Might nodded before embracing Todoroki briefly. “I look forward to seeing your progress from now on, young man.” Then he stepped back to receive the final medal from Midnight.

Striding up the last set of stairs after he had taken the gold piece, he stood before Kurai, who had remained silent throughout the entire proceedings thus far. “Young Hikari, congratulations,” he said as his student bowed his head to receive his prize. “Though you have faced obstacles that many would have run away from, still you emerged triumphant. Ha! I suppose I can see why some expect you to replace me someday.”

Kurai smiled and let a little laugh escape at that. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t really think that there is anyone capable of replacing you,” he said as he straightened himself, the gold medal hanging securely from his neck. “I’ll just be happy to be another hero who does his part to keep the masses safe.”

All Might’s smile broadened as he replied, “While I believe that there is some truth to that, your actions speak of a greater ambition. Just remember that dreams and ambitions can change, Young Hikari, even if we don’t realize that it’s happening.” He paused to let those words sink in before concluding, “Either way, you’ve done very well. The top spot of this year’s Sports Festival is yours!”

Then it was Kurai’s turn to be embraced, and again he was surprised at how someone so huge could be so gentle. Gives a new image for the old term ‘gentle giant’, he thought as All Might retreated down the steps to address the rest of the classes that had assembled.

“Remember, students!” he began. “Any one of you could have been up here on this podium! Think about what you’ve done today; about how you’ve challenged each other, learned, and taken steps toward your goals of being pros!” His smile somehow managing to widen yet again as he pointed to the sky, he added, “I think the next generation of heroes is proving to be our most promising one yet! So I only have one thing left to say- and you all know what it is! I want to hear everyone yell it with me!”

“PLUS ULTRA!” The crowd- and many of the students- shouted excitedly.

Unfortunately, it seemed that All Might had something else in mind, as evidenced by his simultaneous utterance of the words, “Thanks everyone, for all your hard… work…” He paused, unsure of how to proceed.

That is, until the crowd shouted at him, “That was the perfect chance to say ‘Plus Ultra’, All Might!”

Teachers around here really should be better at reading the room with the amount of press that they get, Kurai thought with a poorly contained smile while All Might tried to recover.

“I’m sorry, my bad!” he said awkwardly amid a cacophony of boos. “It’s just that everyone did such a good job!”

That afternoon, they met in their homeroom for a brief address by Aizawa, who actually handed out some- however brief- praise that lacked a double meaning of any sort. He did also alert them to the possibility that they could be contacted by pro heroes that would have been scouting the festival for potential interns. He ended the matter by telling them to take it easy for the next two days- four, if one counted the weekend- but to be ready for more training as soon as they returned.

Kurai had only managed to get in a few minutes’ time to meet up with his family in private before his father had to go back to work, but he made it clear that he was quite proud of his son’s victory. His mother was glad of his safety, and of course, Akarui had to make fun of the fact that he won on a technicality. Still, it was clear that he was happy for his brother, so Kurai had let it slide. In any case, they didn’t have time to get into an argument, with him needing to head back to the school with the rest of his class in order to meet up with their teacher.

When the class was dismissed, Mina set about gathering the majority of their number to plan a beach party, since the weather was scheduled to be warm for the next few days. Naturally, Iida wouldn’t be joining them since he was out in Hosu in order to be with his family, and Bakugo was already gone, his mood even more foul than usual.

Kurai had already called his friend and offered to join him at the hospital, but apparently Tensei was only allowed to receive visits from family for the time being, and even those were going to be limited until he was in stable condition. The bespectacled student had thanked his friend for the offer, but their family just wanted to be left to each other’s’ company for the time being. Kurai didn’t even bother telling Tenya that he had won the festival- he knew it wouldn’t matter much to his friend at that time, especially given that they had been pitted against each other, and Iida had lost right before finding out about his brother.

I hope he’ll be okay, Kurai thought grimly as he watched everyone else planning for the victory celebration.

He noticed Todoroki making for the door, so he caught up to him before he could exit the room, and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. When his former opponent had turned around with a question in his eyes, Kurai asked, “Would you be interested in the beach party we’re planning? I think we’re gonna end up making a full day out of it on Friday.” Even as the words left his mouth, he mentally braced for the inevitable ‘no’ that the quiet boy would no doubt give him.

“Maybe I’ll drop by for a few minutes.”

Kurai blinked a few times, not sure that he had heard correctly. “Really?” he asked, just to make sure.

“Yeah,” Todoroki shrugged. “There’s something that I need to do first, but if I have the time, I’ll come around. Dagobah Municipal Beach, right?”

“That’s the one,” Kurai nodded. “Hope to see you there.”

Todoroki nodded as he turned back around and headed out the door. “Later, Hikari.”

“Later.”

The other person he made sure that he invited before they could leave was Yaoyorozu. He approached the long-haired girl in the hallway, having just confirmed alongside Mina that Shoji and Ojiro were planning to attend.

“Mind checking when Uraraka and Midoriya are coming?” he had asked his girlfriend. “I’m gonna see if Yaoyorozu wants to come, since Jiro already said she was down.”

“Sure thing,” Mina said with a cheery grin as she went to approach the mentioned pair, who were going over some of Izuku’s notes.

As soon as she had gone, he made his way over to his training partner, who was speaking to Jiro and Hagakure with a smile, which he hoped meant that she would be willing to talk, especially if her friends were present. “Hi,” he said with a nervous grin as he approached.

“Yo,” Jiro said with a grin as he stood in front of them, while Hagakure waved in response- at least, he thought she was waving at him. His spirits sank a bit as Yaoyorozu’s face went a little stiff, but he resolved to speak to her, anyway.

“Does your girl know you’re over here, chatting up three ladies?” Jiro teased Kurai, causing him to redden instantly, and drawing a laugh out of Hagakure, furthering his embarrassment.

“Yeah, she does,” he said, just managing not to trip over the monosyllabic words. “I was just, uh…” He paused, his mind suddenly blank. “Aw, crap.”

Jiro and their invisible friend burst into laughter while Yaoyorozu asked in a neutral tone, “Did you need something, Hikari?”

“Er, yeah,” he stammered, remembering what it was that he had intended to speak. “Mina and I were both wondering if you’d be interested in my party. Well, I mean, it’s not really my party, it’s celebrating Midoriya and Todoroki, too. Actually, Todoroki is probably only gonna stop by for a little bit, but he made second place, so I figured that he should be a part of it, and Kirishima is gonna try to invite Bakugo, but Mina thinks that it’s gonna blow up in his face. Er, no pun intended.” He paused, slightly out of breath, but also realizing that he was beginning to ramble.

“Dude, you and Midoriya need to learn how to stop and breathe between sentences,” Jiro snickered.

“Actually, I think I’ll be busy studying for the next few days,” Yaoyorozu replied stiffly. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m going to have to decline.” With that, she turned to walk away, but now Kurai knew that she was at least irritated with him, and he didn’t want to leave things like that.

“Wait,” he said as he got in front of her, a slight frown creasing his brow. “Yaoyorozu, have I done something to make you angry with me?”

“No,” she replied, just a little too quickly for him to believe her. “Please, excuse me.”

“Just- hold on,” he insisted, stopping her in place as she started to go around him. “I’m just trying to understand why you don’t seem interested in speaking to me. I thought we worked well together in training, and you’re the first person at this school that I told about my father, other than Iida. If I’ve upset you somehow, I’d really like to know what I did, and how I can make up for it.”

“I told you, I’m not angry with you,” she insisted, a little bit of color working its way into each of her cheeks as she denied his inquiry again. “Now please, get out of the way.” This time, he stepped aside to let her pass, a puzzled look fixed on his face.

“Uh… what?” he asked Jiro, who shrugged.

“Don’t look at me,” she told him. “I can try to talk to her later, but I really have no idea what you did to make her mad.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he said, feeling supremely stupid as he wracked his brains, trying to figure out what he could have possibly done to anger the class deputy. Was it because I didn’t vote for her as class rep? he wondered.

“Hey, stop thinking so hard!” Hagakure told him. “I can see smoke coming out of your ears, dude!”

“Yeah, chill out,” Jiro chided him. “We’ll all be there on Friday morning, kay? It’ll be fun.”

“Er, yeah, right,” he stammered, scratching his head as he did his best to relax. “I’ll see you both there.”

That night, he had dinner with his father, mother, brother, and Mina, who had been invited to celebrate his victory with them. The mood was a little dampened by the Iida family not being able to join them, but they still had a good time.

He was glad that his girlfriend was getting along well with his family- though he wished that Akarui wasn’t so free with the embarrassing childhood stories. The fact that his parents insisted that it was the price he paid for bringing home a pretty girl did not help matters. Even so, he figured it meant that they were okay with him having a girlfriend at this point, and that was a good way to end what had been a long day, one that seemed as though it had begun months ago.

So it was that when he fell into a deep sleep, he was smiling, glad of all that he had accomplished, and eager for the opportunities that the future would bring him.

Chapter Text

Kurai breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh smell of the wind and ocean spray as the warm rays of the late morning sun touched on his face. He was dressed for a full day at the beach, with his blue-and-orange Dragon Ball swim trunks and a black tank top, a Shenron towel in hand, and a bag full of his favorite snacks and drinks on the other arm. In front of him lay Dagobah Municipal Beach, clear of trash, and yet to be sought out by anyone else from the local populace.

“Are you kidding me?”

Kurai turned around to see Mina and Uraraka standing together, both of them looking as though they were trying not to laugh, apparently the first ones to arrive after him. Both of them were dressed in shirts that were way too big for them, presumably to shield their skin from the sun until they were ready to get in the water. Mina wore a big hat on her head, but Uraraka’s hair was simply let loose. Between the two of them, lying on the sand, was a large duffel bag and a beach ball.

The young man glanced down at himself, then back at the two girls before he said, “Don’t hate.” Both of his classmates burst into peals of laughter, much to his chagrin.

Shrugging helplessly, Kurai padded over to the pair in his flip-flops before he set down his things and asked, “Is it really that funny?”

“You and Midoriya, man!” Mina giggled. “Five hundred yen says that he shows up in All Might swimmers!”

“No way, he’d be way too embarrassed,” Kurai told her. “You’re on, Ashido.”

“Whoa now,” the pink-skinned girl said as she grinned cheekily at her boyfriend. “You, gambling? Who are you, and what have you done with Kurai?”

“I just won the Sport’s Festival,” he replied with a slight grin. “Maybe I’m feeling a little more confident in general.”

“Oh yeah?” Mina said with a smile that Kurai recognized as dangerous. “If you’re feeling so confident, then let’s see your guns.” Both Kurai and Uraraka went scarlet while their classmate kept her smile fixed in place. “Come on, don’t be shy.”

“Well, now I am!” he sputtered.

“Pfft, you were gonna have to lose that shirt when you got in the water anyway,” she replied casually. “C’mon, you’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about! Other than Todoroki, you might just be the most ripped guy in our class! I wanna see!”

“W-Well, clearly you haven’t seen Midoriya during training,” Kurai replied lamely. “Pretty sure he’s in better shape than I am.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure Uraraka has dibs on ogling Midoriya once he gets out here,” Mina said offhandedly, ignoring her friend’s sputtering protests as she turned beet red. “C’mon, the sun’s out, so get those guns out!”

“…I am going to die of embarrassment,” Kurai said blankly as Mina continued to eye him like a prized jewel while Uraraka found a sudden interest in the sand between her toes. “Seriously, my sense of shame is going to kill me way before a villain does.”

Before Mina could berate him again, the trio heard a familiar voice calling to them. “Hey!” Kirishima called as he approached with Kaminari, Tokoyami, and Ojiro in tow. “What’s up, guys?!”

Kurai breathed a huge sigh of relief as he turned to face his friends with a wave and the words, “We just got here a few minutes ago! Glad to see you all could make it!” Mina gave him a pouting face at having been thwarted- at least, temporarily- that he chose to ignore.

By now the other boys had gotten close enough that they didn’t need to shout to be heard over the sounds of the waves on the beach. “Ready for some serious beach partying?” Kaminari asked with a grin as he gave his classmates a double-thumbs-up.

“I know I need a fun day after all that stress from the Sport’s Festival,” Ojiro said with a slight grimace. “Plus, it’s been a long time since I went to a beach at all. This is gonna be a perfect way to chill out before we get back to school.”

“I was under the impression that there would be more of us in attendance,” Tokoyami said as he glanced around at the mostly-empty beach. “Or are we simply early?”

“Well, we said it was an all-day kinda thing, so I dunno when everyone else is gonna get here,” Mina shrugged. “I’m sure we can start having fun in the meantime, though! Did’ja bring the volleyball, Eijiro?”

“You know it!” Kirishima grinned fiercely as he held up a blue-and-white rubber sphere. “Sucks that we can’t use our quirks out in public, but I bet we can still have a pretty epic match!”

“Oh yeah,” Kaminari said as he frowned slightly. “I almost forgot about that. Since we get to use our quirks around each other so much, it totally slipped my brain that super powers aren’t allowed without a license.”

“Be glad Jiro didn’t hear that, or she’d have something to say about it,” Kurai snickered, causing Kaminari to turn toward him with a pained look.

Still, he did seem to agree, saying, “Probably.”

The group quickly laid down a few towels for those that wanted to lie down safely on the rapidly-heating sand while Kirishima and Ojiro set up a net for a volleyball match. While they were doing that, Asui and Hagakure arrived, followed by Aoyama, Shoji, Sero, Sato, and Koda. Last to show were Midoriya and Jiro, who arrived from opposite directions, the green-haired student apologizing for his lateness while Jiro simply laid down a towel next to Hagakure and started talking to her in lowered tones.

Unfortunately for Kurai, Midoriya did show up in a set of All Might swim trunks, so Mina reminded him that he owed her five hundred yen. Making a face at her, he moved to greet his classmate with open arms.

“Glad to see you here,” Kurai said as he finished shaking hands with his friend. “Did Iida tell you what’s happening with his brother?”

“No, I haven’t heard from him at all,” Midoriya said worriedly. “Did he call you?”

“Yeah, but the news was pretty mixed,” Kurai admitted as he led Izuku a few paces away from the others. Already Kirishima and Sato were organizing a volleyball game with two opposing teams.

Once they were far enough away to speak privately in lowered tones, he said, “He called me yesterday afternoon. Tensei is going to live, but he’s retiring as Ingenium due to spinal injuries that rendered his legs useless.”

Midoriya’s face twisted with despair and shock as he said, “That’s awful… How is Iida handling it?”

“I didn’t get to talk with him for very long, but I can only imagine what this is doing to him- what it’s going to do to him,” Kurai admitted grimly. “You know Tenya- he idolizes Tensei, wants to be just like him in every way. For his role model to be shattered like this… I just hope that he can continue to focus on his efforts to become like Ingenium, despite these horrible circumstances.”

“They didn’t catch the guy that did it, huh?” Midoriya guessed, to which Kurai nodded glumly.

“The Hero-Killer, Stain,” he said as he tightened his fist in reflexive anger. “I assume you know what the media says about him?”

“Yeah, but most of it is just rumors, nothing solid,” his friend replied. “He’s killed over a dozen pros, and maimed more than twice as many, all without getting caught, and protecting his civilian identity.”

“Yeah, Dad won’t talk to me about it, but I’m sure he’s nervous about what’ll happen if this guy decides to set his sights on Musutafu,” Kurai sighed heavily. “Worries me, too. Then again, this is All Might’s stomping grounds, now. I have a hard time believing that even somebody as crazy as Stain would try to tangle with All Might on purpose.”

“True, but so much about the Hero Killer is unknown that it’s basically impossible to tell where he’ll strike next, or which heroes he prefers to target,” Izuku muttered. “Although the authorities did notice that whichever city he visits always sports at least four victims before he moves on, and since Ingenium is the second hero to be attacked in Hosu, we’ll likely see at least two more reports like this one, unfortunate as it-”

“Midoriya, chill,” Kurai interjected, causing his friend to pause and look at him blankly. “It’s not like we’re in a position to do anything about this, much as it frustrates me. The truth is that we aren’t licensed heroes yet, and even if we were, we can’t go around in pursuit of revenge, you know? Real heroes don’t stop criminals for personal reasons. They only take them down because they have the responsibility to protect those that can’t protect themselves.”

“Oh, right!” Izuku stammered. “Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to say that we should go after the guy! It’s just a force of habit, over-analyzing everything that I can about major villains and heroes.”

“Hey, it’s a habit that took you pretty far in the Sport’s Festival,” Kurai admitted. “Now, what do you say we try to put aside our troubles for a day and relax like normal kids that don’t have to worry about Villain Leagues and all that?”

“Sounds plus-ultra to me,” Midoriya said with a slightly forced laugh.

The class soon found itself divided in two teams on different sides of the net. Kirishima was the captain of the first team, which consisted of Aoyama, Uraraka, Asui, Ojiro, Hagakure, and Sero. Sato led the team with Midoriya, Jiro, Mina, Kaminari, Tokoyami, and Kurai. Koda more or less declined to play, so due to the uneven number of people participating, Shoji offered to be the referee for the match. Since he could monitor things more eyes and ears than anyone else, the others agreed to the idea.

Once the teams had been selected, the classmates ditched their extra clothing, knowing that the heat would become unbearable if they got moving in the hot sand. Kurai’s face reddened as he heard Mina whistling and laughing while his back was turned, but he went ahead and removed his shirt anyway.

Beneath the tank top, he was well-muscled for a fifteen-year-old, though he knew his physique was nothing when he was compared to people like Iida and Shoji. There was some patchy scarring on his back, a result of being thrown through a sculpture by Nomu earlier that semester, but not so much so that it made him appear unattractive. Looking around, he felt a little less self-conscious when he noticed that all of his classmates were already tossing aside their shirts in preparation of the game.

He full-stopped when he saw Mina, though. Asui and Jiro were wearing one-piece swimsuits, nothing to turn a guy’s head. And even though Hagakure and Uraraka were sporting bikinis, they did nothing to hold his attention like his girlfriend. She wore a two-piece sky blue swimsuit with frills that highlighted all of her curves, and the way that she walked in it told him that she well knew it was going to grab his attention.

When his eyes snapped up to meet her caramel ones, she gave him a sly smile and a slow wink. Like what you see? She seemed to be asking him.

There was only one thing he could do at that point.

“Why’d you do that?” Sato asked as he held the ball in preparation to serve it.

“I’m a little sensitive to the heat, so I needed to cool off,” Kurai muttered as he flung salt water out of his hair. His body was still dripping with the stuff, but he knew it would evaporate soon enough in the heat of the sun. “I’m good now, though. Let’s do this.”

He cast an exasperated glance at Mina, who affected to look innocent in that moment.

“You’re goin’ down, Deku!” Uraraka grinned as she took a ready stance in the sand. “You too, Hikari!”

“In your dreams!” Kaminari shot back with a smile of his own. “We’ve got this year’s champ on our team!”

“Remember, no quirks,” Shoji told them. “That means you too, Ojiro, Asui.”

“I told you guys to call me Su!”

“Sorry about that,” Mina said as she sat next to Kurai on the towel that he had brought along. “You know, earlier.”

The class had just finished playing a third volleyball match and most of the players had felt that a break was in order by this time. Kurai was drinking a small orange soda from his bag, and as Mina came to join him, he pulled out another one to offer to her.

“It’s all right,” he replied with a sheepish smile. “I honestly should have expected it. And…” His face reddened as he admitted in a lowered tone, “I can’t say it wasn’t a nice surprise.”

She grinned brightly at him as she accepted the drink, leaning sideways just enough to nudge his shoulder with her own before straightening up and saying, “I’m glad you’re enjoying the beach, then. Maybe when summer vacation starts up, we can come back here, just the two of us?”

“Sure,” he answered after a moment of consideration. “That sounds like a good time. But before all that, I did wanna let you know that I have a surprise for when it’s time to go home this evening.”

“You, planning a surprise for me?” she asked with exaggerated surprise. “Someone help, I think my boyfriend has heat stroke! He’s acting super weird!”

“Ouch,” he said as he stood up before finishing off his mini-soda. “Here I was getting ready to ‘drown’ so you’d have to perform CPR, but oh well.”

“Haha- Wait, what?!” she yelped, just before he took off running, his laughter following him into the water. She watched him with wide eyes as he crashed into the waves alongside Kirishima and Midoriya, who had broken out the beach ball with Uraraka and Hagakure. “He’s learning how to play this game a lot faster than I thought he would,” she said with a cheery grin.

The group wound up spending the full day at the beach, alternating between splashing about in the water, trying to crush each other at volleyball, and working a barbeque. Kurai could honestly not recall the last time that he spent so long smiling and playing, like a normal kid. His only regret was that Iida was not there to spend it with them.

As it turned out, Sato was great at making food, something he claimed was necessary since his quirk allowed him to power up whenever he ate sugar. However, it also seemed that he was very talented when it came to handling a grill, so the group ate well for lunch.

At around four o’ clock, the party was joined by a somewhat unexpected guest. “Hello, Hikari,” Todoroki said as he approached his opponent from the final round of the tournament, a backpack slung over his shoulder. “I suppose I’m a bit late, aren’t I?”

“Not at all,” Kurai said with a friendly smile as he shook hands with his classmate. “We’re gonna be here for another few hours- some of the others wanted to make s’mores after it gets dark.”

“I see,” the heterochromic boy said. “I can help with the fire when it comes time, then.”

The remark surprised Kurai, so while Todoroki set his things down, he asked, “That won’t bother you?”

“No,” the other boy answered simply.

“Well… good for you, then,” Kurai said awkwardly.

Glancing up at his classmate, Todoroki straightened himself and asked, “How is Iida? I saw what happened to his brother on the news.”

Kurai winced and replied, “He’s taking it pretty hard, from what I can tell. We didn’t talk for long when he did call me.”

“I see,” Todoroki said again, a faraway look in his eyes. “Ingenium was a good hero. He deserved better than to be brought down by scum like the Hero Killer.”

“Yeah,” Kurai said glumly, his smile completely gone now.

Seeing it, Todoroki shook himself and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring down the mood. What is everyone else doing right now?”

Glad that the subject was changing, Kurai pointed at Kirishima and Kaminari, who were digging in the sand at a rapid pace. “Those two think that they can dig deep enough under the sand to make a bridge that won’t collapse when one of them walks on it. Everyone else is either still splashing around, or waiting for them to fail.”

Todoroki smiled slightly and said, “I think I’ll go for a swim, then.”

“…Hey, Todoroki?” Kurai asked as they began to walk towards the water together.

“Yes?”

“Would you care to join Midoriya and me for some of our workouts from time to time?” he offered. “We both find it easier to be motivated whenever you have someone pushing you on, instead of just going at it alone.”

Todoroki seemed to ponder this for a moment, but then he replied, “I’ll let you know if I can make it later this week.”

“Awesome,” Kurai said with a large grin.

The moon was well into the sky by the time the fire was put out, and everyone started going their separate ways. Kurai noticed that Todoroki was still silent most of the time, but he didn’t leave early, which he took as a sign that he was genuinely trying to become more familiar with his classmates. Midoriya, of course, tried to make him feel more welcome, but only partially succeeded.

It was while everyone was walking off the beach that Kurai walked over to Mina, put his hand in hers’, and said, “C’mon. I’ll take you home.”

“You’re gonna ride the bus all the way to the other side of town, and then back to your place?” she laughed as Uraraka and Jiro waved goodbye to the couple. “That’s very sweet of you, but you don’t have to do that.”

“Who said anything about taking the bus?” he asked with a grin as he led her over to the parking lot, where there was solitary vehicle, waiting for use.

Seeing it, Mina stopped in place and let a huge grin split her face as she said, “No friggin’ way.”

“Yes way,” Kurai said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a heavy leather jacket and helmet with a visor. “You’ll need these.”

“Awesome!” Mina laughed as she took the gear and walked over to an orange motorcycle with blue highlights. “Best boyfriend ever!”

The bike was a Kawasaki Ninja model, and it was clear from the paint job and overall condition of the thing that Kurai had put a lot of work and care into it. There was a small rear seat and detachable compartments on either side of the main seat, which Kurai put his and Mina’s belongings in, after taking out his own helmet and jacket.

Slipping the protective gear onto his head, he asked, “Ready for one last bit of fun before you have to go home?”

“Heck yeah!” the girl said excitedly as she started to get her own helmet in place, surprised to find that there were already holes for her horns to go through. “Man, you didn’t miss a trick,” she giggled after she tightened the strap under her chin and started putting on the jacket. “Did you modify this helmet yourself?”

“Nah,” he replied as he sat down in the main seat. “I was originally gonna lend you Akarui’s since your head is a little smaller than mine, but I realized I couldn’t modify it without compromising the integrity of the helmet. So I just went and bought you one.”

Mina paused, surprised. “Wait, aren’t these things supposed to be super expensive if you buy one with a quirk mod?” she asked.

He shrugged nonchalantly and answered, “Well, I figured that this wouldn’t be the only time you’d wanna take my bike out for a spin, so I decided it was a worthwhile investment.”

Heat flooded her cheeks as she realized what he was saying- that he was willing to plan things out for the long haul. Man, he’s cute, she thought as she settled into the passenger seat, wrapping her arms around him, and suddenly getting a reminder of how ripped he actually was, even through the heavy jacket. Damn, he’s hot.

“You’re gonna have to hold on tight, cos there’s not a lot of room back there,” he warned her as he put the keys in the ignition.

“No complaints there,” she laughed, right before he turned the ignition, and the engine roared to life.

“Great!” Mina was surprised to hear Kurai’s voice coming into her ears clearly, despite the noise from the engine. He must have registered her interest, because he then added, “Akarui made a couple of modifications, himself. These helmets are equipped with radios that let us talk to each other, even with all the ruckus.”

“Sweetness,” she grinned. “You’ll have to tell him I said ‘thanks.”

“Will do,” he laughed. “Now, let’s move it!” He kicked up the break stand, revved up the engine, and much faster than Mina would have ever expected him to, gunned out of the parking lot onto the road.

“Whoa!” she yelped, squeezing him tighter around the chest.

That was okay, though. Kurai didn’t object one bit to her closeness as he raced around the perimeter of the night city, his normally reclusive nature forgotten in the thrill of the uncrowded road. He had decided earlier to take the roundabout path to her home, as to enjoy the evening sights for just a little longer.

As he sped across the outskirts of his home city, he thought, I love my school, I’ve made some great friends, and to top it off, I’ve got a really awesome girlfriend. I don’t see how my life could get any better than this.

Wow, I was wrong.

He felt like his head was going to explode as Mina’s lips disconnected from his, and she stepped back a pace on her front porch, her cheeks colored lilac. “Thanks for everything today,” she said meekly, which was very out of character for her, especially given that she had started it. “I had a really good time.”

“M-Me too,” he said a little unsteadily, his own face flushing. “I… There was something I was gonna ask you, but now I’m having a really hard time remembering.”

The kiss hadn’t been very soft or magical like the movies made it seem it would be- in fact, he’d felt pretty awkward during the few seconds that it lasted. Even so, it wasn’t something he was going to forget in a hurry, and he had definitely enjoyed himself after the initial shock.

“Well, if the first one scrambled your brain, maybe another one’ll get it started up again,” she said as she leaned toward him.

Of course, as bad luck would have it, that’s when he remembered the matter he had been trying to recall. “Wait a sec, I’ve got it!” he as he reached into his jacket pocket. He noticed that Mina was now looking annoyed with him, so he held out the ticket that he’d been saving. “Here you go.”

“What is this?” she asked as she took it from him, the frown on her face changing from irritated to curious. “A plane ticket?”

“To I-island,” he confirmed. “They’re having an expo for all the newest hero support inventions right after school gets out for summer break. My family got offered tickets to the pre-show, but my Mom and Dad can’t make it. Since it’s all-expenses paid, Akarui and I were going to go, and I asked them for permission to take you with us- they said yes.”

He didn’t have to explain what the I-island was to her. Everyone knew that just as U.A. turned out the top heroes, I-island produced the greatest scientists in the world for creating support items and studying quirks in general. It was incredibly difficult to even visit the place, so the fact that the Hogo-sha’s had been invited was a very big deal.

“For real?!” Ashido squealed excitedly, her irritation completely forgotten.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, glad that his idea had worked. “I take it that means you want to come with?”

“I think I’d have to be crazy not to take you up on that!” she laughed as she hugged him tightly. “Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome,” he replied as he returned the hug. “I actually heard some of the others talking about Yaoyorozu getting extra tickets for the pre-show, so we’ll be able to meet up once we’re all there.”

“Sweet!” Mina exclaimed. “Group trip! This is gonna be so awesome!”

“Yeah, as long as I don’t kill Akarui by the end of it,” Kurai laughed again as they pulled apart.

“Why would you do that?”

“You and me are gonna be going on a trip. Together,” he pointed out wryly. “He’s my younger brother- it’s in his job description to make fun of me at every opportunity he has in situations like this.”

“Oh,” Mina giggled as she put her arms around his neck and moved her face closer to his. “Well, I think I know what’ll make you feel better.”

Kurai was still smiling when he walked up to the entrance of his school the next day. Even the incessant rain and reporters gathered outside his house when he left hadn’t managed to irritate him- and the fact that he had been able to shut them all down with an E.M.P. burst didn’t hurt things, either. Man, I’m glad Yaoyorozu never asked for this thing back, he had thought as he pocketed the device from his first day of combat training.

They had all been trying to get an interview with the boy that had won the Sport’s Festival- in a controversial manner, no less- but he had refused to go on the record thus far. He didn’t feel like dragging Todoroki’s name through the mud, and he definitely didn’t care to have the media picking apart and micro analyzing everything that he said.

He met up with Midoriya at Tatooin Station and rode the train with him toward their school. Of course, people recognized them from the Sport’s Festival, and so there was some crowding and well-wishes from their fellow passengers, which made both of the boys uncomfortable, though they tried not to show it.

When that was finally done, they put up their umbrellas and walked the rest of the way to school. “Kinda weird being recognized by people that you don’t know,” Midoriya said as they passed through the gates.

“I’m just glad that they aren’t trying to get a quote off of me to use against my dad,” Kurai replied. “Not often that my family receives positive attention from the public.”

His friend looked like he was going to reply, but then they both heard a familiar voice coming up behind them. “Midoriya, Hikari!” The two of them turned around to see Iida running at full tilt toward them in a poncho. “Why are you walking so slow?! You’ll be late!” Without even slowing down, he shot past them, leaving small splashes in his wake.

“The bell isn’t for another five minutes!” Izuku protested while Kurai remained silent.

“U.A. students should always be ten minutes early!” Iida called back over his shoulder. “Hurry up!”

“Well, at least it seems like he’s doing okay, right?” Midoriya said to Kurai, who was still being quiet. “Hikari?”

The other boy looked at his friend gravely and said, “He’s not okay, Midoriya.”

“W-What do you mean?”

“If he was fine, he would have stopped to lecture us about our slow pacing, not just run by and leave a passing remark,” Kurai answered. “And he never calls me by my last name, not since we were younger.”

“Well… maybe he’s just in a hurry to get back to class,” Midoriya chuckled nervously. “Other than Yaoyorozu, I don’t know of anybody in our class that takes studying as seriously as he does.”

“Trust me,” Kurai said firmly, drawing a concerned look from his friend. “I’ve known the guy for years. He’s not okay.”

“It’s so weird that people recognized us from TV,” Mina said as she took her seat in the classroom, having just finished greeting Kurai with an energetic hug. “People kept wanting to talk to me on the way here!” The first bell had already rang, so the students were all just waiting on their teacher to arrive.

As Kurai made his way to his seat, he made sure to greet Uraraka and Todoroki, along with the other classmates that he had become friends with.

“Yeah, me too!” Kirishima said excitedly in response to Mina’s declaration.

“People on the street were staring at me!” Hagakure said from her desk. “It was actually kind of embarrassing…”

“Isn’t that the norm for you?” Ojiro inquired.

“You’re not gonna believe what a bunch of elementary school brats yelled at me,” Sero groaned as he sat down.

“Nice try?” Asui guessed, which set Sero to burying his face in his hands with a pitiful whimper.

“All it took was one festival, and we’re basically celebrities,” Kaminari said happily as he bumped fists with Mina. “This school rocks!”

Just then, the door slid open to reveal Aizawa, free of his bandages, though it appeared that he had been left with a crooked scar underneath his right eye, a result of Nomu’s attempt to kill him. But he is alive, Kurai thought as he shut his eyes against those painful memories. And it looks like he should still be able to use his quirk.

His physical appearance saw to Asui saying, “Mister Aizawa! You look better now that your bandages are gone.”

“The old lady went overboard in her treatment,” the tired-looking man said as he walked in and shut the door behind him. As he took his place at the podium, he added, “That’s not relevant. What matters is that today we’ll be having an important session concerning Hero Informatics.”

Kurai sighed heavily. I hate Informatics, he thought as he reached for his notebook and pencil. He wasn’t bad at the subject- to the contrary, having been raised by a police officer, he was pretty familiar with laws concerning quirks. However, that didn’t mean that he was inclined to like it.

He froze in place when he heard Aizawa say, “You all need code names- time to pick your hero identities.”

The class’ reaction was immediate and nearly unanimous. “This is gonna be awesome!” the majority of them cried.

A growl from Aizawa, as well his eyes glowing red, saw to them all being silenced immediately. Once they were quiet, he released his quirk and said, “This is related to the pro hero draft pick that I mentioned the last time we were in class. Normally, first-years like you wouldn’t have to worry about the draft just yet, not until your second or even third year. But your class is different.” He paused, as if wondering whether to tell them something, then continued, “The fact is that by extending offers to freshman like you, these pros are willing to invest in your potential. However, they can still rescind their offers at any point before graduation if they lose interest in you.”

Harsh, but fair, Kurai thought. It was a big risk for pro agencies to invite students like them who were still just barely getting a handle on using their quirks for hero work. That didn’t stop him from feeling excited at the prospect of getting to work with a pro hero.

“So we still have to prove ourselves, even after we’ve been recruited?” Hagakure asked.

“Correct,” Aizawa said as he aimed a remote the board behind him. “Now, here are the totals for those of you that received offers.” As he did, white kanji and numbers appeared on the board, each number corresponding with a student’s name, which read:

Hikari: 3952

Todoroki: 3556

Midoriya: 840

Bakugo: 419

Iida: 360

Asui: 252

Yaoyorozu: 108

Kirishima: 78

Kaminari: 77

Uraraka: 20

Sero: 14

Needless to say, Kurai was stunned speechless. I knew there were a lot of hero agencies in Japan, but that many want me to sign on with them?! he thought with no small amount of wonder.

“Normally the draft is spread more evenly,” Aizawa was saying. “But there’s a pretty big gap this time.”

“Gah!” Kaminari groaned as he leaned back over his chair. “That’s not fair!”

“What about the real star, moi?” Aoyama complained, but nobody paid attention to him.

“Man, Todoroki and Hikari really have their pick of the bunch,” Kirishima said with a trace of envy.

“Weird that even though Bakugo was one of the semi-finalists, he got only half as many offers as Midoriya,” Jiro noted.

“They probably weren’t too excited to work with the guy that had to be chained up at the end,” Sero snickered.

Bakugo did not like that. “Those numbers gotta be wrong!” he seethed as he stood up in his chair. “Deku doesn’t even compare to me!”

“There’s no mistake, Bakugo,” Aizawa said sternly. “Sit down.” Grinding his teeth furiously while Midoriya fidgeted nervously in place, Katsuki sat.

Meanwhile, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki were speaking in lowered tones, with the former looking disappointed in herself for not having attracted more agencies. On the other side of the classroom, Uraraka was shaking Iida excitedly at the prospect of having been noticed by any agencies at all.

“Despite these results, you’ll all be interning with pros, got it?” Aizawa told them. “Even those of you who didn’t get any offers. You’ve all had experience in fighting villains during the USJ incident, but it will still be beneficial for you to see pros in action, up close and personal.”

“And if we’re gonna be out in the field, we need hero names!” Sato declared excitedly.

“Things just got way more exciting!” Uraraka said in agreement.

“These hero names will likely be temporary,” Aizawa warned them. “But take them seriously, or else-”

“You’ll have hell to pay later!” a new voice declared as the door was thrown open.

Dammit, why? Kurai groaned inwardly as Midnight stepped through the door, dressed in her hero costume.

“The name you pick today could well be your hero identity for life,” the woman said as she waltzed into the room. “So think carefully, or else you may get stuck with something utterly indecent.”

Must she? Kurai thought as he introduced his palm to his face.

“She makes a good point,” Aizawa said as he reached for his sleeping bag. “Midnight will have the final approval for your hero names. It’s not really my thing, so I’m going take a nap.”

With a name like Eraserhead, that’s not surprising, Kurai thought as the man moved to the side to slip into his bag.

However, it seemed that the man did have one last piece of advice. “Your hero name will reinforce your image and shows what kind of hero you want to be in the future,” he told them. “A codename tells people exactly what you represent- take ‘All Might’ for example.”

Midnight handed small whiteboards to the front row so that they could pass them back, along with dry erase markers. They were to write down their chosen name and hero identity before giving them to the teacher, apparently.

Good thing I already know who I’m gonna be, Kurai thought with a grin as he quickly penned his desired hero identity and the title that would go with it. He remembered how Uraraka had asked him if he’d ever thought of his superhero name before things got crazy at the USJ. Now he was ready to embrace his new identity.

After a few minutes had passed, and Aizawa was fast asleep, Midnight stirred from the spot she had taken and asked, “All right, class, who among you is ready to share?”

Wait, we’re gonna be presenting this? Kurai thought, startled. Looking around, he noticed that most of his classmates looked just as nervous as he did.

Most, not all.

Aoyama went first, stepping up to the podium and declaring that he was the ‘Shining Hero, I cannot stop twinkling.’ Even after Midnight shortened it for him, Kurai was in disbelief. Does he not understand how much of a tool that makes him sound? He wondered.

Next to go was Mina, which Kurai was interested to hear. “I’m gonna be the Ridley Hero: Alien Queen,” she declared, much to Midnight’s horror.

“You mean like that horrible monster with the acid blood?!” she gaped. “I don’t think so! Not unless you want to scare people!”

“Dang it…” Mina grumbled as she walked back to her seat.

Bummer, Kurai thought with a frown as his girlfriend sat down, looking dejected.

Next to go was Asui, who named herself as the Rainy Season Hero, ‘Froppy.’ It was well-received, not only by Midnight, but the rest of her class, who cheered for her new hero identity.

After her went Kirishima, who declared himself as the Sturdy Hero, ‘Red Riot’. Midnight noted that he was paying homage to a second-generation hero, Crimson Riot, warning him that if he was going to do so, he would have that much more to live up to. However, Kirishima eagerly accepted the burden, as it were, saying that he would live up to the great name of his idol.

Jiro was going to be the ‘Hearing Hero, Earphone Jack.’

Shoji would become the ‘Tentacle Hero, Tentacole.’

Sero was the ‘Taping Hero, Cellophane’, which everyone had to admit was pretty spot-on.

The ‘Martial Arts Hero, Tailman’, was Ojiro’s new name, while Sato became the ‘Sweets Hero, Sugarman.’

Kaminari, despite Jiro’s suggestions otherwise, decided that his hero identity would be ‘Chargebolt,’ the Stun Gun Hero.

The ‘Invisible Girl’ was claimed by Hagakure, who called herself the Stealth Hero, and Yaoyorozu became the ‘Everything Hero, Creati.’

When it came time for Todoroki to present his hero name, he announced that he would simply go by his birth name, Shoto.

‘Tsukoyumi’, the Jet-Black Hero was Tokoyami. As it translated roughly to ‘god of the night’, his classmates all thought it fitting.

Koda was the Petting Hero, ‘Anima.’

Bakugo’s first pick, ‘King Explosion Murder’, was shut down pretty quickly by Midnight, on the grounds that it was too violent.

When it came time for Uraraka to present, it was with no small amount of nervousness that called herself ‘Uravity’, which Kurai thought was very catchy, much like Asui’s chosen identity.

Kurai was a little surprised when Mina came over to his desk and said, “So… I got nothing, other than ‘Pinky’. Think you could help me pick a new name?”

“Er, well…” he said in a low voice, not entirely sure of what he should say now. Since it was going to be her hero name, would it be right for him to have a say in such an important decision? On the other hand, the earnest look on her face made it difficult for him to refuse her.

With that in mind, he chanced upon a name that he hoped she would find favor with. “What do you think of ‘Ashid’?” he asked apprehensively.

“Ashid?” she repeated, looking a little confused at first. “Wait, like my name, but take off the last letter to make it sound more like my quirk?”

“I mean, if you don’t like it-”

“No, that’s not it at all,” she said with an impish grin. “It’s kinda like how Ochaco’s is a play on her name and quirk. Cute.”

“Really?” he asked, hoping that she wasn’t just pulling his leg.

“Really,” she giggled. “Thanks, Kurai. Now I just need a title to go with it. That part, I can handle myself, though.” With that, she retreated to her desk, leaving her boyfriend curious as to what she would pick for herself.

Bakugo now tried again, saying that he would be ‘Lord Explosion Murder’. Once again, Midnight rejected the name, saying that it was too similar to his original title, and thus carrying the same violent overtones.

While the blond boy seethed in his chair, Mina stepped up to the podium once again, her confidence back in her bouncy gait. Setting her whiteboard on the wood with gusto, she announced, “Thanks to a suggestion from my best friend, I’m gonna call myself the Melting Heroine, ‘Ashid Queen’.”

“Now that’s a name I can get behind,” Midnight said approvingly. “With your looks and confidence, I think you’re right to call yourself the queen, girl.”

“Yes!” Mina said with an enthusiastic fist pump that preceded her return to her desk. Grinning at Kurai she jerked her head toward the podium.

Encouraged by her gesture and enthusiasm, it was at this point that Kurai stepped up to show his new name. Midnight quirked her brow at him as she said, “So, our number one first-year student. What did you decide on? Remember, people already have high expectations for you, given your knack for success.”

“I’m well aware,” Kurai nodded as he turned to face his classmates from the podium with his whiteboard in hand. As he lifted it up, he declared, “I am the Guardian Hero, Kai. In all times of life, good and bad, I will stand up for the people that need me.”

“Very well done,” Midnight said approvingly, much to his relief. “It’s simple and easy to remember, plus it sounds close to your own name, which makes it easier to associate with you. I see that several of you have chosen this style, and I think it’ll serve you well in your future careers.”

“So, ready for our internships, Deku?” Kurai grinned at his friend as their class began to disperse across the train station, each of them headed for a different destination across Japan. It was a week after they had all chosen their hero names, and Aizawa had just given them leave to head out for their internships.

Midoriya grinned at the sound of his new hero name before he replied, “Yeah, I’m excited to meet this pro hero, Gran Torino.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him,” Uraraka commented as she and Mina stood side-by-side. “Was he famous for anything?”

“Well, not really,” Midoriya admitted. “I had actually never heard of him until All Might told me about him. Apparently he was All Might’s teacher at U.A.!”

“Whoa, seriously?!” Mina exclaimed. “Man, Midoriya, you really hit the jackpot!”

“Under normal circumstances, I’d ask if I could switch with you, but there’s no way I’m missing out on an opportunity to train under Gang Orca,” Kurai said with a delighted smile of his own.

“Oh yeah, he’s your favorite hero, right?” Uraraka asked.

“Has been since I was little,” he confirmed. “I was really stoked to see that he had offered me an internship. He does a lot of coastline city patrols, so I’m sure I’ll get a chance to learn about using my powers in suburban areas. You know, in a way that doesn’t cause buildings to fall over.”

“Probably a smart career move,” Mina giggled. Glancing up at the departure times, she said, “Well, I should get going. My train boards in five minutes.”

“Be safe,” Kurai said as he hugged her goodbye.

“You too,” she said softly in his ear. Then she let go and waved farewell to Midoriya and Uraraka.

He watched her go while his two friends talked to each other behind him, until he noticed another student leaving to board his own train. “Hey, Tenya,” Kurai said before his friend could get too far away. The taller boy turned around to see his best friend approaching, with Midoriya and Uraraka not far behind, so he stopped and waited for them.

“You’re going to Hosu?” Kurai asked once he got closer.

“Yes,” Iida nodded once.

Kurai frowned at that- he’d heard that piece of information while walking by Aizawa’s office last week, when the pro hero was talking to the principal about some of the internship offers that the school had received. He knew that Hosu was the city where Ingenium had been attacked, so he had begun to worry that his old friend was up to something foolish and dangerous. Then again, it was Tenya- he followed the rules to the letter, no matter the circumstances. If anyone can keep his cool in this kind of situation, he can, Kurai thought as he shook hands with his friend.

“Just remember, if you need somebody to talk to, I’m here,” he told the taller boy. “I don’t care if it’s two in the morning, and I’ve had the crap beaten out of me by a villain- call me.”

“Us too,” Midoriya said while Uraraka nodded her head rapidly.

Iida’s eyes softened a little before he said, “I will. Thanks.” Then he turned around and was gone, moving swiftly to find his train car.

“You think he’ll be okay?” Uraraka asked the boys.

“I think so?” Midoriya guessed. “Hikari? What do you think?”

Kurai was silent for a few moments before he said, “Check on him every day you can. I can usually tell what he’s thinking, but ever since his brother was attacked, I haven’t been able to get a good read on him. I’m worried.” Silently, he added, And for some reason, it feels like I just said goodbye to my best friend for the last time.

Chapter Text

“So, you’re Hikari,” Kugo Sakamata, otherwise known as Gang Orca, mused as the first-year intern stood before his office desk. The room was empty except for the two of them, the intern was dressed in his school uniform, and he looked like he had taken a bit of time to clean up his appearance with a fresh haircut, almost as though he was applying for a job. Actually, he was in a sense, applying for a job here, Kugo reasoned as he glanced down at the boy’s profile in his clawed hand.

“Yes sir,” the boy answered swiftly.

“I wasn’t able to watch the Sports Festival this year, but one of my sidekicks went to scout the competitors for me,” his temporary supervisor rumbled. “Normally I don’t take an interest in first-years, but due to the USJ incident, I decided to check how that had affected your class. My sidekick told me about your efforts to win the festival, some of which were impressive, and others that you definitely could use some improvements with. Then of course, there is the manner in which the tournament concluded, but in my opinion, there’s not much you could have done about that.”

“May I ask about what areas I lacked in, sir?” Kurai inquired.

“I watched the highlights that featured you, after the fact,” Gang Orca explained. “You performed admirably in the obstacle course, putting your quirk to use in ways that I found innovative- and I don’t impress easily.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kurai said with another bow, partially to hide the smile on his face.

As he straightened up again, however, Gang Orca went on to say, “I was disappointed by your performance during the Cavalry Battle. Despite making it to the next round, you only did so by playing the part of the minimalist, lacking the ambition to pursue higher goals.”

Kurai’s cheeks reddened, but he accepted the rebuke without comment. Seeing his calm acceptance, Gang Orca asked him, “Why did you settle when you could have reached higher, Hikari?”

The boy thought about how to phrase his answer carefully before saying, “If it had just been me, sir, I think I would have taken bigger risks to gain more. However, because I had people depending on me to make it to the next round, I didn’t want to risk their standing for personal gain.”

“A noble sentiment,” the pro hero nodded. “But each of your teammates knew the risks and accepted them, did they not? You should understand that in a hero’s line of work, we all know the risks, and what they entail.”

“Yes sir,” Hikari said again.

“During the battle tournament, you performed very well again, so I know you can handle yourself if it comes to combat with most of the grade of villains that I come across,” the huge man said. “During your week here, we will be doing a lot of patrols, both on the water, and in the streets. In the hours that we are not patrolling or taking a meal, you will be training with one of my sidekicks. We will also be coordinating with two other agencies this week, and when we do, you are to be on your best behavior.” Pausing for a moment, the whale-man then asked, “Do you have any questions, Hikari?”

“Yes sir,” he nodded. “If I do well enough this week, may I have your autograph?”

Gang Orca blinked in surprise a couple of times before he chuckled deep in his throat. “I don’t often meet fans,” he told his intern. “Most children cry when they see me in person.”

“Most people also look up to All Might as their personal favorite,” Kurai grinned slightly. “You’ve always been my number one hero, sir, ever since I was little.”

“Then I’ll see about that autograph,” the pro hero laughed. “I think I know a guy.” Getting up and moving to stand directly in front of the boy, he said, “Welcome to my agency, young man.”

Kurai reached out and shook his mentor’s offered hand as he replied, “I look forward to learning from you, sir.”

Kurai was shown to a small room that he would be staying in while he interned at the agency, where he put away his backpack, which contained his regular clothes, and his suitcase, which held his now-improved hero costume. Akarui had told him that he’d put in a request for another addition to the costume that he would greatly appreciate.

As soon as he had finished putting away his few belongings, a young man appeared at the doorway and said, “Hey, kid. Boss says you’re going on patrol in fifteen. Better get your costume on.”

“Gotcha,” he said as he plopped the suitcase up on the bed. “I’ll be there.”

He heard the sound of retreating footsteps as he unlocked the case and examined the contents within. His gi and the armor that went over it were unchanged, but when he picked up his sword, he noticed that the weight felt just a little different than it had before- not in bad way, though. Grabbing up the instruction booklet, he scanned through the page that depicted his weapon, his eyebrows rising in surprise when he read; ‘Hikari of class 1-A. As you may have noticed by now, we made a modification to your photon sword. It now can be switched between two power settings, low and high. Low power will cause burn wounds if applied to bare flesh, so it’s quite safe to use against villains without fear of causing undue harm. The high power setting will allow you to cut through just about anything, as your previous model could. However, this does make it very dangerous, both to you and potential enemies. We advise exercising great caution if you do activate this module. To switch between the two settings, push the ignition control twice in rapid succession.’

Good to know, he thought as he set the weapon aside, only to notice one last item that he had not been expecting. “Hello,” he murmured. “What are you?”

The item in question looked like a headset similar to what helicopter pilots used, save for the fact that it fitted to one ear, and it had a blue lens that would go over the left eye. “No way,” Kurai said with a massive grin. “Well done, Akarui!” His brother had, in essence, designed a scouter similar to the ones used in the Dragon Ball franchise.

Flipping through the instruction booklet once more, he quickly read, ‘The design of this latest addition to your costume was fairly easy for us to work with, given the provided schematics, and is quite simple to activate. Press the red button on the side to turn it on or off. Push the black button beneath it to scan your target and bring up criminal data on them. The green button above the red one will triangulate your position and give you a map of your surrounding area for five square miles. It also serves as a communicator that syncs up with your phone the first time you use it, allowing you to call anyone on your contact list and track their positions based on their phone data. It also works with the radios that many heroes use in the field, but you first need to scan for the frequency being used with the blue button bellow the black button.’

It doesn’t read power levels, but getting data on villains will be pretty helpful, he thought as he set the item back in the case and began to get changed. Thanks, Akarui.

Once he had donned his new gear and uploaded his contacts to his scouter, Kurai made his way over to the briefing room, where Gang Orca coordinated his daily patrols, and on occasion, met up with other heroes for joint missions. One of the sidekicks directed him to stand near the back of the room, where he went without complaint.

After that, the pro hero explained that they would be doing standard patrols for the day, but that in two days, they should be ready for a joint effort involving two other agencies. Three agencies, one of them involving the number ten hero? Kurai thought as the meeting was disbanded. Must be some villain we’re going after.

“Hikari!” He stood at attention as Gang Orca approached him, waiting quietly while the man said, “You’re with me for the next two days. If you perform according to my standards, we’ll see about you accompanying us for the joint raid. It would be good for you to learn about cooperating with other agencies, but we’re gonna be going up against a fairly major crime syndicate. If I think you’re not up to the job, you’ll be sticking to standard patrols with one of the other sidekicks, understand?”

“Yes sir,” Kurai answered quickly, keeping his voice even despite his inevitable excitement. “I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations.”

“See that you do,” the pro said, sounding satisfied. “Now then- let’s find out what this afternoon has planned for us. Remember, when we’re not on the ship, I want you to stay close to me at all times.”

The first afternoon and evening yielded nothing significant while Gang Orca and his sidekicks took to the waters that bordered the city. Kurai was put to work as a deckhand, his enhanced strength assisting him nicely when he moved cargo as they needed. It was boring, monotonous work, but the student dared not complain. He knew that he couldn’t expect to be treated like a celebrity, even if he had won the Sports Festival. He had to earn his place among this crew, even if it was only for the week.

The sidekicks actually treated him pretty well, showing him the fastest way to accomplish his tasks as they were assigned to him by their boss, and giving him tips on what to look for while they were on patrol. One of them- a young woman named Banshee, on account of being able to scream at supersonic levels- explained that normally they would be on the lookout for smugglers or illegal fishing in that part of the coast, but nothing turned up that night. Since he had expected some sort of hazing from the crew, it was a welcome surprise for the young high schooler.

The second day, they took to patrolling the land, which turned out to be a bit more exciting. During the early afternoon, Gang Orca got a call about a robbery in progress at the city mall, where a few dozen people had been taken hostage. Apparently the thieves were hitting up the jewelry shops in the area, and were threatening to kill one hostage for every badge and cape that they saw approaching them. Unfortunately, three people had already been killed in a show of force, meaning that the bandits were not bluffing. Now they were demanding safe passage out of the country in return for the exchange of their hostages.

In response, Gang Orca had his sidekicks approach the mall in the guise of curious civilians after coordinating with the local police, so that they would know to let them through when the time came. Once Banshee was in position, Gang Orca, along with Kurai and a half-dozen other sidekicks, took a SWAT helicopter, which the villains were made to think would be their escape vehicle. The boy was told that he would be allowed to engage with the villains, only so long as he was close to Gang Orca.

To start their attack, Banshee unleashed a scream that targeted the molecular frequency of the radios that the villains were using, causing them to explode in their ears, forcing most of them to collapse from the pain and shock of their wounds. However, three of the villains were only disoriented, not disabled, and they were quick to recover their weapons, despite the blood and shrapnel coming out of their ears. One of them actually had a regeneration quirk that allowed him to tear off whatever part of his body had been damaged, and then regrow it.

As soon as he saw it in action from the helicopter, Kurai was able to identify him with his scouter. “That’s Mako Ayakashi!” he shouted to be heard above the whirling blades of their vehicle. “His quirk allows him to instantly convert any metal that touches him into sand- pretty much makes him bullet proof! He’s wanted for four murders and over a dozen heists like this one!”

“What about the other two?!” Gang Orca asked, having already been briefed on the scouter’s function.

“Unknown, sir!” Kurai answered. “They must be new villains, because there’s no data on either of them!”

“All right, now stay back for the next part of the raid!” The pro ordered him. “We’re dealing with professional killers, so you are not to engage!”

Kurai was disappointed that he wouldn’t be part of the action, but he agreed without a hint of protestation. Gang Orca was responsible for training him, but he was also responsible for his safety. It wasn’t unreasonable to expect him to allow the boy in combat during such a tense situation. By the same token, he would be able to observe how the pro dealt with the criminals in person, without a police blockade in the way, which was a rare opportunity.

The criminals had gone down without too much of a fight after the bulky hero descended upon them. Gang Orca’s quirk allowed him to do anything an orca whale could, including using a sonar pulse to disable his enemies. Since Mako’s quirk didn’t apply to sonic waves, he was just as vulnerable to the technique as the rest of his compatriots.

Kurai had been allowed to assist in restraining the villains alongside the other sidekicks. There was one moment when a thug with a phantom-type quirk phased out of her bindings, returned to her solid state, and then grabbed one of the sidekicks from behind and threatened to slash their hostage’s throat if they weren’t given safe passage out of the city.

As it so happened, Kurai was the closest one to her, and when he looked at Gang Orca with a raised eyebrow, the big man nodded once, just ever so slightly, and that was all the clearance that Kurai needed. He launched himself at the woman from the side at top speed striking her left kidney with thunderous force, followed by sharp blow to the side of her head that instantly knocked her out.

After confirming that she was really down this time, he stood up and said, “She’s out, and she’ll stay that way for a while.”

As Gang Orca made his way over to the young man, he rumbled, “Why hit her so hard? Surely it would have taken only one blow from you to incapacitate her.”

Kurai stood at attention and swiftly answered, “She was able to escape our restraints already, sir. I didn’t know if we had equipment on hand to keep her type of power in check, so I wanted to make sure that she’ll be unconscious for quite some time. I know I didn’t deliver any death blows, as I’ve studied the human body in regards to martial combat quite thoroughly. A blow to the jaw like the one I gave her is not lethal, unlike those applied to the temple or throat.”

Gang Orca nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer. “We do have equipment to hold her, but given the circumstances and what you knew, you acted appropriately. Well done, Hikari, though try to be more aware of what equipment we have on us the next time we go out into the field.”

“Yes, sir.” Despite the mixed praise, Kurai was just glad that he hadn’t disappointed his instructor.

The following day was the one where Gang Orca and two other agencies were to be making a joint task force. The other heroes to arrive were Mount Lady and Mister Brave. Both of them were capable in their own right, and they seemed to respect Kurai’s temporary instructor. Then again, there weren’t a lot of people who didn’t respect- or at least have a healthy fear of- the number ten pro.

Kurai was in the middle of his morning spar with one of Gang Orca’s sidekicks when Banshee came in and told them all to shower off and get in gear. “The briefing is in thirty minutes, move it!” she ordered.

“Sheesh, what’s got her in a mood lately?” asked Kurai’s sparring partner.

“I heard she’s getting ready to open up her own agency,” said another guy. “She’s probably just antsy about moving into the world on her own.”

“How long has she been working with Gang Orca?” Kurai asked as they exited the room.

“I think it’s been four years or so?” his partner answered. “I’m not entirely sure. I’ve only been here since I graduated last year.”

Four years, huh? Kurai thought as he headed toward the shower room. I wonder how long it’ll take me to have my own agency.

Once he had cleaned up and put on his hero outfit, Kurai joined the others in the briefing room. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was going on the joint mission or if he would be doing standard patrols today, but either way, he didn’t want to miss the meeting. He took his normal place toward the back of the room, noticing the presence of the other two pro heroes in front of the large monitor where Gang Orca made his presentations.

However, he failed to notice the presence of a newcomer standing a few feet away from him, at least until they came over and hugged him from behind, and none too gently, either. Turning to see who would approach him in such a familiar manner, he was nothing less than surprised when a familiar pink face smiled brightly at him from only a few inches away.

“Mina?” he asked in surprise as he returned a brief hug. “What’re you doing here?” Both of them had the good sense not to be too cuddly in such a professional setting, but they figured that a casual embrace should be okay.

“Nice to see you too,” she giggled. “I’m interning with Mister Brave, and I was super excited when he told me that we were teaming up with Gang Orca, cos I knew it meant that we would get to work together!”

“Come to think of it, I didn’t know who you were going to be interning with leading up to this,” he remembered aloud. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Meh, my internship didn’t seem nearly as exciting as yours, so I didn’t see a need to brag when you were training with the number ten pro,” she giggled. “I’m still super excited, though!”

“Me too,” he grinned back. “Here’s to hoping Gang Orca lets me go on the raid, or whatever this is. You know why we’re here?”

“Nope,” Mina said with a shake of her head. “Mister Brave wouldn’t tell me what’s up.”

“Either they didn’t want to worry us, or this mission must be classified, as to avoid any unintentional leaks to the public,” Kurai mused. “Not sure which one we should be more concerned about.”

“Yeah, when you think about it like that…” his girlfriend winced. “What are we up against? League of Villains, maybe?”

“I hope not,” Kurai said with a shudder. “I still get nightmares about fighting Nomu.”

“Me too, and I didn’t even get up close with that thing,” Mina replied in a similar tone.

“Quiet down,” one of the sidekicks warned them, nudging Kurai in the ribs. “The boss is about to start.”

“Sorry,” Kurai apologized as he turned his attention toward the front of the room, Mina doing the same as she silenced herself.

Gang Orca stood in front of the board, where a trio of profiles were quickly displayed. “Our target today is a lot more dangerous than your average villains that are running solo,” he rumbled. “These three people are responsible for perhaps five percent of the human trafficking that happens in this country, alone. We’ve been working on tracking down their base of operations for months now, and just last week, one of the feelers that the police put out came back with a hit.”

The pictures were replaced with a map of the city, where a red blip was shining in the north-east quadrant, right by the waterfront. “They smuggle in children from outside the country and ‘process’ them in what we originally thought was a warehouse for the constructing materials of new cargo ships.”

Kurai’s fists clenched, the thought of kids his age or younger being forced into slavery for the most depraved of masters infuriating him. He had seen his father come home on nights where he and his colleagues had taken down scum like these, and instead of being happy for his victory, the man always seemed drained, as if looking upon such atrocities rendered him completely unable to see the good that he had done. He suspected that his father even had to see a therapist from time to time, concerning what he had witnessed, but of course the man himself never said a word on the matter.

Mina must have picked on his sudden rigidity, because she bumped his shoulder and gave him a nervous smile. It’ll be okay, she seemed to be saying.

He nodded back and forced himself to relax, unclenching his hands and forcing himself to breathe deeply. He was just in time to hear Gang Orca saying, “These three all have very powerful quirks, and none of them are to be taken lightly.” As he turned back toward the board, one of the profiles appeared again, larger and more detailed. “This woman is Amani- villain name, Animod. She has the ability to transform into any animal who’s DNA she has come into contact with, but it doesn’t work on humans. She also cannot go directly from one non-human form into another- she has to revert back to a human in order to change again. Police also believe that if she stays in the transformation longer than two hours, she will be stuck in whichever form she last took; the evidence of this being that her twin brother, born with the same quirk, is now living his life as the parakeet you see on her shoulder.” The two students took notice of the bright blue-and-green bird, Kurai filing the information away for later use.

If that bird still has all the intelligence of a human, it’ll bear watching, he thought grimly.

“Amani runs the show, but her two henchmen are nothing to ignore, either,” the number ten hero was now saying, the image on the board shifting to twin mug shots. “These two excuses for human beings are Matsuda and Matsui, otherwise known to the underworld as Mas and Menos. Both of them are locals, though they used to run with the Mexican Cartel- that is, until Amani apparently brought them back a few years ago. On their own, they’re basically quirkless, but if they have physical contact with one another, they can move at speeds of up to three hundred miles an hour.”

“Sounds like they could give All Might a run for his money in a marathon,” Mister Brave commented.

“Maybe, but if we can incapacitate one before they start using their quirk, they’ll both be powerless,” Gang Orca informed them. “Both men need to be conscious for their quirk to activate. If we can take them out first, we eliminate the chances that they escape with their boss.”

“Whaddya need us for, Gang?” Mount Lady asked impatiently. “Sounds like this is a crew you could handle on your own, given how many sidekicks you have here.”

“Mind yourself,” Mister Brave said sternly to the younger hero. “I’m sure he has a reason for us to be here with him.”

“I need you, Mister Brave, to set a trap for Matsuda and Matsui, should our initial plan go awry,” Gang Orca nodded. “Nothing lethal, but if they can’t run away, it’ll certainly make our jobs easier.”

“I understand,” the man nodded, a look of knowing passing between the two of them.

“Mount Lady, I need you to handle the demolition of the ships in that warehouse,” the lead hero said to the blonde woman. “We don’t need any of them escaping by boat to give our friends in the coast guard any trouble.”

“Gotcha,” the heroine nodded, seemingly satisfied now that she had a task to look forward to.

Addressing his sidekicks now, Gang Orca stepped forward and announced, “There will be two teams today. Banshee will lead team Beta, and I will lead Alpha. You all know which squad to go with, so I won’t bother with roll call. As for our interns…” He surprised the students by beckoning them closer.

Making their way to the front of the room, the two classmates stood at attention as Gang Orca loomed in front of them, his red eyes peering down at them with great intensity. After a quiet moment, he said, “Mister Brave thinks that you have performed well these last two days, Ashido. You’ll be going with Banshee for the prisoner extractions. As for Hikari…” He turned to look his charge in the eye as he added, “You’ll be with me on team Alpha. We’re responsible for bringing in as many villains as we can, starting with Amani and her two friends. Both of you are being given permission to use your quirks for open combat, but only so long as this mission lasts. And if I see or hear any reason to stop you from going too far, you will be sent back to your school to face whatever disciplinary action that they see fit. Am I understood?”

“Yes sir!” Kurai said sharply, while Mina just nodded dumbly.

“Then get moving. We leave in five- let’s move it, people!”

“I guess I’ll see you after this whole thing is over, then,” Mina said as she turned to her boyfriend. Giving him a brief hug, she whispered, “Be safe, please?”

“Only if you promise to stay safe, yourself,” he chuckled as he returned the hug. As he released her, he said, “Let’s go beyond.”

“Plus Ultra.”

The warehouse that they were brought to looked pretty unassuming, but Kurai gathered that was the idea. They couldn’t well expect the villains to put up a giant neon sign that read, ‘Bad Guy Central,’ after all. He looked up at Gang Orca, who was waiting with his hand over his earpiece for the signal that it was their turn to move in. Team Alpha was currently sitting in what looked like a large school bus, but was actually loaded with capture weapons and heroes.

Mister Brave had already infiltrated the warehouse and was setting a trap for Mas and Menos, while Mount Lady was getting into position to smash the boats on the waterfront. Meanwhile, Banshee was standing by with Team Beta, ready to follow Alpha into the complex in order to rescue the people being held as slaves. Mina had been given a headset, so Kurai had made sure to get her frequency so that he could contact her if he needed to.

There was a loud BANG that shattered the relatively quiet city background noise, followed by Mount Lady emerging from a mound of rubble that used to be the section of the warehouse that had held slave transfer crafts. “Go,” Gang Orca ordered as the bus door opened and his sidekicks began to rush out in the street, heading right for the damaged warehouse. “Stay in pairs, and don’t hold back, save for kill shots. And be careful. These guys won’t hesitate to put us down if we give them the chance.”

“Yes sir!” his colleagues answered as they continued to pour out of the bus, with Gang Orca himself and Kurai exiting last.

As they ran behind the sidekicks, Kurai’s ears picked up shouts and alarms coming from inside the building, so he looked up to see a number of the windows becoming occupied by men with guns, all of which were aimed at his group. Before he could say anything about it, though, Gang Orca lowered his head slightly and unleashed a sonar pulse that disabled a majority of the gunmen.

He did miss a trio that had begun shooting at them from the upper left side of the building, however, so Kurai enhanced his body with Energon and leaped up high in the air, unleashing a trio of energy blasts as soon as he had a clear shot. He hit the ground running at the same moment that the three mercenaries were blasted back into the building. Glancing up at his hero, he asked, “How was that?”

“You made yourself a pretty big target, separating yourself from us like that,” the man admonished him, but Kurai already had an answer ready for him.

“I thought that if they suddenly saw someone jumping up at them, they would panic and be caught up in a second of indecision,” he explained as they dashed across the street, ignoring the confused drivers that had been forced to stop their cars due to all the commotion. “And if worse came to worst, it’s better that they shoot one sidekick as opposed to gunning down a bunch of your men.”

“Sound judgement,” the pro nodded as they reached the door, where the sidekicks had all gathered, some of them pounding on the heavy iron structure. Addressing them, he asked, “What’s going on?”

“They’ve bolted the door from the inside, sir!” one of them answered. “It’s reinforced, and none of us have the quirks suited to knock it in, and we didn’t bring any explosives with us due to the hostage situation.”

“Step aside, all of you,” Gang Orca ordered them. Looking back at Kurai, he said, “Knock it down.”

“Yes sir!” Kurai grinned, energy whirling in his right hand, compacting itself into a little yellow ball. “Stand back!” he said as he took a running stance. As soon as everyone had moved away, he launched himself at the door, shouting, “Rasengan!” The ball slammed into the door, twisting and warping the metal until it was ripped off its hinges and sent flying into the well-lit warehouse, shouts of pain and curses coming back at the group of heroes.

Because of the weight that he had put into the move, Kurai found himself rolling into the structure, springing lightly to his feet just in time to be surrounded by five villains that all looked like they wanted to kill him. “Hi guys,” he grinned nervously. Hearing a series of rapid footsteps coming up behind him, he leaped up high into the metal rafters, shouting, “Bye guys!”

Before any of the villains could unleash their quirks or weapons, they found themselves covered cement that quickly hardened, pinning them in place as Gang Orca’s sidekicks swarmed into the building. While that was happening, Kurai noticed that there were a few walkways running parallel to the rafters that he was perched on, many of them running over cages that held dozens of people, each. And on those rafters were villains of all kinds, some of them armed with guns, others simply using their quirks to take aim and fire at the heroes that were invading their territory.

Some of them had noticed his arrival, and so took aim at him, causing him to gulp nervously as he realized that he didn’t have any backup. Leaping off the rafters with energy blazing in his hands, he shouted to his allies, “Heads up!” He fired a round of Energon at the bars that supported the walkway closest to him, even as a fireball whizzed over his head, followed by a metal projectile that nearly took him in the arm- something too big and slow to be a bullet, so he guessed that it was the result of someone’s quirk. The energy blasts ate through the supports, and the walkway began to collapse, sending a number of the villains tumbling off the sides, many of them shouting curses at him as they went down.

The problem was, he realized that the metal structure was about to land on top of a cage that held a lot of screaming kids, and there was no way to tell if it would hold against such a heavy, violent impact. Heart pounding, veins surging with adrenaline, he hit the ground, forced his quirk to the maximum output that his costume would allow, and shot back toward the cage, praying that he would make it in time.

He got there with only milliseconds to spare, crashing into the walkway shoulder-first and sending the thing flying clear across the warehouse to crash into one of the walls, where the structure wound up sticking in a massive dent caused by the impact. Kurai shouted in pain as he hit the ground, his shoulder dislocated. Tears blurring his vision as he scrabbled awkwardly on the ground, trying to get up, he felt someone kick him in the back, sending him sliding to hit the cage that he had just saved.

“That was stupid move, kid,” a gravelly voice told him as he heard the sound of a gun cocking, causing him to freeze in place. “Brave and noble, but stupid.”

There was a burst of sound, and Kurai instinctively flinched, expecting a bullet to bite into his head. When he realized that he was still alive a couple of seconds later, he rolled himself over to look up at Banshee, who was grinning at him. “Still alive down there?” she asked him. Off to the side, Mina was melting the lock on the cage, quickly opening the door and directing the children inside to get out as quickly as they could. Many of them were chained together, so she was slowed down by having to carefully melt through the metal links that were hampering the crying children’s progress, as not to accidentally get any acid on them.

“I’m alive,” he grunted as he tried to get up, his arm hanging uselessly by his side. “Everything happened too fast… Gang Orca’s probably furious with me, huh?”

“Nah, if anything, I’ll bet that he’s impressed with your quick thinking,” Banshee told him as she helped him up. “You’re kinda reckless, but a lot of us are when we first start out. Give it some time, and you’ll be a great hero, kid. By the way, what’s up with your arm?”

He gripped the sore limb with his right hand and grunted, “It’s dislocated pretty bad.”

“Good thing I’ve got some basic medical training then,” Banshee said as she gripped his arm and shoulder, causing him to wince at the pain. “This is gonna hurt.”

Gritting his teeth, Kurai growled out, “Just do it.”

There was a sharp pop as his bones were forced to reconnect, and he grunted loudly at the pain, but he was relieved to feel that he could properly move his arm again, albeit with a lot of soreness. Wiping the reflex tears out of his eyes, he said through heavy breaths, “Thanks, Banshee.”

“You okay, Kurai?” Mina called over as she destroyed a little girl’s feet manacles. She didn’t turn toward him, focused on her task as she was, but he could hear the worry in her voice.

“I’ll be okay, but I might need a hospital before this is all over,” he said with a pained grimace as he rolled the damaged limb.

“Just don’t shoulder-check a metal bridge again, and you should be fine,” Banshee told him. Turning her head toward the sound of gunfire, she added, “You’d better get a move on. Sounds like they could use your help.”

Kurai’s scouter alerted him to an incoming call, so he hit the com button and said, “This is Hikari.”

“Where are you?” Gang Orca demanded, causing him to wince. “I told you to stay close by. I lost you as soon as we got in the building.”

“Things got kinda hectic for a second- a bunch of these guys were shooting at me, I needed to get away, and I ended up with Banshee,” Kurai reported as he brought up the map function that displayed the caller’s location. “I’m heading your way now, sir.”

“All right,” the pro hero said in a calmer tone, apparently mollified by the fact that he was not alone. “But be quick about it, and try to keep the recklessness to a minimum.”

“Yes sir.” Killing the communication, he turned to the young women and said, “Thanks for your help. I’d have been toast without you.”

“Ah, you’d have figured something out,” Banshee told him. “I was the one that saw you at the Sports Fest. You’ve got skills, kid.”

“Get going,” Mina told him as she finished with the last of the children’s bindings. “Something about Gang Orca reminds me of Mister Aizawa when he’s mad, so I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”

“Good instincts,” Banshee snickered.

“Then I’m off,” Kurai said as he leaped on top of the cage. “Later.”

The layout of the warehouse was a fairly open design, kind of like the ones that Kurai had seen in movies where the bad guys were storing weapons or drugs, complete with a labyrinth that made it difficult to move in large groups. He imagined that was why Gang Orca wanted them to be in small teams of two or three, to combine both speed and caution.

He managed to rejoin with his instructor, offering another hasty apology when he did, which was more or less waved off- after all, they had more important things to worry about, such as not getting shot or otherwise torn apart by villains. As they made progress through the warehouse, methodically taking down any villains that they saw, Kurai felt his awe of Gang Orca growing by the minute. The man seemed unflappable, indomitable in the face of odds that many would have found overwhelming, and never once did his face change from the steely expression that he had worn since the battle had begun.

They were just about to wrap up their sweep of the warehouse- Mas and Menos had been successfully captured by Mister Brave- and move in on Animod’s last known location, when the two of them were ambushed by a half dozen villains, four of them armed with assault rifles, one using a quirk that caused anyone looking directly at him to see double, and an older man that was covered in metal needles.

Kurai stiffened when he saw the last one, a horrible suspicion occurring to him as the silvery quills triggered an old memory. Reaching up, he scanned the man with his scouter, his eyes widening briefly before narrowing with hatred. “Nagano Shibuya,” he growled, energy swirling in his hands in spite of the weapons aimed at him and his supervisor. “Formerly ‘Needle Mouse’ of the Penta-Gram family.”

“Oh, so you know who I am?” the man chuckled. “Nice to know my reputation precedes me.”

“You’re supposed to be in a jail cell,” Gang Orca said over his shoulder, as his back was to Kurai’s, and he couldn’t see the man clearly- though apparently, he knew who he was. “What’re you doing out?”

“Animod posted my bail, appointed me as one of her enforcers,” the man shrugged. “It’s not the prestige that I once enjoyed, but it beats rotting in a cell next to my brother.” Looking at Kurai interestedly, he said, “Your sidekick here looks like he’s trying to set me on fire with his eyes. What’s his deal?”

“Hikari?” Gang Orca asked, something like concern in his voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me something,” Kurai said, ignoring his instructor’s question. “Do you remember the day that your syndicate was destroyed? The day that Endeavor and All Might took you down?”

“It’s not the kind of thing that one forgets easily, kid,” Nagano laughed bitterly. “I nearly got the fiery bastard, too.”

“Yeah, I’m well aware,” Kurai snarled, the energy in hands glowing brighter as his eyes sparked with blue, though he didn’t transform properly just yet. “The man that you killed in his stead was my uncle.”

Chapter Text

Kurai could feel the rage surging through his veins so clearly that his blood cells might have well been the carrier of the deadly disease called ‘revenge’ that threatened to tear him apart. Never before had he genuinely wished for someone to die, much less by his own hand, but it was all he could do in that moment to keep himself from ripping the villain apart, limb from limb, never mind all of the guns pointed at him and Gang Orca.

The subject of his hatred, the villain called ‘Needle Mouse’ was currently laughing himself silly. “You’re that pig’s nephew?!” he wheezed merrily. “Oh, this is too funny!” With a click of his needle-covered fingers, he pointed at Gang Orca, who had been staying quiet, and said, “Hey, I know! Why don’t we see if you and your uncle die the same way?”

“Hikari, move!”

Before the metallic projectiles could be fired at the student, Gang Orca moved with a speed that belied his bulk and tackled Kurai to the ground, out of harm’s way, while bullets and needles flew overhead. The boy felt something heavy cover his head right before a high-pitched sonar pulse disabled the villains around them. Well, all but one of them.

“Nice try, Orca!” Needle Mouse laughed while his men fell at his feet, numbed to the point of immobility. “You know the resonance frequency for a normal human, but with a heteromorphic quirk like mine, you can’t use the right sonic waves to cripple me!” The pro hero slowly got to his feet, his wary eyes searching for any indication that the villain would be about to make a move. Kurai stayed where he was, but he had Energon going through his body at the maximum strength that his costume allowed, ready for the signal that he could put down this villain like a rabid dog.

You may have been angry, Kurai, but you didn’t act on your impulses. Heroes aren’t allowed to hold grudges, and by refusing to allow your passions to guide you, you’ve shown that you will be an honorable hero one day.

Kurai paused, shocked at the fact that such a memory had chosen now to resurface. He had no idea why Iida’s words came to him in that moment. But with those words now planted firmly in his conscience, others came to him in the voices of his friends.

The best part is that you managed to hold yourself back when nobody was watching, which means that whatever you did or didn’t do in that moment, it shows who you really are when it comes to dealing with your hatred.

Was Mina even right about him? He clenched his fist as he waited for the tense stand-off above him to play out. Some hero I’d be, starting my career with a revenge kill, he thought bitterly.

As we compete here today, I ask that we all… remember those that have gone before us, and remember the sacrifices that they made to give us the world that we have.

His own words echoed in his mind, taunting his fury with the irony of the moment. Kurai felt his face growing red with shame as he realized that his uncle would have never stood to see him murder someone for the sake of anybody. That wasn’t what his family had stood for over the last three decades- it wasn’t justice. Shutting his eyes in humiliation, he thought, Can I even call myself a hero after this?

“Hikari!” Gang Orca’s shout snapped his gaze upward while the big pro moved in to grapple with the smaller villain, ignoring the metal briars that were cutting into his thick flesh as he sought to force the man to submit. “This is no time for an existential crisis! I’m guessing that this guy has caused you some grief, but you need to pull it together and be a hero right now!”

Needle Mouse, smaller though he was, was holding his own surprisingly well, though Kurai imagined that it would be hard to get a secure grip on a body that was covered in razor-sharp metallic quills. Grinning madly at the two of them, he cackled, “Get it together, pro! If you’re begging a child for help, I find it hard to believe that you’re really the number ten hero! Besides, what is he gonna do to someone like me, the man that killed his family?!”

Tzak!

A large bolt of yellow energy struck Needle Mouse in the face, causing him to stumble, and giving Gang Orca the purchase that he needed to grab up the villain and smash him into the ground with a suplex, winding up with a face-full of needles in the process. At first, there was no movement from either of the men, but then the pro hero let out a pained groan and released his captive, shoving the stunned man off to the side to reveal his face and chest to be covered in metal barbs.

“That,” the large man rumbled tiredly. “He’ll do that to you.” Glancing over at Kurai, he added, “Make sure he stays down.”

‘With pleasure,’ he wanted to say, but instead, he went with, “Yes sir. Sorry I lost myself for a moment, sir.”

“It happens, even to the best of us,” the large man grimaced as he began to pull at the needles surrounding his mouth. Fortunately, he had avoided getting stabbed in the eye, but one look told Kurai that the man was going to lose a serious amount of blood before the day was over. “You never told me that your family had a history in crime-fighting, Hikari.”

“It didn’t seem relevant to my training, sir,” Kurai replied as he prodded the older villain, who remained still. “And I had no idea that any members of the Penta-gram family were loose, much less that I would run into the one that killed my uncle.” Some of the other villains groaned pitifully, but Kurai knew that they wouldn’t be moving for a while, either- Gang Orca’s sonic blasts were far more potent than a lot of anesthetics that were used to numb a person’s body, even with modern-day science.

“Fair,” Gang Orca replied as he pulled out another bloodied needle with a frown. As he stared at the tip that was covered in his blood, he muttered, “These are barbed- not good.”

“I’ll radio for a medical evac,” Kurai volunteered as he tapped his com button. “Hello, anyone on team Beta? This is Hikari, I’ve got a situation here.” Gang Orca nodded slightly and stopped pulling on the metal pieces embedded in his skin.

“I read you, Intern, what’s happened?”

Recognizing the voice of a sidekick codenamed ‘Hermes’ for his winged feet, Kurai replied, “I’m in the southwest quadrant of the building, and I need a medical evac for Gang Orca.”

“Wait, the boss is down?!” Hermes all but shouted, sounding alarmed. “How did that happen?!”

“One of the more experienced villains got the jump on us,” Kurai explained. “Orca got stabbed by a lot of metallic needles, and they’re barbed, so we can’t pull them out clean. He’s conscious for now, but he’s losing blood.”

“Got it, I’m on my way with backup,” Hermes replied. “Don’t move from your position if you can help it, and keep him talking. If he falls asleep from blood loss, it’s gonna be a lot harder to wake him up again.”

“Understood,” Kurai said, right before the communication ceased. Turning to Gang Orca, he said, “They’re on their way.”

“Good,” the large man replied, moving his mouth as little as he could. “Restrain Shibuya and his lackeys, then keep an eye out for any others that come this way.”

“Yes sir.”

“And Hikari?” The boy turned around before he could move to use a restraining device that he had been given before the start of the raid, looking at Gang Orca, who was smiling slightly. “I know you could have made that a kill shot. You did well to exercise restraint.”

The rest of the raid was completed without too many problems. Since Gang Orca was Kurai’s direct supervisor, he had retreated along with the pro hero once the med team showed up. From there, he was instructed to stay with Banshee and Mina, where he did what he could to help the wounded and frightened children.

For a little while, he almost forgot the moments where he had come close to crossing the line between hero and villain, but even so, he was more subdued than usual. It feels like I should have a weight lifted off my shoulders, he mused tiredly in between administering burn medicines to a couple of kids. I helped bring my uncle’s killer to justice. So why do I feel so empty inside? His melancholy must have showed, because as soon as he and Mina were allowed to take a break in one of the transport vans, she walked up to him with a water bottle and a concerned look on her face.

“Here,” she said as she handed him the drink, which he accepted gratefully. “What happened in there?”

He drank deeply from the plastic bottle, trying to put off answering for as long as he could before he was forced to reveal his weakness to his girlfriend. He didn’t bother trying to hide that he was rattled, or deny that anything was wrong- he knew that Mina would figure it out eventually.

When he had swallowed as much water as he could in one go, he lowered the bottle from his mouth and stared down at it, not wanting to meet her eyes. “I crossed a line, Mina,” he said in a subdued tone. When she said nothing for a moment, he sighed and elaborated by asking her, “Do you remember what I told you about my uncle? How he died?”

“Yeah, that’s not something even I can forget in a hurry,” she said with a forced laugh. “What does that have to do with today, though?”

“The guy that did it is the one that put Gang Orca in the hospital,” he said numbly. “We ran into him out of sheer, dumb luck. And I crossed a line that heroes should never go near.”

“Wait…” Mina asked as she took a step back with wide eyes. “You didn’t waste the guy, did you? Please tell me you-”

“No, I only knocked him out,” Kurai said with a slow shake of his head. “He’s back in police custody, along with the other members of the smuggler’s ring.”

“Wait, then how did you-?”

“Mina, I wanted to kill him,” Kurai interrupted her, his voice bitter. “I wanted to rip his arms off and scorch the insides of his body with my energon. I wanted him to suffer for every minute of my uncle’s life that he stole, and then some.” Burying his face in his hands, he mumbled, “What kind of hero wishes for something like that?”

There was a long silence before he heard Mina move, and he was surprised when he felt her arms go around his back as she told him, “You’re human before you’re anything else, and that includes being a hero. I can’t say that I know what you’re going through, but I know that if a villain ever did anything to hurt my parents, or even my stupid brothers, I’d probably feel the same way that you do about that guy. It’s not evil to feel these things, Kurai. It would be evil to act on them, but you didn’t, and that’s what counts. At least, that’s what counts in my book.”

“But what if someday-?”

“Don’t think about that right now,” she told him as she squeezed him a little tighter. “I know you’re all about planning for the future, but you can’t account for everything that might happen, ya know. Maybe Akarui, but definitely not you or me.” There was a smile in her voice, and despite himself, her declaration made him laugh just a little.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said with a weak chuckle. “Akarui knows everything, as he likes to remind me so often. We should totally ask him what I should do if I start holding grudges against villains.”

“Well, I might not be a super genius, but I think I know what he’d say,” she giggled back. “He’d say that you’re silly for wasting your time worrying about what might happen, and to start learning from what you’ve already done.”

“You portray him a lot more politely than he actually is,” Kurai said as he lifted his head to look at Mina while she pulled back from him a little. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked him with a big grin.

“For being patient with me,” he replied with an embarrassed smile. “And for cheering me up.”

“If you wanna say thanks, then I know what you can do,” Mina said with a sly wink that made Kurai pale again.

“Please no,” he begged.

“Say it,” she said with an evil grin.

“Do I have to?”

“Hey, I have to be cheerful for the both of us, this is the least you can do,” she told him. “Come on, do it. Do it. Doiddoitdoitdoitdoitdoitdoitdoit!”

“You enjoy this way too much,” he grumbled as they both stood up, his face flaming red as he looked down at the floor. “Mina… You are the bestest… most prettiest… urgh…”

“Come on…!” she laughed. “You gotta finish, or I’m gonna make you say it louder!”

“…Most plus ultra girlfriend a guy could ask for,” he concluded, feeling like he might just die of embarrassment, a feeling that was becoming more of a constant in his life.

“Aw, thanks,” she giggled again. “Now gimme a smooch, buster.”

“No way!” he protested as she leaned toward him with a mischievous smile. “We’re on a job right now, we gotta be professional!”

“No one’s looking.”

“That doesn’t make it okay!”

At the end of the day, the three hero agencies went their separate ways, Mina and Kurai sharing a hug before they parted, which the girl was less than satisfied with, but Kurai’s stubbornness had won out in the end. Kurai went to visit Gang Orca in the hospital, along with a few other sidekicks that had been wounded in the fighting. He was a little nervous to see the pro hero, despite his words of affirmation back in the warehouse, but in the end, he found his fears to be groundless.

“Ah, Hikari,” the large man said as his intern was admitted into his room. “I heard that you made it without any further injuries.” The big hero was covered in bloodied bandages, but he looked well enough, considering everything that they had been through.

“Yeah, my shoulder got a little messed up, but it should heal before too long,” he replied as he looked down at the sling that his left arm rested in.

“Yes, Banshee informed me of your actions to save the children in the cages,” Gang Orca nodded. “You did cause the destruction in the first place, but you worked to correct your mistake, and saw to it that none of the hostages were harmed. You also gave us a large opening to get into the warehouse without many injuries to our forces. You were reckless, yes, but I believe that the knowledge of when to apply restraint to a situation results from experience. For your first raid on a villain’s HQ, you persisted admirably.”

“But I did allow a grudge to cloud my judgement for a moment,” Kurai said glumly. Despite Mina’s reassurances that he was not an ill-intentioned person, he still harbored some guilt over the murderous rage that had possessed him. “If I had better control over myself, I doubt that you would be lying in a hospital bed right now.” Bowing deeply to the hero, Kurai added, “I apologize for compromising the operation and causing your injuries, sir. I understand if you wish to send me back to U.A.”

“You really need to work on that self-deprecation, Hikari,” Gang Orca rumbled, surprising the young man. “I told you that you did well, despite your mistakes- I’d suggest you take my word for it.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Kurai answered as he straightened up. “I just thought that I’d make my apologies anyway.”

“Word of advice, Hikari?” Gang Orca chuckled. “Live and act honorably, as a hero should, but don’t get so caught up in trying to make amends for every single mistake that you ever make. Otherwise, you’ll never accomplish what needs to be done.”

“I’ll… bear that in mind, sir,” Kurai promised. “Thank you for your wisdom, sir.”

“By the way…” the pro hero said as he reached for a phone at his bedside. “Come stand over here, next to me.”

“Okay?” the boy said as he moved to do as he was asked.

“Kota, catch,” Orca said to the sidekick that had accompanied Kurai to the hospital. He tossed the phone, which the other man snatched up nimbly before holding it up horizontally.

“This good, boss?” Kota asked.

“Perfect,” the big man replied. “All right, Kai, big smile. You’re only getting one shot at this.”

“Huh?”

Later that night, Kurai was getting ready to go to bed when he received a text message that confused him greatly. “Midoriya?” he muttered as he read the notification. “What’s happening?” He frowned as he opened the message, which only displayed a location, somewhere in Hosu City.

Isn’t that where Iida went? he thought. There’s not a message attached to this… Maybe it’s a pocket-text. It was entirely possible, but something about that didn’t sit right with him. I hope that he’s all right…

Still, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it, other than shoot his friend a text asking him what was happening. Replying with a simple message that asked his friend if he needed something, he waited a few minutes to see if anything would happen. When his phone neglected to give him an answer, he shrugged and put the phone on his little nightstand, where a new photograph- signed by Gang Orca- had been framed and set to stand.

Once he had cleaned up, he changed into his night clothes and rolled into bed. Hopefully he can tell me what that was about in the morning… I’m too tired to figure this out right now.

Despite these thoughts, he went to sleep with a troubled spirit, and his rest was a disturbed one, filled with phantoms and unease that left him feeling even more tired the following day.

It was at dinnertime the next day that Kurai saw it on the news- Endeavor had been recognized for bringing the hero-killer, Stain, to justice. Apparently the villain had tried to kill a pro hero called ‘Native’, but had ultimately failed when the number two hero had arrived on the scene.

At first Kurai was happy that Tensei’s attacker had been taken down, even if it was by Endeavor’s hand, and he joined the other sidekicks in a moment of revelry to celebrate the removal of a blight on hero-kind. Then he saw a map that displayed the area where Stain had been found- a map that matched the place that Midoriya had texted him the previous evening. When he learned the incident had also occurred around the same time that his classmate had sent the message, and the media mentioned that there had been U.A. students that were nearly taken by the villain as hostages, he started to connect the dots.

Iida, tell me you didn’t…

The last day of his internship, Gang Orca informed Kurai that he would be learning how to handle a media circus as a pro hero. Word had spread about the capture of the human smuggling ringleaders, and the man was scheduled for an interview that evening, in which he insisted that Kurai join him. The boy had balked at that, protesting that he had hardly done anything noteworthy during the raid, but his supervisor was adamant.

“As much as some heroes like Eraserhead dislike the media, it is a fact that they play a significant part in the hero world,” the pro had told him. “Taking into account your quirk, your performance in the Sport’s Festival, and the school that you are scheduled to graduate from, it is extremely unlikely that you will be able to escape the limelight. Better start getting experience on how to conduct yourself.”

“But sir, UA doesn’t teach on this subject until later in the year,” the boy protested. “I’m not even sure that I’m supposed to be on a camera yet.”

“Then think of this as your chance to get ahead of the curve, Hikari,” Gang Orca told him. “You must always be planning ahead, if you want to be a good pro.” With that, the two of them had dressed up in their hero costumes and taken a limo to their interview, where the paparazzi were already gathered outside, eager to take pictures and get a comment from the hero and his new intern. Despite his dislike of the media in general, Kurai did his best to appear pleasant for the cameras as the sidekicks kept the journalists and reporters back.

“Would it kill you to smile, kid?” Banshee asked as she walked alongside him, behind Gang Orca. “This is your first interview- you gotta make a good impression to the public if you wanna get the ball rolling on your career.” She was also going to be a part of the televised special, and her boss knew that this was where she planned to announce her decision to go solo under a new agency. It was a prime opportunity for her declaration; having just helped to capture a gang of very nasty villains would be a solid selling point for the start of her career.

“Sorry,” he said as he forced himself to smile into the flashing lights. “My family hasn’t exactly had the best relationship with the media, so this is a little new for me.”

“Oh yeah, your dad’s the head honcho for the police department in Musutafu, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, just do your best to remember that you’re here as a hero instead of a negative media magnet, okay?”

“Trying.”

The three of them were seated in a set of comfy chairs that made it difficult to sit up straight, but they all made the effort anyway. They were going to be interviewed by an anchor named Yuri, a young woman that seemed friendly enough to Kurai when they met backstage. The session was set to last an hour, and Kurai hoped that he would be able to make it through that time without incident.

When they first went live, the interview mostly focused on Gang Orca and his efforts to disable the smuggling ring, but inevitably, the attention became fixated on Kurai, just like had feared would happen.

“Now, Mister Hikari,” Yuri began when she turned to him. “You’re a first-year at U.A. high, yes?”

“That’s correct,” he managed to answer readily enough. Keep it together, man. Try to ignore the cameras and just look at this like a normal conversation…

“You’ve already received some acclaim this year, having been involved in the USJ incident, and your performance in the Sport’s Festival,” Yuri continued with a friendly smile. “Has it been difficult to adjust to so much attention? I can only imagine how stressful that would be at your age.”

He hesitated before answering with the words, “I think that after you’ve had a monster villain come at you full force, everything else just doesn’t seem as scary.” He even managed to crack a smile while he spoke, which he hoped didn’t look too fake.

“I suppose so,” Yuri laughed good-naturedly. “It seems like you have a good handle on keeping perspective.”

“My teacher places a lot of emphasis on keeping a level head, even in the most trying of situations,” Kurai grinned, relaxing just a little bit. “I’m very privileged, being able to study at Japan’s most prestigious Hero Academy, and to be interning under a great hero like Gang Orca.”

“You’re quite the polite young man, Mister Hikari,” Yuri told him as she folded her hands in front of her. “My sources also tell me that you handled yourself quite well during the raid that we just spoke with Gang Orca about, despite being a first-year. Can you tell us anything about your experiences during the battle?”

This time, Kurai looked to his supervisor before answering the question. When the big man nodded slightly, he turned back to Yuri and said, “It was a lot to handle, but I think that this was much less stressful than the USJ, since I knew what I would be getting myself into.” Indicating Banshee with a small smile, he added, “She actually did most of the rescue work while I ran around like a panicked chicken.”

“Hikari does himself too little credit,” Gang Orca asserted, surprising Kurai. Without taking his eyes off of Yuri, the large man said, “He saw to it that many children were saved from harm, as well as accounting for a couple-dozen of the villains that we captured with very little help from myself or my sidekicks. He’ll make a great hero one day, and I feel privileged to have had a hand in getting his hero career started.” Looking down at the awestruck teen now, he smiled slightly and added, “I think that it won’t be too long before he’s one of the greats, himself.”

Yuri nodded, looking impressed as she said, “Very high praise from the number ten hero, folks. I think that Mister Hikari’s future in the hero world is looking very bright. Which actually reminds me of another question that I had…” Looking straight at Kurai again, the woman asked, “Do you have a hero name yet, young man?”

“I do,” he said with a genuinely broad smile. “I am Kai, the Guardian Hero.”

“Well, you heard it here first, folks,” Yuri said with a matching smile. “The hero ‘Kai’ made his debut this week in explosive fashion by helping the number ten hero in the busting of a major crime syndicate. When we return from our commercial break, whispers about Gang Orca’s best sidekick leaving his side to strike out on her own have been running through the rumor mill for weeks, but do they have any validity? Stay tuned to find out!”

As the cameras went dark, Kurai looked over at Gang Orca once more, still surprised by the praise that he had received. Seeing it, the pro hero smiled and told him in a low voice, “I’ve heard some of the teachers talking about you, Hikari. Some of them think that you could be the next Symbol of Peace after All Might retires. At first I didn’t pay much attention to them, but after seeing you in action, I think that they just might be on to something.”

Kurai’s words failed him, then. To receive such recognition from his favorite hero was like a dream come true, and he felt like anything that he could say would only ruin the moment. So he just smiled, trying to keep himself from jumping up and down like a child excited about a gift on Christmas morning.

He was still smiling when he returned to class and started to swap stories with the others. Bakugo showing up with a perfectly groomed head sent him and half of the other guys into hysterics, and in that moment, Kurai felt as though all was as it should be in their lives. He had friends, comrades-in-arms who knew what it was to face death and still stand with their heads held high. He had a very cute girlfriend that he was growing to adore, despite- and perhaps because of- her eccentrics and peppy attitude that so contrasted with his own outlook on life.

Then his oldest friend, Tenya Iida, walked into the room with a haunted look on his face, followed by Midoriya and Todoroki, both of them still looking a little banged up from their experience in Hosu. Officially, they had been wounded fighting Nomu monsters, and Stain had tried to attack them, but that hadn’t sat right with Kurai.

He knew his friend, and he knew how he had a habit of getting tunnel vision whenever he wanted to see justice done. He also knew that Midoriya was loyal to a fault, and would do anything to help keep his friends safe. He suspected that Todoroki was the same, even if he wasn’t as loud about it as their green-haired classmate. All of these attributes, coupled with Kurai’s suspicion about Iida’s choice location for his internship led him to one conclusion.

There’s no way that he just happened to be targeted by the villain that took down his brother.

When Iida saw him, the haunted look in his eyes was replaced with a friendly spark as he walked over to Kurai’s desk with a wave, Midoriya following him with a similar expression on his face. “Kurai, I saw your interview the other day,” Tenya said as he stopped in front of his friend with a smile. “You must have performed well to earn such praise from a high-ranking pro.”

Kurai forced a stiff smile onto his face as he replied, “Thanks. I saw you guys in the news, too. Must have been pretty crazy, getting tangled up with a villain that took Endeavor to subdue.” He saw Iida’s eyes widen slightly as he realized that something was off, so he added, “You guys should tell me all about it after class.”

Chapter Text

“A sparring match?” Aizawa glanced up at Kurai, who had asked to see him after class in private. “Why?” The boy had asked his teacher to supervise a fight between him and the class rep, since he didn’t want to get either of them in trouble if it came to a scuffle, a request that had surprised Aizawa greatly.

“There’s something I need to settle with Iida, and words alone aren’t going to be enough to convey what I need to say,” the student answered. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, sir.”

“Hmph,” Aizawa mused as he looked the boy up and down. This isn’t like him, he thought. Kurai normally preferred to settle things without violence, though he clearly had no issue with throwing a punch if there was no other option, like during the USJ attack and the Sport’s Festival. The only time that he instigated violence was when he had been overusing his quirk, but that couldn’t be the case here.

Then again, boys are boys, he thought tiredly. “You’re sure you can’t settle this any other way?” he asked his charge.

“No, sir,” Kurai answered grimly.

“Does Iida know that you want to fight him?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“I’ll referee if he agrees to it, on two conditions,” the teacher replied as he scowled at the boy. “Don’t make me use my quirk to stop the fight. If I have to use Erasure, you’ll be running laps after school until you vomit for a week. And you won’t be allowed to use Recovery Girl’s quirk to heal yourself since you’re the one starting this.”

Nodding in acceptance of the terms, Kurai said, “Yes, sir. It won’t come to that.”

“Fine, get out of here- you’re going to be late for English, and I’m not writing you a hall pass.”

It was at lunch when Kurai was sitting with Mina and their other friends when Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida sat down at the table next to them, the two boys looking a little apprehensive when Kurai quirked an eyebrow at them. “Why so serious, guys?” he asked them in an even enough tone.

“Er, no reason,” Iida said as he took his seat. “I suppose I’ve just been a little rattled since Hosu.”

“I’m sure anybody would, getting jumped by Stain out of nowhere like that,” Kurai replied as he turned his attention back to his food. “But other than that part, I’d imagine that you guys learned a lot from studying pro heroes in action, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah!” Midoriya said with a bright smile. “Gran Torino was kind of… unorthodox, but I learned a bunch of good things from him!”

“Hey, that’s great,” Kurai said with a slight smile. He looked back at Iida, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his food untouched. “What do you say we have a little spar, then?”

“Wait, what?” Mina asked him, surprised. “Since when do you volunteer for fight training?”

“Well, I fought Iida in the tournament, remember?” he answered as he turned to face his girlfriend with a ready grin. “I gotta admit, I’m curious to see what we’ve both learned since then.”

“Well, we can always compare notes after class,” Iida said as he turned to face his bowl, sweat lining his brow.

“Pfft, words can only tell us so much,” Kurai chuckled. “When it comes to this kind of thing, I think it’s better if we apply it practically.”

“Does it have to be a fight, though?” Asui asked blankly. “We just got back to school, and I’m sure that we’ll be getting more practice in that area without volunteering to get beat up again.”

“True,” Kurai nodded. “Sorry, Iida. I guess I didn’t consider how unsettling your whole ordeal with Stain must have been. You probably want to take it easy, reflect on that experience.” By now, the others at the tables were beginning to feel like something was off, and they were all quiet as they waited for Iida to answer the implied challenge.

The bespectacled student didn’t say anything for a few moments with Midoriya looking back and forth between his friends with a nervous air. Finally, the tall boy looked at Kurai and said, “All right, Kurai. If you really want, I’ll show what I’ve learned.”

“Looking forward to it.” This time there was nothing friendly about the way that Kurai was smiling.

“All right, you two,” Aizawa said from the side of the P.E. field. “The rules are same as in the Sport’s Festival. Push your opponent out of bounds, get him to surrender, or knock him out. If I think that things are going too far, I’ll step in. For your sakes, it’d better not come to that.”

“I wasn’t counting on having an audience,” Kurai muttered as he glanced at the stands, where all of their classmates, sans Bakugo, were watching in anticipation of the match to come. Once Iida had accepted Kurai’s challenge, the others in the class had been muttering among themselves, wondering why the two friends were about to duke it out, but neither of the boys had said anything about it to anyone else. Apparently everyone was curious to see which one of them would come out on top this time.

“Why are you doing this, Kurai?” Mina asked him as she stood next to him with her arms crossed. “This isn’t like you.”

“I know,” he said wearily. “But there’s something about Iida that I need to know, and if I turn out to be right, then I need to be able to talk with my fists instead of just my mouth.” Both he and Iida were dressed in their P.E. uniforms- Aizawa had not permitted them to use their costumes for this match.

“Is this like a boy thing?”

“Guess so,” he grinned weakly. “Trust me, I’m not gonna enjoy this, especially if I’m right. But even so, I can’t turn away from this.”

“What do you hope to accomplish?” she asked.

“I need to know if Iida can be the hero capable of replacing his brother, like he’s always wanted,” he answered.

“Ashido, get off the field!” Aizawa called out. “You’re not cleared to be in this fight.”

“Yes sir!” she yelped, wary of his scarf. As she jogged away, she called back, “Good luck!”

“I’m gonna need it,” Kurai muttered as he tightened his fists while he stared at Iida, who had been silent this entire time. “All right, Iida. Let’s get this going.”

“I invite my opponent to the first strike,” the other boy replied as he took a running stance.

“Is that right?” Kurai asked, speaking only loud enough for his old friend to hear, and not those watching. “Did you offer Stain the same courtesy?”

Iida’s eyes widened, and he was distracted for a moment by his vivid memories of Hosu, a moment that Kurai took advantage of. With a shout, he dashed forward and slammed his right fist into Iida’s shoulder, causing his classmate to grunt with pain and leap to the side.

“So I was right,” Kurai growled as he settled into a crouch, his eyes sparking blue, but he kept his power in check before he could actually transform- he had no doubt that if he did that, Aizawa would stop them immediately. Glaring at his closest friend, he added, “There’s no way you just happened to intern in the same city as Stain’s last attack, or that you just happened to be his next target. You went to Hosu to kill him, didn’t you?”

“And what if I did?” Iida grunted as he eyed his opponent warily, having been taken aback by the other boy’s vicious attack and underhanded tactics. “I can acknowledge that I made a mistake.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you tried to take him out!” Kurai shouted as he began to charge a Rasengan. “Worse, you dragged other people into your vendetta!”

“What are you-?”

“I got Midoriya’s text, along with everyone else in class, I’m sure,” Kurai snapped. “When I saw the timestamp on it after the news special the following day, I started putting things together. Did you get him in on your little plan, or did he have to show up to save your sorry ass?” Before Iida could answer, he added, “And Todoroki? I doubt that he got those injuries by falling down the stairs at his father’s agency.”

“Shut up before I throw you down a flight,” Iida said warningly, his engines revving ominously. “I got them tangled up in my mess, but they were the real heroes that day. They saved me and Native. Neither Todoroki nor Midoriya did anything wrong.”

“Got it, so the only idiot involved was you,” Kurai replied as he finished charging his attack. “At least our classmates have a greater moral integrity than the guy that’s supposed to be leading us.”

“What do you want from me, Kurai?!” Iida shouted. “I’m sorry for what I did, and I’m going to learn from it! Besides, weren’t you the one struggling with your own demons not two weeks ago?! Why can’t you let me sort mine out?”

“Because thanks to you, I didn’t cross the line!” his friend shouted in frustration. “Iida, I admired you our entire childhood! I wanted to be a hero like Ingenium, a hero like you!” Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes as he roared, “But you betrayed everything that our heroes stood for! You told me that heroes can’t hold grudges, and you were right!”

Blasting forward, he held his Rasengan behind himself, waiting for the right moment to strike with it. “You ignored your own words and became everything that we stood against!”

Iida leaped high above him and began to fall back toward the earth, his engines granting his oncoming axe kick an enormous amount of force. “I can still become a hero that my brother will be proud of!” he declared. “One that will be worthy of carrying his name!”

Kurai, instead of trying to counter directly like he had in the tournament, rolled to the side, dragging his Rasengan along the ground for just a moment, tearing up the field and making the ground unstable for Iida’s landing, throwing him off-balance. “If the others hadn’t shown up to stop you, would you have stopped yourself?!” he shouted over the sound of the rubble being tossed around.

Iida was then on him like a bullet from a rifle, his eyes dark and his mouth grim. “No,” he answered right before he kicked Kurai in the chest, sending him flying toward the boundary line. “Did you stop yourself when you were confronted with your uncle’s killer?”

Kurai glared at him as he dug his hands into the earth, ignoring the way that the ground cut up his fingers and palms as he stopped just short of being tossed out of bounds. “I did,” he replied bitterly. “Because of what you and Mina said to me after I met Endeavor, I was able to bring myself back from the brink. But I guess the words of your friends don’t mean as much to you.”

“What are you-?”

“Instead of turning to your friends like I did, you isolated yourself!” Kurai shouted as he dashed back toward Iida, ignoring the throbbing agony in his ribs. “You didn’t even give me, the only guy around that really understood what it felt like to lose his hero, a chance to help you through this! You allowed your desire for revenge to swallow you up!” The two of them then exchanged blows at super speed, dust flying all around them as they bruised and bloodied each other.

Neither of them spoke until Kurai got one of Iida’s legs in a grip lock and he was twisting it so that the joint threatened to pop out of place. “Surrender,” he growled as Iida tried to wrest his limb out of the painful hold. “Disgusted as I am with you, I don’t want to hurt you any more than you’ve already damaged yourself.”

“I won’t give in!” Iida shouted as his legs began to heat up rapidly. “I’ll work until I’ve atoned for my mistakes, and then I’ll be a hero! Recipro Burst!” Kurai was forced to let go as Iida’s leg spat blue fire and the other boy was able to get away from him temporarily.

He’s only got nine more seconds where he can use his legs, Kurai thought as he unleashed an energy barrage at his opponent, who managed to dodge all of the yellow bolts with his enhanced speed and practiced reflexes. I can work with that.

Summoning the last of his will to fight, the energon quirk-user faced his friend head on and began to charge a Kamehameha. “You’re not a hero,” he told his old friend grimly. “And you’ll never be Ingenium.”

“That’s not up to you!” Iida shouted as he came in for thunderous roundhouse kick that would surely send Kurai flying.

“You’re right,” the other boy replied before he leaped up at the very last second, positioning himself so that he was directly over Iida’s head. “It was up to you.” He unleashed the beam attack into Iida’s back as he passed underneath him, causing an explosion that sent his opponent rolling to the edge of the ring, where he lay, unmoving.

Kurai narrowed his eyes and walked over to Iida, clutching at his chest. He was sure that at least three of his ribs were cracked, which meant that he was going to be in for a rough few weeks without Recovery Girl’s healing capabilities.

Once he had made his way to his classmate, who was struggling to get to his feet, he planted one foot on his back and said, “Surrender, or I’ll shove you out of the ring. Your legs have burnt themselves out from your recipro.”

“A real hero…” Iida grunted as he tried to escape the weight of the other boy’s foot. “…will always find a way to endure.”

“Then by your own standard, you’re not a real hero,” Kurai said with a stoic face as he exerted extra force into his foot and sent Iida sprawling out of bounds with a grunt. As he gazed down at his defeated opponent, he asked, “Does Tensei know?”

“…No.”

“I figured,” Kurai muttered as he turned around to walk away. “You’d never be able to show your face to him if he knew.” Iida tried to get up again, but his muscles failed him, and he sagged to the ground, utterly defeated. Since he lacked the energy to even lift his head, he missed the tears that fell in rivulets down Kurai’s face, watering the broken field with salty water.

As he passed by the stands where all of his classmates were sitting, most of them looking apprehensive at his approach, he turned his face away from them as he walked by without a word. He only stopped when he saw Aizawa lying on the ground in his yellow sleeping bag.

Of course.

Kurai and Iida didn’t speak to one another for weeks after their fight. Midoriya, Uraraka, Kirishima, and even Mina tried to get them to make up, but both of them silently refused every time that the subject was brought up. As for Midoriya and Todoroki themselves, Kurai bore no ill will, having heard that they hadn’t joined Iida for his vendetta, merely to save his life. Even so, he didn’t speak to Izuku as often as he usually did, given that the green-haired boy spent a lot of his time with Iida and Uraraka.

At first the other classmates were wary of the two of them, but as the days went by, things became more relaxed, and Kurai was able to have easy conversations with everyone- save for Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, and Iida. He knew well why Bakugo hated him, but Momo continued to be a mystery to him, and even their mutual friends were unable to work out why she seemed to regard him with barely controlled disdain.

The biggest issue that their fight had created was that now most everyone in class 1-A knew what had really happened in Hosu, but Eraserhead had warned them all that if any of them breathed a word about it, the entire class would be expelled immediately. That pretty much squashed any chances of the story getting out, since they all could tell that he was dead serious, despite his prior lies about expulsion.

Even so, he continued in his academics, earning good scores, and devoting his spare time to hanging out with Mina and their other classmates on occasion. Kurai still preferred to avoid being the center of attention during these gatherings, but it didn’t turn him into a stuttering wreck anymore, either. It became clearer as the weeks went by that Mina was having an influence on how he handled social events, and it was worth mentioning that her test scores were climbing steadily. She wasn’t the class Brainiac, but she wasn’t sitting at the bottom of the listings anymore, either.

Before they all knew it, the semester was over, and it was time for the final exams. Leading up to the event, Kurai heard a number of rumors that seemed to point toward a battle against the mechs that had set the bar for the entrance exam, but that didn’t seem right to him. If Mister Aizawa had any say in it, this test is gonna be way harder than the entrance test.

When he mentioned this to Mina as they headed out to the testing grounds with the rest of their class, she turned to him and asked, “Okay, does your pessimism come with an ‘off’ switch?”

“No, it’s my gift to the world,” he grinned.

“Hate to tell you sweetie, but the world wants a gift receipt.”

“No refunds of exchanges, only store credit.”

“You guys seem relaxed today,” Midoriya said as he walked beside them, with Iida and Uraraka on his right. “Aren’t you worried about what they have in store for us?”

“Well, we know it’s gonna be uber-hard, but not impossible,” Mina shrugged. “As much as Mister Aizawa seems to enjoy torturing us, he’s never given us a job that actually wasn’t possible to complete, so…” She shrugged and chirped, “We totally got this! We’ve been studying super hard all semester, and now it’s gonna pay off!”

“Some harder than others,” Iida muttered just loud enough for the others to hear.

Mina’s expression wilted, and Kurai was instantly furious. “Take that back, man,” he said warningly before Midoriya or Uraraka could intervene. It was the first time that they had spoken to one another in months, and it was already going poorly.

“I spoke the truth and I see no reason why I should retract the truth,” Iida said without looking over at his old friend. “You know how powerful the truth can be, Hikari.”

“Fine, if you don’t want to take it back, then apologize,” Kurai shot back, holding up a hand for Mina and Midoriya to stay out of it for now. “You didn’t say that to be constructive, you said it to be nasty to her, and me. You know how hard she’s been working to improve her academics. Or at least, you might if you’d pull your head out of your ass.”

“This argument is childish and beneath us, Hikari,” Iida replied neutrally. “Let it go.”

“…Apologize to her right now, or I’ll pick up where we left off in the sparring field,” Kurai said threateningly.

Iida stopped walking, causing Kurai to do the same as they faced each other. The others, sensing that this was going to be an ugly scene, pushed on ahead without them, though there were a couple of worried glances thrown back their way. “I thought that heroes aren’t supposed to use violence for personal vendettas,” the armored boy said quietly.

Kurai grimaced and laughed at himself, smacking his own forehead. “Damn, you got me there,” he chuckled. As he lowered his hand, he said, “You’re right Iida- my mistake, won’t happen again. But I suggest that you apologize to our classmate very quickly, regardless.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then Ingenium learns what really happened in Hosu.”

Iida stood very still for a few moments, the only sound coming from him the deep breaths from within his helmet. Eventually, he said, “You never used to apply pressure to peoples’ weak points so callously. What happened?”

“I learned to strike back before I got hit, myself,” Kurai replied bitterly. “I guess I became disillusioned when my best friend turned out to be a fraud.” Shouldering his way past Iida, he dashed at his eyes and said, “You’ve got until the end of the day- I don’t make threats very often, and when I do, they’re not idle. And before you complain about heroes that make threats, you’d do well to remember All Might’s fight at the USJ.”

“I did… not see that coming,” Kurai said as he sat in the exam waiting room.

“I know, right?!” Mina complained as she slouched next to him. “We gotta make it past actual pros?!”

Eraserhead and many of the U.A. faculty had just revealed that the students would fighting one of them in teams of two, each. For example, Asui and Tokoyami were set to fight Ectoplasm in the second battle. They could win one of two ways, either by one of them making it to the exit gate, or applying a set of handcuffs to the pro that they were fighting. One of the two conditions had to be met before thirty minutes passed, or they would fail the test. Both team members being captured meant the same thing.

“Forget the pros, some of us are might end up killing their teammate,” Kurai muttered as he glanced across the room at Yaoyorozu, who was studiously ignoring him. The two of them were set to fight against Mister Aizawa of all people, so Kurai knew that it would be a very difficult battle on both fronts.

Then there was the fact that Izuku and Bakugo were being forced to team up against All Might- a situation that no one envied. Being forced to work with a bitter rival would have been hard enough, but going up against the number one hero in the world… Honestly, I’m not sure which one would be more difficult.

He knew that Aizawa had probably set it up to force the two of them to learn to work together, but that also just made him wonder why the teacher hadn’t made him team up with Iida, if that was his line of thinking. I doubt I’ll ever understand the guy, he concluded glumly.

“Hey, why the long face?” Mina asked him. “I’ve gotta fight the principal, remember?”

“Yeah, do you know what his quirk is?” Kurai asked with a slight frown.

“No clue.”

“Midoriya?” Kurai asked as he turned to his green-haired friend.

“Actually, Principal Nezu is one of the few heroes that I don’t have data on,” the boy admitted, looking thoughtful as he pondered the question. “Sorry, Mina. I think you and Kaminari got the short stick on that end.”

“Aw, dang it!” she pouted. Spotting the electric boy from across the room, she got up and muttered, “Guess I should go see if we can work out some kinda strategy with him…”

Once she was gone, Uraraka and Midoriya turned to look at Kurai with slightly disgruntled expressions. Seeing them, he held up his hands and asked, “What?”

“You know what’s up,” Ochaco told him. “You and Iida are supposed to be friends. Now you can barely walk next to each other without it turning into a big fight.”

“This again?” Kurai groaned. “Look, guys, I’m sorry that I made everyone a witness to our argument. But I just don’t have it in me to forgive the guy.”

“Why not?” Midoriya pleaded. “He’d forgive you if it was the other way around.”

Kurai lowered his face into his hands and mumbled, “No, he wouldn’t.”

“Sure he-”

“Wrong,” Kurai huffed as he straightened his back and looked at his friends again. “Iida’s not a forgiving person- it’s not in his nature. For generations, his family has strictly abided by the law, punishing evildoers whenever they can. They don’t really teach forgiveness in his family.”

“Then how is he supposed to learn how to do that if his friend won’t show him how?” Midoriya asked him.

Kurai shrugged and responded, “I’m not the one that needs to be forgiven.”

“No, but you should forgive him,” Uraraka asserted, surprising both of the boys with the strength of her declaration. “Maybe it’s not what he deserves, but if you keep holding onto this bitterness, you’ll end up making the same mistakes that he did. And if you wanna think about yourself as being on the moral high ground, you might wanna remember that you said some pretty mean things to him during your fight.”

Her words rendered Kurai silent for a few moments, a thoughtful look on his face. Finally, he said, “I need to think about this when we don’t have our biggest exam to date right in front of us.” With that, he stood up to go speak to his teammate- or so he hoped.

As he walked away, Midoriya muttered, “Well, at least he’ll think about it. That’s progress… right?”

“Deku, why are boys so stubborn?” his friend asked him blankly.

“Eh…”

“Hey, Yaoyorozu,” Kurai said as he approached her and Todoroki. The heterochromic boy had been paired with Sero against Midnight, a matchup that he did not envy. The woman, despite her airheaded approach to most things, was actually a very accomplished pro with a knack for using sharp wits in combination with her quirk to incapacitate most of her opponents before they even really understood what was happening, or even before they knew that she was there. The two boys were sure to be in for a tough fight.

“Hikari,” Todoroki said as he nodded a greeting to his friend. “How are you feeling?”

“I wanna say ‘great’, but we both know that’d be a lie,” Kurai chuckled weakly. “Yaoyorozu and I have to fight our homeroom teacher, so that’s sure to be a barrel of laughs- at our expense.”

“I was actually just talking to Yaoyorozu about some tactics to employ against him,” the heterochromic boy said while their student deputy nodded to confirm his statement. “If you can block his line of sight, he won’t be able to use his quirk on you.”

“I should be able to do that by kicking up some debris, maybe even try to get some dirt in his eyes so he can’t keep them open,” Kurai nodded. “Nice idea.” Turning to Yaoyorozu, he added, “Do you think you could make something that could blind him?”

“Yes, but I just assumed that you already knew how to take him down single-handedly,” she said stiffly. “I can just stay out of your way and head for the exit gate while you take down the villain.”

Both Todoroki and Kurai blinked silently at her a few times before the half-and-half student said, “I’m going to go coordinate with Sero…” He made his departure without another word, merely giving his friend a look that said ‘good luck’.

“Can we talk in private?” Kurai asked. To his relief, Yaoyorozu nodded and started making her way to one of the prep rooms.

Once they were alone, Kurai turned to face his partner, who was now avoiding eye contact with him. Grimacing to himself, he took in a deep breath before he said, “Okay, normally I don’t like being too blunt, but in this case, I’m just gonna ask; the hell?!”

“Sorry, did I say something too privileged for you?” she asked him as she finally turned to look him in the eye. “Should I speak in a more colloquial manner?”

“I’m sorry, what have I done to earn this?” he asked, making an effort to keep his voice down and avoid a scene. “Why are you treating me like you’re a rich kid from those cheesy old movies that picks on the poor guy? I know you’re better than that.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have acted the part of the prince disguised as the pauper,” Yaoyorozu shot back angrily.

“Prince and the-? What?!”

“The entrance exams!” the girl said, as if that explained everything.

“Sorry, lemme ask again… What?!”

“You could have gotten in on recommendations, but you apparently felt that it was beneath you to have an acceptance ‘handed to you on a silver platter’, as you put it,” she replied bitterly. “No, you would rather have bragging rights than accept an invitation to the world’s most prestigious hero academy. What makes the whole thing so frustrating for me is that I can’t help but wonder if you were right!”

“Okay, I know I’m asking this way too many times today, but… What?!” Kurai felt as though he was getting more and more confused with each answer that she gave him when he felt like it should have been the other way around.

“You forced yourself to participate in the standard test, and you’ve been going strong since the beginning of the year,” Yaoyorozu told him as she clenched her fists. “And you’ve only continued to excel while I’ve been falling further and further behind! You stood up to a monster of All Might’s caliber-!”

“Hey, I took no joy in that.”

“You claimed victory in the Sport’s Festival over Bakugo and Todoroki, while I didn’t even make it into the quarter finals-!”

“Todoroki forfeited the match.”

“You did things the hard way instead of doing things the way I did them, and it’s infuriating!” she admitted. “I’ve always been at the top of my class, and in academics, I still surpass you. But that doesn’t matter in the real world- experience and street knowledge go so much further than my memorizations in algebra! So what have I been doing this whole time?!”

Kurai blinked rapidly, unsure of how to answer her frustrated question- he was having a hard enough time just processing everything that she had told him. Still, he knew that he needed to say something if she was going have her act pulled together in time for their exam. “Look…” he began awkwardly, flinching when she glared at him through a film of tears.

At least now I understand why she’s been mad at me this whole time.

He gulped, then said, “I’m sorry if what I said about the recommendations exam was rude- I didn’t mean for it to be an insult aimed at you. It was just supposed to be a passing remark and nothing more, but I see now that it certainly didn’t come off that way.”

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, but she held her silence, which he took as permission to continue. “I, uh…” he grinned awkwardly, losing his words for a moment. “I wouldn’t say that there’s anything wrong with the approach that you’re taking to become a hero. You and I are different people, and it’d be ridiculous for us to walk the exact same path, ya know? And like you said, you’re way better than me at hitting the books, and not all hero work is fighting. If it came down to doing first aid, there’s no way I’d be as good at that as you are.” Shrugging helplessly, he added, “Besides, your quirk is way more versatile than mine is, so if we’re placing bets on which one of us ends up with a more successful career, I think I’d throw in with you.”

“You’ve got people at school saying that you’re going to be the next All Might, and even Gang Orca thinks you’re amazing,” Momo said, almost sounding as though she were tired. “You’re already marked for success.”

“Come on, it’s only the first semester,” Kurai said with a helpless gesture. “Sure, people think all of that now, but opinions can change a lot faster than you’d believe. Who knows? Maybe by the time that we’re all graduating, I’ll be the class clown, and no one’ll want to hire me.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she replied with the barest hint of a smile, a sight that gladdened Kurai.

Deciding to try and finish strong, he added, “There’s another thing that I know I’d lose out to you on every time.”

“And what is that?”

“People know that they can depend on you,” he told her. When she gave him a confused look, he said, “You got voted class deputy, remember? And everyone was practically fighting over who would get to study with you leading up to the written exam.” Shrugging in a self-deprecating manner, Kurai added, “No one asked me for help with their studies- except Mina, and I’m pretty sure she only wanted to study with me as a chance to get embarrassing childhood stories out of my brother.”

Momo was smiling a little more now, so Kurai bowed to her from his waist and said, “I really am sorry that I hurt your feelings, Yaoyorozu. I’d like it if we could be friends, like I thought we could be after our first training match together.” He remained where he was, determined to hold his position until she gave him an answer.

It wasn’t long before she said, “Don’t apologize… I was frustrated with myself, and I just took it out on you. I’m sorry for doing that, it was wrong.” As he straightened up, he was surprised to see that she was now bowing to him in a similar fashion.

“Oh!” he laughed nervously. “No need for apologies on your end, Yaoyorozu. I was the insensitive jerk that caused this whole mess in the first place.”

“Then don’t feel the need to apologize to an insecure complainer like me,” she smiled back as she straightened up. “And to your earlier question, I’ll say yes. I’d like it if we were friends, too.”

“Awesome,” Kurai said with a sigh of relief. Giving her a thumbs-up, he asked, “Now whaddya say we figure out a strategy for beating Eraserhead?”

“He’s Mister Aizawa.”

“Hey, they said to think of them like actual villains, and let’s be real- saying ‘Eraserhead’ makes it easier to think of a villain lurking in the shadows… either that or some weirdo with a chunk of pink rubber for a head.” Both of them were silent for a few seconds before bursting out into helpless laughter.

Chapter Text

An alarm blared across the urban town setting that was the stage for Kurai and Yaoyorozu’s final exam, followed by the announcement that the test was now set to begin. The two students now had thirty minutes to either capture or defeat their teacher.

“Of course he’d set us up in an urban area,” Kurai complained as he looked around at the testing grounds. The two of them were on the western end of the arena, with the gate having been set up on the east side, and Aizawa somewhere in between them.

“Why does that bother you so much?” Yaoyorozu asked him as they began to jog toward the exit. While they did, she began generating small doll figures with her quirk- once they stopped popping out of her, they would know that Aizawa was near, and could take appropriate countermeasures that they had planned out beforehand.

“It’s harder for me to use my powers precisely instead of just spamming monster blasts like I normally prefer in situations like this,” he answered as he charged a Rasengan. “I doubt that I’d receive top marks if I fired a Kamehameha through the town just to clear a path to the exit, or to get him out of our way.”

“That’s true,” his partner nodded as they jogged around a corner, her little dolls clattering on the pavement as she left them behind. “Hero agencies don’t exactly like having to pay for damages done to civilian areas.”

“I can’t imagine that it does those citizens much good either,” Kurai grinned back at her, to which she smiled back- at least, until she noticed the look of alarm on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.

“You stopped making dolls,” he told her, even as she looked down at his right hand, where something was clearly missing.

“And your technique is-”

Both students looked around themselves rapidly, trying to find their elusive opponent, but it was Kurai who found him first. “Up there!” he shouted as he tried to fire off a blast of energon out of pure reflex, but his powers failed under the piercing glare of Eraserhead. The black-garbed hero was coming down at them from having jumped off of a nearby powerline, his scarf in hand, primed to capture them.

“Get back!” Yaoyorozu shouted as she lunged forward, one of her ceramic dolls in hand. Kurai, knowing what was about to happen, leaped away and shut his eyes just in time for a blinding flash of light to burn past his eyelids and a clap of thunder assault his eardrums, disorienting him, even though he’d known what to expect.

“Jeez, was that military grade?!” Kurai asked loudly as he blinked a few times, trying to banish the effects of the flash-bang grenade from his head.

“Sorry, but I needed to be sure that it would work!” Yaoyorozu told him as she grabbed his hand and led him away from the blinded Eraserhead.

“Wait, why aren’t we putting the cuffs on him?!” he asked as he followed her, a little unsteadily.

“I’m in better shape than you, but I still can’t see very well,” his partner answered. “We could just as easily end up getting captured as managing to put the cuffs on him.”

“Guess we didn’t account for a backfire, did we?” he said sheepishly as they turned a corner.

“The test has only begun,” Momo replied as they stopped running, both of them blinking rapidly in an attempt to restore their vision. “We still have time to win this.” They felt reasonably sure that they would not be pursued very far- after all, time was on Aizawa’s side, and his fighting style lent itself to lying in wait to spring a trap, not engaging in a lengthy pursuit. Even so, they were careful to keep an eye out for the man.

“True, but he knows that we have flash-bangs now,” Kurai muttered as she handed him a couple of them. “He won’t fall for that again.”

“But that’s all he knows about my weapons for this encounter,” Yaoyorozu said with a confident smile. “Like you said, my quirk is very versatile. I’ve got two different types of grenades in there.”

Kurai looked down at the two devices that she’d handed him with apprehension before asking, “Is one of these a frag grenade?”

“No, of course not,” she told him. “The girl dolls are flash-bangs, and the boys are loaded with tear gas.”

“Oh, nice,” he grinned as he put them in separate pockets. “What’s plan B, then? One of us draws him out while the other one gasses him?”

“That runs the risk that one of us gets hit with the tear gas, and I don’t see it being easy to get him in the cuffs that way,” Yaoyorozu said with a negative shake of her head.

“Then…?” Kurai made a shrugging gesture while giving her a very perplexed look.

“The tear gas is also a blended with a combustible agent that burns out very quickly, unlike a Molotov cocktail,” she elaborated. “If we toss one at him from a distance and have you ignite it, not only would we blind him, we could also incapacitate him with minimal fire damage to the surrounding area.”

“That’s still risky- what if there were people in these buildings?” Kurai said with a negative shake of his head. “We couldn’t risk torching something even more flammable, and starting an urban jungle fire.”

“You have another idea?” Momo asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Kurai nodded. “Can you make a regular smoke bomb?”

The girl nodded and held out another doll to him. “Done,” she told him. “What now?”

Tapping the scouter resting over his eye, Kurai grinned and said, “I got a good look at him earlier with this, and it measured his biometrics. Thanks to that and the map data we got before we headed out here, I can tell exactly where he is right now.” The device beeped lightly, and his smile widened as he added, “He’s sitting three blocks away, right between us and the goal line.”

“Why didn’t you use that earlier?” Yaoyorozu asked him, a trifle impatiently.

“I’d never needed to use it on him before, so I didn’t have his data plugged in,” he shrugged a little helplessly. “Without a fresh scan, I had no way of tracking him. But now, I can see him even though we’re blocks away, which means that if we chucked a smoke bomb at him…”

“He wouldn’t be able to see you, but you can still find him,” the girl nodded, her eyes brightening. “If that’s the case, I suggest that we split up and try to hit him from opposite directions. Both of us can hit him with the grenades, but we have a better chance at taking him down if his attention is divided between two targets.”

“Yeah, he’d have to pick one quirk to erase if he can only see one of us at a time,” Kurai replied thoughtfully. “The real issue is, what do we do if one of us is caught by him? I’ve got the cuffs but I don’t mind trading with you, if you like.”

“We need to hit him with a grenade, regardless,” Momo told him as she shook her head in the negative. “We’ve got harmless smoke ones, and the flash-bangs if necessary. Neither run a high risk of causing permanent harm, so if one of us is caught in the crossfire, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen. Whatever follows, we can’t both be caught, and let’s face it, he would more than likely run us down before we made it to the gate, if we were on our own. Capturing him is our best option.”

“A high risk?” he repeated, nervous about her comment concerning the grenades.

“It’s Mister Aizawa,” she replied bluntly. “We have to take some kind of risk if we’re going to beat a pro like him.”

Kurai hesitated, then nodded. “All right; my aim with Energon is pinpoint when I need it to be, so I don’t think that I’d hit you if it came to that. And I can reinforce my body against whatever kind of impact you need to use against him, as long as I don’t get stabbed.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she nodded, their plan settled. “Good luck to both of us, then.”

“You take north, I got south?” he asked.

“That works for me,” Momo replied. The side of her face glowed as a radio appeared over her left ear and she murmured, “I set it to radio frequency ‘umbra’. Can you calibrate your com channel to match it?”

Kurai triggered the scan function, then nodded when he got an alert on the small screen. “Done,” he told her. “Let’s do this.”

Two minutes later, he was a full block south of Aizawa’s position, and the man still hadn’t moved, which was a little concerning for Kurai, but he kept himself on high alert, regardless. It would never do to be lax around someone like Eraserhead in the first place, even on a good day. That in mind, he kept the smoke bomb ready in his left hand while a Rasengan charged in his right hand.

“If you’re going to try a stealthy approach, I suggest avoiding making flashy attacks like that,” Aizawa called as his gaze snapped over to glare at Kurai who felt his power being robbed as soon as his teacher had him in his sights.

Instead of panicking, though, the boy grinned up at his mentor and called back, “Who’s hiding?!” Pulling out the pin on his smoke grenade, he shouted, “Yaoyorozu, now!”

“On it!” she called back, her voice carrying clearly through his scouter.

Their teacher, instead of being rattled, surprised both students by allowing both grenades to be thrown at him without resistance. Then he snatched them out of the air with his scarf and hurled them back at their owners without blinking. “Too straightforward,” he told them as the bombs exploded in midair, obscuring their vision, much to their worry. “A pincer attack is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You need to be craftier than that if you want to beat me.”

“Thing about those old tricks…” Kurai replied as he felt his power returning in spite of Eraserhead’s lecture. He must have blinked. The boy immediately transformed his body while his scouter locked onto his teacher’s location. “There’s a reason that they’re still around!” Thrusting his hands forward, they spat out an orange beam of energy aimed to strike the man dead-on.

He was rewarded with the sound of their teacher letting out a loud grunt of pain as he blasted down the street, out of the smoky haze that had resulted from the grenades. “Yaoyorozu, do you have a visual?” he asked as he leaped up above the mess in an attempt to see where the man had come out.

“I’ve done better than that,” his teammate answered, sounding like she was smiling. “He’s out cold, and I’ve got him restrained with tungsten bindings. Hurry up and get the capture cuffs on him so that we can pass!”

“Gladly,” he grinned, descending back toward the ground, and landing with a grunt as he allowed his transformation to fade away. His head was throbbing painfully, but he considered it a small price to pay for capturing their teacher with relative speed.

He was reaching down to put the cuffs on the man’s hands when Eraserhead’s eyes flashed open, glowing red as he swung his legs up and around, kicking both students in the face and using the generated momentum to leap to his feet. Even with his arms restrained behind his back, he was a more-than-capable fighter. Looking at his recoiling students with something like disdain, he muttered, “I expected more resourcefulness from the two of you. If this is the best that you can do, you’ll never make it in the big leagues.” Grunting with pain, he broke his left thumb and slipped his hand out of the restraints that Yaoyorozu had made for him.

“Hey…” Kurai muttered as he rubbed his jaw while the man reset his thumb. “Our teacher taught us better than to lose this fast.” Glaring at the other man as he took up a fighting stance, he reached for his belt and ignited his sword, glad that he’d remembered to charge the power cell beforehand. When Aizawa looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he added, “Don’t worry, it’s not gonna cut you in half- there’s a low power mode that’ll just give you a second degree burn.”

“Oh, is that all?” the teacher asked before he tossed his scarf at Yaoyorozu without looking, binding her tightly and preventing her from getting any closer. She had been trying to get in a sneak attack with a simple club, but Aizawa was too finely attuned to his surroundings for that to work.

“Did you two know that madness is defined as repeating the same actions while expecting different results?” he said dryly. “You’re losing points for this.”

“You and the principal said this was a pass/fail,” Kurai shot back as he shifted to a stance that would allow him to spring forward at high speed. “There’s no point system.” There’s less than a meter between us- once my quirk comes back, I can clear that faster than he can blink.

Aizawa yanked on his scarf and moved so that Yaoyorozu was between the two of them before he said, “So you do pay attention in class. I always thought you were too busy planning your weekends with your girlfriend to take any real notice of the important things.”

Kurai gritted his teeth, but he kept his composure. He’s just trying to egg me on, he thought stubbornly. We may have a time limit, but in this case, time is not on his side. As soon as he blinks, we can both use our powers again, then he’s toast.

“If you keep relying on your quirks alone to defeat me, you’ll never get anywhere,” Eraserhead said, almost as if he could hear what Kurai was thinking. “Quirks aren’t everything in the hero world.”

Kurai paused, then smiled. “You know what?” he replied as he searched his partner’s eyes with a slight grin. “You’re absolutely right.”

Yaoyorozu moved quickly to stamp her heeled boot into Aizawa’s foot, distracting him with pain and making him look down for just a second. Kurai stamped forward in that moment and stabbed at his teacher’s shoulder, the smell of burnt flesh and polyester accompanying the sound of the blow solidly connecting. The girl, instead of trying to recoil from the yellow blade, lunged forward and landed on the pavement, scraping her face and stomach, but also jerking their teacher off balance and causing him stumble as he tried to deal with the agony in his shoulder and her displaced weight at the same time.

Kurai spun around and kicked his teacher behind the knee, further ruining his balance before he struck him in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword, stunning him for real this time. However, just to make sure, he smacked him on the back of the head a second time, a little harder than before.

“Okay, he’s out,” he said as he reached for the cuffs hanging off of his sash and slapping them on Aizawa’s hands before they could be surprised again. As he moved to help his partner into a sitting position, he added, “But he’s probably gonna find some way to make my life hell when he wakes up.”

“This suuuucks!” Mina complained as she and Kurai walked away from U.A. with their hands intertwined. “You’re gonna get to go on summer camp while I’m stuck at home with my stupid brothers, who’re probably gonna say that I made you up until you get back!” She and Kaminari had failed their test against the principal in a fairly spectacular fashion, spending most of the thirty minutes running around in a panic as the buildings around them collapsed at the little animal’s whim.

At least Midoriya figured out his quirk in case we have to go up against him in the future, Kurai thought. Out loud, he said, “It’s not all bad- we’re still going to I-island before the camp. Aren’t you looking forward to that?”

“Are your parents coming?” she asked him.

“No, but Akarui is,” he replied heavily. “Dad can’t get out of work, and Mom said she’s looking forward to having the house to herself for a few days without us kids around.”

“Aw man, your kid brother is coming along?” she groaned. “I like him, but that’s a total buzzkill.”

“While our motivations might be a little different, I actually agree with you on that,” he told her with a slight grin. “On another topic, I actually have a couple of extra tickets to the expo. I think I mentioned this before, but I was planning on inviting Uraraka and Midoriya to come with us, if that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah, totally!” she grinned. “How’d you manage to suddenly get extra tickets?”

“Apparently I won them as an endorsement-type-deal for placing first in the Sport’s Festival,” he chuckled. “Mom just forgot to tell me until this morning.”

“How does she forget something like that?!”

“She’s a busy lady,” he laughed. “She’s got me and my brother to handle, plus helping my dad out however she can. Being a stay-home mom isn’t an easy gig.”

“True,” Mina sighed. “I dunno if I’d be able to handle that kind of pressure, trying to raise a kid the right way, you know?”

“Pfft, don’t sell yourself short,” Kurai grinned. Without thinking, he added, “I think you’d be a pretty fun mom.” He was surprised when he suddenly felt Mina stop, her hand falling away from his. Turning around to look at her with a puzzled expression, he asked her, “You okay?”

Her face was completely purple, and she was fidgeting in place as she stammered, “Y-You… I…” She lowered her eyes away from his as she barely managed to squeak out, “You think… I’d be a fun mom?”

Paling rapidly as he realized what he had just said, Kurai sputtered, “Ah, well, I, uh… You see… I meant, er… You and I, we… I’m… You…” Good gravy, man, say something! He shouted internally.

Before he could say anything, Mina let out a little laugh and said, “This is a first, I guess. I never thought I’d see the day where you totally threw me off, ya know? It’s weird, right?”

“Y-Yeah…”

“Tell you what, dude,” she laughed again. “You don’t have to answer that right now. Even I’d be crazy to start talking about that kinda stuff already. Besides, it’s not like we’ve known each other long enough to say for sure, right?”

“Uh…” he mumbled as he scratched at his neck while she moved stand beside him again with an embarrassed smile.

“Dude, it’s cool,” she assured him. “I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. My bad.” She grabbed his hand and started leading him toward the school exit again where they were supposed to meet up with Kirishima and some of the others.

“I do think so.”

Kurai’s voice stopped her in her tracks again, and she turned around to see that he was completely red, but just managing to hold her gaze. “What’d you say?” she asked him in a higher voice than she’d meant to.

“You’d be a fun mom,” he said sheepishly with a shrug. “It’s not like I thought about it before, but… Yeah, I think you’d be good at it.”

Now it was Mina’s turn to feel like her head was going to explode. Holy crap, he’s serious! She thought with wide eyes. “Wha-? What would make you think th-that?” she squeaked out.

“Well…” he shrugged helplessly. “You’ve got a lot of energy, for one. I think you kinda need that to handle a kid. And you’re probably one of the nicest, most understanding people that I know, so I guess that means you’d be patient enough for when things get crazy?” He shrugged again and said, “More than anything, I guess it’s just a hunch.”

“W-Well, how accurate are those?” she laughed.

“Pretty accurate, I’d say,” he replied as he re-gripped her hand and led her away. “After all, my gut told me to date you, and I’d say my life has definitely improved because of that.”

Mina giggled again as she was led along before saying, “You sure know how to make a girl blush, Kurai.” Not to mention that you’d probably make a pretty cool dad. Hehe, imagine that- superhero dad by day and night.

“You already got tickets to go?” Kurai asked Midoriya and Uraraka, surprised. They were all hanging out at a local arcade, unwinding after the rigors of their final exam. Kirishima had even gotten a sour-faced Bakugo to come along, though Kurai thought that was probably because the explosive boy was too tired from his fight with All Might to argue with his friend. Kurai and Iida more or less avoided each other, even though the taller boy had offered a sincere enough apology to Mina for his harsh words earlier in the day.

“Yaomomo gave Jiro and me tickets to the pre-show, and she’s paying for Hagakure and Su to fly out for the actual event,” Uraraka explained with an excited smile. “We actually all played rock-paper-scissors for the pre-show tickets.”

“Nice,” Kurai nodded before turning to Midoriya. “How about you, man? How’d you get a ride to the pre-show?”

“Oh, uh, Gran Torino set me up!” the boy stammered. “He’s been in the hero business for a while, so he was able to get me a ride in early! Yeah!”

“Dang, he sounds like a pretty nice guy,” Kurai said, impressed.

“Uh, sure, let’s go with that…” Midoriya mumbled with a nervous grin.

Kurai wondered at the utterance, but he let the matter go. “Well, there goes my idea to give my tickets to you guys,” he laughed as he reached into his pocket, where he could feel the plane tickets and V.I.P. passes. “Any ideas on who I should give these to?”

“How about Kirishima?” Mina said, pointing at the red-haired boy from across the room. “He’d love to go, but his family can’t afford the trip. It’d totally make his day if you did that.” She and Kurai were still feeling a little awkward around each other after their conversation earlier, but they were still doing all right as a couple.

“Good idea,” he nodded as he stood up from their table. “I’ll be right back.”

Moving quickly to weave around his classmates, giving Sero a high-five as he passed by him, he quickly found himself in front of a grinning Kirishima and a sulking Kaminari. “What’s eating him?” he asked the redhead.

“Ah, he’s just bummed about his final,” Kirishima laughed as he gave his friend a hearty slap on the back. “I was tellin’ him that he should cheer up cos he gets to go to the pre-show exhibit!”

“Yeah, as a part-time worker,” the electric boy complained, his face muffled by the table. “Yay, me.”

“Hey, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you get to make money while you’re doing it!” Kirishima told him. “Come on, man, you’re gonna do great!”

When all Kaminari did was mutter something unintelligible into the table, Kurai and Kirishima shrugged in resignation. “Did’ja need something, dude?” the rocky hero-in-training asked his friend.

“I just wanted to give you something,” Kurai said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the ticket sets while he led Kirishima away from the others. Once they were at another table, he reached out and said, “Here you go.”

“Wait, is this-?!”

“You’ve been a good friend to Mina, and me by extension,” Kurai said as he put the papers in his friend’s hand. “This is just a way of saying thanks.”

“Dude, how much cash did you drop on this?!” Kirishima exclaimed.

“No, that’s not it!” Kurai laughed. “I got them as a prize for winning the festival. Thing is, my family already got invited to the pre-show, so I don’t need it. Matter of fact…” Pulling out the second set, he added it to the tickets in Kirishima’s hand and said in a lower tone, “Give one of these to Bakugo.”

“Bak- What?!” The other teen was even more confused now. “I thought you hated him!”

“Maybe a bit, maybe a lot, but I said some things that were kinda out of line when we fought,” Kurai shrugged. “It’s not like I want to be his friend or anything, but I also try to make amends for when I’ve made a mistake. Look, don’t even tell him that I gave you the tickets- he’d probably just burn them up if he knew.”

“He might burn it up, anyway,” Kirishima chuckled.

Kurai shrugged nonchalantly at that. “If he does, it’s his loss,” he said. “I’ve done my part on the karmic scale, for lack of a better phrase.”

“Heh, either way, you’re a good guy in my book,” the redhead told him. “Though I do gotta wonder…”

“About me and Iida?” Kurai guessed with a sigh.

“Yeah, man,” the other boy said with a frown. “You two seemed tight at the start of the school year, but now you guys don’t even talk to each other. I mean, I know that he messed up, but do you guys really have to-?”

“Look man,” Kurai said to cut him off. “There’s a lot of context as to why I’m still pretty mad at Iida, and to be honest, I don’t really feel like starting off my summer on such a sour note. I promise I’ll talk about it another time, just not today.”

“Gotcha,” Kirishima nodded. Extending a fist that Kurai quickly bumped, he added, “Thanks for the tickets, bro. I really needed this, especially after failing so hard at the exam. You’re a manly dude.”

The next Monday, the students that were going to head out to the I-island expo came into school to pick up their costumes, as they had received permission to wear them for the event. Unlike most places in the world, I-island had next to no restrictions on quirk use, so some of the students were looking forward to going for that reason alone.

There had been a bad scare with their class when they learned that Midoriya had a run-in with Tomura Shigaraki, the leader of the League of Villains, during the mall trip that they had taken in order to get ready for the summer camp. However, the villain had left without harming anyone and he hadn’t seemed interested in fighting that day, according to Izuku’s testimony. It didn’t make the encounter any less worrying, but the faculty of U.A. and other pro heroes were already investigating the matter, so it wasn’t as though the students could do anything about it.

Maybe getting out of the country for a few days will be good for us, and our shot nerves, Kurai thought wearily.

While he was checking through his equipment to make sure that everything was in order, he felt a shadow fall on him from behind, causing him to look over his shoulder. He froze in place when he realized that it was Mister Aizawa staring him down a grim look on his face. Not that the teacher didn’t usually look grim, but somehow it was more unsettling today.

“Yes sir?” he asked nervously. The other day, when Aizawa had informed them that they would all be working to earn provisional licenses during the summer camp- even those that had failed the exam- he had seemed none the worse for his defeat at the hands of Kurai and Momo.

“Superabit,” the teacher muttered before he walked past the boy, leaving him feeling very confused.

“Sorry, what was that, sir?” he asked.

“It’s Latin,” the man answered without turning around as if that explained everything. “And it’s your next goal while you’re in my class.”

“O… Okay?” he said, still unsure of what the man was getting at.

As he left the room, Yaoyorozu walked over to him and asked, “Did he tell you, too?”

“He told me something, but I can’t make heads or tails out of it,” the boy answered as he shut his briefcase, satisfied with the state of its contents. “Something in Latin?”

“Superabit,” Momo nodded. “It’s Latin for ‘surpass me’.”

“Surpass him, huh?” Kurai muttered as he looked at the open door that their mentor had left behind. “He said that it was our next goal while we study under him…”

“A fairly lofty benchmark for us to reach,” the girl said quietly. “Hero rank notwithstanding, he’s a very capable hero. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

“True, but he did tell us that this school wasn’t gonna be a cakewalk from day one,” her partner sighed as he picked up his briefcase. Raising his eyebrows, he said, “Plus Ultra?”

“Plus Ultra. See you at the expo.”

Chapter Text

“This is amazing!” Akarui exclaimed as he spun in place, his wide purple eyes taking in every detail that he possibly could as he looked about the moving city that was I-island. “This is going to be the best vacation in the history of ever!” He, Kurai, and Mina had come to the high-security island for the annual expo that displayed the latest and greatest advances in quirk research and support for heroes and civilians both. They would be spending the first week of summer vacation on the island, after which Mina and Kurai had to return for their school’s summer training camp.

Since there were no quirk regulations in the city, Akarui was putting his quirk, Solar Intelligence, to maximum use, intent on absorbing as much information as he possibly could while the sun was up. As it was his goal to pursue a degree in the biomechanical field- the study of fusing mechanics and living tissue- he was very keen to gain insight on the accomplishments of the world’s leading scientists.

“If we sneak away now, maybe we can get to the hotel before he notices that we’re gone,” Mina snickered in an aside to her boyfriend, who sighed and introduced his palm to his face.

“And just what would we do without him there?” he asked in a dry tone. He was dressed up in his hero costume, complete with his scouter on his head and photon sword at his hip.

“I dunno, does this island have cable?” Mina grinned. “My house only gets local channels.” Like her boyfriend, she was dressed in her hero outfit for the day. Since they were heroes-in-training, they were permitted to wear the equipment in unregulated places like I-island, even without hero licenses.

“You’re not fooling anybody with that excuse,” Akarui said without looking at them, keeping his gaze fixed on a particularly tall tower. “My brother’s too chicken to do anything indecent, but I’ve got a number on the likelihood of the very hormonal teenage girl trying to jump him. Anyone wanna take a guess at how likely it is on a scale of one to a hundred?”

“Wow, that wasn’t embarrassing at all,” Kurai said in an irritated tone. Still, he was more or less used to comments like this one during this time of day. His brother’s quirk made him much more intelligent the more sunlight he was exposed to, and he had a habit of letting everyone around him know it.

“Is it smartass hour?” Mina grumbled, also looking put off as a sly smile appeared on Akarui’s face.

“Yeah,” Kurai sighed.

“It’s a really high number,” the younger boy said, as if he hadn’t heard them.

Kurai exhaled again, then unclipped his sword from his belt, and smacked his brother on the head with the hilt. As the younger boy recoiled with a yelp, he said with a satisfied smile, “Surely someone with your intellect would have seen that coming.”

“I was busy,” his brother complained. “There are hundreds of facilities open to the public this week, so I need to narrow it down to an optimal number, factoring in my own interests, the hours that they are actually open, what the foot traffic will be before and after the expo is open to the public, not to mention how many times I’ll have to stop you two from trying to sneak off… It’s a lot to consider.”

“You might have to factor in the number of times that you’ll be knocked unconscious if you keep making jokes like that,” Kurai said with a flinty smile.

“No I won’t,” Akarui said with a devilish smile as he patted his pocket where his phone was. “At irregular intervals, I’ve set my email to send mom and dad a message saying that I’ve caught you two in the act, and the only way to stop it is if I kill the email. Seeing as my password was set up during my ‘smartass hour’, I doubt that either of you has the brainpower to hack into it, even if you took the phone away from me. So basically, if I think that you two are up to anything, I just have to wait for my phone to send that message, and then you two are both dead as soon as we get home.”

Mina and Kurai glared at him for a few moments before she muttered, “He’d be way less annoying if he was put up to this by your parents, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah, he’s definitely doing this of his own volition,” Kurai grumbled. To his brother, he said, “You don’t actually expect us to stay with you for the entire week, do you? I’ve got dirt on you too, remember?”

“I’m well aware of our mutually assured destruction,” Akarui nodded as he gave them a thumbs-up. “So basically, I’m gonna set up a few sensors in our hotel rooms, and if they get tripped or tampered with while I’m not there, the email gets sent. I’m reasonably confident that once you meet up with your friends, you’ll be too busy having fun to get up to anything bad.”

Kurai nodded back as he replied, “Fine. I can abide by that.”

“Cool, then I’ll get us checked into the hotel,” Akarui said as he walked away. “I’ll meet you guys at David Shield’s exhibit after lunch!”

“Argh!” Mina complained once he was gone. “How’d we end up with a chaperone younger than us, and more annoying than Present Mic?!”

“Package deal, I guess,” Kurai grinned slightly. “If you’re gonna date me, you gotta be willing to put up with that monster.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute, or else that would be a deal-breaker,” Mina sighed as she leaned on his shoulder. “Can we go get something to snack on? The plane food was good, but I feel like everything was elf-sized.”

“Hey, Ochaco!” Mina exclaimed happily as she and Kurai walked up to their classmate, who was in a group with Jiro and Yaoyorozu. “Everyone! What’s hangin?” The two U.A. students had decided to meet up with their friends in an exhibit that mostly featured the inventions of David Shield, Akarui’s personal idol. There was all kinds of technology, from quirk reinforcements for heroes to advanced first aid for civilians.

“Hey, Ashido,” the earphone jack girl answered as they turned around.

“Mina!” Uraraka said cheerily as she exchanged a hug with her friend. “I’m glad to see you guys!” Turning to Kurai, she added, “Hey, Hikari! Are you excited about the expo?”

“For sure,” he replied with a grin before turning to Yaoyorozu. “Good to see you. How was the flight coming in?” As he did so, Mina and Ochaco moved to the side and began to talk to one another in excited tones.

“Dude, I always thought that flying in a private jet was overhyped, but thanks to Yaomomo, I don’t think I can ever fly regular airlines again,” Jiro told him with a small grin.

“Normally we fly the family plane for vacations, but this time we had to take the business jet since the other one is having some body work done,” Momo said apologetically. “I wish I had reminded Father to have the repairs done sooner…”

“Private jet?” Kurai repeated with mock offense. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Three words, pal,” Jiro said before Momo could answer him. “Ultimate bachelorette pad.”

Kurai raised an eyebrow and said, “Really?”

“Well, there’s also the fact that the plane was filled to capacity with Yaomomo’s luggage,” the smaller girl shrugged, causing her friend to flush with embarrassment.

“Like I said, normally we take the other jet!” the creative heroine huffed.

Kurai couldn’t help but chuckle at that, but before he could make a reply, he found his arm being yanked out of its socket by Mina, who had a huge grin on her face. “Dude, you gotta see this!” she giggled as she pointed excitedly toward an exhibit that featured some underwater equipment.

At first the boy only saw a high-speed submersible airplane, and he wondered why his girlfriend was getting so excited about it. She only gets excited about that stuff when it’s in a movie, not a- Oh… When his gaze lowered, he realized what she was getting so worked up about; Midoriya, decked out in his hero costume, was chatting with an older blond girl in front of the exhibit while Uraraka looked on with a stricken expression.

Dude, check your six! He mentally shouted at his friend. He had suspected for some time that Uraraka had a thing for his friend, but it seemed like a jealousy fit would pretty much prove the idea.

Before Midoriya could realize that anyone was there, Uraraka walked up behind him and said in a strangely stilted voice, “Looks like you’re having fun… Deku.”

“Uraraka?!” the boy yelped, drawing the attention of his blond companion, and lending the other students a better look at her. “Wh-When did you guys get here?!”

“It looks like you’re having fun,” Uraraka repeated.

“You said that,” Midoriya replied, looking incredibly bewildered and flustered.

“Hey, man,” Kurai said as he walked up to his friend for a quick handshake. “I didn’t know you were bringing a guest to the expo.”

“N-No! That’s not it!” the other boy stammered. Indicating the girl standing next to him with a nervous gesture, Midoriya said, “This is my new friend, Melissa Shield! She’s a local to I-island, and she was just showing me around the expo!”

“Wait, wait, back up a sec,” Kurai said as he turned to look at the older girl a little more closely, now noticing her blue eyes and tall stature. “Did you say Melissa ‘Shield’? As in, David Shield?”

“Uh-huh!” the girl answered cheerily as the others gathered around them. “He’s my Papa!” Turning to Midoriya, she asked, “Are these your friends from school, Deku?”

“Yeah, they’re all hero course students.”

“Awesome,” Melissa said with a charming smile as she took a few steps forward. “Hi, everyone! It’s really cool to meet people from out of town, especially future heroes!”

As she moved to greet the other girls, Kurai had to stifle a smile as he thought, Akarui’s head is gonna explode when he finds out that Midoriya’s been hanging out with David Shield’s daughter.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Yaoyorozu said as she offered a small wave in the way of a greeting to Melissa, unaware of the bemusement of her other friend. “I’m Momo Yaoyorozu from the hero course at U.A.”

“I’m Kyoka Jiro,” the punk heroine said as she introduced herself.

“Name’s Mina!” Kurai’s girlfriend said excitedly as she planted herself in front of a slightly surprised Melissa, grabbing her hands and adding, “I gotta say, your hair is super pretty! How d’ya get it so shiny?!”

While Melissa began to speak to the other girls, Kurai moved to stand next to his friend and muttered, “You’ve been here for what, three hours? And you’re already making the girls swoon.” He added a cheeky smile and an elbow to Midoriya’s ribs, which set his friend to turn into a beet red, stuttering mess.

I think I’ve been hanging around Mina too much.

The group eventually decided to head over to a nearby café for some drinks, during which Melissa befriended Uraraka and the other girls without any trouble, much to the relief of Midoriya, and by extension, Kurai. While the girls chatted about their varying experiences during their internships over the past semester, the two boys got themselves a table and placed their orders with a tablet that was built into the table.

Once that was done, Kurai jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Melissa and asked, “So how did you end up on a date with David Shield’s only daughter?”

“It wasn’t a date!” Midoriya protested swiftly. Clamping a hand over his own mouth when he realized that he had probably spoken too loudly, he then mumbled, “I just happened to run into her in the exhibit, and we started talking hero stuff. Since her dad helped All Might out a bunch when he was first becoming a pro, he’s apparently been a close friend of hers’ ever since she was little- she calls him ‘Uncle Might’!”

“Dang, that’s pretty cool,” Kurai said, impressed. “I guess since you wanna be so much like him, it’d be easy for you guys to get a conversation started, right?”

“Y-Yeah, something like that,” Midoriya laughed nervously. “For real, though, it wasn’t a date.”

“I know that, man,” Kurai laughed. “I guess Mina’s habit of teasing my friends has rubbed off on me.”

“Yeah, I’d say so…”

“Here you are, gentlemen,” said a familiar voice as the drinks that they had ordered were placed on the table in front of them by the waiter. “Two icy drinks, as requested.”

“Kaminari?” Midoriya asked in surprise as the two students looked up to see their friend dressed up in a black-and-white uniform, and holding a serving tray. “This is the restaurant that you signed up to work for?”

“Yeah-huh!” the electric boy nodded with an enthusiastic grin. “I’m actually making some decent cash, plus there’s always the chance that I’ll get to hook up with one of the local- hey, who’s that?!” The boy stopped with a dumb look on his face as his gaze fell upon Melissa, who was in the middle of speaking to Jiro about her involvement in a hostage situation.

“Who, Melissa?” Midoriya asked blankly.

“Dude!” Kaminari exclaimed as he shook the green-haired boy by the shoulders. “You know a high-voltage hottie like that, and you don’t tell me?! You’re a terrible wingman!”

“He’s your wingman?” Kurai snickered.

“Oh, are you another U.A. student?” Melissa’s voice injected itself into the conversation, causing all three boys to turn back toward the girls’ table, Kaminari with a sly grin on his face.

“That’s right,” he said smoothly. “I’m Denki, an up-and-coming top hero.”

“Down boy; if anyone’s gonna be top heroes around here, it’s gonna be those two,” Jiro said bluntly as she pointed at Kurai and Midoriya, both of them flushing red while the electric boy’s shoulders sagged.

“Why are you so mean?” he asked plaintively, to which Jiro shrugged indifferently.

“Kaminari!” another familiar voice shouted from a few-dozen yards away. “Stop loafing around! You signed on for a job, not a tourist visa! If you don’t give your all to this job, you’re going to make our school look bad!” Iida charged onto the scene to stare down his classmate with a stern gaze, who cowered in fear of the taller boy’s armored physique.

“Oh great, it’s the fun police,” Kurai muttered sarcastically, drawing Iida’s frown toward him. “Hey.”

“I thought that you would have been in the Shield exhibit with Akarui,” the class rep replied frostily. “Isn’t he supposed to be with you?”

“Come on guys, not here,” Midoriya begged them earnestly. “It’s summer break, can’t we all just get along?”

In the background, Kurai was aware of Melissa asking Momo if there was something that she was missing, but tuned them out for the time being, keeping his eyes focused solely on his former best friend. When a moment of relative silence had passed between them, the smaller student eventually shrugged and said, “We’re meeting him there after lunch, if you want to say hello.”

“I rather think that I’ll be busy,” Iida answered.

“Doing what?” Kurai smirked evilly. “Getting that stick out of your-?”

BOOM!

An explosion and subsequent dust cloud billowed up from a nearby building that looked like some kind of an arena. Everyone at the café had their attention drawn to the noise, but it was Midoriya who asked, “What’s that?”

“Some kind of obstacle course for pro heroes to test their skills,” Kaminari informed them. “I woulda gone to check it out, but all my shifts are up during the hours they have it running.”

“That sounds like fun!” Mina said as she stood up from her seat excitedly. “Let’s go try it!”

“But I just got this,” Kurai complained as he held up his glass.

After being rushed to finish his drink by his overexcited girlfriend, Kurai and the others made their way to the obstacle course, Iida and he doing their best to ignore each others’ presence. When they came into the stands that overlooked the obstacle course, they were all surprised to see Kirishima emerging from a dust cloud while a female announcer declared him in eighth place so far that day.

While the dirt settled, Kurai took note of the terrain, which had been set up to mimic a small mountain with robots set up in various places. Apparently the goal was to destroy all of the mechs as quickly as possible- the faster your clearing time, the higher your placing on the scoreboard.

“Is that Kacchan?” Midoriya asked as he pointed at a familiar figure, who was walking toward the starting zone.

“How’d he get here?” Jiro asked with a slight frown.

“Hey, guys!” Kirishima called up while Bakugo took off, demolishing the robots with his usual startling speed and precision.

“Hi!” Mina grinned as she waved to her old friend.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it?” Momo asked him, even as Bakugo blasted three bots to pieces in the background.

Kirishima glanced up at Kurai for a split-second before he answered, “I won some passes in a lottery and dragged Bakugo along for the ride.” By this time, the explosive boy had already finished his run, claiming first place with a time of just over fifteen seconds.

“I didn’t know that they had a lottery for this,” Melissa mused.

Before anyone could reply, Bakugo noticed his classmates in the stands, particularly Midoriya and Hikari. Gritting his teeth angrily, he blasted his way up into the stands, gripping the handrails that separated the audience from the course, shouting, “Why the hell are you here, DEKU?!” Giving a blistering glare to Kurai, he added, “And why’s Saiyaman here?!”

“I got passes for winning the Sport’s Festival,” Hikari answered calmly. “Midoriya got sponsored by the agency that did his internship.”

“Bakugo, chill out!” Kirishima called up.

“This behavior is unbecoming of a U.A. student!” Iida added.

“Up yours, ya four-eyed loser!”

“Why is that boy so angry?” Melissa asked Uraraka.

“He and Deku are fated rivals,” the heroine-in-training replied seriously.

“He’s also kind of a jerk,” Mina added.

“Say that again, Raccoon Eyes, I dare-!”

“Finish that sentence,” Kurai cut him off as he put himself between the explosive boy and his girlfriend, a dangerous look in his eyes. “I dare you.”

Bakugo sneered at the boy that had defeated him in the festival, leaping over the railing as he snarled, “Oh yeah? If you’re good enough to take me on, let’s see you beat my time on the course.”

“Done,” Kurai replied confidently. “And when I’m done, Midoriya can put you in third.”

“Like hell he will!”

“Do I get a say in this?” Izuku said nervously as Kurai and Bakugo began to butt heads.

He was surprised when they both shouted, “No!”

When his run was done, Midoriya actually almost outdid Bakugo, destroying all of the robots on the course in sixteen seconds flat, much to the irritation of the explosive boy. As he railed against his classmate, Kurai moved with a confident smile to take his place at the starting zone, unclipping his sword from his belt and igniting it in anticipation of the announcer’s signal that he could get started.

Concentrating heavily, he willed his body to release more power, turning his hair orange and his eyes blue while the wind raced away from him. Instead of relying on sheer anger to fuel the ascension, he focused on a stream of memories tied to his core emotions. This was more mentally straining, and it did not produce the same staggering power that he had displayed in the USJ incident, but it also kept his brain from bleeding out whenever he amplified his abilities.

“Ready… go!” the announcer cried, sending him into motion.

There were ten robots that he needed to destroy, all of them scattered across the rocky terrain. Kurai’s eyes had tracked each of them down before the allotted time began, and now he knew exactly how to deal with each of them.

Slashing his free arm through the air as he leaped toward one of the taller outcroppings, he sent a barrage of energon blasts that reduced six of the droids to scrap piles in seconds, all while he landed in front of another robot, swinging his sword in a downward arc that cut it clean in two. With cat-like speed, he rushed another duo of bots, taking out one with his sword, and the other with an energy bolt.

Spotting the last mech on the top of the mini-mountain, he sheathed his sword, cupped his hands by his side, and then unleashed a Kamehameha laser at the pinnacle, blowing it to dust, and finishing the obstacle course with another grin. “Fourteen point seven seconds!”

“Ha!” Kurai laughed as he leaped back into the starting point. “I did beat him!”

“Like hell!” Bakugo screamed while Kirishima struggled to keep him up in the stands. “I’m going again and blasting his score to ash!”

“Might wanna wait on that,” Kurai smirked as he pointed further back on the starting zone, where another familiar figure was walking in with a stoic expression. “Hey, Todoroki.”

“Hello, Hikari,” his friend answered as they walked by each other. “You set a high standard for the rest of those trying to compete today.”

“Thanks, but I get the feeling that I’m about to get knocked off my pedestal,” Kurai chuckled as he turned to watch the other student go into action. “After all, we never did get a clear winner at the Sport’s Festival.”

“I hardly think that a simple obstacle course like this is a substitute for a battle between the two of us,” Todoroki replied coolly.

“True, but after the way my last sparring match turned out, I don’t think that Mister Aizawa is about to let us settle the score,” Kurai chuckled as he clapped his friend on the shoulder while walking past him. “Good luck, pal.”

After Todoroki took his turn on the course, Kurai asked him if he would be attending the big gala later that night, to which he affirmed that he was. Upon hearing this, Kurai then asked, “Would you care to join us at the party, then?”

“I don’t see why not,” the heterochromic boy answered neutrally.

“Cool, see you there.”

Akarui joined them shortly after they parted ways with Shoto, Kirishima, and Bakugo, and he just about swooned when he realized that he was getting to meet David Shield’s daughter, who took his enamored approach in stride with a good-natured cheer.

While the boy began peppering her with a hundred and one questions about her father’s work, as well as her own interest in the pursuit of hero support, Midoriya said in an aside to Kurai, “Is that what I look like when I’m talking about All Might?”

“Not at all,” Kurai said with a light grin.

“Yeah, you’re way more of a dork, Midoriya,” Mina giggled as the green-haired boy’s face fell.

 Once the sun began to set, the group broke up so that each of them could go to their hotels in order to change into their dress clothes. Iida told them all to be in the lobby by no later than six-thirty, which Kurai knew was not going to happen, given how much he knew Mina wanted to look perfect for such an outing.

We’ll just be a little late, he had decided with an absent shrug.

He and Akarui spent a little time making sure that their dress clothes were in good condition while Mina stayed in her room to do her makeup. Kurai was wearing a blue blazer and orange tie while his brother donned a similar outfit, although with a white necktie. When the elder sibling decided to stash his photon sword inside his jacket, his brother paused and asked him what he was doing.

“The security here is on par with Tartaros,” he told Kurai. “I can’t imagine that we’re gonna encounter any trouble on this island, so why d’ya need that?”

“There’s gonna be a few pros at the gala that I want to talk to about possible improvements for the design,” he answered with a shrug, causing Akarui to frown heavily.

“Are you saying my design is bad?” he muttered.

“Not at all,” Kurai answered with a negative shake of his head. “But you can only make a design based on materials that you already know about. If I get a chance to learn more, it could help us improve the design, even if only a little.”

“Oh,” the younger brother said, mollified. “All right, that makes sense. But I won’t be able to make much out of anything we learn until tomorrow.”

“That’s fi-”

“Hey, guys!” Mina said as the door slid open. “Sorry I took so long!”

“No proble-” Kurai stopped talking as he beheld his girlfriend in her chosen attire for the gala. She had dressed up in a strapless sky blue dress that went halfway down her calves, and had glitter dusting the lower hem. On her feet was a pair of matching heels, complete with the glitter effect. Holy crap, she’s hot, he thought dumbly.

“You like it?” she grinned as she noticed his blank stare.

“If he liked it any more, I’d be trying to kiss you myself,” Akarui said dryly. To his brother, he added, “Shut your mouth before you drool a puddle.”

“You look great,” he finally managed to say after he smacked his brother on the head. “Really great.”

“Not so bad yourself, handsome,” she giggled, which set his face to blushing a little, but he had been getting accustomed to her flirtations over the last semester. Instead of his brain completely shutting off from sheer embarrassment, he returned the smile and held his arm out for her to loop hers’ through.

“Ready to head out, my lady?” he asked her, with the hint of a lordly accent flavoring his words.

“But of course, good sir!” she replied in kind.

“Ugh, gag me,” Akarui grumbled.

The three of them arrived at the lobby where they were set to meet up with the others about thirty minutes after Iida had told them to be there, and Kurai was more than a little surprised to find that only the class rep, Todoroki, and Kaminari were present. “And here I thought we were being fashionably late,” he said with a slight grin.

“There’s nothing fashionable about being late!” Iida exclaimed, though he seemed more upset at the lack of attendance from everyone instead of just being cross with Kurai, specifically. “Does a proper meeting time mean nothing to you people?!” His dark blue suit was a little rumpled, likely from an extended period of time spent pacing with crossed arms.

“Yo, Todoroki!” Mina said as she approached the half-and-half boy. “That suit looks sharp on you!” He was dressed in a white suit with a blue shirt and a red tie that befitted the gala. Kaminari was still in his work outfit, but since it was a black-and-white vest set complete with a bow tie, it was acceptable for the event.

Before Kurai could approach the electric boy, he heard the door opening up behind him, so he turned to see Midoriya walking in, dressed in a red suit, followed soon after by Uraraka and the other girls, all of them in their best getup- or rather, Yaoyorozu’s best getup, as she had apparently provided the dresses.

Seeing Uraraka’s pink ballroom outfit, Kurai grinned and nudged Midoriya with his elbow as he said, “You should ask her to dance later. I bet you it’d make her night.”

“Y-You think so?!” Izuku stammered nervously.

“I think it’ll probably make your night, too,” Kurai chuckled as the gravity girl approached them with a shy smile.

“Hi, Deku,” she said as Kurai moved away to greet Yaoyorozu.

“Glad to see you here,” he said as he shook hands with her and Jiro, who was sporting a dress that still managed to keep with the girl’s usual ‘punk’ theme.

“Me too,” Yaoyorozu admitted. “I often attend dinner functions like this one, but this is the first time that I get to go with friends. I’m looking forward to it.”

“That makes two of us,” he grinned at her.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy that enjoys suit-and-tie events,” Jiro said.

“We don’t, but Dad’s the Police Commissioner,” Akarui explained as he approached. “We’ve been to a few events here and there.”

“At least we know the routine,” Kurai pointed out.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to see you and your girlfriend bite it when it comes to the dance part of the night,” his brother smirked.

Laugh it up, buddy, Kurai thought as he turned away to hide his own smile. Akarui didn’t know that Mina was an expert dancer, and further, that she had been teaching Kurai how to move to the beat of the music (sometimes against his will).

“Wow, Mina!” Uraraka exclaimed, drawing Kurai’s attention as she approached the pink girl. “That’s a nice look for you! Where’d you get an outfit like that?” Off to the side, Midoriya was smiling with the hint of a blush on his face, so Kurai resolved to ask his friend about what went on sometime later.

“Oh, I got it after Kurai asked me to come here with him, since I knew there was gonna be a big dinner party,” she admitted. “My mom helped me pick it out and everything.”

“Sorry I’m late, everyone!” another familiar voice called as the doors slid open again. As Melissa jogged over to meet them, Jiro pumped Kaminari with a sound burst when he started ogling the blond girl in her blue-and-white dress, causing him to collapse on the floor with a pitiful whine.

“I guess the only people that we’re missing are Bakugo and Kirishima,” Yaoyorozu noted as she looked around the lobby. “Does anyone know where they are?”

“I tried calling them, but they won’t answer!” Iida grumbled.

“Bet you anything they got lost,” Akarui snickered. “They don’t strike me as very good when it comes to directions.”

Before anyone could take him up on the bet, alarms began to sound, and metal shutters slammed down in front of the doors, putting all of the students on edge. Unconsciously, Iida and Kurai moved to stand back-to-back in anticipation of whatever danger might come their way.

“Attention, I-island,” a female automated voice announced out of multiple speakers. “We have received a security notice that there is an explosive device somewhere on the I-expo grounds. As a result, the entire area will go into high alert mode. Residents have ten minutes to get inside the buildings for their own safety. Anyone outside after the allotted time will be in violation of the law.”

“Elevators are out, and my phone isn’t working,” Akarui said after he checked both devices, looking troubled.

“This is really weird,” Melissa said, drawing the attention of her new friends as the alarms died away. “High alert mode isn’t what’s supposed to happen if there’s a bomb discovered.”

“What is supposed to happen?” Kurai asked as he and Iida distanced themselves from one another.

“It doesn’t matter,” Midoriya said as he stepped forward. “We need to get to the party.”

“Uh, I don’t think fine dining should be on our list of priorities right now,” Kaminari said nervously as he continued to glance around their surroundings.

“No, All Might and other pros are there,” Midoriya explained. “We need to stay close to them, just in case something weird is going on.”

“The elevator’s out, though,” Iida said.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Kurai said flatly.

Before the engine-quirked boy could retort, Melissa pointed down the hall and said, “There’s the emergency stairs. They’ll get us to the party.”

“Then let’s go,” Todoroki muttered as he took the lead, with Yaoyorozu and Jiro close behind him. “We need to find out what’s going on before trouble finds us.”

“What makes you think the trouble will find us?” Melissa asked.

“You really have no idea what goes on with my brother’s class, do you?” Akarui asked her, his smile strained with fear. “They’re like trouble magnets.”

Chapter Text

“We’ve been in some bad spots before, but I think this takes the cake,” Kurai muttered as he and the others stood in a rough circle on the emergency staircase. The group had nearly made it to the dining area when they heard a gunshot, which led to them making a hasty retreat up to the next floor. After Melissa supplied them with directions, Jiro and Midoriya went to run reconnaissance from above the main hall.

They had just returned with the disturbing news that all the heroes present, including All Might, were restrained by the island’s security system, which had been hijacked by a group of villains that were now using the same technology to hold virtually everyone on the island as their unwitting hostages. Thanks to Jiro’s quirk, the two had been able to have a brief conversation with All Might, who had told them to clear out and keep their heads down until the situation was resolved.

“So what’s our play?” Akarui asked, looking between his brother and Iida. He appeared nervous, and for good reason. After all, he was a middle-school kid that had no interest in being a pro hero himself, so it was only natural that he be frightened of the circumstances that they were in.

“My first instinct would be to go and find some pros from outside the party, but there’s too many chances that we’d get caught,” Kurai muttered as he put his chin in his hand. “Our phones aren’t working, either, so we can’t call for help.”

“We could beat up the bad guys,” Mina offered, causing Iida, Kaminari, and Akarui to look at her like she’d lost her mind. “What? We survived the USJ, and we’ve all interned with pro heroes. It’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Are you crazy?!” Kaminari yelped. “Those guys have All Might, the number one hero, pinned down, and you think we can take ‘em?!”

“We’d be in violation of the law!” Iida added crossly. “We’re not licensed heroes!”

“Actually, that’s not entirely true,” Kurai countered, drawing everyone’s attention to him. Shifting his gaze to Melissa, Kurai said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I-island doesn’t regulate quirk usage, right?”

“That’s true,” she nodded.

“So if- I know, big if- we could take down the villains, could we just treat the situation as a citizen’s arrest?” he inquired.

“Yes, as far as I’m aware,” she nodded again. “We’ve never had a crime committed on this scale here, so I don’t know that there’s much of a precedent to go by, but what you’re saying makes sense.”

“How’d you figure that?” Jiro asked Kurai, who simply shrugged.

“I kinda have some knowledge about law enforcement and potential loopholes,” he answered.

“I can’t believe that you, of all people here, want to find a way around the rules,” Iida said, his tone angry as Kurai turned back to face him. “Especially when you called me a hypocrite for doing the exact same thing.”

“Really?” Kurai said flatly. “Now? You wanna do this now?” All around them, the other students shifted uncomfortably, knowing that things were probably about to get pretty intense between the two of them.

“Yes, now!” Iida barked, startling the others. “If you go ahead to fight those villains, it will be just like when I went to fight Stain!”

“This is nothing like when you went to fight Stain, and don’t you dare try to bring me down to your level again,” Kurai growled, his eyes sparking blue for a second, alerting everyone as to just how close he was to losing control. “You were hell-bent on revenge. You were being selfish and wanting to assuage your guilt. I want to save the people in this building from ending up as bargaining chips for whatever it is that these villains want. And as we just covered, there’s nothing illegal about a citizen’s arrest.”

“Citizen’s arrest can be applied in cases of self-defense,” Iida shot back. “You can’t go and pick a fight with professional criminals and say that it’s above the scrutiny of the law!”

“He’s right,” Todoroki interjected, his cool voice cutting through the heated atmosphere. “We can’t just go fight them. That being said, I’m with Hikari. We also can’t just sit around and do nothing right now.”

“Then what should we do?” Mina asked with a frown. “Doesn’t seem like we have a lot of options open to us.”

“We can still help,” Midoriya asserted, surprising his friends. “We can save All Might and the others without fighting anyone.”

“How?” Yaoyorozu asked him.

“If we move quickly, we might be able to restore the island’s security system without running into any villains,” the green-haired boy explained. “We just need to find the control room in the tower and reset the security parameters. That’ll free All Might and the other pros, and then they can do all the fighting for us.”

The others looked around at each other, each of them considering the plan. “I’m in,” Uraraka declared.

“Me too,” Mina grinned.

“Really?” Izuku asked, looking surprised at the fact that his idea wasn’t being dismissed out of hand.

“It’s a good idea,” Todoroki nodded. “If we’re aiming to be pros someday, we need to start acting like it sooner, rather than later.”

“I’m with you,” Kurai told his friend.

“In that case, count me in,” Kaminari said as he got to his feet with a bright smile.

“Let’s do it,” Jiro grinned as she gave Midoriya a thumbs-up.

Iida hesitated for a moment, then he stepped up to his friend and said, “The moment that I think we’ve gone too far, I’m putting a stop to this.”

“Who died and made you the morality police?” Kurai challenged him, but Midoriya held up his hands to keep them both from arguing.

“We all need to work together for us to have the best chance at stopping these villains,” he told them wearily. “Fighting each other isn’t going to help us, and it’s not going to help the people that are counting on us. Iida, I know you’re worried about repeating Hosu, but things are different here. We’ll be fine.” Turning to address his other friend, he added, “And Hikari, people make mistakes. But they can’t move on and learn from them if the people they look up to keep putting them down for it.”

Iida and Kurai exchanged angry looks for a moment, neither one willing to give ground, before the shorter of the two finally said in a somewhat subdued voice, “Tensei would be giving us an earful if he could see us right now, wouldn’t he?” Kurai was still upset with his old friend, but he was pragmatic enough to know that if they were going to go through with Midoriya’s plan, someone needed to concede, even a little, so it might as well be him.

“Yes, he would,” Iida admitted begrudgingly. Holding out a hand to the other boy, he said, “It’s going to be a while before we can really forgive one another, but… in the interest of being heroes, I’m willing to work with you on this.”

“And in the interest of hoping that you can prove me wrong about you not being one, I’ll do the same,” Kurai replied as he shook hands with the class rep. Turning to Midoriya, he added, “Let’s roll.”

“If Iida is on board, then I’ll go as well,” Yaoyorozu said, making her the last student to agree to the plan.

“Have you guys lost your minds?!” Akarui demanded. “You do realize that I have to go with you, right?!” Kurai made an apologetic gesture to the others before he grabbed his brother roughly by the arm and dragged him down the flight of stairs so that they could talk in private, provided that they kept their voices down.

“You’re staying here,” Kurai told his brother firmly. “You’re not combat trained, so if there does end up being a fight, I can’t risk you getting caught up in it. Mom and Dad would kill me.”

“As opposed to ditching me in a closet while there’s trigger-happy villains running around?!” the younger boy demanded. “I’m going with you guys, even if I think you’re insane!”

“You’d only get in the way,” Kurai said flatly. “You can’t even use the excuse that you’ve got Solar Intelligence- there’s no sunlight for you to absorb, so you’re as dumb as we are right now.”

“Ha!” the younger boy snorted as he reached into his pocket. “That’s what you think.” He pulled out a necklace with a small light on it that made Kurai’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Where did you-?”

“Made it myself before we came to the island,” he smirked as he clicked a button on the back of the light causing it to light up with a bright white glow that hurt the eyes of anyone that looked directly at it. He quickly put the necklace on and tucked the item under his shirt, reducing the glow substantially.

“It’s simulated sunlight, the same kind used to treat patients with skin conditions like psoriasis,” he explained. “Of course, my contraption is a lot stronger than the stuff that hospitals use. Give me thirty minutes, and my smarts will start coming back.”

Instead of looking pleased by this turn of events, however, Kurai scowled and hissed, “You’re already on a pretty unforgiving timetable, you really wanna accelerate it?”

“This’ll only take off another week or so in the long run,” Akarui replied in the same lowered tone. “I did the calculations myself, so I know what I’m doing. Besides, if we don’t do something to stop those villains, my ‘timetable’ might not matter very much.”

“Why are you even doing this?” Kurai demanded, still irritated by the measures that his brother was taking.

“Because whether you like it or not- no matter how much I really don’t like it- I’m your best shot at restoring the security systems,” Akarui said flatly. “If we run into trouble, I’ll be able to plan for contingencies that even your enemies won’t be able to come up with. I can basically ensure that not only will we win, we’ll all get to go home in one piece. That’s worth a few days to me.”

Kurai was quiet for a few moments before he reluctantly said, “You can help us, but I’m the one with the combat training. If it comes down to a fight, do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it, understand? You’re gonna follow my orders if you’re gonna come with.”

“I will,” his brother promised him, which was surprising. Seeing the look of shock on his brother’s face, Akarui muttered, “Increased IQ or not, I know you’re the one with experience in not getting killed by bad guys. I’m staying behind you.”

“Good,” Kurai sighed. “Now let’s get back to the others.”

They returned to the group in time for Melissa to announce that she would also be going with them to stop the villains, since she knew the tower well enough to navigate them to the security control room. Midoriya initially protested this, but the blond girl was insistent, and he eventually gave way to her demand to be brought along, especially since they would be running blind without her. Kurai then informed them that Akarui would be accompanying them, and that his quirk would soon be functional enough to assist their endeavor.

Iida, of course, protested this, but Akarui and Kurai swiftly demolished his arguments with the same points that the younger Hikari had addressed when debating the subject with his brother. The class rep refused to give ground initially, but when the others pointed out that they were wasting time with the arguing, and the fact that Kurai was technically the legal guardian in the situation, making it his call, the older boy caved with great reluctance.

With that, the teenagers began to make their way up the many, many, many, many stairs that stood between them and the control room. They were starting out on the bottom floor, and they had to make it all the way up to floor 200, according to Melissa.

Mina and Melissa had to ditch their shoes partway up since heels weren’t exactly well-suited for climbing thousands of steps, and Kurai’s girlfriend was thoroughly irritated by the fact. “Whoever these villains are, they’re gonna owe me a new pair,” she grumbled as they continued the trek.

“I’ll make you some new ones after this is all over,” Yaoyorozu told her over her shoulder.

“No way,” Mina replied with a snarky grin. “These bad guys should take responsibility for the bad things that they do.”

“Just let her have it,” Kurai said to head off any protests on Yaoyorozu’s part. He grinned at his girlfriend and added, “I’m sure we can add theft to the many charges that these villains are racking up with this little operation.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No!”

The group was out of breath, and their legs were aching when they came upon their first obstacle. “Aw, come on!” Mina groaned as they staggered up the stairs that put them on the eightieth floor. Just above them was a thick metal gate that prevented them from going any higher on the staircase.

“Is this is as far as we go?” Uraraka panted.

“Hang on,” Kurai muttered as he walked over and rapped on the gate with his knuckles, producing a low thudding sound. Shrugging slightly he stepped back and muttered, “Shouldn’t be hard to break through.” His or Mina’s quirk could get them through with little enough trouble, he reasoned.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Akarui said quickly as he stepped up to stand next to his brother, his eyes rapidly scanning the structure. “This place is on lockdown- any tampering with the security measures, and at the very least it’ll alert whoever’s in control that we’re here.”

“Why don’t we use the door?” Jiro asked tiredly as she jerked a thumb at the exit that would take them out onto the hallway for the floor.

“No, don’t,” Melissa told them, sounding even more winded than they were. It only made sense, seeing as she wasn’t in a school course that had high physical demands, unlike the U.A. students. “That would trigger a silent alarm that gives away our position.”

The others took a moment to catch their breath while Akarui looked around them, trying to see if there was a way around tripping one of the alarms. However, he soon shook his head and said in a resigned tone, “Short of blasting a hole in the wall and somehow scaling the exterior, I don’t see how we can avoid giving away our position if we want to move on from this staircase.”

“Can’t you hack the gate, or something?” Kaminari asked. “I thought you were super-smart.”

Before Kurai could rescue the electric boy from his careless words, Akarui turned a baleful eye on him and said, “First of all, how am I supposed to hack into a gate that doesn’t a have a local interface? Second of all, if you know so much, why don’t you conjure the magic way for us to get to the top without getting caught, mister low-watt bulb?”

Kaminari stared at the boy blankly for a second before Jiro nudged him and said, “He’s saying that there’s nothing for him to hack into at this door, and that you’re really stupid.”

“Hey!” the blond boy exclaimed, his feelings injured. “Why’re you so mean?”

“Akarui, put your brains to use for something other than making Kaminari cry, and figure out the best way for us to proceed from here on,” Kurai said to head off his brother. “We’re not on a field trip.”

“Door’s our best bet,” Akarui replied immediately. “The enemy will know where we are, but they’ll learn nothing of your offensive capabilities- after all, there’s not many people with a quirk that’ll let them blow through a gate like that. The longer we keep them guessing, the better it’ll be for us.”

“Then let’s not waste any time,” Todoroki said as he moved to open the door, quickly leading the others out into a rounded hallway.

Once they were all out and jogging at a steady pace, Midoriya asked, “Melissa, where do we go from here?”

“There should be another emergency staircase on the other side of the tower,” she panted.

“And what do we do if that’s blocked, too?” Mina pointed out.

“Then I’ll figure something else out,” Akarui answered. “I’m already running through a dozen different possible paths for us to take based on what I know about this tower.”

“What do you know about-?”

“Taking into account in the fact that the same people that designed Tartaros’ safeguards along with a number of architects and scientists that I read up on for fun are the ones that designed this place, I’ve been able to factor in probabilities that would have optimized a balance between security and scientific functionality, plus what I’ve seen of the structure itself, allows me to make educated guesses on how this entire building operates,” the boy said to cut off Iida. Glancing at Melissa, he added, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this floor focuses on how fauna react to various quirk stimulations, yes?”

“Yes,” she answered, her eyes wide. “You really figured all of that out just by looking at the building?”

“I believe I mentioned reading up on the tower’s creators,” he answered as he turned back to look at where he was going.

“He wants to be a biomechanic when he’s older,” Kurai told the stunned girl. “He studies a lot of science stuff, and he researches the innovators in his spare time. He’s actually a big fan of your father’s.” Silently he added, That device isn’t just getting you back up to speed, little brother. It’s enhancing your mind beyond even what you can normally do… Smart as his brother’s quirk made him, he was basically pulling full schematics out of trace memories and conjectures on his part, and that wasn’t within his usual range of abilities. You’d better know what you’re doing, Akarui.

“Yeah, like I didn’t make that obvious when I first met her tod-”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The repeated sounds alerted the group to the alarming fact that the security gates both in front and behind them were shutting rapidly. The one closest to them was about to slam closed, and cut off the only side door that they had seen in some time.

“Todoroki!” Akarui shouted, pointing urgently at the massive door.

“I’m on it!” the older boy replied, stopping in his tracks and lowering the temperature of the air around him by several degrees as he sent forth a wave of ice that froze the contraption and created a large white wedge that prevented it from closing all the way.

“Ashido, go ahead and melt that door on the other side!” the younger Hikari said. “Kurai, get her over the ice!”

“Hang on,” the elder brother said as Mina moved to hold onto his back. Gripping her legs firmly, he enhanced his body with Energon and leaped high over the ice, sailing through the gap that Todoroki had managed to secure for them, and landing smoothly on the other side. As he set her down, he asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she grinned lightly as she moved toward the door and hurled a glob of acid on the surface large enough to melt a man-sized hole through the barrier. “You know, as far as dates go, this isn’t the worst one.”

“Really?” he asked, jerking his head back with a puzzled look. “What’s been worse than this?”

“Dude, you thought it was cute to take me to an ice cream parlor where ninety-five percent of the customers were grade schoolers and their parents,” she laughed. “You’re a sweetie, but as far as good dates go, you’re not exactly batting a thousand.”

“Wha-?!” he sputtered as Iida and Midoriya clambered over the barrier, Akarui riding on the second boy’s back. “I have a lot of good memories there! And you said that you liked it!”

“I said I liked the company,” she replied, giving him pause. “And honestly, I’ve had better ice cream at the supermarket. Sorry, sweetie.”

“Dude, you took her to Jen and Barry’s?” Akarui scoffed as he walked up to them. “You are so lame. I honestly can’t believe that we share genetic material.”

“Are you guys really doing this right now?” Kaminari asked as he jogged by.

“Apparently,” Kurai said through gritted teeth. Shouting after his brother, he added, “I hope everyone here knows that this is coming from a guy that memorized every subspecies of fish that they covered in Blue Planet Five!”

“I don’t have a girlfriend to impress,” he heard Akarui call back as more of the others students filed past him. “By the way, we need to hide.”

The sudden change in subject caught them all off-guard, but it was Yaoyorozu who asked, “Is the enemy coming?” As she spoke her inquiry, Kurai and Mina came in behind everyone else.

“Not unless you can think of another reason why the elevator just started coming up from the ground floor,” Akarui replied as he pointed at the lift tube, which rested in the middle of the giant atrium that the classmates had all found themselves in. Lowering his arm, he started toward some bushes and added, “Come on. I’d like to hijack that elevator, but there’s no guarantee that the villains wouldn’t just destroy the system to trap us or worse, send us plummeting to our deaths. Our best option is to wait for whoever they sent to pass us by, then continue on to the other staircase.”

“Of course we can’t go the easy way,” Mina groaned as they all crouched behind some deep green bushes.

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, Akarui then said, “Your dress, Ashido. Sorry to say this, but you’re gonna have to ruin it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jogging up the stairs was one thing, but if worse comes to worst, and you guys have to fight, a dress that long is only gonna trip up a mid-to-close-range fighter like you,” he said as he kept an eye on the elevator’s approach. “You need to make that thing shorter.”

“No way,” the girl hissed angrily, but she was forestalled by Akarui holding up a finger for silence.

“Cut it in the next ten seconds, or you might not live to regret it later on,” he said in a low voice. “I calculate a fourteen percent chance that we end up in an altercation on this floor, and that number keeps going up the higher in this tower we get. I need you to be able to fight well, or else I put a high number on the chances that my brother hurts himself trying to rescue you later tonight.”

“Grrr…” she scowled, looking like she wanted to strangle the kid. However, all she did was secret acid out of her fingers that cut the lower hem of her dress clean off, right above her knees. “You owe me a new dress for this, bucko.”

“Noted,” Akarui said without looking at her. “Now shut up. They’ll be here in three seconds.”

Mina responded by sticking her tongue out at the boy, but she kept quiet as she scooted closer to Kurai in their hiding space, which led to him gripping her hand reassuringly. Not a second later, they heard a couple of male voices accompanying the opening of the lift doors. Unfortunately, the voices were getting closer, which had Akarui’s mouth hardening into a thin line as his thoughts raced, trying to find a way for them to escape detection.

“Hey, we see you, you stupid kids!”

Those words gave pretty much everyone in their group a heart attack, but Kurai and Todoroki prepared to leap out of the bushes, so that they could draw the villain’s fire, until another voice stopped them in their tracks. “The hell’d you say to me?!” Bakugo growled, surprising his classmates from where they crouched, hidden.

“What are you doing here?” another villain asked, confirming that there were at least two of the thugs present.

“Whoa, calm down, man,” they heard Kirishima say as Midoriya and Akarui peered out over the edge of the bushes to get a better look at what was going on. The redhead stepped ahead of his volatile classmate and gave the villains a friendly smile as he said, “We kinda got lost looking for this party a while ago. You guys mind pointing us in the right direction?”

Wow, Kurai thought as he saw Akarui smirking. He was right about them being bad with directions, but I had no idea that anyone could get that lost.

“How did they get this far up looking for the party?” Jiro muttered.

No one had time to answer that question, though, because the second villain suddenly shouted, “Don’t lie to me, or you’ll regret it!” There was a sound of rushing energy, and the heroes-in-training knew that hiding was out.

Todoroki moved first, sending a cascade of ice from his foot that swallowed up the villains where they stood, surprising Bakugo and Kirishima equally. “Wait, is this-?” Both boys turned to see their classmates coming out from the bushes, all of them looking relieved that their friends were safe.

“Todoroki, get us up there!” Akarui shouted, pointing at a walkway several floors above them. He knew that it was highly unlikely that the villains were really down already.

“I’ll stay behind with these two and hold the villains off,” the heterochromic boy replied as he used his powers to conjure an ice pillar beneath their group’s feet and send them upward at a rapid pace. “We’ll catch up when we can.”

“I’m staying, too,” Kurai announced as he leaped off of the ice before it could get too high. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he looked back up at his brother and then hurled something from his waist at the boy, shouting, “You keep them safe, understand?! Be a hero, just for today!”

“I will!” the younger Hikari promised as he caught the item. The others were only slightly surprised to see him clipping Kurai’s photon sword onto his belt. Apparently the older boy wanted to ensure that his brother would have something to defend himself with, if it came down to it.

“Are you sure?!” Mina called down, looking worried.

“I’ll be fine,” Kurai assured her, even as he began to pass out of casual earshot.

“Don’t take any chances!” Akarui called down. “After you beat these two, be wary of reinforcements!”

“What’s going on, Icy-Hot?” Bakugo demanded as he and Kirishima approached their classmates.

“You didn’t hear the broadcast?” he asked them dubiously. When they both gave him blank looks, he sighed and muttered, “It doesn’t matter right now. I’ll give you details later, but for right now, you need to know that villains have taken over the island’s security systems. The others have gone to stop them.”

“Wait, that’s what this is about?!” Bakugo asked, looking legitimately worried, for once. There was no time to ask more questions, though. Based on the sounds coming from within Todoroki’s first ice wave, they didn’t have long before their enemies would be upon them.

“Let’s try to make this fast,” Kurai muttered as his eyes shifted blue.

“Why’d he have to stay behind?” Mina asked of no one in particular. It was clear from her expression that she was worried about Kurai, but they didn’t have much time to think on how he and the others would be able to handle the villains down below.

“Don’t worry about it,” Akarui told them as they came level with the bridge above their heads. “We still have a wide range of quirks on our team here, and there’s only a few powers I can think of that we wouldn’t be able to neutralize.”

The group leaped onto the bridge, but immediately encountered another problem. “The barriers are up,” Iida scowled as they looked in both directions. “What now?”

“This can’t be as far as we go,” Uraraka said worriedly as explosions began to echo from down below them.

“It’s not,” Akarui told them. He pointed up toward a hatch in the ceiling on the next floor up, saying, “My bet is that thing is a maintenance passage. We can use it to get to the next floor.”

“Good idea,” Yaoyorozu murmured as she conjured an explosive device, which she then hurled at the hatch door. A second later, the small entrance was blasted open, though it was still too far for them to reach just yet.

“We can’t use that unless someone lets down the ladder,” Melissa argued. “It’s locked from the inside. To get in, someone would have to open the door from the other floor and lower the ladder for the rest of us.”

“No problem,” Akarui stated, causing the others to do a double-take.

“High-security deadlock isn’t a problem?” Jiro asked him. “Okay, kid, I’ll bite. How’re we gonna pull this one off?”

“Mina, use your acid to give yourself foot and handholds all the way over to the hatch, then climb up inside it,” he answered as he looked at his brother’s girlfriend. “Once you get up to the top, melt the door and get inside to let down the ladder so the rest of us can follow.”

“That’s not gonna be easy,” she said, her eyes flicking downward at the sound of another larger explosion.

“You didn’t go to U.A. to take the easy route, did you?” Akarui said as he snapped his fingers to get her attention. “Kurai will be fine. But him staying behind to fight them off is worth nothing if you don’t help us advance, Ashido.”

Her caramel eyes sparked as she answered, “I said it would be difficult, not that I wouldn’t do it. And I know what him staying behind is worth without you spelling it out for me, but I am allowed to worry. Not all of us can be as cold and calculating as you are, kid.” With that, she made for the wall and began to use her quirk to carve a tenuous pathway for herself up toward their exit.

Chapter Text

Bakugo screamed his hatred at one of the villains, a morphing-type that had purple skin and incredible bulk that gave him tremendous strength. He peppered the man with explosions, trying to see if there was a way to wear his quirk down, but so far it didn’t seem like his efforts were yielding any fruit. The only thing he seemed to be able to do was annoy the brute, which certainly wasn’t doing his own temperament any good.

Kirishima was currently stuck in a wall, having been knocked into it by the villain fighting Bakugo after jumping to his friend’s defense, while Kurai and Todoroki were having difficulty pinning down the other villain. He was a tall, spindly man, with ridiculously large, webbed hands that seemed to eliminate any ice or energon that the two students sent at him. Worse, he was able to use his quirk at long range, making it impossible for them to stay still, lest they wind up with holes in their abdomens, or with a limb being torn away. Every time he swiped at them, the spot where they had been standing was carved away, leaving a large hole in the concrete.

“What is this guy’s quirk?” Kurai muttered as he unleashed a barrage of energon at the man, even as Todoroki sent an ice wave at him, all to no effect.

That is, until the villain made a mistake. As he swiped at the oncoming ice, the frozen matter seemed to disappear once more; only it reappeared this time, falling in between them as large balls about the size of the man’s hands. Immediately, both boys knew how his quirk functioned.

“That’s not matter erasure,” Kurai announced loud enough for Bakugo to hear.

“He’s displacing it!” Todoroki grunted as he slid to a stop beside Kurai, both of them wary of the villain, who had temporarily stalled, apparently feeling cautious now that his quirk had been unveiled.

“Is that right?” the explosive boy muttered as he landed behind them, turning them into a rough triangle that kept their guard up in both directions. “Well, if you’ve figured it out, go beat him. We don’t have time to keep messing around!” With another fiery blast, he launched himself into the air, obscuring the others in a smokescreen.

At first Kurai thought that he did it to be a jerk, but then he realized that their enemy couldn’t see them clearly for the moment. Clever guy, he admitted inwardly. “Rush him,” he told Todoroki. “I need a few seconds.”

“You got it,” his friend told him before he charged out of the smoke on a sheet of ice. The skinny villain snarled in surprise, and immediately focused on trying to hit the ice-user.

Meanwhile, Bakugo had flung himself even higher into the air, and was now using consecutive explosions to transform himself into a whirling human missile that was on a collision course with the beefy villain. “Howitzer… IMPACT!” the resulting blast shook the entire floor, and rendered the villain unconscious, back in his normal, unassuming form.

“Damn it, you stupid brats!” the skinny man shouted, his attacks increasing in ferocity as he drove off Todoroki and then aimed for Bakugo.

Before he could attack the more volatile student, however, Kurai shouted, “Hey, villain! You forgot something!” The tall man turned back to face the other kid, who immediately flung his arms outward, unleashing an orange energon beam that bore down on him with the force of a tidal wave, smashing him all the way across the room and blasting him into unconsciousness when he collided with the wall and the beam exploded on top of him.

A moment later, both villains were trapped in ice, and the young heroes-in-training were regrouping around Kirishima, who was still stuck in the other wall. “Everyone okay?” Kurai asked.

“I’m fine,” Todoroki nodded.

“Don’t ask about me!” Bakugo growled.

“Good to hear it,” Kurai said as he turned to their other friend, then frowned as he noticed one little detail. “Dude, why are you still in the wall?”

“I’m stuck,” Kirishima answered, straining to move his rock-like arms, but being unable to do so. “Can’t you guys pull me out?”

“He wants to know why you haven’t turned off your quirk, you damn moron,” Bakugo snapped.

“Oh,” the redhead said dumbly as he turned off his power, and immediately finding it easy to get out of his predicament. Sheepishly, he added, “Guess I shoulda thought of that.”

“Next time, use your head,” the blond boy grumbled as he turned away. However, he surprised everyone by stopping for a moment to say, “Thank you.” Kurai recalled that Kirishima had been put in that situation after taking a hit meant for Bakugo, but it was still a shock to hear him give thanks to anybody.

“Whoa, where’d that come from?” Kirishima chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried!”

“Bicker later, we need to catch up with the others,” Kurai said as he began to lead the way. He knew that blasting through each set of doors from there on was going to be challenging, even with both him and Bakugo, but he saw no other options.

I have to protect Akarui, he thought worriedly. The others can handle themselves, and he’s the smartest person I know, but even still…

“Don’t order me around!” Bakugo shouted.

“Hey guys?” Kirishima asked as the quartet began to jog at a brisk pace. “Time for you to give us some answers.”

Just as Todoroki opened his mouth to begin explaining the situation, there was multitude of alarm sounds coming from above, accompanied by small red dome-bots that were flashing lights of the same colors. He frowned while Kurai and Bakugo cursed, both of them getting their quirks ready to go at moment’s notice.

“Security drones,” he muttered. “Looks like the villains are getting serious.”

“And now I’m seriously pissed off,” Kurai snarled, his temper clearly beginning to succumb to the effects of his quirk.

“That’s my line, Saiyaman!”

“Anyone else think that this is a little too easy?” Jiro asked as the group charged up the stairs to floor 128.

“Easy?” Kaminari panted. “You call running up hundreds of floors of stairs and barely making it past villains easy?”

“No, she’s right,” Akarui gasped as they headed for floor 129. “By all rights, the barriers for the last forty-odd floors should still be closed by the lockdown procedure. Someone is letting us through.”

“I almost hate to ask why they would do that,” Yaoyorozu breathed.

“They’re probably trying to box us in somewhere that would be easy to lay a trap,” Midoriya answered. “Based on our classmates’ fighting abilities, they’ll have probably realized that we’re hero course students. They won’t want to take any chances that we know how to restore the security systems.”

“Whatever the case, we have to keep going,” Iida muttered. “We’re well past the halfway point, so it’s only logical that we press on.”

“There’s gonna be a problem with that,” Akarui wheezed as they came to a stop on floor 130, where a familiar obstruction lay above them. “I think we’re where they want us.” The gate leading to the next floor was locked down tight, preventing their further advance.

“What’s the plan, kid?” Kaminari asked him.

“There’s clearly a trap on this floor,” Akarui answered tiredly as he moved toward the side door. “So we’ll spring the trap.” Before anyone could protest his plan, he added, “Even if they know that you’re heroes-in-training, they won’t know everything about your power sets. Some elements of surprise are on our side.”

“And what, they don’t have any surprises for us?” Mina asked. “Playing into their hands is a bad idea. I can easily melt through this gate so we can avoid whatever they have planned for us on this floor.”

“Worse idea,” Akarui replied instantly, irritating the pink girl. “Yes, you can melt through this gate quite easily- I don’t doubt that. However, I also know that your quirk would begin to cause damage to your body after getting us through no more than forty floors, at which point we would have thirty more to go.”

“As opposed to fighting through seventy floors of villains?” Mina shot back.

“I find it highly unlikely that we will encounter any more villains until we reach the last ten floors or so,” Akarui replied as he opened the door, holding it so that the others could pass through. “An operation like this would have to be run by a small, elite crew, not an army. My guess is that they will now start to deploy the tower’s automated defenses against us, instead of fighting us themselves.”

“Ashido, as much as I hate that he is here, Akarui knows what he’s about,” Iida said as the others began to go through the exit. “We’ll follow his lead for now.”

“Fine,” the girl said through thin lips.

As she passed the younger boy without another word, she heard him mutter, “I worry about him, too.”

“Looks like Hikari was right about the trap,” Midoriya said quietly as he and Jiro looked through the windows of a door that led into some kind of lab. Inside, they could see close to a hundred security drones.

“What do they look like?” Akarui asked from behind Iida, who was now taking his own turn to look.

“Red, cylindrical,” Jiro murmured. “They move around on little wheels, but it doesn’t look like they have any weapons.”

“Oof,” the boy muttered, drawing the worry of his companions. Seeing their alarm, he explained, “Those sound like the work of Doctor Eric Rush- an engineer who’s known for making deceptively compact contraptions.”

“Okay, first of all, I totally thought that you were gonna say Doctor Ivo-something-or-other,” Kaminari began.

“That’s racist.”

“Second, are you saying that there’s more to those things than we can see?” the electric boy pressed. “They just look like big moving cameras.”

“And you look like you belong you belong on the Quirky Bachelor, but yes, looks are deceiving,” Akarui replied blandly, causing Kaminari’s face to fall again. To the others, the younger boy said, “We need to disrupt their communications and take them out before they get a chance to set off any alarms. Unfortunately, I doubt that an electric quirk like Gold Boy Wonder’s is going to do anything to these things. Midoriya, Ashido, you two are best suited for swift destruction while Yaoyorozu hits them with a device to scramble their communications.”

“Sure thing,” Midoriya nodded as he shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a curious device on his right wrist. At the touch of a button, the bracelet expanded and wound itself upwards until a red gauntlet covered his forearm. “I’m ready!”

“I could do with something to vent on,” Mina growled as she took up a position next to her classmate.

“Then miss Yaoyorozu, if you would?” Akarui asked.

“Already done,” the girl replied as she tugged on the strap of her dress to expose a little more skin, out of which dropped a handful of what looked like red flares. “Pull the caps and throw them into the room,” she explained. “It will release a specialized dust that carries a slight static charge, enough to disrupt their coms.”

“Fantastic,” Akarui grinned as he snatched one up. “Then here we go!” With that, he kicked open the door and hurled the first flare, which instantly began to fill the air with the substance that Yaoyorozu had described. As soon as it touched the red drones, they began to move about uncertainly, colliding with the railing in the room, and with each other.

Seeing the success that it was having, Akarui called back, “Spread them out! We want to affect as many of them as we can!”

“You got it!” Uraraka grunted as she hurled two of them, using her quirk to keep them elevated for a longer period, as to more effectively spread the dust.

“Nice,” Akarui nodded, though he noticed that some of the drones were still getting ready to target them, and that they were moving much faster than he would have hoped. “Midoriya, Ashido, you’re up!”

“All right,” the young man nodded as he charged forward, his gloved fist drawing back as it crackled with verdant lightning. “Detroit… SMASH!” A blow on par with the strength that he had used to best Kirishima during the Sports Festival collided with one of the drones, and a gale wind tore through the room, tossing a good chunk of the other robots into the air. From there, gravity did the work to destroy them as soon as they crashed into the ground, all the way across the room, mostly clearing the path for the students.

“Dude!” Mina exclaimed, impressed with the display of strength that they had just witnessed. “Is your arm okay?”

“Yeah!” Midoriya grinned as the acidic girl moved to melt a few drones that had avoided the attack. “Melissa made this gauntlet, and it lets me use my power without hurting myself!”

“That’s amazing!” Uraraka cheered for her friend.

As the others began to praise the blond girl, Akarui was closely studying the gauntlet that Midoriya had used to avoid injury. Normally, all he would have been able to get out of a brief look would be an idea of the materials used to construct the shell. Now, with his quirk in overdrive, one look was all he needed to ascertain the materials needed to not only build it, but improve upon the design.

He blinked as a sudden wave of nausea assaulted him, and he nearly lost his balance, only saving himself from colliding with the ground by grabbing awkwardly onto the railing. No, he groaned inwardly as vertigo gripped his entrails. No, not right now!

“Kid?” he heard Mina ask as she stopped beside him. “Are you okay? We need to keep moving if we don’t wanna get caught. Jiro says that she can hear more drones coming from the east.”

“Yeah, I’m f… fff… fine,” he managed to spit out. “Ugh.”

“Dude, are you sure?” she asked him as he forced himself to stand. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m just dehydrated,” he said as she grabbed his arm to keep him steady. “I’m not… used to all this exercise and excitement, is all.”

“Okay,” she said as he began to support his own weight again, though she still seemed uncertain. He gave her a weak grin as he shambled forward, gaining confidence in his step as he forced himself onward.

“Come on,” he told her as his dizziness began to fade away. “We don’t want to be left behind down here.” Silently, he added, Sorry, Brother. I can promise the safety of everyone but me, now.

They had no issues getting to the 138^th floor, where the tower’s network servers were stored. As they came into the main room, Mina asked, “Anyone think those drones gave up a little too easily?”

No sooner than she had spoken than did the sound of alarms echo throughout the room, followed by several-dozen drones leaping down from higher balconies, with more coming from side halls, all of them with panels popping open to reveal stun and capture-type weapons.

The group slid to a stop, Akarui muttering, “You had to ask, didn’t you?”

“Aw, crap!” Kaminari groaned. “My quirk is useless against these things!”

“And we can’t afford to damage the servers,” Melissa warned. “They could affect the security of the entire island!”

“Then we delay them,” Akarui announced. “These things can capture you, but they can’t kill you. So we need a few of us to keep going while the others delay this swarm for as long as we can.”

“A sacrifice play?” Iida asked disapprovingly.

“You got a better idea?” Akarui grumbled. “This isn’t a strategic ambush point. They’re just throwing everything that they have at us now, hoping to capture us before we get any further. That tells me that the villains are done trying to be clever.”

“Hikari, Midoriya, take Melissa and get out of here!” Yaoyorozu ordered as she began to construct something out of her back. “The rest of us will hold them off!” While she spoke, Mina charged right into battle, sliding around at high speed on her acid trails and dissolving the little robots as she went, though she was careful not to damage the server machines.

“We will?” Kaminari asked nervously. “But my powers-!”

“We’ll need some bait,” Jiro said with a smile that made him uncomfortable.

“Yaoyorozu, are you-?”

“Just go,” Iida told Akarui as he took a running stance. “Don’t let this be for nothing.”

“…Okay,” he said as he grabbed Melissa’s hand to get her running behind him. “Midoriya, Uraraka! Come on!”

“Why me?!”

“Because I have an idea, now move!” the younger boy grunted as he released Melissa and drew his brother’s sword, just in time to slash through a drone that had managed to get by their friends. Without any further protests, the other two teenagers ran after the child genius, hoping that their friends would be okay.

The quartet made their way to the outside, where they found themselves amidst several dozen wind turbines that helped to power the building. They went up for many floors, which was what Akarui was hoping for.

“Okay, this will work,” he said as he turned to the others. “The enemy is throwing everything that they have at our friends back there. That means that they’re much less likely to notice the sudden arrival of a handful of students on the top floor.” As he spoke, he pointed to a spot near the roof of the tower. “If Uraraka uses her quirk to float us three up there, we can bypass the rest of the defenses and get to the control room.”

“Okay,” the girl nodded. To the others, she added, “You’d both better hold on tight to him.”

“Are you sure about this?” Melissa asked her worriedly. “You’ll be all by yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Uraraka answered with a cheery smile as Midoriya used his belt to thread through the hoops on Akarui’s pants, effectively tying them together. “I’m trained for this, Melissa. I’ll be okay.”

“If you’re sure,” the blond girl said reluctantly.

“Come on,” Akarui insisted. “We need to move.”

Knowing the urgency of the matter, Melissa walked over to where Midoriya was, where she grabbed onto him from behind so that he could secure her with his own arms. As soon as she had, Uraraka used her quirk to make the three of them weightless, and then gave them a light shove upward, which set them to floating in the correct direction about as fast as a man could jog.

They were about halfway up when they heard the sound of metal doors crashing open, drawing their attention back toward Uraraka, who had a startled look on her face. “Oh no!” Melissa yelped as drones began to pour out of the doors. “Get out of there! Release your quirk!”

“I can’t do that!” Ochaco called back up as she turned to face the approaching enemy forces with a brave face. “You three have to make it to the top, no matter what!”

“Also, we will definitely die if she drops us from up here,” Akarui pointed out. “I’m sorry if this is cold, but we have to keep moving.”

“And which one of us are you gonna sacrifice next, huh?” Midoriya asked angrily, surprising the younger boy. “Heroes aren’t supposed to run out on their friends.”

“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure that they’re also supposed to have faith in them, too,” Akarui said mildly as he pointed back at the ground, where there was a sudden series of explosions.

“Is that-?!” Melissa cried. “It’s the others!”

“Kacchan?!” Midoriya yelped as he looked back. “Todoroki, Hikari! Kirishima, too!”

“Told you to have faith,” Akarui grumbled mildly.

“Sorry we’re late!” Kirishima shouted up with a grin. “We’ve got Uraraka covered, so you guys just worry about getting to the top!”

“Thanks, we-! Waugh!”

Midoriya’s thanks were cut off as one of the turbines- having been sped up by the heat of Bakugo’s explosions- suddenly propelled them off-course, causing them to head out into open space, with nothing but the floor level of I-island to catch them if they fell.

“I’m gonna kill Blasty McSplode if we survive this,” Akarui growled.

After defeating a small army of drones on floor 80, Kurai and the others had made their way up to floor 130 by using the villains’ ID passes, but the reinforced lockdown had prevented them from going any higher with that method. So they disembarked and followed the sounds of combat that they could detect from above, eventually coming along to rescue Iida’s group from certain capture, who explained where the rest of their friends had gone.

He and Mina had shared in a quick kiss, having been relieved to see each other safe and sound, but their situation allowed for little else. His group decided to press on in order to assist Akarui and the others so that Iida’s group would have time to rest before catching up.

All of this led them to encountering another set of drones that were about to attack Uraraka, which they got to work demolishing. However, Kurai wasn’t exactly happy to see his brother dangling high in the sky with nothing but the girl’s quirk keeping him safe, and the extended use of his quirk was taking its toll on his mental faculties.

“Dammit, Akarui!” he shouted up at his brother. “Way to take a shortcut!”

“Up yours!” his sibling shouted back. “We were running out of options! Anytime you’d like to help would be great, by the way!”

“Bah!” Kurai spat, but he knew what his brother had in mind. “Todoroki, I need your help!” Leaping high over a robot, he brought his hands to his right side, yellow light pooling between them. His eyes had shifted their focus from Akarui to one of the large turbines powering the building.

“I’m on it!” the half-and-half boy replied as he tossed aside his jacket, even as Kirishima and Bakugo tore into the swarm of drones, the latter raging with profanities the whole while. When Todoroki had a clear space, he shouted, “Make sure to aim as straight as possible!”

Kurai drew in a deep breath, adjusted his aim slightly, and then shouted, “Here we go, Kamehameha!” The yellow laser blasted forth, destroying the supports on top of one of the middling turbines, and causing it to list badly to the left. The same instant, Todoroki unleashed a blast of fire at the still-whirling blades, speeding their progress greatly and creating a powerful updraft that corrected Midoriya’s course.

“Thanks!” Akarui shouted down.

“Thank us by getting these things to stop attacking us!” Kirishima replied.

“I’ll take care of that,” Kurai said, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he faced the biggest cluster of robots. “I’m sick of this crap.”

“Hikari, if you push yourself any more, you might-!”

“I know what I’m doing!” he screamed, his hair blazing orange and his eyes burning blue as he ascended. Holding his hands out in front of him, he then roared, “Scattered Bullets!” A massive beam shot straight out, veered sharply upwards at a point above the drones, and then dissolved into countless energon projectiles that rained down on the sentries, destroying them by the dozens, and covering the area in smoke and debris.

“Whoa,” Kirishima muttered as Kurai’s hair and eyes darkened. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

“Told you I… had it…” Kurai let out a sigh and passed out, only avoiding injury because Todoroki caught him up at the last second.

“Did his brain quit on him again?” Bakugo scowled as he approached. “Idiot.”

“He’s just unconscious,” Todoroki answered. “As far as I can tell, he stopped himself just short of having a full aneurism, but there’s no telling how long he’ll be down for.”

“Deku and the others made it up okay,” Uraraka panted as she jogged over. “Thanks for the assist, you guys.”

“No worries,” Kirishima replied with a thumbs-up and a smile.

“Hmph,” Bakugo grumbled.

“We need to regroup with the others,” Todoroki said as he stood up with Kurai still unconscious in his grip. “Let’s hope that Midoriya and Hikari’s brother can make it the rest of the way without too much trouble before we catch up. Uraraka, can you help me with him?”

“Yeah!”

One Minute Ago…

“Hang on tight, you guys!” Midoriya shouted as the wall rushed at them, too fast for them to just land and try to enter via an emergency exit. We’re gonna do this the hard way.

Letting the full power of One for All surge into his arm, Midoriya threw his punch the instant before they would have smacked into the concrete. “SMASH!”

The entire wall gave in under the force of his might, giving them a clear path into the stairs that led right up to floor 200. Uraraka’s gravity negation was then released, dropping them all on the ground. Akarui ended being the one unfortunate enough to get crushed by two people bigger than him.

“Get… off,” he wheezed.

“Sorry,” Melissa said as she released Midoriya, who was already untying the belt that was holding the two of them together. Before he could finish, though, Melissa let out a scream of alarm, and an unknown instinct told the boys to roll to the right.

A metal blade cut into the floor right where their heads had been, and the villain that it belonged to growled in frustration as he turned his hand back into flesh-and-blood. Midoriya then decided that he was done trying to untie the belt neatly, and used his quirk to snap the leather in two, freeing him in his movements.

However, he was too late to keep Melissa from getting hurt, as she had interposed herself between the villain and her friends, trembling with fright though she was. There was the sound of a blade slicing flesh, followed by her scream and subsequent collapse.

“Bastard!” Midoriya and Akarui yelled as they each moved in their own way.

Deku leaped forward, tackling the villain into the wall, and stunning him from the impact, but only for a second. The instant that the man had control of himself again, he swiped at Midoriya with his transformed arm, only failing to cut the student because of the gauntlet on his wrist. It did, however, cause the boy to flinch and stumble back, which gave the villain a slight edge in momentum.

What he failed to account for, however, was that Akarui was armed with his brother’s photon sword. As the villain laughed and swung his arm/blade down at Deku, the boy let out a yell and swung the sword as he activated it, shearing off the man’s limb at the elbow, leaving it a useless, charred stump.

At first everyone just stared at the severed metal limb on the ground in a collective silence. Then the pain hit, and the villain fell to his knees and screamed in agony, right before Akarui hit him with a side kick in the face hard enough to render him senseless. After that, the boy turned to the side and vomited while Midoriya could only look on in a stunned silence alongside an equally shocked Melissa.

“You just…” the blond girl gasped as she clutched at her bleeding arm. The villain’s blade had scored a rough wound on her right limb- the same one that he was now missing as a result of Akarui’s actions.

“Hikari, this guy is crippled for life, now,” Midoriya said dumbly as the younger boy turned around to face them with a haunted look in his eyes, shutting off the sword as he did so.

“I know,” he said hoarsely, his throat having been burned by the reflexive acid. “But I’m not a hero, or even a student hero, remember? I’m just a scared kid who wants this whole nightmare to be over with.” His visage was so in contrast with the cold, calculating look that he had been putting on until now that it was almost a surprise to the older teenagers to remember just how much younger that them he really was. That despite his greatly superior intellect, he was still just a child.

“Are you gonna be okay, Hikari?” Melissa asked as she stood up shakily, Midoriya ripping off one of his sleeves to make a bandage for her.

“Given that my father is a sane man who’s seen much worse stuff than this, I think I’ll get there, eventually,” the boy answered with a weak grin. “Maybe I’ll book a few therapy sessions when this over…”

“I’m sorry that it came to that,” Midoriya apologized. “I’m the hero, here. I should have saved you guys.”

“I think you mean, ‘thank you’,” Akarui replied with another weak grin. “We did save your life.”

“Uh…” the green-haired boy began, then stopped himself. “Yeah. Thanks, Hikari.”

Chapter Text

“This… This isn’t real,” Akarui said, nearly dropping to his knees from sheer disappointment and shock. “Professor Shield would never…” For all of his intellect and knowledge, the boy had forgotten to account for a basic fact of life- your heroes are rarely who they seem at a glance.

“Papa, why?” Melissa demanded of her father, who was standing with a briefcase in his hands, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “Why would you do this?!”

Akarui, Melissa, and Izuku had been on their way to the security control room on the 200^th floor when they passed by an open storage unit and had seen the professor and his assistant, Sam, breaking into one of the compartments inside. Before they could ask what was going on, they overheard the two men speaking of their plan as being successful- how the villains had provided the distraction that they needed for them to break in.

Needless to say, the three children were devastated. Midoriya admired the professor for all that he had done for the hero community, All Might in particular. Akarui had idolized David Shield since he was a little boy, always striving his best to become a great scientist and supporter of the hero world like the American. Of course, Melissa was the most distraught of them all, having never thought that her beloved Papa could do such a wrong.

“The professor is only trying to get back what was stolen from him in the first place,” said Sam, who was clutching the briefcase nervously. “In this case is a device that can amplify a person’s quirk- without causing damage to their body or brain.”

Akarui’s eyes shot wide open as Sam showed them the contents of the container, his mind sifting through the information that he needed in conjunction with what he was seeing. If anyone could make such a device, it would be Professor Shield, he thought as he gazed upon the strange-looking helmet. But… there’s something missing in all this.

“Please, just let me get this device to All Might!” Shield begged them. “After that, I don’t care what kind of punishment I’m given! There’s no time to remake this!”

“Why does All Might factor into this?” Akarui demanded, his logical nature beginning to reassert itself, despite his present circumstances. He could feel the backlash of his quirk building up again, and if it was about to get as bad as he suspected it would, he didn’t have time to waste. “He’d be disgusted if he knew what you’d done to get this thing.”

“…Because he’s losing his power,” the man admitted with sagged shoulders. “The Symbol of Peace’s light is fading.”

Fading? Akarui repeated in his head, his mind involuntarily flashing through everything that he knew about his favorite hero. He’s… right. Now that he thought about it, All Might’s speed and strength had been declining for the last six years, and more so in the last few months than before. Not all once, to be sure, but slowly enough that most of the public wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

But Akarui wasn’t most people- with his quirk functioning at a greater capacity than it ever had before, he might well have been the most intelligent person on the island, which was saying something. That creature that he fought in the USJ… I thought at the time that it was strange how wounded he had been reported to be, but if he’s been losing his strength, that makes sense! But…! His head felt like it was going to burst from a maddening fact: What am I missing?!

It took all of two seconds for him to put it together as soon as he focused every bit of his intelligence on the question. Akarui suddenly realized what he had been overlooking as he glanced at Midoriya, who seemed more upset than surprised at Shield’s words- as if he had already known of this development all along. So much for Kurai being the next Symbol of Peace.

If he was right- that Midoriya was somehow connected to All Might’s loss of power- it would explain a lot of things. That must be why Midoriya emulates the man so much, he thought as his head swam. He doesn’t just idolize him- he’ll practically become him!

“With this device, though…” Shield was explaining, unaware of what happening in Akarui’s head. “He’ll be back to his old self! No- he’ll be stronger than ever before!”

“And holding an entire island’s worth of people hostage was worth that?!” Akarui shouted, his disappointment in his personal idol breaking through the cold façade that he had desperately tried to maintain.

“Papa, do you have any idea what Deku and the others went through to get us this far?!” Melissa demanded as she took a few steps toward her bewildered father. “How badly some of them got hurt?! How many times we nearly got killed or captured?!”

“Killed or-?” the older man repeated, his confusion growing. “No… the villains are fake. This is all supposed to be an act.”

“Of course it was an act,” a new voice chuckled as the owner stepped into the room, wearing a metallic mask that obscured most of his face. “The real trick was pretending to be actors, and not what we really are.” He was flanked by another man, this one wearing a mask like the other villains at the party, which could only mean…

“You’re the boss!” Midoriya shouted as green lightning sparked across his body, and he shot toward the villain, whose only reaction was to place his hand on the wall next to him.

The next instant, part of the floor warped and congealed into a rough column that slammed into the student hero, smacking him clear across the room. “Sam,” the man said roughly as he ignored Akarui, who had placed himself between the enemy and Melissa, his hand on the sword, just in case. “Bring me that device.”

“Yes sir!” the chubby assistant said, darting over to the villain and promptly handing him the case, much to the further surprise of David Shield.

“Sam?” he asked dumbly. “Why would you-?”

“I deserve to be rewarded!” the man shouted back at his employer. “All those years of research, and you just let them take it away from us!”

“Oh yeah,” the villain said with a sinister smile that gave Akarui a sinking feeling. “About that reward…” There was the sound of a gunshot, and Sam immediately recoiled, bleeding heavily from a wound in his leg.

“Wh-Why?!” the traitor exclaimed as he tried to scramble away from the armed villain, with no luck. “This wasn’t a part of the plan!”

“Really?” the villain scoffed. “It was always a part of mine.” With that, he aimed the gun and pulled the trigger again.

“Agh!” David Shield cried out as the bullet bit into his shoulder and exited his body in the floor. At the last second, he had jumped forward to take the bullet for his traitorous assistant, saving his life, but being badly injured in the process.

“Papa!” Melissa screamed, but Akarui held her back.

“Don’t be stupid,” he grunted as his right arm spasmed a bit. “You’ll end up like him.”

“I’d listen to your friend,” the villain chuckled as he aimed the gun at the two of them. “I don’t really have anything against you kids, so I’ll let you go- provided you don’t try to get in my way.”

“Bummer,” Akarui muttered as he activated the photon sword. “My brother is training to be a hero, and his self-sacrificial tendency seems to be rubbing off on me.”

“Your funeral,” the villain shrugged, right before Deku shot toward him from across the room, having recovered from the earlier blow. The man was forced to abandon his aim and instead summoned up a rough wall of metal to block the student hero’s attack. Growling as he did so, he grabbed David Shield, who was groaning in pain, and handed him over to his subordinate, who threw him over his shoulder. “Get him out of here,” he ordered after binding the man’s wrists.

“Yes sir.”

“Stop!” he heard Deku scream. “You’re not taking the professor!”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, kid!” he shouted back as he moved to get a better look at the room, just in time to see Deku making another pass from a different angle. Summoning more metal from his surroundings, he fashioned more columns that slammed into Deku, once twice, six times, pinning him in place, if not killing him.

“Well, that’s that,” he said with grim satisfaction as he started walking down the tunnel that would lead to the helicopter pad. Dealing with the hero student had taken a little longer than he’s expected, but things were back on track.

That satisfaction disappeared when alarms began to sound in the building, alerting the residents of I-island that the security system had been returned to normal. “Damn kids,” he growled. The others must’ve gotten away when the green one tried to get at me. Whatever the case, we need to leave before the pros show up.

“That did it,” Akarui said in a satisfied tone from where he sat. Under his and Melissa’s control, the drones had released the other students that had been captured, and the pro heroes being bound on the first floor were now free. The island’s security would now target the villains the second they came into visual.

“And that’s… that,” he muttered slowly as he glanced behind himself. Midoriya had gone ahead to chase after the villains and rescue the professor, but Akarui doubted his chances of success without backup.

Melissa was currently on her phone, explaining to All Might the situation regarding her father and the villains. It sounded as though she was going to be a few minutes, so he reached inside his shirt and pulled out the necklace that was enhancing his quirk. By his estimate, the power-up would only last for a few more minutes- and he seriously doubted that he would make it past that, either.

His left leg was already refusing to respond to his commands, and his sense of vertigo was threatening to come back with a vengeance, this time accompanied by a severe headache. If this is the last time I can use my gift… he thought sluggishly as he began to dig into the computer’s database as fast as he could. Then I’m going to make sure that Kurai can keep using his.

With the information on every prototype stored in the security vault within reach of his fingertips, it took Akarui three minutes to put together the schematic that he needed. Moving as swiftly as his failing limbs would allow him to, he threw every ounce of his willpower into sketching what he had envisioned, and a list of the materials needed to make it.

“Hikari, what are you doing?”

The boy would have given a start of surprise if he were able, but instead all he could do was loll his head back to look up at Melissa, whose eyes widened when she realized that he was barely moving. “Ku…rai…” he said, his tongue feeling numb. He tried to hold out the paper to the girl, but his limbs betrayed his will.

“What about your brother?” she asked him worriedly as she helped him to straighten his head. “Hikari, what’s happened to you?”

“No ti…me,” he slurred, trying to convey his desperation to her with his eyes. “Design… Yaoyo…rozu… Kurai.” As he spoke, his fingers scrabbled awkwardly at the schematic that he had just managed to finish.

“You want me to get this to Yaoyorozu?” she asked him as she finally turned to the paper and saw what was on it. “This is for your brother?”

“Yes…” he tried to nod, but was unable. He felt the necklace grow cold against his skin, and he knew that his power would soon be drained away. “Please… Before… the bad g-guys… leave. It… help them. Quirk… r-resssset.”

“I’ll call the others,” Melissa promised him, though she looked very worried.

Kurai had just managed to wake up while the group was in an elevator that would lead up to the top floor, where Midoriya and the others would be, when his phone began to buzz, drawing him back into awareness a little more rapidly. “Oof,” he groaned. “I will not complain when this is all over.”

“You’re awake, good,” he heard Todoroki say from close by, so he looked up to see that he was in the lift with his friend, Uraraka, Kirishima, and Bakugo. “We were worried about you for a minute.”

“I’m fine,” he grunted as he massaged his temples. It was with an idle curiosity that he realized that his hair was now long enough to warrant brushing out of his eyes while he tried to reorient his senses. I guess I should get it cut after we go home, he thought a little sluggishly as his head pounded angrily, a sharp reminder of his actions leading up to his unconsciousness. It was almost bad enough to make him forget that his phone was still alerting him to an incoming call, but before he knew it, his hand had retrieved the device simply from muscle memory.

He peered closely at the bright screen since his vision was still a little uncertain before frowning slightly. “Akarui?” he muttered. “What’s he want?”

“We heard an announcement that the island’s system went back to normal, and the drones stopped fighting us,” Uraraka told him. “He must’ve done that, and now he’s wondering what to do.”

“That smartass always knows what to do,” Kurai chuckled as he hit the ‘accept’ button. “Hey, Bro. Nice job getting the security back up.”

“Hikari, is that you?” Kurai’s stomach dropped as he heard Melissa’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said quickly, drawing the others’ attention to him. “What’s going on? Where’s my brother?”

“He reset the island’s security, but now he’s barely moving, and he can’t seem to talk!” the girl said, panic clear in her voice.

Kurai’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as he whispered, “No… He didn’t. Tell me he didn’t!”

“What’s happening to him?!” Melissa asked desperately. “He seemed fine just a few minutes ago! Is it a stroke?”

“The stroke is a symptom,” Kurai told her as he clutched as his heart, feeling as though a dagger had twisted itself in there. “He… has a brain tumor, Melissa. It’s not operable, but he needs immediate medical attention- do whatever you can to get it to him.” He hung up the phone and jammed it in his pocket as he tried to control his breathing.

“Your brother what?!” Uraraka gaped, while even Bakugo looked stunned.

“Yeah, and it grows every time he uses his quirk,” Kurai said as he felt tears begin to sting at his eyes. “It’s been growing slowly for years since he can’t turn it off when the sun is out, but when he purposely enhanced it, it must have grown a lot bigger.”

“If you knew it did that, why’d you let him use that thing?!” Kirishima asked him worriedly.

“He said it would only take a few days off of his expected lifespan!” Kurai answered hotly, clenching his fists tightly in frustration. “I thought he knew better than to lie about something like that! He’s never lied to me before- not about this!” Tears were now streaming down his face as he was forced to face the reality that his brother might not live to see the morning sun.

He felt his phone buzz again, and he pulled it out to see that it was Akarui’s phone dialing him again. Pressing the green button with a little more aggression this time, he asked, “What?”

“I’m really sorry, Hikari, but Deku went after the villains, alone,” Melissa said, sounding as though she too was crying. “I’ve sent for medical droids, but that’s all I can do for now.”

“Thank you for doing that,” Kurai said as he tried to keep control of himself. He felt Uraraka patting him on the back in sympathy, though she was careful not to touch him with all five finger pads. “I’m sorry I hung up on you.”

“No, I understand,” Melissa sniffed. “But there’s something else you need to know. Right before he stopped being able to talk, he drew something- some kind of schematic for a device that he said was for you.”

“For me?”

“He said something about needing Yaoyorozu, and that you should make it before the villains get away,” she explained. “The very last thing he said was ‘quirk reset’. Does that mean anything to you?”

Kurai’s tears suddenly stopped as he dashed as his eyes with his free hand and he asked, “Quirk reset? He said exactly that?”

“Yes, why?” she inquired. “What does that mean?”

“It means that if he survives his stupid tumor, I’m gonna kill him,” the boy muttered as the elevator reached the top floor. “We’re on the same floor as you- where do we go?”

“You want to change our quirks?” Kurai asked his eight-year-old brother dubiously. “How would you do that?”

“I dunno,” the younger boy said with a cheeky grin. “But I’ll figure it out, someday. That way we can use our powers to help people, like All Might does! We’ll be able to use our quirks like normal kids!”

“But people can’t just magically change their powers,” Kurai insisted.

“Not with magic,” Akarui challenged. “With science!”

“Science?”

“Yeah!” the younger boy said excitedly. “All Might had a sidekick, Mister David Shield! He’s super smart and makes stuff to help people control their quirks!”

“You think that he’ll help us?” Kurai asked curiously.

“No, he don’t know us,” Akarui said in a tone that implied that his brother was stupid, much to his irritation. “But my quirk makes me super smart! I’ll use it to become even better than Professor Shield, and then I’ll figure out a way to reset our quirks so that they don’t hurt us! And then I can do the same for people like us!”

“Reset?” Kurai repeated. “I thought you wanted to change our quirks.”

“Yeah, but the best way to change something is to start it over,” Akarui told him. “Just you watch, Kurai. I’m gonna save the both of us before my quirk gets me- I promise!”

“Looks like you didn’t keep your promise, you little jackass,” Kurai said bitterly as he looked down at his brother, who was sitting in a chair with his head hanging loosely to the side. “You said you’d fix both of our quirks, not just mine.”

Melissa had run off as soon as he had come into the room, saying that she needed to go after her father. Before he could protest this idea, she was gone, and he was alone with his brother, who could barely look at him.

Akarui’s eyes narrowed at him before he made a grunting noise along with a shrug of his shoulders. This was followed by his eyes flicking back and forth between him and the desk, where Melissa had shown him the paper. She and the others had gone ahead to meet up with Midoriya, hopefully to stop the villains before they got away with the professor.

Sighing heavily to himself, Kurai moved to pick up the paper and study it. Scanning it quickly, he muttered, “You listed each component and its atomic makeup… You wanted Yaoyorozu to make this thing?” There were symbols that ringed the device, but Kurai didn’t understand their purpose, though they did look vaguely familiar.

Akarui made a little motion with his head that seemed like a nod, followed by his fingers twitching in little circle motions.

As his eyes were fixed on the paper, Kurai turned it over, even as he heard a muffled boom in the distance, followed by the building trembling a little bit. “Sounds like things have really gotten started out there,” he muttered as he looked at what had been written on the back. “What’d you do…? ‘Device goes on the neck. Will reconstruct your neural pathways to change the way that your mind processes your quirk’s physical applications. Basics of your quirk will not change, but transformations will certainly be different. Will only work if you completely empty your body of energon reserves. Sorry, can’t avoid it. But no more brain bleeds’.” Putting the paper down, he saw that Akarui’s eyes were smiling at him, causing him to frown harder. “You do know that this will be a moot point when Mom kills us both, right?”

Akarui shrugged again, as if to say, ‘How could it be worse than this?’

His brother scowled and muttered, “You’re lucky you’re a cripple now, or I’d punch you into next week.”

The paralyzed boy’s lips twitched upwards ever so slightly, as did his middle right finger.

Just then, Yaoyorozu and the rest of the second group charged into the room. “Akarui?!” Iida asked worriedly. “What happened to him?!”

“He overused his quirk,” Kurai said dully, causing the taller boy’s jaw to drop.

“He-?! But that means-!”

“Yeah, he’ll probably be like this for the rest of his life,” Kurai nodded heavily, right before Mina wrapped him up in a tight hug.

“Kurai, I’m so sorry,” she sniffed into his shoulder. “I was really mean to him because I thought he didn’t care about any of us, but… I had no idea that he was really sacrificing himself! I’m sorry I didn’t protect him!”

“None of us could have protected him from this,” her boyfriend replied sadly. “Not from himself. He’s too smart for his own good.” After a brief moment, he nuzzled her hair and murmured, “I’m really glad you’re here now.”

“Of course.”

“But why?” Yaoyorozu asked as she placed a worried hand on the younger boy. “Why do this when we have training for this sort of thing?”

“He knew that he could maximize all of our chances for survival,” Kurai answered reluctantly. “I hate that he’s right, but he is. Also…” He held out the paper to Yaoyorozu, muttering, “He left this for you. Said he wants you to make it for me.”

“What does it do?” she asked as she examined the schematic. She didn’t bother asking why- if Akarui had used the last of his physical capabilities to create this, it must have been important.

“It’s supposed to cure me,” he answered gravely, surprising everyone in the room. “It’ll change the way that my body handles my quirk so that I don’t have an aneurism every time I power up.”

“Whoa, dude!” Kaminari said excitedly. “That’s good, right?”

“The device wouldn’t be hard to make, based off of this,” Yaoyorozu added.

“I know,” Kurai said as he gazed down at his brother. “But… my health isn’t worth this.” So saying, he gestured helplessly at his younger brother.

“If I make it, will you wear it?” Yaoyorozu asked him. “Because if you don’t, then his sacrifice goes to waste.”

“Hold on now,” Iida cautioned them. “Don’t do anything hasty. Let’s not forget that Akarui likely figured out how to make this device by studying the research of experiments not yet completed. It would be unethical to make such a device, not to mention that it could seriously harm Kurai if it doesn’t work according to Akarui’s design.” Glancing at his old friend, he added, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that this is a good idea, messing with your quirk. There are too many risks, both physical and ethical.”

“Dude, his brother wouldn’t have drawn those designs if he wasn’t totally sure about what he was doing,” Kaminari argued, surprising all of them. “The whole time that he’s been with us, he’s been super careful. He wouldn’t do anything to put his brother in danger.”

“He has a mass growing in his head,” Jiro countered. “Who knows how clearly he was thinking when he made that?”

“All of you, just…!” Kurai said loudly, his hands on his head. “I need a minute, okay? I know the risks involved, but… I can’t just ignore what he’s given up for this.” He gazed at his brother, whose eyes were slowly drooping closed as sleep tried to claim him.

“You gotta wear it, Kurai,” Mina told him urgently. “I know you hate that this happened, and trust me, I wanna give him an earful for being so reckless, but right now, you have a chance to get well- a chance that he literally might have paid for with his own life. Let him be a hero today.”

Kurai glanced between her, his brother, and his expectant friends a few times before he looked at Yaoyorozu. “There are still villains on the run here,” he said as he tightened his fists. “I won’t let the others fight alone, but I can’t leave Akarui by himself.”

“We’ll watch out for him,” Jiro said protectively. “Me and the others won’t let him get hurt, I promise.”

Kurai nodded once before turning to his old battle partner. “Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s do this… for my stupid kid brother.”

Midoriya coughed heavily as he felt All Might push a massive slab of stone off of the two of them. “Are you all right, Young Midoriya?” the huge man asked worriedly. “Your body- it can’t handle this!”

The two of them were in a real bind this time. The villain that had captured Professor Shield had donned the device meant to amplify All Might’s fading power, and had essentially turned the entire tower into a metallic monster that obeyed his every command. Entire pieces of the structure were floating in the air, while many of the columns that the villain had used were strewn about in much grander fashion than before. Even though Izuku had managed to stun the man with a Detroit Smash while he was distracted with taking down All Might, his power was keeping the entire structure under his influence- they didn’t have long before he would begin to rampage again.

“It’s… a hero’s job to save people, no matter what,” Izuku said weakly as he looked up at his mentor through a swollen eye. “Right?”

All Might just stayed where he was for a moment, a surprised look on his face, before he let out a quiet chuckle. “You have a good point,” he admitted as he held out a hand to his protégé. “It seems that I’d be in quite a bind without you. Will you lend me your strength once again, Young Midoriya?”

“Yes sir!” Deku declared as he grasped his teacher’s hand and allowed it to pull him to his feet.

“I’m going, too.” The two of them turned to see Kurai standing in front of them with a grim expression on his face, and some kind of high-tech collar that glowed with a myriad of colors around his neck. His aura was in full effect, making his eyes blue and his hair orange while the air pulsated with raw energy. Unlike most of the time when he channeled this power, however, he was not angry- to the contrary, it was almost frightening how calm he was.

Behind him stood his classmates, with Akarui slung on Iida’s back, unconscious. All of them looked as though they’d been through enough to put them in the hospital, but they still stood strong. They were ready to do their parts to make sure that this villain would answer for his crimes.

“We’ll support you however we can,” Mina said firmly when All Might hesitated. “But let Kurai help you, sir. He can do it- he can be a Symbol of Peace like you, but only if you give him the chance.”

“We’ll watch each other’s backs,” Midoriya promised, surprising All Might, but they had no time to dwell on it.

“There’s no way you can win!” a warped voice bellowed from atop the shifting mass of metal. Kurai recognized it as the voice of the villain before the man shouted, “You’re insignificant pests! And you don’t know when to lie down and be crushed!” With a wave of his arms, the floating metal congealed into house-sized cubes that hurtled toward the assembled students.

“You’re the one…!” Bakugo screamed back, “who doesn’t KNOW HE’S BEAT!” Explosions tore up the night air in front of him, disintegrating the metal before it could come anywhere near them.

“Don’t underestimate us, Tin Man!” Kaminari laughed as some pillars came at them, all of them loaded with some manner of technology. Kneeling on the ground as if in acceptance of his fate, he then shouted, “Indiscriminate Shock…! Two million volts!” Electricity blasted from his body, surging into the pillars trying to kill them, and causing the mechanisms inside to explode, sending them off-course and away from the students, who had taken cover when they realized what he was doing.

As he stayed where he was, smoking like a used match, he gave his friends a thumbs-up and babbled, “Yay!”

“Great,” Jiro muttered. “Now we gotta deal with this guy.”

“Go, guys!” Todoroki urged All Might and his friends as he sent forth a wave of ice in order to intercept a trio of columns aimed to crush them. “I won’t let him stop you!”

“Let’s go!” All Might told the two boys, his mind finally made up.

“Yes sir!” the answered in unison before they took off at a speed that the others could hardly believe- a pace that they’d only ever believed that All Might was capable of. In that moment, the boys were not students of U.A. They were the heroes Deku and Kai, and they were ready to stop evil at any cost.

Kai moved like an orange comet trailing pieces of molten stones, hurling energon blasts at any metal scrap that came near him as he sped toward the infuriated villain. Deku became like a green bolt of lightning, moving too fast for the villain to keep track of. All Might moved with great leaps and bounds that made it seem as though he was flying toward his target as he crushed any object that got in his way, big or small. Together they blasted, smashed, and sped their way through the enemy’s defenses.

“This is over!” the villain bellowed, but the three heroes disagreed.

“It’ll only be over for you, fiend!” All Might countered as he unleashed a Carolina Smash to clear the way for himself and his students. “Do you know why?!” Without waiting for a proper response, he shouted, “Tell him, boys!”

“Because we are here!” they answered as they powered through another wall of metal.

The villain let out a scream of frustration and began to gather his power above himself, bringing in every piece of metal within his reach- from the tower, from nearby skyscrapers, even from the structure that was holding him up. In doing so, he unintentionally lessened his defenses, and exposed David Shield to the open air, bleeding but still alive.

This is it, Kurai thought as he and the other two leaped toward the growing mass, their powers filling the air so much that it felt as though the atmosphere itself might be ripped apart from the pressure. If this works, I’ll finally be free of my restraints… Thank you, Akarui. This one is for you.

By now the gathered metal was the size of a soccer stadium, and it showed no signs of slowing down its growth, either. But the size didn’t matter to the three heroes- they would take down this villain because it was their duty to do so.

“To overcome the crisis in front of you, by giving everything you’ve got!” All Might shouted as he drew back his fist, quickly causing Kurai to recognize the creed of the number one champion of justice.

“And saving people, no matter the cost!” Deku answered, the lightning around him practically erupting from his gauntlet.

“That’s what makes someone… a hero!” Kai finished as he slammed his wrists together and poured nearly every ounce of his power into a single point in front of his palms. An orange ball congealed where he willed it, but the power was so great that sparks of orange lightning were cast out in every direction, the counterforce slowing him down while his comrades continued to rise in the air.

“I’ll bring down this entire tower!” the villain declared as he hurled the castle-sized chuck of metal at the three of them.

“Final…!”

“Detroit…!”

“SMASH!”

Kai’s energy blast erupted like a volcano, smashing into the crushing structure, and stopping it in its tracks just in time for Deku and All Might to crash into it a few meters below his impact point. The metal immediately lost its integrity and splintered, sending the shards upward, and far out to sea, away from the island.

Kai grunted as he hit the ground, but he recovered quickly, his power not quite spent. Seeing his teacher and his friend suspended in the air from the force of their momentum, he let a grin stretch across his face as he saw them draw their fists back in unison once again. The monster cube might have been destroyed, but the villain wasn’t down just yet.

Holding out his right hand, a swirling orb immediately appeared as he envisioned it, and he let the last dregs of his energon seep into his body in preparation for the final blow. Akarui said to use up all of my power, he thought as he prepared to jump again. This is it- I hope you were right, Brother mine!

“Deku!” Uraraka called out, praying for her friend’s success.

“You got this, Kurai!” Mina added.

“Stop him, All Might!” Jiro and Yaoyorozu cried.

“Go, Midoriya!” Iida and Kirishima shouted.

“Destroy this guy!” That was Todoroki and Bakugo, watching the heroes prepare the final blow that they had laid the groundwork for.

“Let’s go…!” All Might prompted.

“Beyond!” Deku replied.

“PLUS ULTRA!” Kai bellowed so loud, his voice nearly gave out as he launched himself up to where he thought they would strike, his Rasengan ready to connect.

The three of them slammed into the shifting mass of metal just underneath where the villain was attempting to shield himself. The Rasengan disintegrated a huge chunk of the pillar, while Deku and All Might’s brute force punched through the rest of it, causing the thing to explode, and drowning out the terrified scream of the villain.

That wasn’t the only thing that broke, either. Deku’s gauntlet, put under the enormous strain of keeping his power from destroying his body, finally shattered and fell away from his wrist. Kai’s collar went dim, and then a short electrical burst saw to it crumbling away from his neck, its job completed.

The two boys landed near each other, both of them grunting and groaning as they pulled themselves out of piles of destroyed scrap metal. Kurai winced as a bright light assaulted his eyes, and he wondered if it was rescue helicopter already come to evacuate them. However, it didn’t take him long to realize that he was having to shield his eyes from the rising sun.

We’ve been up all night, he thought dumbly as he looked around himself. Seeing Midoriya trying to get his foot out from under a larger piece of rubble, he moved over and helped his friend escape the crushing weight. “You good?” he asked as Izuku tentatively put weight on the limb. His voice was haggard as a result of the screams he had unleashed earlier, but it was nothing permanent.

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” Izuku admitted as he looked up at his friend. “How are you? I kinda thought that you’d be…”

“Dead from an aneurism?” Kurai blandly finished for him. “To be honest, I half-expected that, too. The fact that I’m not means that I’m cured- I’ll never have to deal with that again.” As he spoke, he tested his limbs and extremities to find that everything seemed to be responding as normal, despite having his neural system more or less recalibrated. He was amazed, really- the device hadn’t even hurt when he’d used it, and he had no headache whatsoever from the use of his quirk.

“Wait, what?!” Izuku yelped in surprise. “How is that-?!”

“Akarui and Yaoyorozu made me something,” Kurai told him. However, far from appearing happy at the fact that his lifelong ordeal was no more, he looked as though he had just come from a funeral.

“Are you okay?” his friend asked him with concern.

“Akarui may have cured me,” Kurai said heavily as he sat down and rubbed at his neck. “But the cost may have been his own life.” He looked as if he was about to say more, when his breath caught, and his eyes widened in shock.

“Hikari?” Midoriya asked him worriedly. “What’s wrong? What happened to your brother?”

“Is… Is that…?” Kurai said hoarsely as he raised a shaky hand to point at something further down in the rubble. “Am I seeing this right?”

Midoriya followed the path of his pointing finger, and he paled to the color of a ghost when he did. There, tending to the wounds of his friend David Shield, was a skeletal figure dressed in All Might’s hero costume.

Uh oh, the inheritor of One For All gulped. Busted.

Chapter Text

“On a scale of one to dead, how grounded are we?” Kurai asked wearily as he stared bleakly into his phone’s screen. It was the early afternoon, less than eight hours after the final battle atop the research and development tower had reached its explosive conclusion.

“That depends,” his mother answered with thin lips. “Are you both alive?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Did you break any laws?”

“Bent, but no, not broken.”

“Will your brother ever recover?”

Kurai paused here. He knew that his mother’s anger was a veil behind which she was concealing her concern, but he didn’t want to be the one to let her know how bad the situation really was. His parents had been alerted to the crisis and the fact that it had passed as soon as he and Akarui were admitted to the hospital, though they hadn’t been given the full details just yet. That duty had fallen to Kurai when his mother video called him.

“Kurai, answer me,” the woman demanded. “What happened to Akarui?”

“…He forced his quirk into overdrive with a device that he invented,” Kurai answered weakly. “At first I thought he might not make it, but our hospital bills are being taken care of by Professor Shield, of all people. He’s making sure that we receive the best care that I-island has to offer.” He chose not to disclose the fact that the man was in the same hospital with a police detail stationed outside his room at all times.

“He did what?” his mother practically spat. “Does he have a death wish?!”

“He wanted all the rest of us to live, Mom,” the boy said tiredly. “Without him, we might not have made it up to the top to stop the villains and free the other heroes. Look, I’m mad at him, too. The important thing is, he’ll survive. But the tumor has grown, and it’s going to cause him more problems in the future.”

“Such as?”

“He lost his ability to talk,” Kurai admitted, and his heart sunk as his mother’s face fell. Unfortunately, he wasn’t even done with the bad news. “He can move his hands and arms okay, but he can’t walk, and he has trouble holding up his neck. To put it bluntly, his motor capabilities are severely diminished to the point where he’s gonna need a wheelchair to get around.”

“Oh my…” his mother gasped, her angry mask crumbling into despair. “My baby boy…”

“Mom, I’m sorry,” Kurai said, tears stinging at his own eyes. “I told him to stay behind while me and the others went, but he wouldn’t listen. Now I know I should have just knocked him out, or argued harder, but I…” His shoulders began to shake, jostling the phone as he cried in frustration and sorrow.

“Son, listen to me,” his mother said, her voice trembling, but still coming through clearly.

Forcing himself to take in deep breaths in an attempt to calm his racing heart and swallow the stone lodged in his throat, he waited until he was certain that he could speak without his voice breaking. “I’m listening,” he mumbled as he stared at his mom through bleary eyes.

“I don’t know exactly what happened over there, and this isn’t the first time that I’ve been worried about the men in our family going into situations where they may not come back,” she said, sounding as though she too was barely in control of her voice. “I made peace with the fact that you and your father would face peril in the field that you chose. I also know that I can’t blame you for what has happened to Akarui- because our family is unfortunately aware of the fact that not everyone can be saved.”

“But I’m a hero,” Kurai protested as his eyes stung again. “I’m supposed to be there so that what happened to Uncle Shiro never happens to anyone in front of me, ever again!”

“Son, you can’t think that you can save everyone,” his mother told him sternly. “You will only be setting yourself up for failure with that mindset.”

“But I-”

“Not even All Might could have saved your brother from his own choices,” the woman interrupted. “You said as much yourself. But you cannot let your brother’s sacrifice be in vain. If you begin to stray from that path that you set out on- the path that he made sure you would continue to walk- you dishonor his gift to you, and you disgrace yourself.”

“My head knows that, Mom,” Kurai replied bitterly. “But my heart still hurts, and I can’t stop thinking about the ‘would have’s’, ‘could have’s’, and ‘should have’s’. I won’t give up on becoming a hero, for reasons beyond our family’s sacrifices, but this failure is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t know that I can be the same hero that I set out to be after this.”

“Kurai,” his mother said firmly. “Will the villain that caused this face justice?”

“…Yes,” he nodded slowly.

“Then your job as a hero has been done,” she asserted. “I won’t bother telling you that you’re not a real hero because you don’t have a license, because I know that isn’t true. You’ve been through more horror than even most pros will see in their careers, and you have emerged for the stronger each time. You will learn and grow from this, too. I believe that.”

“But what will I grow into, Mom?” the boy asked with a trembling voice.

“Into someone that your father, brother, and I will continue to love and support,” she answered him with a tiny smile. “Now, I need to tell your father the news, but I’ll call you again tonight. Don’t hesitate to call us if there is any change with your brother, or if you just need someone to talk to.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. “Love you.”

“I love you and your brother, both,” she replied gently. “Say ‘hello’ to him for me.” With that, the call disconnected, and Kurai let the phone fall into his lap, feeling utterly exhausted, despite his lack of activity for the day.

He was in his own room, having been admitted due to the fact that his quirk was registered in I-island’s databanks as ‘high-risk’ for self-harm. The fact that Akarui’s device had successfully altered his powers was not known, and Kurai figured that a few days under surveillance couldn’t hurt anything, especially since it was his brain that had been messed with. Fortunately for him, though, he hadn’t felt any negative effects from his quirk, and the scans on his brain had thus far shown nothing in the way of damage, physical or psychological.

Not too sure that I won’t come out with some kind of chronic depression after this, but I suppose only time will tell, he thought tiredly.

Any hopes of being able to sleep were soon dashed when he heard a knock at the door, followed by Midoriya’s voice saying, “Uh, Hikari? Is it okay if I come in? I’ve got a… visitor for you.”

Huh, guess I can have visitors now. Based on the nervous tone that the boy was using, Kurai had a pretty good idea of who was with him. Grunting as he straightened himself on the hospital bed, he then answered, “Sure, come in.”

The door to his room slid open to admit his friend, followed by the skeletal figure that he had seen wearing All Might’s costume right after the defeat of the villain that had captured David Shield. Looking at the man and seeing his withered body, Kurai found it almost impossible to believe that he was still looking at the Symbol of Peace.

“Hello, sir,” he said respectfully with an inclination of his head. “How are you?”

“All things considered, fine,” the shrunken man answered, his breathing slightly ragged. “How are you, young Hikari?” His voice was like a hollowed-out, more brittle version of the booming tones that Kurai was used to hearing from his teacher.

“I’m actually doing well, but the doctors wanted to keep me for observation, make sure that there’s no damage done to my mind from my quirk,” he replied evenly. “Nothing so far.”

“Good, good,” All Might replied, moving to sit by his bedside, Izuku following him uncertainly. Looking at his student with sunken eyes, he cleared his throat before saying, “I’ll get right down to addressing the elephant in the room, young Hikari. As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m rapidly losing my powers- pretty soon I won’t be able to be the Symbol of Peace anymore.”

“And Midoriya is your successor,” Kurai guessed, startling the green-haired boy. “He has a power like yours’, and you’re training him to replace you, right?”

“How did you-?”

“I’ve had some time to think while I’ve been sitting here,” Kurai shrugged. “It was mostly stuff that I dismissed when it was happening, but now I realize that the hints were there. Asui saying that your power was similar to All Might’s, you talking about how hard it was to control, the number one hero taking such an interest in you from the beginning of the year…” He shrugged again before saying, “I’m honestly a little disappointed in myself for not realizing it sooner.”

“We’ve been trying to keep it under wraps,” the weakened hero told him. “You’re only half-right about his powers, though. His abilities aren’t just similar to mine- they are mine, along with the power built up and compiled by seven others before me.”

“Your power?” Kurai repeated, taken aback. “Are you saying that-? How does he have your power?”

“There many, many different kinds of quirks out in the world,” All Might explained. “Before I tell you any more about it, though, I need to know something. That being, can you keep all of this to yourself?”

“Given how hard you’ve worked to maintain this secret, I don’t think it’d be right for me to share it with anyone,” Kurai answered quickly. “I haven’t said anything to anyone so far- mostly because I’ve been trying to get my head around it in the first place.”

“Not even to Ashido?” Midoriya asked nervously.

“No, not even her,” Kurai answered, a little annoyed. “You haven’t told Uraraka, have you? Or Iida, or Todoroki?”

“Well, no…”

“There you go,” he muttered. “Just because she’s my girlfriend, it doesn’t mean that I tell her everything.”

“All right, I believe you,” All Might said peaceably. “I’ll tell you the rest of the story, so you know why it’s important to keep this a secret.”

So the hero told Kurai everything as quickly as he could. He told him about All For One, and the power that he had unwittingly created through his brother, One For All. He told Kurai about how the villain ruled by stealing the quirks of others, and creating mindless drones when he forced weaker people to take on more than one quirk.

He spoke of the fight that had lasted for generations, and sacrifice that his master had made for him, and how he had finally emerged triumphant against the old foe- or so he had thought.

Despite his best efforts, and the wound that it had cost him, All Might had not truly defeated his mortal enemy. Even now, All For One moved in the shadows as the puppet master of the League of Villains, seeking to destroy hero society, and return control of the country to the hands of darkness. Soon, he revealed, it would fall to Midoriya, as the ninth holder of his power, to stand up to All For One.

Here at last, Kurai spoke up. “You’re expecting a high-schooler to face off against a guy that’s been around for nearly two hundred years, put a hole in your gut, and survived your best attempts to pulp him?” he asked in disbelief. “Forgive my impertinence, All Might, but this is crazy. You can’t actually expect Midoriya to be able to beat this guy as he is- no offense.” The last part was aimed at his friend, who shrugged in response.

“None taken,” he answered. “But that’s why I’m training as hard as I can. I have to master One For All before this guy comes back to power. I have to become a pillar of justice, like All Might.”

Kurai frowned and said, “There’s an old proverb about fighting that I think fits here. ‘He who stands like a pillar in battle will crumble. The one who bends like a tree will be triumphant.”

“What does that mean?” Midoriya asked.

“It means that if you stand alone, you’re gonna end up just like All Might,” Kurai said with a frown. “You’ll end up like Akarui. Both of them tried to do everything on their own, take everyone’s burden onto their shoulders. Look where it got them.”

Now Midoriya was mad. “Don’t talk about All Might like-!”

“He’s right,” All Might conceded wearily, surprising his protégé. “I tried to stop All For One on my own, but I couldn’t. Even with the power handed down to me from the men and women that gave their lives to safeguard it, I couldn’t fulfill my duty. Now there are Nomu and the League running around, causing pain and suffering for you, the next generation, all because I tried to defeat him alone.”

“But, All Might…” Midoriya murmured. “You couldn’t have known things would turn out this way. It’s not your fault.”

“That may be, but you and your peers are paying the consequences for my mistakes,” the older man replied in kind. “Which is why- even though it wouldn’t have been my first choice- I’m glad that young Hikari knows about all of this. He’s already helped you gain control of One For All better than I could have- now, maybe he can be even more help to you.”

“Oof,” Kurai muttered with a wince. “You would’ve been better asking Akarui to help. Sure, I know how to punch stuff, but with all of this insanity…” He shook his head in despair before saying, “I’ll keep your secret, and I’ll even help you if you ask it of me, but I can’t help but feel like I’m in over my head.”

“Join the club,” Midoriya laughed nervously. “But it’s not like we’ll have to fight All For One right away.”

“He’s right, the man rarely moves in a direct fashion,” All Might nodded. “The only reason I was able to face him in open battle was because I took out so many of his operations that he had no choice but try and stop me himself. And…” Here, he locked his deadened blue eyes with his student before adding, “People have been saying that you could be the next Symbol of Peace, young Hikari. I didn’t think much about that until now, because I was so fixated on helping young Midoriya, but after last night, I can see it. The quirks All For One and One For All aren’t the end-all, be-all in terms of strength- your power is remarkable, make no mistake. With the proper training, you two could finally defeat my old enemy. I truly believe that.”

“…Well, one of us has to,” Kurai grumbled.

“Hikari?”

“Look, like I said, I’ll help you if you ask me to,” he told them both. “I understand that the stakes are too high for me to walk away from it. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect of fighting what All Might has described, especially given what happened to him. I’ve dedicated my life to becoming a hero that people need, and if this is what they need, I will do it. But I nearly lost my brother, and it’s eating me up. I can’t imagine what it’ll do to my family if I die fighting All For One.”

“I know it’d kill my mom if I died,” Midoriya said sympathetically. “But the world needs us, Hikari. It needs us to be the symbols of hope and peace that we can stand up to evil like this, and win- just like we did with the villain last night.”

Kurai sighed as he leaned back into his pillows and muttered, “You’re probably right, but… Just, give me some time to take all of this in. Yesterday was bad enough, and now I have to get used to the idea of quirks that can be transferred, monsters that used to be people, and immortal madmen that’ll do anything to get back their empire.”

“I understand,” All Might nodded as he slowly stood up. “For now, I’m just grateful that you’re agreeing to keep our secret.”

“Speaking of which, who else knows about this?” Kurai asked. “Or is it just us?”

“The principal, Recovery Girl, a friend of mine from the police force, and Gran Torino,” the hero answered. “He was a friend of my master, and he helped me gain control of One For All when I was a student at U.A.”

“Got it,” the boy sighed tiredly. “I’m surprised that Professor Shield didn’t know, though. Explains why he made that device, I guess- he didn’t want you to lose your power, right?”

“That’ll happen one day, no matter what I do to try and hold it off,” All Might shrugged. “Until then, I’ll do my best to keep you both safe. So that when the time is right, you can both tell the world that you will be there, as twin pillars of justice to uphold the peace.”

“A pillar crumbles beneath too much weight,” Kurai reminded them in a dry tone.

“But two working together can hold up what would crush one,” All Might countered as he reached the door. “Get some rest, young Hikari. You’re gonna need it before you go on the training camp next week.”

“Yes, sir.”

Since he had apparently been cleared for visitors, he texted Mina to let her know that she could come and see him. However, he was surprised when she bolted into his room less than five minutes after he had sent the text.

“Thank God you’re okay!” she exclaimed as she hugged him tightly, running her fingers through his hair as if to reassure herself that he was real. “When you got airlifted with the others in the medical helicopter, I was worried that Akarui’s gizmo must’ve gone wrong!”

“No, I’m okay,” Kurai said in a muffled voice, his face currently being smothered by his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Whatever he did, it worked. There’s no recoil from my quirk like I would have had before. Also… can I breathe?”

“Sorry,” the pink girl said as she stepped back just far enough to let him inhale fresh air. “I just needed to hold onto you for a sec.” As she looked the tired boy up and down, she added in a more subdued tone, “How is your brother?”

Kurai lowered his gaze and gave her the same report that he’d been forced to give his mother. After he finished summarizing the situation, he added, “Because the tumor has grown so fast, we don’t know how long it’ll be before his motor functions are completely crippled. That’s not even taking into account that he probably won’t live past his early twenties, and that’s if he’s lucky.”

Mina’s caramel eyes watered as she looked upon the defeated young hero before she embraced him again. “I’m so sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t keep him safe like I was supposed to… I let you both down.” She looked like she wanted to throw up when she added, “Oh man, what am I gonna say to your parents?”

“I already talked to my mom to tell her how everything happened,” he replied as he gripped her arm for comfort. “She won’t hold you accountable, nor will Dad. And for what it’s worth, I don’t blame you, either.”

“I know,” she sniffed. “But I’ll still blame myself, anyway.”

“Just promise me something,” Kurai told her, knowing that it would be useless to try and talk her out of such a notion, especially when he was feeling the exact same way. “Don’t let this stop you from becoming the hero I know you can be.”

“I won’t,” she promised swiftly. “I gotta get even stronger, so I don’t have to rely on people like Akarui to save others… people that’ll get hurt because of a mistake I made.”

Relieved, Kurai nuzzled her cheek with his own as he murmured, “I hope you’ll still rely on me, though. I get the feeling that I’m gonna be leaning on you for support a lot more from now on.”

Mina kissed the top of his head before answering, “I’ll lend you my support for as long as you need it. I promise.”

With Akarui still in intensive care, Kurai wound up receiving most of his classmates as visitors once word got out that he was allowed to have guests. They could only visit in pairs, as Mina refused to leave his side, but by the end of the day he had been given well wishes from everyone in their class, with the exception of Bakugo, who declined to visit.

When Iida came in, alone, Kurai mentally braced himself for a lecture, as he knew that the class rep had been against the plan to alter his quirk. However, much to his surprise, his old friend simply sat down on one of the guest chairs and said, “I heard that your health remains in its prime, despite the exertions of your fight on the rooftop.”

“Yeah,” he answered cautiously, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Iida must have picked up on this, though, because he held up a hand and said, “I’ve learned by now not to argue with you about events after the fact. I’m just glad that you’re okay, and that Akarui will live. For amateur heroes, we could have done a lot worse for ourselves.”

“That’s true,” Kurai admitted, relaxing just a little bit. “Everyone is alive, and other than my brother, there’s no lasting injuries- right?”

“Only the villain that Akarui maimed,” Iida replied. “Due to the lack of physical evidence, and the fact that the man was further injured while his boss was tearing up the tower, the authorities are labeling the whole thing as an accident, despite the villain’s protests to the contrary.”

Kurai raised an eyebrow at the older boy before asking, “And you’re okay with that?”

“I think that Akarui did what he had to do out of self-defense,” Iida answered him. “And even if he were somehow found guilty by a jury, he will already be suffering more than enough for the rest of his life- more than I would wish on anyone.”

Kurai looked into the eyes of his peer, and saw Tensei reflected therein. He sees his brother in Akarui, now, he realized.

“You’re already a better hero than I’ll ever be,” Iida said suddenly, surprising the couple.

“Iida, what are you-?”

“When this happened to my brother, all I could think about was revenge,” the tall student said to interrupt Mina. “I felt as though not even a lifetime in jail would be enough to make Stain pay for what he took from my brother. In my anger, I forgot the principles that make a hero, and even all of the other people that the Hero-Killer had hurt and killed. But just from talking to you, Kurai, I can tell that the thought of revenge hasn’t even crossed your mind.”

Kurai blinked in surprise a few times before he shrugged and asked, “Who would I take revenge against? The villains are all in jail, and Akarui more or less did this to himself. And I’m definitely not about to whale on him anymore than he’s already been beaten.”

“But you could have chosen to blame the villains alone,” Iida pressed. “The fact that you haven’t means that you truly have the heart of a hero… unlike me.” Before Kurai could say anything on the matter, the young man straightened out his spectacles and mused, “Since I lack the genuine heart of heroism, I’ll just have to work even harder to mold myself into someone that is worthy of the name ‘Ingenium’.”

Kurai regarded him quietly for a moment before he said, “Based on what you’re saying, and what I know about you, that name might fit you sooner than you think.”

Iida blinked in surprise before he reached out a hand to the other student and asked, “Are we good, then?”

“Good as we’re gonna get for a while, I think,” Kurai answered as he shook hands with the other boy. “Thank you for looking after Akarui when I couldn’t.”

“It was my privilege and pleasure, even if I feel as though I failed, in the end.” Looking over at Mina, Iida then added, “Please take good care of him, Ashido. He’s irreplaceable.”

“Don’t gotta tell me that,” she replied with a grin as he stood up to leave. “But I’ll make sure he’s okay while we’re here. Thanks for coming by, Iida.”

When the visiting hours were over, a nurse came into the room to tell Mina that it was time to go. Before she could leave, however, Kurai said in an exhausted voice, “I want her to stay.” She and the nurse looked at him with no small measure of surprise, causing him to add, “I don’t want to be alone tonight- not after what happened this morning.”

The nurse held up her hands in gesture of helplessness as she said, “Sir, the hospital regulations state that only family can spend the night…”

“Well, one of my family members is up in the ICU, where I can’t be, and the others are an ocean away,” Kurai said irritably. “I’m not spending the night alone, so unless you override the ‘family-only’ crap, I will march myself right out of this hospital and refuse further treatment and observation.”

“Sir, calm down, please,” the nurse said nervously as Kurai’s brow furrowed and his fists tightened. “What you’re asking for is above my station. I can’t authorize her stay.”

“Then get his doctor to make it happen, please,” Mina said in a more reasonable tone before Kurai’s sleepless irritation could get the better of him. “If he needs someone to stay the night with him so that he feels better, I’m more than happy to do it.”

The nurse hesitated, but then she moved toward the door and said, “I’ll be back in a little while. Since these are extenuating circumstances, we should be able to arrange something.”

As soon as the door closed, Kurai leaned back in his bed with a tired sigh, causing Mina to turn toward him with concern on her face. “Have you gotten any sleep since we came here?” she asked him.

“No,” he replied in a low voice. “I tried to a few times before my mom called me, but…”

“But?” she prompted him gently.

“Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Nomu, Shigaraki, Kurogiri, the villains from last night…” he mumbled. “I have nightmares every once in a while, but nothing like this. I feel like I’m not allowed to rest until I know for sure that they won’t be able to hurt anyone like they hurt me.” He let out a bitter bark of laughter at the thought before adding, “Of course, that’ll never happen, will it?”

“Do you think that chronic nightmares are part of the way your quirk got changed?” Mina asked.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll ask Akarui the next time I see him,” the boy mumbled tiredly.

“Wait, he can’t talk.”

“Yeah, but the nurses said that he’s able to move his hands well enough to write stuff,” Kurai replied. “He can still communicate, to a degree.”

“Any idea when he’ll be allowed to have visitors?” she inquired worriedly.

“Hopefully tomorrow, as long as he remains stable,” he answered as she sat beside him on the bed again. “Is that too much to hope for? Or does everything I’m involved in turn into a disaster?”

“Not everything,” Mina giggled as she bopped his head with her horns. “I’m still here, and you’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of me, buster.”

“Good,” he said with a peaceful smile as he closed his eyes. Without opening them, he asked, “Promise you’ll be here when I wake up?”

“They’ll have to get past my acid to keep me away from you,” she said, causing him to smile again. “Ashid Queen is here to keep the mean nurses from getting you.”

“Now you’re just patronizing me.”

“Am not!”

That same night, All Might sat alone in the open air, deep in thought as he gazed out at the dark ocean from the balcony of his hotel room. I wish I didn’t have to involve children in the war that I failed to finish, he thought miserably. Especially when young Hikari has already suffered at the hands of villainy from so early on in life…

Looking up at the stars that shone brightly, he murmured, “How did you do it, Master? How did you bear the burden of knowing that you were training a child to fight a battle that you were destined to fail?”

The stars, of course, gave no reply, and the weakened hero felt more alone than he had since he met Izuku Midoriya.

Kurai stirred in his dreamless sleep, slowly becoming aware of a sensation outside the normal range of feelings that his body received whenever he returned to consciousness. It took him a minute, but he realized that it was three senses in particular that were being triggered- touch, sound, and smell.

There was a faint scent of strawberries coming from a source of soft warmth pressing on his left side, accompanied by a gentle whiffling sound that tickled his ear. It was dark in the hospital room, so it took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he went very, very still.

Mina was asleep next to him on the hospital bed, snoring softly from a cocoon made up of her own blanket. He felt his heartbeat accelerate, and his first instinct was to bolt upright out of bed. As he prepared to do just that, Mina’s snoring stopped, and she mumbled drowsily, “Move and I’ll melt you.”

He froze in place before whispering, “Uh… How long have you been here?” Based on the lack of light, he guessed that it was sometime in the middle of the night. No one besides the skeleton crew of the hospital would be up for a while, so it seemed that they were being left to their own devices for the most part.

“Dunno,” she grumbled as she shifted a little closer to him, causing his face to heat up rapidly enough that he thought he might pass out. “Doctor gave me the green light to stay, though. Now go back to sleep. You’re comfy.”

He wanted to protest, but he was really too tired to argue. Especially when he realized that her presence had more or less caused him to enter a deeper sleep than he’d had in quite a while. There had been no pleasant dreams to speak of, but there were no nightmares haunting him, either. He had been able to enter a state of true rest for the first time since the USJ incident, and he didn’t have it in him to deny himself that kind of slumber.

Besides, she was really cute, and she was going out of her way to make sure that he had peace of mind for the evening, so who was he to stop her?

Gradually, his heartbeat slowed down as he relaxed back into his pillows and allowed himself to enjoy the present company. At least we’re under separate blankets, he thought with relief just before sleep claimed him again. And we’re both too tired to do anything…

“Hey, Kurai?” Mina mumbled, jerking him back from the brink of sleep.

“Yeah?” he grunted, annoyed at having been kept from his rest.

“…Am I crazy for thinking that I’m falling in love with you?” she asked, hints of fear blended in with her own exhaustion.

For a second, Kurai expected himself to panic, pass out, or fall out of the bed. When the moment had passed, and he had done none of those things, he found himself seriously considering her question, his sleepiness temporarily forgotten.

“I don’t think it’s just the relief of surviving talking, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the girl continued when he didn’t answer, her nervousness seeming to grow. “And it’s not the fact that we’re sleeping in the same bed, either. Not by itself, anyway. We’ve been through so much together, and I like who I am when I’m with you. I know you prefer to move slow, but I need you to know how I feel right now, or I think I’m gonna explode.”

He let the silence stretch out for only a moment longer before he reached out from under the blanket and stroked her warm cheek with a fingertip. “You’re not crazy,” he replied softly. “And I don’t care if it is the relief talking- I like who I am when I’m with you, too. I think I’d be crazy not to fall in love with a girl like you, Mina.”

“…Am I dreaming?” she whispered after her breath caught. “I’ve gotta be in a dream. The guy I fell for is saying that he loves me?”

“Well, it’s a very nice dream, then,” Kurai chuckled drowsily, his weariness beginning to return, despite his best efforts. “And if it is, I’ll be sure to tell you about it in the morning.”

“You promise?” she asked him hopefully.

“Yes,” he answered with a faint grin on his lips as he closed his eyes again. “But only if you let me go to sleep.”

“Gladly,” she whispered as he heard her move. He then felt her lips on his brow before she settled back down and told him, “Good night, Kurai.”

“Night, Mina.”

The next morning, as the rising sun crept into the boy’s half-closed eyelids, he made a vow to himself. I’ll stand as a man of justice alongside Deku so that Mina and Akarui can live in a safer world, he decided. All For One, League of Villains… You’ll regret the next time you decide to cross paths with the rising Pillars of Peace and Justice.

Chapter Text

The week leading up to the summer camp was one of the best and worst times in Kurai’s life. It was good because he and Mina were closer than ever, hardly leaving one another’s side in that time, except when it was time for one of them to go home at the end of the day. His quirk’s negative effects had also been erased, allowing him to exercise the full range of his emotions without the threat of an aneurism for the first time since childhood.

It was also a terrible time for several reasons, the first being that after his brother had been transferred to the Hosu hospital on the mainland, the boy was given test after test to determine the range of the damage done to his brain, which turned out to be extensive. In addition to all the problems that the I-island doctors had been able to ascertain, the local specialist confirmed that the tumor had grown not only in size, but in aggression. He predicted that Akarui had perhaps six years to live, all of which would be plagued with pain and frustration. He would continue to lose his motor function capabilities, and he would more than likely suffer from violent seizures every once in a while.

When Kurai had suggested that Yaoyorozu remake the device that had cured him, Akarui had told them- via written notepad- that the neck piece had been designed with Energon in mind, not Solar Intelligence, nor could he explain the process for how he had made the original. Even with his advanced intellect, he couldn’t quite figure out how he had designed what he did, likely not without overworking his quirk again. If he tried to do that in order to try and figure out how to cure himself with a similar method, the effort would certainly kill him.

Kurai’s parents took their younger son’s newest medical development pretty hard. His mother hadn’t come home since Akarui was put in the hospital, and his father only came home to sleep, as he was either working or spending time with his family in Akarui’s hospital room. Feeling guilt-ridden by the whole ordeal, Kurai only visited his brother once a day, and for less than an hour each time. He simply couldn’t figure out how to interact with his brother anymore, even though the boy had been given a tablet so that he could write or type out whatever he wanted to communicate.

Gone were the easy exchanges, the friendly insults, and the subtle excitement about the next anime episode or movie that they had been looking forward to. Akarui didn’t have the energy to waste on such things anymore- if he was going to talk, it was about something related to his health or doctor. The sight of his kid brother broke his heart, and Kurai doubted whether he would ever really recover from this.

Next on the list of negatives was that Kurai’s sleep cycles suffered greatly, due to nightmares that had begun to plague him with increasing regularity. They ranged from watching the people he loved getting ripped apart by Nomu, or being disintegrated by Shigaraki’s hands, and watching his brother taking his last breath as his body spasmed- no doubt the ending that awaited the boy as a result of his sacrifice. Most terrifying of all was the faceless entity that tore through All Might’s invincibility and left him as a walking cadaver before turning to him and extending a hand to the terrified boy.

“Serve me, or I will take your power for my own and use it to destroy everything that you love,” the sinister voice would tell him. As he began to tremble with terror, All For One would laugh at him, knowing that he was helpless before his ancient, unimaginable power.

He would always wake up at that point, covered in a cold sweat, and wondering, Could I resist him? He thought about calling Midoriya a few times, but he would decide against it each time. He’s got enough to worry about without me telling him that I’ve got night terrors.

He hoped that he would be able to talk to All Might before they went on the trip- otherwise he felt like he might burst from his building nerves and anxieties. He couldn’t talk to Mina about it, either- at least, not the part concerning All For One. She knew that he was having some trouble sleeping, but she didn’t- couldn’t- know the true source of his newfound fear.

I hope that this summer camp training will take my mind off of all this, even if just a little, he thought during the morning before the day before he was to leave with the rest of his class. Just as he finished his breakfast in the hauntingly quiet house, he dropped his cereal bowl at the sound of the doorbell ringing.

Cursing in low voice, he moved toward the front door, thinking that perhaps his father had come home for a change of clothes. However, he was surprised to see Uraraka and Ashido standing on his porch, both of them wearing big smiles as they bid him a good morning.

“Hey, good morning,” he said once he found his voice. “What’s brought you to this part of the neighborhood?”

“Deku and Kaminari got permission to use the school pool for training today!” Uraraka informed him excitedly. “Us girls are gonna play some volleyball, but we thought it’d be nice for you to get in a good workout while hanging out with the guys!”

“Oh yeah, now that think about it, Midoriya sent a text yester-”

“Holy crap, dude!” Mina suddenly yelped, causing him to flinch and look behind himself, almost as if he expected to be attacked from inside his house.

“What?” he asked with confusion as he turned back to his girlfriend, who was looking downward. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?!” she repeated incredulously. “How do you not feel that?!”

“Oh man!” Uraraka hissed as she saw what had startled her friend. “Hikari, you need to sit down!”

“Huh?” he asked as he looked down, even as he became aware of a stinging sensation in his legs. “Oh…” Apparently when he had dropped the bowl, some of the pieces of the ceramic had wound up burying themselves in his feet and legs, resulting in close to a dozen cuts and stab wounds, some with the broken bits still lodged in his flesh, and all of which were bleeding rapidly.

“C’mon!” Uraraka said as she used her zero gravity on him before he could react. “Keep still while we get you to a couch! Mina, do you know where we can get some cloth to stop the bleeding?” As she spoke, she tugged him along while he floated, negating the need for him to use his legs to get around.

“Careful in the kitchen,” Kurai warned her, silently berating himself for his stupidity. “There’s pieces of a bowl all over the place.”

“How’d that happen?” she asked as she headed for the hall closet, where his family kept spare towels and cleaning materials.

Good thing she’s been here a few times, Kurai thought as Uraraka guided him into the living room, where there was a couch long enough for him lie on. Out loud, he answered, “I got startled when you guys rang the doorbell, and I dropped my stuff. It’s been really quiet without my family around, sorry.”

“No, we’re sorry for scaring you,” Uraraka apologized worriedly as Mina ran into the room with the towels they needed.

“S’okay.”

“Mina, put one of those underneath him so he doesn’t bleed directly on the leather,” Uraraka told her friend while hovering Kurai over the furniture. Once the pink girl had done so, they lowered him gently onto the couch before the quirk was disengaged, causing him to hiss in pain as his legs were pressed into the fabric.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Mina apologized with a grimace. “We’re gonna get these pieces out.”

“We have hydrogen peroxide under the bathroom sink,” he grunted as Uraraka began to carefully pick at some of the larger shards in his left leg. He knew that the wounds would have to be disinfected- after all, the bowl had not been cleaned when it was dropped. “There’s a manicure kit in the mirror with some tweezers, too- use ‘em on the smaller pieces.” He winced as a particularly jagged piece was removed from his foot.

“Sorry,” Ochaco apologized again as she deposited the bloody piece on a smaller towel by her legs while Mina dashed off to get the necessary tools.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” he chuckled weakly. “You two should be having fun at the pool, not taking care of an idiot that busted up his legs.”

“Yeah, well, you’re my idiot, so I’m gonna take care of you,” Mina called from up the hall. “I just hope that this won’t affect your time at summer camp.”

“Maybe we can take you to see Recovery Girl after you get bandaged up,” Uraraka told him as she moved to picking at the larger pieces from his right leg, causing him to grunt with pain again.

“That’d be good,” he grimaced as Mina returned with the requested items. “Aw, man…” He knew what was coming next, and he was not looking forward to it.

“Give him something to bite on, just in case,” Uraraka told Mina as she set down the cleaning materials. “Once we get all the shards out, we’ll have to disinfect, and it’s gonna hurt.”

“When’d you get so good at this stuff?” the pink girl asked her friend.

“I wanna be a rescue hero, so learning about first aid seemed like a good idea,” she answered as she got out the tweezers. “Hold his legs still while I do this.”

“You heard the lady,” Mina said with an apologetic smile to her boyfriend. “I’d kiss it all better, but somehow I don’t think that’s gonna do the trick here.”

“You could always- ow!- try,” he said.

Once his wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, Mina took care of the mess in the kitchen while Ochaco went to cleanse the soiled towels and put the ceramic shards in the trash. Kurai tried to get up to help them, but his girlfriend was having none of it.

“If you wanna do something, pick a movie to watch,” she told him as she handed him the TV remote. “I’ll order us a pizza once we’ve got the place cleaned up.”

“You’re not gonna go swim?” he asked as he reluctantly did as he was told. The TV in the living room took up most of the wall that faced the kitchen, making it easy to see, even if someone was in the other room.

“Dude, you’re all by yourself, and your legs are cut up,” she said wryly. “I’m not going anywhere until you can get up without bleeding all over the floor.”

“Yeah, and since we caused the problem, it’s the least we can do to make sure that you’re okay,” Uraraka said as she came back into the room, her hands having been washed of any trace bloodstains. “Besides, you look like you could use some company.”

“And what guy would say ‘no’ to a couple of cuties like us sticking around?” Mina teased him, causing both of her friends to redden rapidly.

“Mina!” Uraraka said, mortified.

“You have too much fun with that,” Kurai deadpanned. “And it’s gonna cost you.”

“Wait, please tell me you’re not-”

“Hey Alexa, play Revenge of the Sith.”

“You always pick that one!”

“Hey, I’m beat up,” he said smugly as he leaned back in the couch. “My pity points outweigh your complaints.”

“What’s Revenge of the Sith?” Uraraka asked blankly, causing Kurai to look at her, scandalized.

“Tell me you’re joking,” he said. “Please tell me you’re just pranking me.”

The brunette shrugged helplessly while Mina groaned and put her face in her hands. “Ochaco, you have no idea what you just did,” she mumbled through her fingers.

“Have you… not seen Star Wars?” Kurai asked hesitantly.

“Oh, no,” Uraraka answered, causing Kurai’s left eye to start twitching crazily. “I never got into it.”

“Well, you’re about to,” he declared, as he turned on the voice recognition app. “Alexa, play A New Hope.”

As the TV switched over to the old film, Mina uncovered her face and pleaded, “Hikari, no!”

“Hikari, yes!”

Unfortunately for Kurai, he didn’t even make it thirty minutes into the movie before he fell fast asleep in the crook of his girlfriend’s arm. When he opened his eyes again, the sun was beginning to set, and the TV was turned off.

“What the-?” he mumbled drowsily before he felt someone kiss the top of his head.

“Hey, sleepy,” Mina said teasingly as he stirred, wincing as the cuts on his legs protested the movements. “Uraraka’s on her way back with our luggage for the trip, and Todoroki and Midoriya said they’d be here in a little while.”

“Here in-?” he started, the stopped, the implications of what she was saying beginning to sink in. “Wait, do you have any idea what my parents would do if I had my friends over without their asking?! Especially if it was overnight?!”

“Dude, chill,” she giggled as she stroked his head, lulling him back into a more lucid state, despite his efforts to remain otherwise. “Your dad came by while you were asleep to get a change of clothes- he’s gonna spend the night with your mom and brother at the hospital since it’s his day off. Ochaco explained what happened, and we got permission to stay here, as long as we got a couple of the guys to stay, too. We’re gonna take a taxi to school in the morning, so we’re all good there, too.”

“My parents agreed to letting five teenagers stay in their house, unsupervised?” he asked dubiously.

“To be fair, I think they have bigger concerns right now.”

“True…”

“Also, when were you gonna tell me that you were still having this much trouble sleeping?” she asked him, her voice losing its joking tone. “I’ve never seen anyone crash that hard before.”

He was quiet for a minute before he answered, “I haven’t gotten any more than an hour’s sleep at a time since we came home. I didn’t say anything because I was too busy worrying about Akarui and my parents, I guess.”

“Dude, you gotta take care of yourself, too,” she scolded him. “Now I feel stupid for not noticing how tired you must’ve been this whole time!”

“I’ve been living on coffee,” he admitted ruefully. “Us hanging out at your house with your parents or with the others helped me hide it, I guess. I swear I wasn’t doing it on purpose, though.”

“I know,” she sighed. “You’re too focused on what’s happening with your friends and family to pay attention to what your body is telling you, even without the recoil from your quirk. But what’s keeping you from sleeping? Is it Akarui?”

“Partly,” he nodded as he leaned back into her embrace, her arms wrapping around his chest. “Mostly it’s nightmares- and they just keep getting worse.”

“You slept pretty well while I was here, and at the hospital,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, being with you puts me at ease,” he said with a faint grin. “How dopey is that, huh?”

“Super dopey, but it’s also really cute,” she half-laughed. Her voice became serious again as she murmured, “Are you sure it’s not your quirk?”

“I asked Akarui,” he replied. “He said that my insomnia isn’t a result of anything that he did- it’s more than likely a form of PTSD, due to all the craziness since we started school at U.A. And with my mom and dad so preoccupied with him, I haven’t had the heart to ask them to make an appointment with a doctor so I can see about getting some sleep meds.”

“Dude!” Mina groaned. “Yeah, they’re little boy is super sick, but you’re their son, too. If you’re having a problem like this, you gotta tell them about it so that they can get you the help that you need.”

“I’ll talk to them when we get back from camp, promise,” he told her.

“…Okay, but I’m spending the night with you on the couch,” she informed him, resulting in his being reduced to a sputtering mess. Before he could protest, she squeezed him tightly and said, “Not negotiable, buster. You need to get some real sleep before we go on a training camp- and knowing our teacher, it’s gonna be tough. You can’t go if your nerves are so shot that you’re getting hurt just answering the door.”

“Mina, I don’t think that’s a good-”

“Not. Negotiable,” she said stubbornly. “If you don’t wanna be in compromising positions with me, take better care of yourself so that I don’t have to.”

“…Yes ma’am,” he said meekly.

“Good boy,” she giggled. “We can all sleep out here in the living room if it makes you feel better.”

“Yeah, I doubt you’d try anything too bad if the others are in the room,” he muttered.

“Yeesh, don’t sound so excited by the idea,” she grumbled, though she declined to loosen her grip on him.

After a moment of companionable silence, he decided to ask, “So, how did Uraraka like the movie?”

“She loved R2, but that was about it,” she answered with what sounded like a devious smile.

“I don’t think I can be friends with her anymore.”

Despite his concerns, Mina behaved herself both in the presence of their friends, and when they were alone that afternoon. When the others arrived from the pool, having picked up their suitcases from their homes already, the pizza had come in, and they ate together while watching ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, which ironically, turned out to be Todoroki’s favorite film in the franchise.

Kurai slept soundly once again, buried in a warm nest of blankets, pillows, and his cuddly girlfriend. He slept so well, in fact, that it took Mina convincing Todoroki to wake him up with a chill burst to get him out of the couch.

“Seriously?” he complained as he rubbed at the sleep in his eyes. Looking around the still-dark room, he mumbled, “It’s not even seven yet, what gives?”

“We all gotta get showered, eat breakfast, and be at the school a little early so that Recovery Girl can fix your legs,” Mina told him as she climbed out of their nest. “We can’t be late, or Mister Aizawa will probably choke us with his scarf.”

“Oh yeah, you’re taking extra lessons with him during the week, right?” Kurai grumbled drowsily, earning him a pillow to the face that sent him back into the pile of blankets. “Ow.”

“At least I’m not the one that clocked him over the head with a sword,” Mina snickered as she dropped the pillow. “He won’t thank you for that.”

“Don’t I know it…”

With the help of his friends, Kurai made it to Recovery Girl’s office thirty minutes before the scheduled meeting time for the summer camp. She examined his legs, making note of the fact that Uraraka had cleaned and applied bandages to the wounds with great competence before healing him. This made him feel tired again, but nothing that a bus trip wouldn’t let him recover.

“I’ve also got these for you,” the elder heroine said before he could leave. She held out an orange pill container, filled with small white tablets, and labelled with a name that Kurai did not recognize.

“What’re these?” he asked as he accepted them, confused.

“Sleeping pills,” she answered, surprising him. Seeing this, she explained, “I received a call from your mother yesterday that you’ve been having difficulty sleeping, due to the battles you’ve been through. She asked me to prescribe you with some medicine to help you sleep through the night, so here you go.”

“Oh, thanks,” he said dumbly, trying to figure out how his mother knew about his insomnia. It wasn’t until he was outside the nurse’s office and saw Mina grinning cutely at him that he put it together. Holding up the pill bottle, he asked, “Your work?”

“I talked to your dad about it yesterday after you went back to sleep,” she replied. “He told your mom, and I’m pretty sure you know the rest.”

“Thank you,” he said gratefully as he pocketed the medicine. “I guess I’m used to having Akarui around to nag me about this kind of stuff.”

“Well, I know I’m not as smart as him, but I will be doing my best to look out for you from now on,” she giggled as she held on to his arm while they walked away from the office.

“Good. I’m gonna need it.”

“Exchange students?!” most of class 1-A yelped as they stood in front of the bus that would take them to their summer camp.

“Yes,” Aizawa answered simply. “Four students from the U.S. were approved by Principal Nezu to join this class for the next semester, possibly longer, depending on how well they perform. Even though classes haven’t officially resumed, I decided to have them come along for the trip so that you can all get used to one another.”

“He doesn’t even know how long they’re gonna be here?” Kirishima said in an aside to Bakugo, who simply grunted.

“He did tell us that U.A. isn’t exactly known for doing things traditionally,” Kaminari reminded them.

“Cool!” Uraraka said excitedly as she turned toward Midoriya. “This’ll be great, getting to know student heroes from another country!” Around them, the other students were chattering among themselves, wondering just who they would be accepting into their group.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to see what kind of quirks they’ve got!” he agreed, her vibrant energy infecting him.

“How about that?” Mina told Kurai. “You’ve thought about going to be a hero in the U.S., right? Maybe you can learn from these guys.”

“Maybe,” he replied absently as Aizawa turned to face away from their class. That’s assuming All For One and his goons don’t kill me and Midoriya before I graduate.

“Class 1-A,” Aizawa said as he turned back around, flanked by four new faces that came from the other side of the bus, all of them wearing the U.A. uniforms. “Meet your new peers, from the Second Amendment Academy in Austin, Texas.”

“Hi!” exclaimed a bright-eyed girl who looked like she should still be in junior high. “I’m Ruby! It’s super nice to meet all of you!” She was actually jumping up and down with excitement as she introduced herself to the bewildered class.

“Chill out, Sis,” said a tall, attractive girl with shiny blonde hair. “You’re gonna embarrass Weiss.”

“You both tend to embarrass our team on a daily basis back home, so I’m not exactly expecting anything different here,” sniffed a thin girl with pure white hair and eyes like a clear winter’s sky. Turning her upturned nose toward the class, she introduced herself with an elegant bow and the words, “I’m Weiss Schnee.”

“Whoa!” Midoriya yelped involuntarily, causing his friends to look askance at him. Blushing with embarrassment now, he muttered, “Sorry, it’s just… Schnee Industries has been manufacturing gear for heroes since the second generation of pros! Her family has helped people all over America!”

“Well now,” Weiss said as she gave Midoriya an approving look. “I didn’t think that anyone here would know about my family name.”

“Hang on, isn’t your dad’s company under investigation for potential quirk ethics and labor law violations?” Kurai asked before he could stop himself. I think I heard Dad talk about this a few months ago with an old P.I. friend from the States…

“That’s none of your business!” Weiss snapped, her voice as sharp as an icicle.

“Wow, and I thought I always gave bad first impressions,” Mina giggled while her boyfriend reddened with embarrassment at his gaffe.

“Don’t mind Weiss, she’s always like that,” the blond girl grinned as she pulled up a pair of aviators off her face, revealing mischievous violet eyes. “’Sup, guys? I’m Yang Xiao Long- Ruby’s awesome older sister.”

“She is that,” Ruby nodded enthusiastically, surprising the U.A. students again.

How is she here if she’s younger than her sister? Kurai wondered.

Here, Aizawa decided to explain, saying, “Ruby is the protégé of her uncle, a pro that goes by the name ‘Crow’. She’s skipped two grades already, and if she continues to advance as rapidly as she has been, she might end up graduating before the rest of you do.”

The class looked at the new girl as she beamed at them again, this time with more critical eyes. Mister Aizawa wouldn’t have just let her in his class if she couldn’t hold her own with the rest of us, Kurai reasoned. However, he was still having a hard time believing that the little girl with the short hair was capable of going toe-to-toe with the people in his class. I guess time will tell.

“Do you recognize that hero, ‘Crow’?” Kurai asked in a low tone to Midoriya, who immediately shook his head in the negative.

“No, he must be a less popular one- I only know the big names from other countries,” he answered in a similar tone.

“All right, finish your introductions,” Aizawa said impatiently, looking at a girl with black hair who had been completely silent the whole time. “We don’t have all day.”

“I’m Blake Belladonna,” she said in a quiet voice, her golden eyes flicking from one person to another behind her dark bangs.

“She’s the quiet type,” Ruby said with a cheery grin. “But we’re all super glad to be here! I can’t wait to train with All Might- he’s so cool!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Bakugo muttered just loud enough for the newcomers to hear. “Since when did U.A. start accepting grade schoolers?”

“I’d watch what you say, Bakugo,” Aizawa warned him as Ruby’s gaze wilted. “She may not look like much, but she’ll wipe the floor with you if you let your guard down around her.” His blunt comparison of their skills left most of the class stunned, but it only angered the blond boy, who swore and stormed toward the bus door, small explosions trailing behind him as he went.

While he was doing this, the class broke down into smaller groups in order to introduce themselves to the foreign girls. Kurai’s friend group wound up talking to Ruby first, who perked up again after being surrounded by friendlier faces.

“Ignore Bakugo, we all do,” Mina said after they had all introduced themselves to the younger student. “How’re you liking it here so far?”

“I really like it!” Ruby declared happily before reaching up and tapping on one of Mina’s horns, much to the surprise of the pink girl. “Ooh, they’re kinda springy! I thought they’d be hard, like a bull! Do they grow back if they break off? Is that part of your powers?”

“Ruby!” Yang scolded her sister as she ruffled the younger girl’s black-and-red hair. Turning to Mina, who was still looking bewildered, she added, “Sorry about her. She gets a little too excited about other people’s quirks and goes overboard from time to time.”

“Hey, I’m not a little kid!” Ruby said petulantly as she straightened her hair.

“Then try acting like it,” Yang grinned as she let her sister out from under her hand. Their interaction reminded Kurai of his own relationship with his brother, and his heart ached again. Unaware of his morose thoughts, the blond American eyed Kurai for a second before asking, “So what’s your name, handsome?”

“Eh?!” he yelped, completely taken aback.

“His name is ‘my boyfriend’, Kurai,” Mina said jealously as she crossed her arms and glared at the taller girl.

“Okay, cool your jets, pinky,” Yang grinned. “How was I supposed to know that he’s spoken for? Can’t say I blame ya, though.”

“And I’m done here,” Kurai said as he began to back away, his face continuing to heat up. “I’m just gonna go find myself a place that isn’t a proverbial minefield- oh look, there’s one now!” With that, he speed-walked over to where Iida was talking to Todoroki.

“Aw man!” Ruby pouted while Yang gave Mina an apologetic look. “I didn’t get to ask him about his quirk!”

“We’re gonna be together for a week before classes even start,” Midoriya told her. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to talk to him about it.”

“Good point! So, what does your quirk do?”

“They seem like a handful, huh?” Kurai muttered to his old friend as he leaned against the bus. The class was set to board and leave in ten minutes, so he had decided to spend that time as far away from Yang as was socially acceptable.

“The Xiao Long sisters certainly seem energetic, but I doubt we’ll have any trouble from Miss Belladonna or Schnee,” Iida shrugged. “Much like our own class dynamic, they seem to have a variety of character. I’m sure we’ll all come together eventually.”

“Somebody should tell that to Bakugo,” Kurai smirked, just before his phone buzzed. “Hang on.” Pulling out the device, he was surprised to see that he had received an email marked as urgent. After he had unlocked the phone, he opened up the message, and was even further intrigued to see that it was from Akarui.

Once the bus had been loaded up with all of the students, Kurai and Mina found themselves sharing a row with a chattering Midoriya and Ruby, both of them having discovered one another’s vast knowledge of quirks and the thirst for greater knowledge on the subject. This placed a disgruntled-looking Uraraka with Yaoyorozu behind the young couple. Having seen this, Kurai nudged Mina and said in a low voice, “Maybe try to talk to her about it later?”

“You kidding?” she snickered, though she too kept her voice down. “I tried to ask her about him one time, and she basically did what you used to do whenever I flirted with you.”

“Ah,” he chuckled abashedly. “Well, maybe it’ll just sort itself out.”

“Hopefully in a way that results in those two still being friends,” she replied.

“What’s up, guys?” Uraraka’s voice startled the both of them, so they turned around to see her and Yaoyorozu giving them puzzled looks. “You’ve been super quiet since we left the school.”

“Sorry about that,” Kurai answered as he scratched at his head. “We were just talking about my brother- I got an email from him right before we left.”

“You did?” Yaoyorozu asked worriedly. “Is he okay? Relatively speaking, I mean.”

“Yeah, he’s started getting used to the wheelchair that Professor Shield and Melissa designed for him,” he replied with a slight smile. The gift had arrived two days ago from I-island, with well wishes from the two scientists. “It’s motorized so that he doesn’t have to use his arms too much to get around, and it comes with a built-in computer and display screen so that he can use it to talk with people instead of writing stuff down.”

“That’s so nice of the Shields to do that for him,” Uraraka said happily.

“Yeah, they said it was their way of saying ‘thank-you’ to Akarui for keeping Melissa safe,” Kurai explained.

“Did he say anything else?” Mina asked him curiously. “We got loaded up before you showed me the rest of it.”

“He did,” the boy nodded as he glanced up the aisle to make sure that Aizawa wasn’t listening in on them- after all, he had no idea how his teacher would react to the knowledge that he had deliberately altered his quirk in such a risky manner, but he was reasonably certain that the reaction would be a negative one. Once he was sure that they were being covered by the noise of everyone else chattering loudly, he said, “Since he’s finally stabilizing, he was able to tell me about some of the changes to my quirk that I can make use of.”

“Will they hurt you?” Mina asked worriedly.

Here, Kurai hesitated, but he was quick to reply, “Nothing so bad as my old recoil, but I’ll have to be careful in some situations. I’m just glad that my life won’t be in danger every time I totally let loose with my powers.”

“That’s good,” Uraraka said with a sigh of relief.

“You’re telling me,” Mina sighed as she leaned against Kurai. “No more hospital visits for you, got it? Leave all of those to your brother.”

“Gladly,” the boy chuckled again, but his eyes remained sad.

About two hours passed before Aizawa pulled the bus over so that the students could stretch their legs in a rest stop that overlooked a massive forest, which ran all the way along a mountain range that curved around like a crescent moon. Kurai was glad of the chance to stand up and move around, as he’d been fairly inactive for the last few days, especially when his legs got cut up the previous morning.

“I wonder if we’ve got cell service out here,” he muttered as he pulled his scouter out of his pocket and attached it to his ear.

“Why did you bring that?” Todoroki asked as he walked up to his friend.

“I wanna be wearing it so that if my parents call about my brother, I can respond ASAP,” he answered as he powered the device on. He was pleased to see that he was getting a strong signal, despite the fact that they were fairly removed from civilization. “That, and Akarui sent it a software update before we went to I-island, and I wanna see if it works.”

“What does it do?” the other boy asked curiously.

“It doesn’t read energy levels, per se, but it does scale a quirk’s abilities in comparison to my own powers,” Kurai answered. “Basically, it lets me know if I’m totally outclassed, or if I’m gonna be able to mop the floor with someone.”

“Power isn’t everything,” Todoroki pointed out, to which Kurai nodded in agreement.

“I know, but it’ll sure help knowing how plus ultra I’ll have to go when I’m up against some new villain,” the boy replied.

“Fair enough.”

“By the way, Todoroki?” Kurai asked.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t see a bathroom anywhere,” he said as he glanced at a black car that was pulling up next to the bus. “Isn’t that kind of weird for a rest stop?”

“…I was hoping that I was just being paranoid,” the half-and-half teen muttered under his breath. “Now the question is, what is Mister Aizawa up to?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll hate it.”

Two introductions later, and he was proven correct. As it turned out, U.A. had reached out to a four-person hero team called ‘The Wild, Wild Pussycats’ in order to help the students go through an intense training program designed to push their quirks past their limits, and it apparently started with one of the heroines- a woman named Pixie Bob- using her quirk to control the earth and hurl them off the cliffside, and into the forest that Kurai had been admiring earlier.

“Ow,” the boy grumbled as he checked to make sure that his scouter hadn’t been damaged. Once he had ascertained its safety and functionality, he glared up at the overhang, where another one of the Pussycats, Mandalay, was smiling down at them.

“Good news, guys!” she told them. “This is all private land, so you can use your quirks as much as you want! Remember, make it to the base of the mountain by 12, or you don’t get lunch!” The mountain she had described was easily three hours away on foot, and that was only if they all made good time.

“Aw man, I thought that we’d gotten away from all of this,” Ruby groaned as she brushed dirt off of her uniform.

“What’re you talking about?” Midoriya asked her.

“Back at Second Amendment, we all got tossed off the side of a mountain and were told to retrieve artifacts from this forest temple that the school had set up,” Blake told them as she picked at a clod of dirt that had gotten stuck in a bow on top of her head. “People that didn’t make it back with an artifact were denied access to the school.”

“The place was full of forest animals that had quirks, and they were all super aggressive,” Ruby piped up. “That was a long day…”

“Man, and I thought our entrance exam was tough,” Ojiro grunted as he helped Jiro to her feet.

“Something tells me that we’re about to get an idea of what our new friends went through,” Kurai muttered as his scouter gave him a proximity alert. “Weird.”

“What’s wrong?” Iida asked him as he tapped the refresh button on the device.

“I’m picking up movements in the trees, but no energy signatures,” he replied.

“Agh, enough standing around!” Bakugo snarled as he dashed into the forest. “I’m gonna blast whatever gets in my way straight to HELL!”

“Yeah!” Yang laughed as she ran after him. “This guy’s got the right attitude!”

“How did someone with such a vulgar vocabulary get into a school as prestigious as this one?” Weiss asked as the others began to chase after them.

“He’s got an attitude problem, for sure, but you don’t wanna end up facing him in combat,” Kurai replied. “He doesn’t hold back, for anything or anyone.”

“Let’s see how far that takes him,” Blake muttered as they saw something moving within the shadows of the trees- something big, and probably dangerous.

“Let’s go, Class 1-A!” Iida exhorted them.

“Aw, yeah!” Ruby added. “C’mon, guys! Let’s go beyond!”

“Plus Ultra!”

Chapter Text

“That’s new!” Kurai yelled as the class came into contact with a lumbering beast that looked like a mutated gargoyle mixed with a bull. The shadows of the trees made it difficult to make out its shape too clearly, but it was obvious that whatever the thing was, it was not to be taken lightly.

“This is awesome!” Yang laughed as she and Bakugo stopped their charge into the forest in order to take brief stock of the situation. “We can start this summer camp with a ‘Yang’!” Looking back at her new classmates, she snickered as she watched most of them show dismay at the pun of her choice.

“Come on, Sis!” Ruby groaned. “You’re embarrassing me!”

“Stop talking and get outta the way!” Bakugo snarled as he used an explosion to launch himself into the air. “Watch and learn how an upcoming pro gets it done!” Propelling himself toward the monster at high speed, he unleashed a devastating explosion that blew it to pieces and scorched the earth and trees around him.

“Someone’s eager to show off,” Weiss sniffed as the class drew to halt.

“Ha!” Bakugo barked without turning around. “Some of us know how to take the initiative, Snow Angel.”

“What did you-?!”

“Stay on alert,” Kurai interrupted as his scouter beeped again. “We got more incoming.”

“Great!” Yang said as she cracked her knuckles. “I was hoping to get in a good warmup before lunch.”

“Split up into groups!” Iida yelled. “Stay within shouting distance, but don’t clump together and make easy targets! Remember, we need to keep heading north by northeast!”

“Got it!” most of the class yelled back, though Bakugo opted to tell Iida a creative method of using his glasses.

“Mina, Midoriya, Uraraka!” Kurai called as he ran into the trees. “You coming?!”

“You know it!” his girlfriend answered as she kept up with his rapid pace.

“This’ll be just like the Sport’s Festival!” Uraraka cheered as she and Izuku followed them both.

“We’ve got this!” the green-haired boy added confidently as his body lit up with lightning of the same color.

“Mind if I tag along?” a girl’s voice asked, drawing the group’s attention to Ruby, who was giving them an awkward smile as she ran slightly behind them.

“You’re not going with your friends?” Uraraka asked.

“Yang says I need to make more friends, and Midoriya talked to me,” Ruby said shyly, causing the gravity girl to pout a little bit.

“We’d be glad to have- whoa!” Midoriya’s reply was turned into a shout of surprise as they came into contact with another one of the creatures that Bakugo had destroyed earlier. Only this time, instead of being hidden by the shadows, the sunlight was sufficient for them to see that the monster was huge, easily big enough to tower over the likes of Shoji.  The tusks coming from its eyeless face were an ancient brown, and its fur was covered in-

“Hey, wait a sec,” Mina frowned as they peered harder at the creature, all while it roared its defiance at them for trespassing. “Anyone else seeing that?”

“That’s not mud in its skin,” Midoriya said as pieces of the monster crumbled away after coming into contact with a low branch. “That thing is actually made out of dirt!”

“Pixie Bob?” Kurai guessed as he readied Energon.

“Probably,” his friend nodded as the lightning covering his body began to crackle more intensely. “Okay, guys, let’s do this!”

“Mina, take point!” Kurai shouted, and the girl sprung into action, dashing between the legs of the forest monster and melting them at the joints with her acid, and causing it to crash into the earth with a savage growl. However, it still had a tail that it was aiming to flatten her with, and Kurai was going to have none of it. “Midoriya, now!”

“Smash!” the boy yelled as he blasted through the monster’s only working appendage.

Seeing more signals incoming on his scouter, Kurai turned to Uraraka and said, “Can you get that thing above the trees?”

“You got it!” she nodded as she ran forward and placed her hand on the dirt monster, sending it floating upward, just above the treetop. “All yours!”

“Thanks!” he grunted before he leaped up high, marveling at how much easier it was to maintain control of his mind while using his powers as he did so. Drawing his fist back, he unleashed a full-power roundhouse at his target, decimating its body and sending a shower of dirt, rocks, wood, and high-speed winds at another three monsters that were headed toward his friends. The rain of destruction turned them into piles of lifeless earth once again, and it was with a good amount of satisfaction that he returned to the ground.

“Nice work, everyone,” he said as he hi-fived Midoriya and accepted a side hug from Mina. “But I get the feeling that we’re not done.”

“Yeah, I think we’re probably gonna be late for lunch…” Ruby said, sounding disappointed. “I just hope they have cookies when we get there…”

“Uh…” Kurai gaped as he stared behind the little girl. “Did you… do all that?” As he spoke, he felt all of his friends stiffen with surprise as they realized what he was looking at.

“Yeah, they’re not that tough, but there’s a lot of ‘em,” Ruby nodded as she crossed her arms. “And I’m already hungry.” The girl was standing in front of a massive pile of what had to be the remnants of at least five of the dirt monsters, if not more.

It was a few seconds before Mina put into words what they were all more or less thinking. “What the heck is with this kid?!” she demanded of no one in particular.

“Uh-oh!” Ruby yelped as she took a running stance while looking behind and above them. “Look out!” The group turned around to see a new monster, this one shaped like a dragon, diving at them from the sky.

However, before any of them could do anything about it, a red blur shot over their heads, trailing a cloud of rose petals that smashed into the dragon. The flower pieces surrounded it in a storm of crimson that tore it apart in less than two seconds flat and scattered the debris to the wind before congealing in front of them and clearing away to reveal little Ruby, grinning at them.

“That was a close one,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Uncle Crow says I need to work on my awareness.”

Mina drew in a deep breath, paused, let it out halfway, and then said, “I don’t need to repeat my question, do I?”

“Nope,” her boyfriend said, dumbstruck at how much Ruby had outclassed them.

Elsewhere, Todoroki was using his ice to block any of the dirt creatures from impeding his progress, preferring not to use his flames as to avoid setting the forest on fire. He was skating along on a path of frozen spikes when he heard an unfamiliar cry of alarm coming from his left. It only took a moment’s thought to alter his course, and when he found the source of the sound, he was a little surprised at what he discovered.

Weiss was facing off against two earth beasts, one shaped like a giant boar, the other appearing as a tiger. She was using hexes shaped like snowflakes to increase her speed as she leaped from one to another, becoming a white blur herself as she avoided the tusks and claws of her enemies. Before he could offer to help, a smaller hex appeared over her right hand, and out came an icy sword that she used to cut the monsters to ribbons, leaving them as piles of mulch on the forest floor.

“Ugh,” the girl grumbled as the sword evaporated into mist. “Where’s Ruby when I need her? She enjoys this kind of work.”

“Sorry, should I have assisted you?” Todoroki asked as he stepped out of the shadows, temporarily startling the girl.

When she had recovered, though, she turned her nose up at him and replied, “I handled myself, so there was no need. Why are you here, anyway?”

“I heard someone scream, and I assumed that they would need help,” he answered with a shrug. “Was that not you?”

“…Those beasts caught me by surprise,” she admitted sourly.

“I take it that you’re used to fighting in a team?” Todoroki guessed.

“Back at Second Amendment, our classes are all further broken down into teams of four,” Weiss answered. “Ruby, Yang, Blake, and I make Team RWBY.”

“Why aren’t you working as a team now?” the boy asked as they began to walk toward the base camp again, with Todoroki making sure to keep his distance from the frosty girl, in case she got prickly again.

“Yang got it Ruby’s head that we should split up and try working with your classmates to try and build camaraderie,” Weiss muttered. “Now I have no idea where any of them are. Ugh, this is just like our entrance exam!”

“Do you want me to stay with you, or should I leave you alone?” the heterochromic student inquired, unsure of what the foreign girl wanted.

“You might as well stick around,” she huffed reluctantly. “I did hear that you got the top scores for students that got into U.A. on recommendations. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then we have that in common,” Weiss said with- what Todoroki assumed was an attempt at- a genuine smile. “I look forward to seeing what you can do, Todoroki. Just try to keep up, okay?”

“Same to you,” he replied with traces of irritation, wondering why on earth he was bothering with the pale girl. Maybe something about her reminds me of when I started at this school. Either that, or Midoriya has a bigger influence on me than I thought.

Iida grunted as his engines stalled, having just used his Recipro Burst to demolish three dirt monsters obstructing his path. However, for every one that he, Kirishima, and Asui took out, there seemed to be another one ready to take its place. That Pixie Bob woman is no joke, he thought grimly as he saw another beast being formed from the ground.

He tried to engage his engines again, but they were still shot. No good- if only Todoroki was here to cool it down for me!

“What’s the plan, class rep?” Kirishima asked as he and Asui flanked their leader. The three of them had been thrown together by coincidence only a few minutes ago, but they had managed to make the seemingly odd team-up work.

“Asui, use your tongue to slingshot Kirishima at the-!”

WHAM! Crunch. Whoof.

The monster crumbled to dust beneath the force of a certain blond girl’s fists, who rolled over to stand up in front of the surprised trio with a grin on her face. “Sorry guys,” Yang said cheerily. “I guess this place just needed a good dusting.”

Iida and Kirishima’s faces fell, with the latter saying, “That pun hurt worse than Midoriya’s punches.”

“Where’s Bakugo?” Iida asked, ignoring his peer’s complaint. “I thought you were going in the same directions as him?”

“We got separated,” Yang shrugged. “I heard you guys close by, so I thought I’d come and see if you wanted to team up?”

“Bakugo totally ditched you, didn’t he?” Asui deadpanned.

“Shut up, it was mutual!”

The sun had nearly set by the time class 1-A stumbled into the base camp. None of them had escaped the forest unscathed, and most of them were covered in more dirt than not. Some were limping along due to minor injuries, and even Ruby- the endless wellspring of energy- looked completely beat.

The class had come back together and then split up into smaller groups a few times throughout the day, and as luck would have it, they were all present for the arrival at the place where they would be spending their nights.

“Nice job, you guys!” Pixie Bob called out as they finally stopped halfway between the log-based building and the tree line.

“We have been fighting…” Kurai growled, “for nine hours!” He was having to use Energon to strengthen himself enough to support Mina, who had sprained her knee after mistiming an acid-coated slide maneuver in order to avoid being crushed.

“Yeah, so?”

“You said it would be three!” Kirishima groaned as he collapsed onto his rear alongside Sato. “We’re starving!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Mandalay chuckled. “Guess I was basing the time on how long it would’ve taken our team to complete.”

“Now you’re gonna brag about how much better you are than us?” Yang grumbled.

“They are better than us,” her black-haired teammate commented dryly. Of the four of them, she was the only one that had more or less fought on her own throughout the forest.

“Not helping, Blake!”

“Meow, meow, meow!” Pixie Bob admonished them, before adding, “I thought it was gonna take you guys even longer, so well done! Especially… those five!” She flexed one of her claws and pointed at Todoroki, Bakugo, Iida, Midoriya, and Kurai. “I’ve got dibs on these kittens- I’ll groom them myself!” So saying, she launched herself into a hissing, spitting frenzy around the five boys, who all shouted in protest, while Mina added her voice to the outcries of dissent.

“What’s her deal?” Weiss asked as she and the others watched the bizarre scene. “This hardly seems appropriate behavior for a pro hero, let alone a teacher.”

“Yeah, and we took out way more monsters than those guys did!” Ruby added with a slight pout.

“Say that again, I dare you!” Bakugo shouted from within Pixie Bob’s antics. “I’ll kill you, Red!”

“Try it, and you’ll be getting a knuckle sandwich!” Yang shot back as she popped her fingers ominously, her eyes flaring crimson for a second.

“Mandalay, has Pixie Bob always been like this?” Aizawa asked as he walked up to the brunette woman, ignoring the exchange between the two sisters and Bakugo. He doubted that this would be the last time that they would clash, and if they were capable of handling it on their own, he would let them be.

“It’s been worse than usual, lately,” she admitted. “She’s starting to worry that she’s gonna wind up all alone.”

“Sexual harassment!” Kurai shouted as he swatted the other woman’s paws away from him. “No way I’m training with this crazy lady!”

“Since when was Kurai so vocal about stuff that bothers him?” Kaminari asked tiredly. “Sure, the guy’s gotten mad, but normally he doesn’t talk about it- he just does something to fix it.”

“He’s probably like this because he doesn’t have to worry about his brain melting if he loses his temper anymore,” Jiro panted, still feeling out of breath.

“Hey, about people’s ages-” Midoriya began, but he soon found his face being smothered by Pixie Bob’s left paw, her claws extended and ready to slash.

“Choose your words carefully,” she warned him.

“I’ve just been wondering…” he said in a muffled voice as he pointed behind the cat-woman. “Who’s that kid?” Everyone followed his finger to spot a little boy, who couldn’t have been any older than five years old.

“Oh, this little guy?” Mandalay said warmly as she turned to the child, who had a stoic face underneath his red, horned hat. “He’s my cousin’s kid, Kota.” To the boy, she added, “Say ‘hello’ to everyone- they’re going to be here for a week.”

“Hi,” Midoriya said as he moved toward Kota, extending hand in a polite greeting. “I’m Izuku Midoriya. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Kota just gave him a flat stare- right before delivering a straight punch to the older boy’s groin, causing him to double over in pain with an agonized groan. Before he could fall over completely, though, Kurai and Iida caught him up, both of them glaring at the little boy as he walked away from the injured Midoriya.

“What was that for?!” Kurai demanded. “He didn’t do anything to you!”

“Fiend of a child!” Iida added angrily. “A punch to the scrotum is unforgivable!”

Kota looked over his shoulder at the trio with an unbridled hatred before he spat out, “The last thing I’d ever want is to hang out with some wannabe heroes!”

Kurai blinked in surprise- he hadn’t thought that a child was capable of possessing so much rage, and he was not quite certain how to confront it. Iida, on the other hand, managed to reply with the words, “Wannabe?! How old are you, kid?!”

Off to the side, Bakugo was grinning at Kota as he retreated away from the stunned look of his aunt. “That kid’s got spunk,” he said with something like approval.

“Of course you’d approve,” Mina scowled at the blond boy. “Must be like looking in a mirror.”

“He’s like a mini version of you,” Todoroki added quietly, igniting the short fuse that was Bakugo’s temper.

“You wanna try that again, Raccoon Eyes?!” Bakugo shot back as he advanced on the other two students, who stared back at him unflinchingly. “Huh, Icy-Hot?! You better shut your mouths before I blast you to hell!”

“Uh-huh,” Mina said with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey, Bakugo!” Kurai snapped, drawing the attention of his volatile peer. “Touch her, and it’ll be you that gets a one-way ticket to the afterlife.”

“Aw man,” Yang grinned as she turned to her friends. “Who wants to bet on this? My money says Hikari stomps him.”

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Weiss replied with folded arms. “We all know that he beat Bakugo at the Sport’s Festival.”

“All right, that’s enough of that,” Aizawa called out before any blows could actually be traded. “Get your stuff off the bus, and then you can eat and bathe. Bear in mind that the real training starts tomorrow.”

“I hope they have cookies,” Ruby groaned as she rubbed her lean stomach while the beaten class began to head toward the school bus, which was parked right next to the main entrance to the building.

“For the last time, Sis, cookies are not a food group!” Yang scolded the younger girl.

“You don’t decide that!”

“No, science does that for everyone!”

“Lies! All lies!”

As soon as everyone had stashed their bags in the proper places and gotten their hands washed, the mess hall was filled with the sounds of hungry teenagers wolfing down every morsel of food that they could get. Even Yaoyorozu and Weiss, who normally prided themselves on excellent manners, broke down and ate as fast as they could, their slim bellies demanding that they be filled to capacity as soon as humanly possible, etiquette be damned.

“Wow,” Yang mumbled through a mouthful of food. “Didn’t think she had that in her.”

“I’m just worried that these cat ladies are gonna run out of fish before Blake is done eating,” Ruby giggled as she watched Blake tear through the filleted white meat that was offered to them.

“This stuff is as good as Lunch Rush’s food!” Kirishima declared. “Maybe even better!”

“Well, enjoy it, because today’s the only day that we’re making your dinner,” Pixie Bob told them as she passed out bowls filled with beef chunks that would pair well with the rice that most of the boys had snatched up.

“Yes, ma’am!” Sato said appreciatively.

While the meat was being passed around, Kurai- who was sitting between Todoroki and Mina, and across from the Xiao Long sisters, Uraraka, and Midoriya- chose then to ask, “Since we’re all gonna be working together for the foreseeable future, do you mind if we go over quirks?”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Midoriya nodded excitedly. Turning to Ruby, he said, “We saw your quirk in action today, but I don’t totally understand it- I’ve never seen anything like it before!”

“Oh, uh…” the girl said abashedly, so her sister decided to take over.

“She’s got a pretty sweet power, even if she’d never admit it,” Yang told them with a proud smile as she set down her chopsticks. “It’s called “Petal Burst’, and it lets her move at super speed if she keeps the petals that it generates clustered around her body. She can also completely split apart into the same stuff so that she can avoid taking damage.”

Hikari whistled, suitably impressed by the revelation. “That is an amazing power,” he told the younger girl, who reddened at the praise.

“Yeah, well, Yang’s no slouch, either,” she said quickly. “Her quirk, ‘Burn’, lets her strike back with twice as much force that gets dealt to her.”

“That, or I can store up the energy from whenever I get hit and let it all out in one monster punch,” Yang added with an evil grin.

“An absorption-and-release quirk,” Midoriya murmured, making a mental note to log the information in his journal at the first opportunity. “Does it make you impervious to attacks?”

“I wish,” the blond girl sighed. “My quirk is actually tied in to my hair- the longer and healthier it is, the more energy I can hold before releasing.”

“That’s kinda like how Fat Gum’s quirk works,” Midoriya said, almost to himself. “His works based on how much fat he had in his body at any given moment, but he can store up absorbed force for later use, too. Of course, he can hold onto it for long periods of time, as long as he…”

While the green-haired boy began to monologue to himself, Kurai turned to the sisters and said, “Yeah, he does this a lot. Give him a minute, he’ll come back.”

“Why’s he comparing me to a guy called ‘Fat Gum’?” Yang demanded as her eyes flared red again. “Is he trying to start something?!”

“No, he’s not, promise!” Uraraka said nervously, having seen what happened to some of the dirt monsters that the blond girl had come across. “Deku just has a habit of thinking out loud without realizing it.”

“Believe or not, Fat Gum is actually a pretty cool hero,” Mina interjected. “He’s also a looker, despite his name.”

“I have a hard time believing that,” Yang deadpanned, though her eyes went back to being purple.

“Here,” Kurai said as he pulled up a picture of the man on his phone, making sure to include a before-and-after of the man using his quirk’s maximum effect so that Yang would understand what his girlfriend meant.

“Oh,” she said as she looked at the picture. “Damn, he is a hunk.”

“On that note…” Kurai said as he looked askance at the pink girl. “Do I have competition?”

“Not much,” she answered with a teasing grin.

“Not much?!”

“Hey Xiao Long, what do Belladonna and Schnee’s quirks do?”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“I gotta say, I’m not normally one for public baths, but after today, this feels too good for me to complain,” Kurai sighed as he closed his eyes and leaned back in the steaming hot spring that they had given to use in order to relax their tired muscles. The boys and girls were separated by a thick wooden wall that offered nothing in the way of a peephole, somewhat to the chagrin of Kaminari, but the other boys didn’t pay it much heed.

“I hope that they let us do this every night,” Kirishima replied in a docile manner.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Iida told them. “At least, not for you, Kaminari and Sato. You all have extra lessons with Mister Aizawa for the rest of the week.”

“Aw man, why’d you have to remind us of that?” the sweets hero groaned.

“That’s on top of the fact that Aizawa said that the training would get even more intense tomorrow,” Kaminari muttered as he sank further into the water.

“Way to rub salt in the wound, Tenya,” Kurai said as he cracked one eye open to give his classmate a disapproving look.

“What?” the bespectacled boy asked. “They failed the exam, and now they have to face the consequences for their lack of preparation.”

“Let’s not fight, guys,” Midoriya said before Kurai could get another word in. “We should take the time to rest so that we’re ready for whatever the teachers throw at us.”

“We’re not fighting,” Kurai said as he closed his eye again. “We’re having a difference in opinion like civilized people. We can still manage that, eh?”

“Certainly,” Iida replied with a sharp nod. “Despite our differences, Kurai and I have both matured enough to act like responsible individuals.”

“Ugh, kiss and make up already,” Bakugo gagged.

“Shut up, Bakugo,” Kurai muttered, too tired and relaxed to come up with a better retort.

On the other side of the wall, Yang Xiao Long was up to no good, much to the worry of her sister and teammates.

“Yang, what are you doing?” Ruby asked as the older girl finished wrapping up in her towel.

“Shh!” the blond said fiercely as she headed for a tree in the corner between the fence and the building. “You’re gonna blow my cover.”

Blake and Weiss exchanged a look before the white-haired girl asked, “She’s not going to…”

“Yeah, she is,” Blake answered with a roll of her eyes.

“Yang, get down!” Ashido whisper-shouted as the other girl began to scale the low branches of the tree.

“Why?” she replied with a mischievous smirk as she looked back at the other girls, most of them only looking up at her with open-mouthed shock at what she was about to attempt. “You and Uraraka should be trying to get in on this action.”

“E-Excuse me?!” the gravity girl sputtered. “Why would I-?!”

“C’mon, I’ve seen you checking out Midoriya more than a few times today,” Yang snickered as she clambered up a few more branches, causing the poor girl to nearly pass out from sheer embarrassment. “And I’m sure that Pinky’s wanted to get a good look at her boyfriend in the buff at some point before now. Come on, no one’s gonna get hurt from a little peek.”

“That’s what you think.” Mandalay’s voice coming from on top of the fence startled Yang enough that she lost her grip on one of the branches, just in time for one of the woman’s cat paws to knock into her head and send her back into the spring water with an angry yell. As she came up, coughing and gasping for air, Mandalay leaned over the top of the wall with a smirk of her own and said, “Nice try, kid, but you’re gonna have to be a lot more clever than that if you wanna sneak a peek at these guys on my watch.”

“Thank you, Miss Mandalay!” Iida’s voice called from the other side.

“No problem, boys,” she replied as her head disappeared back over the fence.

Chapter Text

Sweat poured out of Kurai’s body in rivulets as he ducked, sidestepped, and wove around the fists of his opponent, the power of his quirk just barely keeping him out of harm’s way. What is she made out of?! He thought as he cross-blocked Yang’s fist before using the same hand to deal a back-fist that connected solidly with her mouth.

Unlike all of the other hits that he had managed to land on her that morning, this one saw her recoiling with a bloody lip. This told the boy that her power had run its course for the time being, otherwise she would have unleashed the same force back at him, twofold.

“Ah, punk!” Yang spat, a globule of blood exiting her lips as she backed away. Kurai held his position, but he did not drop his guard as she wiped at her face with a grimace. Looking at him begrudgingly, she added, “That’s the signal that I’ve gone past the limits of my quirk. I need a breather.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I was pretty close to tapping out, myself,” he grunted as they sat in the dirt under a clear blue sky. “I think we’ve earned ourselves ten minutes on the ground.”

“You said it.”

They had been trading blows for three hours now, and it was only ten in the morning. Under the supervision of one of the other Pussycat heroes, a giant man named Tiger, they- along with Midoriya, and other strength-enhanced students from both first-year classes- were working to force their quirks to grow at an abnormally fast pace through brutal workouts. In fact, everyone from both classes had been given incredibly difficult- and often painful- tasks designed to enhance their powers, each of them being watched by one of the Pussycats, Aizawa, or Vlad King, class 1-B’s strict teacher.

The only other students that had been directly pitted against one another so far were Kirishima and Ojiro, as it had been determined that this would be the most effective way for them to both build up their quirk’s durability. Yang had been paired up with Kurai due to his raw, overwhelming power, and her ability to not only withstand such strength, but to deal it right back. He had not been using his energon blasts, having wanted to focus on keeping the energy flowing through his body for longer periods of time, now that he no longer had to worry about triggering an aneurism from overuse of his powers, though he knew that he would be made to work on his control of the energy output in the afternoon.

“I gotta say, Hikari,” Yang panted as she tossed him a water bottle (Aizawa had allotted each student a single bottle to drink per hour), which he nearly missed because of how shaky his hands were. “You didn’t strike me as the sturdy type.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” he asked before sipping at the fresh liquid. He had initially been on the end of receiving some pretty harsh blows himself, as Kurai was still more or less susceptible to distractions that girls like Yang tended to take advantage of. However, he had been quick to learn, and within thirty minutes of them sparring against each other, Yang was finding herself on the defensive just as often as her opponent.

“Sure, hot stuff,” she grinned, causing him to flush a deeper red than the heat of the day had already left him. Seeing his reaction to her teasing, she added, “Jeez, how’d a shy guy like you manage to score a girl like Ashido? Or was it the other way around?”

“Other way around,” he admitted before taking another drink. “I don’t totally get it, myself, but I guess opposites attract, right? That, and we’ve been through a lot together.”

“Oh yeah?” Yang sighed before taking a sip of water and then spitting out a mixture of it and the blood in her mouth. “I heard that you guys got caught up in a terrorist attack during your first month at U.A. And wasn’t there something that happened on I-island last week?”

“Yeah,” Kurai nodded, his eyes going dull as he remembered the events of that fateful night. Has it really only been a week since then?

“Dude, you okay?” Yang asked her sparring partner, jostling him by the shoulder to snap him back to the present. “Quit spacing out.”

“Sorry, that incident is still kind of… fresh for me,” Kurai said as he quaffed more of his water.

“Hey, believe it or not, my friends and I can relate to that,” Yang told him, startling the boy a little. “No joke, Austin was attacked by this crime syndicate called the ‘White Fang’ a little while after the USJ incident. They started out as an equal-rights movement for people that don’t have quirks, and when their peaceful protests didn’t have the desired effect, they got violent.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Kurai said sympathetically. “How’d your sister handle the whole thing?”

“Ruby Rose wouldn’t know how to stay down, even if she had both of her legs cut out from under her,” Yang laughed. “She probably handled that whole mess better than the rest of us did. I know that she’ll be a great hero someday.”

“Is that her hero name?” Kurai asked.

“What?”

“Ruby Rose,” he repeated. “It’s a good one- alliterative, easy to remember, rolls off the tongue.”

“Actually, her hero name is ‘Crescent Rose’,” Yang explained. “Rose is her actual last name.”

“Wait, you’re- Er, that is to say…?” Kurai stopped himself, unsure if he was being rude in his assumptions.

“We have different moms,” Yang shrugged nonchalantly. “She kept her mom’s name, I kept our dad’s. It’s no big deal- we’re used to it, and we couldn’t be closer even if we were fully related.”

“You’re certainly… forthcoming,” Kurai said uncertainly. “Do you always talk about your family situation this easily?”

“No, but I’m not shy, either,” she grinned. “Besides, we’re all gonna be classmates for at least a semester- I’m all for trying to be friends with you guys, and that means talking about this kind of thing, right?”

“I guess?” Kurai shrugged. “I’m not exactly an authority on social interactions… But in the interest of getting to know you guys a little better- preferably with subject material that’s less sensitive- what’s your hero name?”

“Way to be subtle,” Yang chuckled as she set down her water bottle, now empty. “But I like being straightforward, myself. My hero name is ‘Firecracker’.”

“Really?” Kurai asked as he swallowed some more water. When she gave him a pointed look, he held up his free hand and said, “Hey, it’s a good name. I just thought that there would somehow be a pun involved.”

“Well, I’m usually able to punch people pretty hard, so I originally wanted to call myself ‘Go Long’, cos-”

“Your name, yeah, I get it,” Kurai said with a roll of his eyes. “Nice.”

“I got vetoed by the rest of my team,” she grumbled as she rubbed at a sore spot in her shoulder.

“Well, Firecracker is definitely a way to get people’s attention,” Kurai grinned as he made to finish his own water. “Now I’m just curious about how you picked that name?”

“Well, truth be told, it’s an old nickname,” Yang admitted. “My uncle’s been calling me that since I was little, and he taught me and Ruby a lot about fighting, so… Yeah.”

“That’s cool that you’d pay homage to him that way,” Kurai commented with an approving nod.

Yang rolled her eyes before she asked, “So, what name are people gonna be calling when you’re patrolling the streets?”

For once, he managed to easily return a smile and say with confidence, “My hero name is ‘Kai’, like the guardians of old.”

“Hikari, Xiao Long,” Aizawa said dryly as he walked by without looking at them. “If you can talk, you can keep fighting. Get to it, before I put you in with the other exam failures for extra classes tonight.”

Once he was out of earshot, Kurai muttered, “Much as I like spending extra time with Mina, that is one date I’d be happy to skip.”

“Hey, Ashido!” Yang called over to where Mina and Jiro were training. “Your boyfriend says-!”

“Rasengan!”

“Sir?” Midoriya said tiredly, not sure that he had heard Mister Aizawa correctly.

“You’re training with Belladonna until lunchtime,” the man said with irritation. “Ask me to repeat myself a third time, and there won’t be a lunch break for you.”

“Yes sir!” Midoriya yelped. “Sorry sir!”

Aizawa turned to go before he paused and said over his shoulder, “You’re good at taking in what’s around you, but you’re too slow to apply it in combat for all that knowledge to be practical just yet. Miss Belladonna’s quirk should be uniquely suited for helping you to adapt rapidly in a fight.”

“Why, what’s her quirk?” he asked as he staggered after the teacher, his abused muscles complaining mightily as he did. Despite his attempts to ask about it at dinner the previous evening, Blake’s power was the only one that he hadn’t been able to learn about from her classmates due to various interruptions, and the girl herself had seemed pretty unapproachable.

“You’re smart, figure it out,” Aizawa replied as he stopped in front of the trees, his haggard eyes searching the branches for something, Midoriya could not tell what. “Miss Belladonna, I’ll ask that you come down before I have to use my quirk to find you.”

There was a whisper of movement, and suddenly Blake was standing in front of the two of them, startling Midoriya enough to elicit a yelp out of him. Raising an eyebrow at him, Blake turned to Aizawa and asked, “How can I help you, sir?”

“Midoriya needs to shape up in how he uses his quirk to fight,” the teacher answered bluntly. “See if you can show him a thing or two.”

“How would I go about doing that, sir?” she asked, looking a little nonplussed by the whole idea.

“Start by beating him up,” Aizawa replied as he walked away from the unlikely pair. “Don’t get cocky while you do, though. He’s quick to adapt.”

Once he was gone, Midoriya scratched his head and turned back to look at Blake, who was still wearing a passive face. “So… how should we start training?” he asked awkwardly.

“Let me know when you’re ready to begin, and we can start fighting,” the girl answered, her golden eyes looking at him unblinkingly, studying him with a meticulous precision that was a little unnerving for Midoriya. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Okay, then,” he said as he took up a fighting stance that Hikari had shown him, his body lighting up with green energy as he prepared a Detroit Smash. “I’m ready!” Two seconds later, he was on the ground with a bruise forming on his stomach, gasping for air. “What…?” he wheezed. I never even saw her move! He thought as he looked up at Blake, who had a slightly bemused expression on her face as she reached out a hand to help him up. One second she had been standing in front of him, seemingly without a care in the world, and the next, he had been painfully blindsided.

“You’re advertising your attacks too much,” the black-haired girl said as he accepted her help up. “You need to let your body move without thinking about it.”

“Funny you should say that…” he laughed weakly as he thought back to the day when All Might had told him that he would be named as his successor.

“What?”

“Nothing, I was just thinking out loud,” Midoriya answered. “I’m confused, though. How am I advertising my attack before I’ve even started?”

“The way you were drawing your fist back made it pretty obvious,” Blake said blandly as Iida and Ruby raced by, rose petals mixing with the dust cloud that they were kicking up. “When you fight, you need to be moving your whole body the whole time. Keep your opponent guessing as much as possible, and don’t rely on your quirk to do all the fighting. It’s as much in the mind as anything else.”

“How do you know so much more about fighting than us?” he then asked as she took a few steps away from him. “We’re both first-years.”

“All the members of Team RWBY have earned their American provisional licenses,” Blake answered. “We need to earn our Japanese licenses if we want to do hero work while we’re here, but we’ve already been through some pretty brutal training. It’s pretty much the only reason that Mister Aizawa took our applications.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Midoriya muttered. Squaring his shoulders, he let the power of One For All flow through him again as he settled into his fighting stance and said, “Let’s do this. I’m gonna surpass you and your friends, just you watch.”

“It’s good to have a goal,” Blake said with the hint of a smile as she assumed a ready stance. “But it’s not gonna be achieved just because you say it will.”

“Okay, let’s see if I’ve still got it,” Kurai muttered as he stood atop one of the small mountains constructed by Pixie Bob’s Earthflow quirk. He could see Sero and Koda working to enhance their own powers in their own ways on top of similar constructs, both of them looking about as tired as he felt.

Pushing them out of his mind and ignoring the burning in his muscles, he brought his hands to his side and willed his power to pool between them, quickly generating a ball of energon that rapidly grew in response to his command. Here we go…

“Kamehameha!” His shout preceded a yellow laser that flew up into the stratosphere, piercing the clouds, and continuing on up into the heavens. He held the beam for as long as he could, only stopping when his bruised arms would no longer support their own weight. It wasn’t as long as he would have liked, but on the plus side, he didn’t feel any pressure building in his head, mental or physical.

Good, but let’s see if we can do it again.

Resolved to go beyond, he conjured a dozen Kamehameha’s in the next ten minutes, each one lasting less time than the last, but only because Kurai’s quirk was genuinely being worn down. This was a first for him, as he had struggled for most of his life to keep his powers repressed so that he didn’t hurt others, or accidentally kill himself from overuse. As such, he had never really hit the physical limits of his body, only that of his frontal cortex.

The previous day, he had avoided trying to unleash monster blasts, as he did not want to destroy the forest too much, so he had remained uncertain about releasing so much power at once. Now though, he was finally certain in his brother’s handiwork in re-engineering the physical applications of his quirk. He was truly free from the curse that had plagued him since childhood.

Now that I know that my body can take me putting out as much power as I can, I’d better start on those other possibilities that he told me about…

Akarui had explained to him in an email that despite the fact that he would be able to use his powers without fear of death coming for him, there was a cost for such an exchange. Kurai’s quirk could still be triggered by rage if he so chose, but it would no longer unlock the full potential of his quirk for him. If he wanted to ascend to greater heights, he would have to take a new path to attain it.

Sitting down in a meditative pose, he ignored the protests of his legs and closed his eyes. It had been a long time since he’d given himself time to meditate properly- probably since he started school, now that he thought about it. He had once insisted on making himself do it three times a week for an hour each time, as to better keep a hold of his emotions and powers. With all the new workloads, new friends, villain attacks, and spending time with his girlfriend, it had simply fallen out of his habits.

Looks like I’m going to have to make time to get back in the habit, he thought as he began to tune out all the noise that was attempting to distract him from his task at hand. Bakugo’s explosions and curses, Iida’s engines, Koda’s Anivoice, the various groans of distress coming up from the majority of the students in the camp- he sifted through each sound and forced it to mean nothing to him.

When he had finally succeeded, he reached for his power and thought, Now, what to focus on…?

Weiss collapsed onto her seat as the dozen or so glyphs of varying color and size around her vanished from existence. She was working to increase not only the number of hexes that she could produce, but also sustaining the different types that she had been able to master thus far. It was hot, unpleasant work, and she hated it.

I thought that this place was supposed to be for honing our technical skills, not bulldozing our way to victory through raw strength, she thought as she wiped at her brow with a small measure of disgust as soon as she saw the heavy sweat line on her hand. Pulling at the fabric of her P.E. uniform, she added, These clothes are so stifling, especially in this heat. I wish we could practice with our hero costumes.

She grimaced as a blast of heat assaulted her from the right, followed by a more pleasant chill that reminded her of evenings back at home, spent with her sister, Winter. I hope she was right, that this would be a good experience for me, she thought despondently as another heat blast erupted from her right. Maybe she’ll have a few minutes to talk once we get back to Musutafu.

Wiping some strands of hair out of her face, she welcomed another chill as Todoroki strained to keep alternating the temperature of the water in the rain barrel water that he was sitting in. I think Winter would like him, she thought as she forced herself to her feet. He’s strong, determined, with excellent grades… If only there were more students like him and me.

When at long last, six o’ clock rolled in, the students were released from their physical labors and called in to a spot on the western side of the building, where they were presented with a new challenge.

“Remember what I said?” Pixie Bob reminded them as she and the fourth member of the Cats- a woman with green hair called Ragdoll- stood in front of several tables backed with fire stoves. “We’re not serving your food anymore!”

“You wanna eat, you gotta work for it!” Ragdoll said excitedly. When all the student body did was groan collectively, she laughed gleefully at them and added, “Aw man, you guys should see your faces! You look totally wiped! But don’t think that you can coast by making sloppy cat food!”

Alone among the forty-odd students, Iida perked up and said, “Ah, yes, of course! As tired as we are, it’s the perfect time to cultivate our culinary skills! After all, should we find the opportunity to rescue people physically, we should also be ready to care for their spiritual needs!” Turning to the other students, he called out, “Let’s make the most delicious curry in the world, everyone!”

“…Okay.”

“Hey sweetie, can you get me some wood for the fire?” Mina asked as she noticed her boyfriend staring blankly at his hand. “Kurai?”

“Hmm?” he asked slowly as he dropped his hand and turned toward her, a befuddled look on his face. “Sorry, what’s that?”

“You know where the firewood is?” she asked him with a light grin. “We’re gonna need it to get the meat cooking.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” he said uncertainly as he turned around and began to walk toward the side of the building. “Just gimme a minute.”

“Kay, no rush,” she giggled. That is, until she noticed something odd in his behavior.

At first she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was off, but as she watched him get further away from her, she noticed that he was consistently keeping a hand on whichever table was next to him, though he wasn’t leaning on it. Now, what was really strange was the fact that once he passed the last table, his gait slowed down considerably, and while he was still heading in the right direction, he seemed to be unable to walk in a straight line to get there.

I know he got enough sleep last night, she thought quickly. He took his medicine, and Midoriya said that he slept like a log the whole night, as far as they all know. So what’s he doing?

Her smile gone, she nudged Uraraka and pointed with her chin to ask, “Does he look right to you?”

Her friend watched him reach the wall- which he nearly walked into- and then stooped down in order to unsteadily gather a small pile of wood into his arms. Letting out a small gasp, she then whispered, “Ashido, I don’t think he can see.”

“Crap, I was hoping that it was just me,” the pink girl said as she paled to a sickly taffy color. “Help me get him when you can, but have Yaomomo cover our fire, first.”

“Sure,” Uraraka nodded. “Go on ahead.”

With that, Mina walked just fast enough so that it didn’t look like she was in a rush, catching her boyfriend by the arm, and startling him almost enough to drop the wood he was carrying. “Mina?” he gasped. “Jeez, don’t scare me like that.”

“Dude, it’s way light out,” she said as she started taking the wood off of his hands. “I’m the one that should be getting worked up, since my boyfriend suddenly can’t see! Also, he didn’t say anything about it!” At the last part, she fairly yanked the rest of the wood out of his grip, causing him to stumble and fall to his knees for a second.

She felt shame wash over her as he struggled back to his feet, but fortunately, no one had noticed their little argument just yet. “I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “That was mean.”

“My fault for making you worry,” he said with a slightly crooked grin as he looked just to her left after straightening himself up. “I know my quirk has been a big concern for you lately, but I promise it’s not as bad as you think it is.”

“How is you losing your sight not a bad thing?!” she hissed, though she was quieter about it this time. “Dude, I’m gonna start having gray hair before my mom on account of you! What’re we gonna tell the teachers?!”

“It’s not lost,” he said with a placating gesture. “And while I didn’t know that it would be this bad, I do know that it’s not permanent. I couldn’t see anything at all when we were first called in, but now I can see most of the colors and vague shapes around me. Honestly, the headache is what’s really throwing me off.”

“Hikari?” Uraraka asked as she approached, causing Kurai to look in between her and Mina, his eyes narrowed as he desperately tried to make out the details of her appearance. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just gonna save myself some time and tell you both what I was gonna tell Mina,” he said tiredly. “The long and short of it is that while overusing my quirk doesn’t put my life in danger, something else had to take the hit in my body. You can’t have a quirk as powerful as mine without there being some serious potential recoil, according to Akarui. In this particular case, the ‘something else’ was my eyesight.”

“So… overusing your quirk makes you blind, now?” Mina asked him incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense! Your eyes have nothing to do with your quirk!”

“They do with the new technique I’m working on,” he shrugged, surprising his classmates. “It was all in that email that my brother sent right before we left yesterday. Remember that?” When the girls assured him that they remembered, he continued, “When I use my quirk in its base format, I’m definitely stronger than I used to be, no doubt about that. However, I’m still not as strong as I was when I fought that villain alongside Midoriya and All Might, nor will I ever be again- at least, not in that way.”

“What does that mean?” Uraraka asked, still feeling supremely confused.

“When my brother rewrote the neural pathways in my body to alter the way that it handles my power, one of the changes that occurred happens to be the part of my brain that triggers the ascension power,” he explained. “Now that trigger is apparently tied into the chakra points in my body. He told me to focus on my ‘Ajna’ chakra while trying to channel my quirk, and the best way for me to do that was to keep my eyes shut while I did.”

“So… you can power up, but only by closing your eyes?” Mina asked. “This is still not making sense.”

“Honestly, I’m with you,” Hikari grinned slightly. “If it weren’t for the fact that he sacrificed his ability to be autonomous to change my powers, I would have thought that he was talking out of his ass. But since he knows more about what happened to my quirk than I do, I figured it would be better if I follow his instructions. So, with this new method, I deprive myself of my eyes in exchange for another sense that takes its place, one that even surpasses my normal optical input. Focusing my Energon through the Ajna while my eyes are completely inoperative- for lack of a better word- and projecting it out around me in constant waves, I can more or less echolocate my surroundings. I can see people, the ground, the animals, the plants, everything, in every direction, all at once.”

“Wow, that sounds like it’s be hard to keep track of,” Uraraka said, sounding impressed.

“It really is,” Kurai laughed a little dryly. “That’s why I’ve got a killer migraine. My head isn’t used to taking in so much data at once, and in a new format, no less.

“As for my eyes, they’re … adjusting, I guess? I mean, I completely ignore them in exchange for a superior sixth sense, so I guess my body has to readjust to the normal input of information. Akarui said that something like that might happen.”

“Might?”

“Hey, I’m okay,” Kurai assured Mina as he looked right at her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “My eyes aren’t damaged. They’re just waking up, I promise. I just need to get a better handle on this new ability so I can get good enough to fight with it, and hopefully reduce the recoil effects of the power.” Adding a crooked grin, he then said, “I’ll take this over brain surgery any day. Trust me, I owe my brother big time for working this out the way that he did.”

“Just… stop scaring me, okay?” Mina urged him. “I worry about you.”

Kurai raised his eyebrows and replied, “I wish I could promise that, but we’re training to be heroes, remember? I can’t promise not to scare you any more than you can swear not to worry me. But I can promise to let you know before I start experimenting with new powers. Does that work?”

“Only because you’re so cute,” she agreed reluctantly. “Uraraka, mind getting this idiot over to a bench? I’ll ask the Pussycats if they have any painkillers.”

“Yeah, no sweat,” she said as Mina walked away with the firewood. While she guided their friend to a nearby bench, she asked, “How were you able to make it back to camp without anyone knowing that you couldn’t see? I mean, nobody’s said anything.”

“I had to slide down the hill that Pixie Bob made for me, since there was no way I could walk it,” Kurai grinned. “I just listened for the direction that all the voices were heading toward, and aimed for that. Once I got to ground level, I could kind of make out our classmates because of the blue uniforms, so I just followed everyone else.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Uraraka inquired as they reached one of the benches, and helped him to sit down.

“Honestly, I thought I could hide it well enough that no one would notice until I got back to normal,” he answered wryly. “Now Mister Aizawa is probably gonna put me in the extra lessons with the others.”

“And why would that be?” a familiar voice asked from behind Uraraka, causing both students to stiffen in place. “You have something you wanna tell me, Hikari?” When the students were both silent, Aizawa added, “Maybe it’s something you’d prefer to be discussed in private?” The way he said it made Kurai feel as though he wouldn’t have much of a choice if he tested his teacher’s patience any further.

“My eyesight has been temporarily crippled, sir,” Kurai admitted. “I was trying something new with my quirk to enhance my abilities, and I discovered an unfortunate side effect.”

“…I’m going to need to get a urine sample from you, Hikari,” Aizawa said after an awkward stretch of silence.

“Excuse me?”

“As the son of a police officer, I’m sure you understand how drug tests work,” the teacher replied flatly.

Suddenly, Kurai regretted the way that he had phrased what had happened. “Okay, bad choice of words,” he said with a rueful grin. “Trust me when I say that you’ve got the wrong idea. All I meant was that I was testing out my quirk’s practical application in a way that I haven’t before. The only drugs I’d have in my system is the stuff that Recovery Girl prescribed to me, and those don’t cause optical failure.”

“Neither does your quirk, according to the citizen’s registry,” Aizawa muttered. “I’d like to believe you, but I’m afraid I can’t just take your word for it.”

“Mister Aizawa, Hikari would never-!”

“Stay out of it, Uraraka,” Aizawa said sternly, instantly quieting the girl. “Like I said, I want to believe him. If he’s really done nothing wrong, then he should have no problem complying with the test. I have a kit in my room, so we can get this over with quickly. Hikari, if you’ll follow me.”

“Yes sir,” the boy grumbled, resigned to what would be an uncomfortable test. Still, he knew better than to argue with the pessimistic instructor.

“Oh, something else,” Aizawa added as Kurai began to follow him unsteadily. “If you really are clean, then I’m gonna need an explanation for why your quirk would suddenly change itself. If I think that you’re lying, or hiding the truth in any way, you’ll be expelled from U.A. immediately.”

Aw, crap baskets.

It wasn’t until dinner was well under way that Kurai returned to the outdoor grill area, looking disgruntled in the extreme. He made his way over to where Mina was sitting with some of their other friends, and took his spot next to her.

“Hey, Ochaco told me what happened,” she said worriedly as he began to dig into the curry that they made. “Did everything work out okay?”

“You could say that,” he said through a mouthful of food. After he had washed it down with some water, he added, “I passed the drug test, naturally, but that meant that I had to tell him about what Akarui did to fix my quirk.”

“You what?!” Mina coughed, nearly choking on her own meal. Around them, Uraraka, Iida, and even Todoroki looked alarmed at the news.

“He was not happy, to say the least,” Kurai sighed. “But given that it happened outside of his jurisdiction, he says that he’s not in a position to punish me for it. He also said that he thinks that my brother’s condition is punishment enough.”

“That’s rather harsh, even for him,” Iida said with a slight frown.

“So… that’s it?” Uraraka asked hopefully. “He didn’t expel you?”

“No, but he did warn me that I’ll be on eggshells for as long as I’m his student,” he grumbled. “I thought that was already the case.”

“I’m just glad you’re not going anywhere,” Mina said in relief.

“Yeah, I know Deku would be pretty upset if you had to leave, and so would I,” Uraraka added.

“Speaking of, where is he?” Kurai asked as he looked around, failing to notice the mess of green hair that marked his friend’s presence. “My eyes are fine now, but I still don’t see him.”

“He said that there was something that he needed to look into,” Iida answered. “He’s only been gone about ten minutes.”

“Well, his loss,” Kurai shrugged. “I’ma eat his curry if he doesn’t come back in time.”

“Kurai!”

“What?! I’m hungry!”

“Yang, have you seen Ruby?” Weiss asked as she looked around for the fourth member of their team. “She was supposed to help me with my winter costume design.”

“Pretty sure she found something more fun to do,” Yang snickered. “Turns out my little sister has more game than I thought she did.”

Blake and Weiss exchanged a puzzled look before the white-haired girl asked, “I’m sorry… what?”

“I saw her and that Midoriya guy sneaking off that way about ten minutes ago,” Yang said as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. She seemed to be indicating a path that led deep into the woods, which began just to the side of the grills.

This alarmed both of the other girls, enough so that Blake asked, “Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“I swear she gets more reckless every day!” Weiss hissed.

“Oh, come on,” Yang said easily. “They’re both giant dorks, so I doubt that they’d actually be up to anything- not to mention that I’d break his legs if he tried. They’re probably just geeking out about quirks and costumes, wherever they are.”

“Midoriya did seem pretty shy,” Blake admitted. “Still, I can’t believe you’re being so calm about this.”

“Pfft, I’m always calm.”

“Junior’s nightclub begs to differ.”

“Shut up, Weiss!”

“Look at all of them, so carefree,” a young man with hideous burn scars said as he looked down at the glowing camp site from atop a cliff. “So self-assured in their cradle of fame and fortune that they believe themselves safe, simply because they will it.”

“But we’ll change that, won’t we, Dabi?” asked a young woman in a red dress that stood beside him. Golden firelight gleamed in her right eye, the one good eye that she had left as she watched the peaceful forest alongside the burned man. “We’ll eat away at their sense of comfort until there’s nothing left but the harsh, cold reality of their powerlessness.”

“Ugh, just let me loose already!” growled a towering, beefy man.

“Must… eat soon…” added a ghoulish, mummified figure, whose only visible features were his razor-sharp teeth. “Need… meat! Raw, hot… flesh!”

“All of you, calm down,” Dabi ordered them. “We don’t move until Kurogiri gives us the signal. If we don’t do this carefully, like when they failed to properly prepare for the USJ attack, our mission will be over before it really begins.”

“Meh, as I long as I get to see some blood, I’m happy to wait,” said a girl in school uniform as she twirled a couple of surgical knives between her fingers. “But only for a little bit.”

“I’m bored, lemme go at ‘em!” shouted a man dressed in a black-and-gray bodysuit. “Patience is a part of the job,” he added calmly.

“Please tell me that we won’t have to wait much longer,” the woman in red said with lowered tones to Dabi. “I can hardly think straight with all these nutcases trying to find excuses to run off on their own.”

“Tomorrow, Cinder,” Dabi answered as his blue eyes glittered maliciously. “Tomorrow will mark the end of society’s trust in the so-called heroes of today.”

Chapter Text

The sun was high overhead, and once again, the hero course students of UA were training their bodies harder than they had once thought possible. Kurai had spent his morning trading blows with Yang once again, and now he stood atop the hill that Pixie Bob had set aside for him, deep in meditation.

It was nothing less than difficult to keep his entire focus on the sensation of pushing his energy outward in every direction without actually blasting something, not to mention adapting his other senses to understand what his quirk was telling him in the absence of his eyes. Moving just made it that much harder to keep the outflow of energy going, but he knew that he was going to have to start trying soon, or else there was no point to learning such a technique if it would paralyze as much as blind him.

To that end, Kurai began to practice his basic forms, the core of his fighting maneuvers that had been drilled into him by his instructor since he was four years old. The patterns were like second nature to him after so long, and with a limited space to move around in, it was the best way for him to get used to using the new technique to ‘see’ whilst in motion.

He moved slowly at first, focusing on practicing techniques that would hypothetically involve his opponent rushing at him, which would only require small, precise movements from him at just the right moment. He knew that- for the time being, at least- it would not be possible for him to perform more complex moves without breaking his concentration. Gotta focus on what I can do, for now, he thought as he jerked his head to the side in order to avoid an imaginary enemy fist, followed by lightning-fast punch to his ‘opponents’ kidney.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, and he was getting somewhat comfortable with moving in short bursts, he tried to charge up a Kamehameha, but found that he was not able to do so. The hell? He thought with a frown as he stood up straight, his legs trembling with exhaustion. Why can’t I make it? No matter how hard he tried, he could only conjure a small bolt of energy between his palms, nothing like the powerful laser inspired by anime heroes of old.

He wasn’t out of energy, not by a long shot, even if his body was exhausted from the intense workouts over the last couple of days. He just couldn’t seem to get the energon to condense into the form that he wanted, no matter how much power he exuded. This is weird, he thought with traces of worry. I wasn’t having this problem yesterday… Okay, before you panic and call your bedridden brother, think, Kurai. What’s keeping you from letting loose?

He forced his body to relax as best as he could for a few moments, keeping his breathing deep and even as he mentally checked off various factors that could have been impeding his abilities. Still have plenty of energy in my body, so that’s not it, he began. Headache’s getting annoying, but not enough to throw me off… I’m not sick, and the sleep meds don’t have any negative effects on my quirk… I‘m putting out enough energy to power a Final Flash, but I can’t even- oh.

He ceased the constant, indiscriminate outflow of energon that was coming from his body and sat down, hard. Without his quirk to help keep him upright, his body was barely capable of supporting itself, but he needed to be sure of his theory. It was a most disconcerting feeling, being able to have a nearly omniscient view of one’s surroundings, followed by a sudden plunge into total darkness.

Fortunately, he did not have to wonder in the darkness for long. The moment that he summoned the energy to create a Rasengan in his right hand, the yellow orb materialized almost instantly, somewhat to his chagrin. Great, so I can see in every direction, but mega-lasers are a no-no, and until I get a handle on being able to move without using my eyes, I can’t really fight at close range, he thought as he allowed the energy to dissipate. He would have wondered if Akarui hadn’t pulled a giant prank on him, if not for the consequences involved. Of course there’s no easy path to power, he sighed quietly.

From what he could tell, he would be able to conjure no more than one or two bolts of energy at a time, hardly the firepower that he was used to packing. I don’t see this technique doing me much good in a head-to-head fight, he thought with another frown. Maybe if I were trying to feel out for an ambush? I’ll have to keep practicing, I suppose- Akarui wouldn’t have altered my quirk to take this turn unless he had a good reason. I just hope I can figure out what it is without having to ask him.

Resigning himself to another few hours of intense work and soreness, Kurai got to his feet and willed his quirk’s newest manifestation to activate once again.

Midoriya grunted with satisfaction as he finally landed a solid hit on Blake for the first time since he had been assigned as her punching bag the previous day. The raven-haired girl let out a gasp of surprise as she was sent sprawling in the dirt, though she was quick to get back on her feet. She’s got reflexes like a cat, the boy thought as he paused in his movements, breathing heavily. Add that to her quirk, and it’s no wonder that I couldn’t hit her.

It had taken him puzzling until that morning for him to figure out what her power was. Yesterday, every time that he tried to hit Blake, she had somehow not been where he last saw her, and was instead delivering a strike of her own to his side or back. After being duped a number of times, he managed to predict where she would actually be striking from, and was thus able to defend himself. However, he was still unable to figure out how to land an actual attack, as she kept the truth of her quirk a secret, despite his best attempts to ferret it out of her.

Over the course of their sparring matches, he realized that he had been operating on the assumption that she could only be in one place at a time- that she must be using speed like Ruby, or warping over short distances to confuse and outmaneuver him. It wasn’t until he managed to discard that preconceived notion that he began to have an idea of what her quirk did.

“How’d you figure it out?” Blake asked as she folded her arms and gazed at him with her unflinching golden eyes.

“I noticed that even if I attacked in the same second that you disappeared to show up behind me, you were still somehow one step ahead of my movements,” he answered as he lowered his guard, realizing that they were taking a break. “If you were just teleporting, I’d be able to keep up with my Full Cowling, but you were ahead of me every single time. The only way you could do that is if you were in two places at once.” Grinning slightly at her, he added, “You have a duplication quirk, right?”

“Yes and no,” she answered, her eyes glowing slightly in the shade of the trees for a brief second. Like mist gathering over a pond, a shadow appeared next to Blake, quickly gaining color and solidity until it was perfect replica of the girl herself.

Less than a second after that, the original girl dissolved into dark wisps, leaving the clone and a surprised-looking Midoriya under the trees. Seeing his intrigue, Blake smiled slightly and said, “I’m the real one. My quirk, ‘Shadow’, allows me to leave behind an afterimage when I activate it. Normally I’m moving when the clone is being left behind, so people don’t notice me doing it.”

“So I was always attacking your afterimage,” Midoriya murmured. “There was nothing for me to actually hit.”

“Exactly,” Blake nodded. “My quirk in its basest form doesn’t let me do much in the way of fighting. It’s a helpful distraction, but I can’t rely on it to win the battle for me the way that some people do. What’s worse for those people is that fighters like me can take advantage of their over-reliance on their powers.”

“People like me, you mean,” Midoriya said as he looked at his scarred hand. The marks on his fingers reminded him constantly that there was a severe risk to overusing his power, like he had when he fought against his classmates in the Sport’s Festival. However, now that he thought about it, there had been a time when he had planned to become a hero using only his wits, and nothing else.

That seems like it was a lifetime ago, now, he thought as he clenched his fist. I have all this knowledge from when I was quirkless in my head, and that’s good; but I guess I have a tendency to rely on one or the other- not both at the same time. He wondered if Mister Aizawa had noticed this, and had paired him up with Blake in order to try and get him to realize the same. Probably.

“Hey, Midoriya,” Kurai said as he attempted to hand his friend a pair of tongs that could be used for turning the beef chunks that they were grilling for stew. However, his aim was a little off, due to his eyes still recovering from his training earlier in the day, and he nearly poked the other student in the face.

“Yeah?” Izuku asked as he grabbed the tool right before it came into contact with his cheek. “Something on your mind?”

“Just wondering where you went yesterday during dinner,” Kurai answered as he let go. “I almost ate your stuff, you were gone so long.”

“Oh!” the green-haired boy replied as he set down his tools, having finished setting up the fireplace for the meat to cook. “I was, uh… you remember Kota?”

“The kid that punched you in the balls?” Kurai answered in a dry tone. “Kinda hard to forget someone that leaves a first impression like that.”

“Yeah…” Midoriya winced before reaching out and putting a steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder to keep him from tripping over a stray wood chunk.

“Thanks,” Kurai apologized.

“Don’t worry about it,” Midoriya answered. “But back to Kota… I noticed him leaving just as we were all getting started with our food last night. He was headed somewhere into the woods, so I decided to follow him and make sure that he would be okay on his own, but Rose wound up spotting me, and she ended tagging along when I explained what I was doing. She even brought some food for him, since it seemed like he was gonna miss out on dinner.”

Oh man, Uraraka is not gonna like that, Kurai thought, hoping that he was keeping his face neutral enough not to give away his concern. For some absurd reason, it felt harder to keep control of his facial features with his eyesight so impaired as it was.

Apparently he needn’t have worried, because Midoriya went on to say, “We found him at some kind of hideout on one of the smaller mountaintops. We tried to talk to him, see if we could start things over with a clean slate, but he seemed to hate us even more just for being there.”

“So he wasn’t just in a bad mood, or throwing a tantrum the first day?” Kurai muttered. What happened to make such a little kid so resentful? Does he have issues with sharing his family with strangers, or something?

“No, and I wish I knew why,” Midoriya sighed heavily.

“You ever have somebody tell you that you’ve got a pretty big savior complex, even for a guy trying to become a hero?” Kurai chuckled, surprising his friend.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just starting to notice that you go out of your way specifically to help people that don’t want it,” Kurai answered. Lifting one finger for each person that he named, he went on to say, “You saved Bakugo, who probably hates you more than more than he likes blowing things up. You helped Todoroki in the Sport’s Festival, and you went to rescue our class rep when he got in over his head, despite his wishes. You even tried to save David Shield, who by your own account, told you to get away and save yourself. And of course, we can’t forget that you saved All Might not once now, but twice, and he’s probably the last person that anyone would think would need saving.”

“I’m still wondering what you’re trying to get at…” Midoriya said slowly.

“I’m not gonna bother telling you to leave this kid alone,” Kurai began. “Just remember that there’s always the right time and place. Meddling where we don’t have to may be the essence of heroism, but we should still remember that there’s a time where we just need to step back and be patient. Sometimes it’s not even us that will need to do the saving- we just have to keep an eye on the person that needs saving while we wait for the person that can get the job done right.”

“Huh,” the other boy mused as he started to work with a lighter that he had borrowed from Yaoyorozu. “Who taught you that?”

“My dad,” Kurai answered. “He may not be a pro hero, but he’s definitely helped to save his fair share of all kinds of people. There’s been more than one case where he’s had to take stock of what’s going on before calling in the right hero agency for backup, so I imagine that he’s got experience with this kind of stuff.”

“Right, of course,” Midoriya grinned. “It’s cool that you’ve got a dad that you can look up to like you do.”

Kurai cocked his head at his friend’s silhouette, ready to ask him a question before he realized how insensitive it was, and quickly reversed his thoughts back toward the subject of his own father. “Yeah,” he said quickly. “I have a lot of good role models in my life to look up to, but my father is definitely at the top of my list of personal heroes.”

Before Midoriya could make another reply, Iida ran up to the two of them and shouted, “Your hands aren’t moving! We’re never gonna make the best stew in the world if you two just keep yammering on!”

“Dude, Midoriya has just been building a fire, and I can’t see,” Kurai said as he turned toward the sound of his old friend’s voice while holding up his empty hands. “I’m as likely to cut off my fingers as slice a potato if I’m let anywhere near the cooking tools, and I fell over trying to carry the wood earlier. What exactly am I supposed to do right now?”

“Ah, right,” Iida said, sounding apologetic. “Sorry, Kurai. I had forgotten about your quirk’s newest side effect.”

“Eh, I’ll figure something out,” he shrugged as he waved the matter aside, nearly slapping Midoriya in the process. “My eyesight should be back to normal by the time it’s dark out.”

“Good, then you can be in charge of cleaning the dishes after dinner!” Iida declared. “Until then, try not to distract our classmates from their jobs!” With that, he was gone to resume his work as a potato peeler.

“He’s lucky I can’t see where he went,” Kurai growled under his breath. “I’ve got half a mind to start dismantling those electric scooter parts that he calls legs.”

“Sounds like you two are back to normal,” Midoriya laughed, bringing a slight smile to his friend’s face.

“Not quite, but I don’t wanna punch him every time that I see him, either,” Kurai said quietly. “You could say that we’re friends again, but underneath it all, we’re still a bit mad at each other.”

“Why?” Midoriya groaned. “Are you still hung up on Hosu?”

“Not really,” Kurai answered with a negative shake of his head. “I think it’s more what we said to each other afterward that’s still got us feeling kinda sore about it. And honestly, I don’t know if we’ll ever have the same friendship that we did before.”

“Probably not,” Midoriya said after a quiet stretch. “But I hope that someday you’ll be even better friends than you were before.”

“Also unlikely,” Kurai snorted. Before his friend could berate him, however, he added, “But you’re not the only one that hopes so, Midoriya. You’re not the only one that hopes for a better future.”

Once dinner had been consumed, and all of the dishes had been cleaned, the Pussycats gathered the two classes together- minus the students that had extra lessons with Aizawa and Vlad- for what promised to be a more fun activity. Mina in particular was mad about being taken away, as she had wanted to pair up with Kurai for the nighttime event, but their teacher’s will was like steel, and she was led away along with Kirishima, Sato, and Kaminari.

Once they were gone, Pixie Bob, Mandalay, and Tiger explained the rules of the game that was about to take place. In a competition that would pit Class A against Class B, the second group would take up positions in a path that looped through the forest and back to the cabin, and use their quirks in whatever creative way that they could to scare their rivals from Class A. The goal for the first class was to reach Ragdoll in pairs at the halfway point on the path, where there would be a table with papers holding their names, and then return to the cabin with their names in hand. After the first round, the two classes would switch roles.

According to Tiger, the winners would be the classmates that could, ‘Make the most people piss their pants!’

The pairs would be decided at random by drawing numbered slips, and even Ruby and her friends were going to be in on the fun, much to the dismay of one Weiss Schnee.

“Too bad we’re not the ones scaring the others, first,” Midoriya said in an aside to Blake, who looked askance at him. Seeing this, he added, “Your quirk would be ideal for scaring people in the dark.”

“You know it, dude,” Yang grinned at him. “She moves like a ninja, too. I can’t wait for it to be our turn to scare the crap out of the other guys!”

“After going to the school haunted house that Akarui set up last year, I doubt that anything Class B throws at us is gonna get me,” Kurai said with a shudder that drew the attention of his friends. “Eugh…”

“What did your brother do?” Asui asked from next to Uraraka, who looked a little nervous already.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know,” Kurai replied as he drew a number out of Pixie Bob’s paw, wary of any sudden moves that the unpredictable heroine might try now that Aizawa was out of sight. Still not sure that I trust her…

“Now I really wanna know,” Yang said with a mischievous grin as he walked past her. “And I’ve got ways of making you talk, buster.”

“If those methods are as effective as your fighting style, then I think my secrets are safe,” Kurai snickered, causing Yang’s eyes to narrow as her smile changed to a more sinister one. Seeing this, he asked, “What? You think I’m gonna be frightened by that? I’ve seen scarier smiles from B-list anime villains.”

“Umm… Hikari?” Ruby said nervously as she poked his shoulder. “You should stop talking. Yang is super scary when she’s given a challenge.”

“On a scale of one to a grade schooler armed with a belt full of laughing gas grenades that he built himself out of scratch, how scary can she be?” he deadpanned.

“…What?”

“Exactly.”

Kurai wound up being paired with Blake for the ‘Test of Courage’, as it had been dubbed. They were set to go behind Jiro and Hagakure, while the unlikely pairing of Ruby and Uraraka would be sent in after them. The lead group was Shoji and Tokoyami, and each pairing would be sent in two-minute intervals. Last to go in would be Midoriya and Sero, and after they had completed the trial, the two classes would switch places.

As class B dispersed into the woods, Kurai took a long look at Uraraka’s moping expression before groaning inwardly and resigning himself to what he knew he should do. Walking quickly before his courage deserted him, he approached her and asked, “Hey, can we talk?”

“Uh…? Sure?” the rosy-cheeked girl said as they stepped away from the main group. Once they were relatively out of earshot, she asked, “What’s up? I guess it’s not a big secret that I’m kind of chicken when it comes to this stuff, but I’ll be okay, really.”

“No, this has nothing to do with the test,” he said with a negative motion of his hand. Glancing around once more to make sure that they had privacy, he sighed deeply before saying, “I’m not very good at this stuff, but you’re friends with Mina, and since she isn’t here for you right now, I figured that I should probably try to say something in her place.”

“Hikari, what are you talking about?” Uraraka asked him, looking more confused than ever. “What’s Mina got to do with this?”

“…Okay, you’re right, she shouldn’t have anything to do with this,” Kurai sighed heavily, adding even more confusion to the girl’s face. Seeing this, he quickly added, “I should say this as your friend, not on behalf of my girlfriend- I mean, we are friends, right?”

“Yeah, totally!” Uraraka said with a cheerful smile that seemed more in keeping with her usual self. “Sorry if that wasn’t clear before now!”

“It was, I’m just a socially inept moron,” Kurai chuckled, though he grew serious again, causing Uraraka’s face to sober up. “But there’s something that I’ve had on my mind for a while now, and I think it’s time that I give it voice, especially after seeing how you’ve acted around Midoriya the last few days.”

“Uh…?” Uraraka said blankly, her face reddening rapidly. “Wha-? Deku? What’s he-?”

“You look at him the same way that Mina looks at me when you think he isn’t looking,” Kurai said quietly. “I’m not very aware of other people, granted, but even I can pick up on a few things if I see it enough- which is saying something, considering that I haven’t been able to actually see for half the day.”

“No way!” Uraraka started to sputter, but Kurai placed a finger over his lips to indicate that he didn’t want raised voices making a scene. Seeing this, she continued in a lower tone, “That’s not it at all!”

“If that’s true, why does it bother you so much that Midoriya has been spending all that time training with Belladonna, or that he made friends with Rose so fast?” Kurai countered, causing her to redden further. “Why does your face always light up when he comes in the room, and why do you always get embarrassed when Mina teases you about him, instead of getting mad?”

“I… I, uh…”

“Mostly I just wanna know why you keep it hidden from him,” Kurai said as he folded his arms. “You’re torturing yourself needlessly over the guy.”

“…You don’t get it,” Uraraka said in a small voice. “I can’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t get it,” Kurai agreed with a nod. “That’s why I’m asking you to explain it to me.”

Uraraka lifted her reddened face to look at him straight on and say, “Even if… Even if what you’re saying is true, I couldn’t do anything about it. Deku is giving everything that he has into becoming a hero- he doesn’t have time for anything else. I can’t be the one to take him away from that. I won’t become the reason that he fails to reach his full potential as a hero.”

Kurai paused, impressed by the resolve in her voice, and the reasoning that she had laid out. She’s a lot more considerate of him than I gave her credit for, he thought guiltily. Here I was thinking that she was just too shy to say anything. However…

His mind flashed back to his conversation with All Might about what the future might hold for him and Izuku in regards to All For One, and the responsibility that he had asked them to bear, becoming the next Symbols of Peace for the world. I know I would learn to do it on my own, he thought with the ghost of a smile on his face. But even if she doesn’t know about it all… Just having Mina in my corner makes facing all of that so much easier. It makes challenging the darkness out there so much more worth it when you have someone in your heart worth fighting for.

“You’re a good friend, Uraraka,” he finally said out loud. “And whether or not you realize it, you’re Midoriya’s best friend in the world. You took a name that stung him every time that he’d ever heard it called, and made it into something that makes him smile. You made a name for him that will make so many people smile, when they hear that the hero ‘Deku’ has come to rescue them.” Giving the girl another smile, he added, “No one else will ever be able to give him that kind of gift, you know. And for the record, Mina and I are still giving it our all to become the best heroes that we can be, in spite of- and more importantly, because of- our relationship with each other. We push each other to be better.”

Standing up straight from the tree that he had been leaning against, he then shrugged and said, “I know that you two are very different from us, but I happen to think that’s a good thing. Just don’t keep lying to yourself about how you feel, okay? It won’t help either of you in the long run.”

“Wait, Hikari,” Uraraka said before he could go.

“Hmm?” he asked as he turned around, and was immediately surprised to see that she was bowing to him from her waist. “Whoa, what?”

“Thank you for looking out for me,” she said as she straightened up with a contented smile on her face. “And thanks for looking out for Deku, too. You’re a good friend.”

“Mina’s influence,” he half-joked.

“Speaking of her, how did you know?” she asked him, causing him to pause with a quizzical smile fixated on his face. “How did you know that being with her would make things better for you, instead of just hurtful and confusing?”

Kurai’s face sobered up as he finished turning back around to fully face his friend and answer, “I didn’t. I couldn’t have known. I kept trying to tell myself that it was a bad idea, even. But I guess… You can’t help your heart longing for a place to belong.”

To his surprise, Uraraka grinned more brightly at him and said, “Wow, Hikari. I had no idea you could speak so well!”

“Oh, er…” he stammered, his mind finally catching up with everything that he had just been saying. It set his face to a deep crimson red, causing him to slap himself and grumble under his breath, “Ach, you idiot! Why can’t you be like you were in middle school and mind your own damn business?! Now you sound like a tool!”

“No, Hikari,” Uraraka said, still sounding happy, which caused him to look at her from between his cracked fingers. “It took guts to say what you did. I’m glad that you spoke your mind, I really am. It’s helped clear up a few things for me.”

“It has?” he asked, stupefied. “I made sense?”

“Yeah-huh,” she nodded rapidly. “You’re right, Deku and I aren’t like you and Mina. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t support him in my own way; so that’s what I’m gonna do.” Putting a fist over her left breast, she added, “I know what’s in my heart, and what I need to do with it.”

“That is…?” he repeated slowly, unsure of what she was planning to do now.

“You’ll see,” she grinned at him. “By the way, I meant what I said. I think you’re a better person than you used to be because of Mina. I don’t think that the old you would have made peace with Iida like you did.”

“…Probably not,” Kurai admitted reluctantly. “Thanks for hearing me out, Uraraka.”

“Thanks again for talking,” she replied as they stepped away from the trees to go rejoin their classmates. “Now here’s to hoping I can get through this forest without passing out, huh?”

“Rely on Rose,” Kurai told her, causing the girl to glance sideways at him. “We all saw her in action on the first day, remember? She’ll keep you safe if you let her.”

“…Maybe,” Uraraka said reluctantly.

Probably as good as we’re gonna get for now, he thought with a wry grin.

“What were you guys talking about?” Midoriya asked as they came to a stop. “You were gone for a little while- three groups have already gone in.”

“Sorry about that,” Kurai began, but Uraraka quickly cut him off.

“It was my fault, really,” she said as she bowed toward Ruby, who was startled by the sudden formality. “Rose, I realize that I haven’t been the most hospitable toward you since you came here. I’m very sorry for that.”

“Oh, uh…” Ruby said as she scratched at the back of her head uncertainly. “That’s okay! No big…”

“It’s not okay,” Uraraka said as she straightened up to look their new classmate in the eyes. “I was being selfish because I wanted to keep the friends that I’ve made at UA to myself, but now I know that’s wrong. You and your teammates aren’t outsiders that I should be guarding against- you’re our new friends that I need to be good to.” Reaching out her hand towards a befuddled-looking Ruby, she added, “Can we start over, Rose? I promise to be a better sport from now on.”

“Oh, sure!” Ruby said as she accepted the handshake. The initial grip was a little awkward since Uraraka had to keep at least one of her finger pads from touching the other girl, or else she would start to float away, but after a couple of seconds, they managed to have a solid grasp on one another. “Here’s to new friends!”

“Hear hear!” Uraraka smiled back at the younger girl, new warmth in the expression. “Welcome to UA, Rose.”

“Glad to be here, Uraraka!”

Midoriya and Blake both turned to look at Kurai with questions on their faces, who shrugged and said, “You got me. I’m still not entirely sure of what I just said.”

“What did you say to her?”

“Hey look, Belladonna, it’s our turn to go up!” Kurai said as he grabbed his partner’s wrist and pulled her toward a beckoning Pixie Bob and Tiger, leaving behind a very puzzled Midoriya.

The air was heavy with potential as Dabi and the others crept into the trees, moving in pairs or as single units. All it’s gonna take is a spark to get this party started, he thought as his burnt skin twisted into the grotesque semblance of a smile while his fingers traced the damp bark of a tree as he walked past it.

“Is it time?” Cinder asked as her golden eye glowed like an ember in the dark.

Moonfish was practically drooling while Muscular popped his neck and donned his mask. Toga was giggling as she admired the razor-sharp properties of her new equipment. Twice was busy confusing Compress with multiple conversations, and Magne was speaking in lowered tones with Spinner, even as Mustard finished loading his revolver. All of them were itching to get some action, and Dabi knew that if he didn’t give the order soon, they’d probably start a scene on their own.

Then again, he knew exactly how they felt.

The tree that he had touched instantly burst into azure flames, annihilating the moisture that he had felt, and setting fire to several of its brothers in proximity. Now that we have the spark going, let’s burn this society to ash, he thought as he fixated his smile on Cinder, whose own face bore amusement.

“It’s time.”

Chapter Text

Ten Years Ago…

“Dad… Can I go inside now?” Kurai wheezed before coughing violently. “I’m dying out here.” He was covered in sweat that caused his clothes to cling to him uncomfortably in the summer heat, and he just wanted some lemonade in front of his favorite T.V. program.

“If you can cough that hard, you can take another swing at that ball,” his father said with an amused smile. “You would have been watching Dragon Ball five minutes ago if you had put in the practice that you swore you completed.”

“How did you know I was lying?” Kurai complained. “You always figure it out.”

“And yet, my son, you continue your attempts to deceive me,” the older Hogo-sha replied, still with that superior smile of his. “You would know how I saw through you if you looked a little harder at yourself as you are now- but that is a lesson for another time.”

“What lesson do I need to learn right now?” the boy whined. “I’m thirsty.”

“Hello, Thirsty, I’m Dad,” his father snickered, causing his son to groan louder. Moving closer, the man clapped his son on the shoulder and said, “You need to understand the importance of diligence, son. You will never be of any help to others like you say you will if you continue to be lazy.”

“I practiced my swings!” Kurai insisted.

“Not long enough to work up a sweat, which is what a real team player would do,” his father countered. “Son, you know that you have properly given enough effort to something, only when you are exhausted right down to your very bones.”

“I am tired.”

“Tired and exhausted are two different things, son,” Hogo-sha said patiently. “Tired is when you feel a bit sore, either in the body or mind, but are still capable of complaining about it, like you are now. Exhausted is what happens when you work yourself properly, to the point where you went even further than your body told you that you could, and still emerged successful in your endeavors. You wouldn’t have the energy to complain if you were exhausted.”

“What does ‘endeavor’ mean?” the little boy asked. “Isn’t he that fire hero?”

“He took his name from the word that I’m trying to teach you about,” his father answered. “It means when you work hard to finish something. Not every endeavor is successful, son, but every attempt is satisfactory when you work yourself as hard as you possibly can, and then some.” Giving his son a smile and another pat on the back, he added, “Son, when you think you’re done, always give it one more push, and if you really were done, that’s that. But don’t ever let yourself wonder if you could have made that final effort, when it seemed like your goal was just out of reach. Don’t ever allow hindsight to disappoint you. If you run out of endurance today, just borrow some from tomorrow.”

“…Dad, what does ‘hi-sight’ mean?” Kurai inquired, at which his father rolled his eyes to heaven.

“Finish these ten swings and then ask your brother.”

“I don’t wanna! He’s bossy!”

“You’re the older brother, boss him back!”

Present Day…

“So what were you and Uraraka talking about?”

Kurai cocked his head at Blake as they walked underneath the night sky in the woods, one eyebrow raised. “This and that,” he answered vaguely. “Why?”

“Whatever you said totally changed the way that she acted around Ruby,” the American girl answered. “Whatever it was that you did say… Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Ruby is always looking out for other people,” Blake answered. “She doesn’t look after herself well enough, if you ask me or Yang. To have someone else keeping an eye on her is a relief for her sister.”

“I wasn’t really-” Kurai suddenly cut himself off, holding out a hand to keep his partner from advancing any further.

“What are you doing?” Blake asked him as he started looking up at the night sky, his brow furrowed.

“You smell that?” he asked in a tense voice.

As soon as he spoke the words, Blake realized that there was a not-unfamiliar scent in the air, but it seemed out of place. It smelled like- “Is that smoke?” she asked, her eyes going wide as they detected an ominous blow glow coming from deep within the forest.

“If it is, I’m betting that light we’re seeing is the fire that’s making it,” Kurai said, his voice strained. “And I dunno about you, but I’ve never seen a natural fire turn blue.”

“Is it a villain?” Blake asked, all of her senses on high alert as she unconsciously moved to place her back against Kurai’s.

“I wanna say ‘hopefully not’, but my class’ unlucky streak demands that I answer otherwise,” Kurai groaned. “We need to get back to camp- there’s no telling how many there might be, or if it’s just the one person that’s doing this.”

“What about the people ahead of us?” Blake asked worriedly. “We should warn them about what we’ve seen. Look, we’re in a bend that starts us on the loop back to the cabin- we might be the only people on the path that have seen this.”

Kurai hesitated before he nodded and said, “Okay, but we’re not cleared to start a fight with anybody. Even if you have a provisional license, it’s not valid in Japan. We can only pass on what we’ve seen, and warn the others.”

“Then let’s get going,” she replied as they began to run down the path, heading deeper into the forest.

“How did this happen?!” Mandalay gaped as she gazed upon her wounded teammate at the mercy of a murderous villain that called himself Magne. The beefy criminal held Pixie Bob’s head underneath a large metal rod that was poised to crush her skull at the slightest provocation. He was accompanied by a lizard-man, who was armed with a massive sword that looked like it had been scrapped together from dozens of other weapons.

“We are the vanguard action squad of the League of Villains,” the scaly man said with a proud smile. “I’m Spinner, and I’m here to see that Stain’s will is carried out!”

Iida made a noise of disgust as he said, “So these are the kind of people that he ended up inspiring.”

“The training camp was a secret- most of the teachers didn’t even know where it was!” Izuku said in a trembling voice as Tiger stepped between them and the villains. “How’d the League find us?!”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Mandalay told him. “Everyone needs to know what’s happening, and you kids need to get somewhere safe!” A frown creased her features before her thoughts echoed throughout the forest, saying, “Everyone, listen up! Villains have attacked the camp, two of them are here in the clearing, but I don’t know how many more are in the forest! Students, return to camp at once, and do not engage the enemy!”

Izuku almost turned to run with the other students, but a horrible thought suddenly occurred to him. “Mandalay!” he called as he turned back toward the pro hero. “Kota! I know where he is right now!” If I’m right, and he’s out there by himself…!

“Stay here!” Aizawa ordered as he dashed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“But-!”

“Sit down, Missy,” Vlad King said sternly, his permanent scowl deepening as Mina stood up from her seat. “Even if you did go out there, you’re not cleared to fight. This disaster is the adults’ responsibility, so we’re gonna clean it up. It’s our first priority to make sure that you kids stay safe.”

“C’mon, Ashido,” Kirishima said as he urged his friend back into her seat. “I know you’re worried about Hikari, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s smart, and probably the strongest fighter in our class. If any of us have a shot at making it out of this okay, it’s him.”

“I don’t want him to be okay, I wanna be out there, with him, facing danger,” she said miserably. “That’s what a good girlfriend does, right? Support their boyfriend when he’s in trouble?”

“Trust me, if we were given permission to fight, I’d be charging out the door right alongside ya,” Kirishima told her as Vlad moved to watch the door for any signs of movement from the outside. “I mean, all of our friends are out there, probably scared for their lives again. I wanna go help them, but our hands are tied.”

“If something happens to Kurai again, so help me…” Mina groaned as she put her head in her hands. “I don’t wanna see him in a hospital again, Kirishima. I can’t take seeing him in pain like he’s had to be.”

“He won’t be,” her friend said as reassuringly as he could. “His brother fixed him up, remember? His quirk won’t hurt him anymore! If he gets permission to fight, those villains had better watch out, cos he’ll be laying down some serious hurt.”

“Taking a shortcut was a terrible idea!” Blake shouted as she ducked underneath a shadowy tendril that tried to crush her into paste. She and Kurai had decided to head back toward the camp via a more direct route after receiving Mandalay’s telepathic message. However, they had run into a problem most unexpected.

“Like I knew this was gonna happen!” Kurai yelped as he blasted another shadow away from himself. “Tokoyami! Chill the hell out!”

“I… can’t! Control it!” the boy groaned out from the depths of a massive shadow. “Run! Save yourselves! He’ll…! He’ll kill you!” Dark Shadow unleashed a terrifying roar that shook the forest before taking a casual swipe at a cluster of trees, all of which splintered at his touch. In the dead of night, the creature had grown larger than a house, its shape less distinct, but all the more powerful for it. Trying to tell which shadow belonged to Tokoyami’s power and which ones were natural was all but impossible.

I knew Dark Shadow was more powerful in darkness, but this is insanity! Kurai thought as he took cover underneath one of the fallen trees, Blake joining him soon after. He remembered how he had been wounded by the creature in the Sport’s Festival- how strong it had become after being immersed in only partial darkness.

“What do we do?” Blake hissed in a tone that only Kurai could hear. “We’re supposed to be avoiding villains, not our own classmates!”

“Speaking of classmates, what the hell happened to Shoji?” Kurai asked worriedly as he looked around the trees in vain. “He was partnered with Tokoyami.”

“Which one is-?”

“Tall guy, six arms, always wears a mask,” Kurai explained shortly. “He should be somewhere nearby. Unless…” He shuddered as he realized the implications of the unfinished thought. As Dark Shadow is right now, there’s no telling what he’d do to Shoji if he was caught off-guard. He nearly killed us just because we showed up!

“Hikari, we need a plan,” Blake said in a sharp tone. “We have to get back to camp, no matter what it takes.”

“No matter what it-?” He stopped before fixing a furious look on his partner’s collected features. “Are you suggesting that we abandon Tokoyami?!”

“He told us to get away, and we don’t have the means to fight his monster,” she replied through thin lips. “We should go while it’s not paying attention to us.”

“What if that was Xiao Long, or Rose, or even Schnee in the middle of that?” Kurai demanded angrily. “Would you abandon them if they told you to run for it?” Blake hesitated, and Kurai felt a deep shaft of disappointment wrench his gut as Dark Shadow began to tear through the trees in the direction away from them. “You have a lot to learn about being a hero if you can’t answer that without even thinking about it,” he said bleakly. “Go on ahead, if you want. I’m not leaving my classmates’ side.”

“Hikari, I didn’t-”

“Hikari? Belladonna?” a familiar voice panted as the owner staggered into view. “I thought I heard voices.”

“Shoji!” Kurai leaped to his feet, intending to greet his classmate, only to stop in horror as he realized that one of the larger student’s left hands was missing. “Dude, your…!”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Shoji panted as he kept the severed stump close to his body, keeping his voice low as to not attract Dark Shadow’s attention. “It hurts, but I can grow a new one with my quirk.”

“Here, let me help with that,” Blake said as she pulled her black bow from her head, using it to bandage the wound, which Shoji thanked her for.

“What happened?” Kurai asked his comrade.

Shoji replied by telling them that he and Tokoyami had just received Mandalay’s message when they were attacked by a villain. Tokoyami’s control over Dark Shadow during the nighttime was tenuous at best, but when an attack severed Shoji’s hand, the monster raged out of control, lashing out at everything in sight.

“I was almost wondering if the shadow had done that to you,” Kurai muttered as he indicated Shoji’s wound. “Question is, how do we help him?”

“You heard Mandalay, we’re supposed to go back to camp,” Blake insisted.

Before Kurai could berate her, Shoji preempted him by saying, “If you feel that you need to run away, you’re welcome to do so. I’ll keep Dark Shadow busy so that you can get through.”

“Not alone, you’re not,” Kurai insisted. “And we’re gonna do better than just distract him. We’re bringing Tokoyami back to camp with us, safe and sound.”

“Just saying that isn’t gonna make it happen,” Blake pointed out. “We’d need a way to contain his quirk without it killing us.”

At least she hasn’t just up and left, Kurai thought. “Dark Shadow has a weakness to bright lights,” he explained. “If I can hit him with an attack that generates a lot of light, it should weaken the monster enough for Tokoyami to get control of him.”

“What, like a Kamehameha?” Shoji grunted, his wound clearly bothering him again.

“If I did that and hit the wrong place, I might accidentally kill him.” Kurai closed his eyes and murmured, “I need to be able to hit him in exactly the right places, and I need to do it fast enough that the shadow won’t have time to retaliate.”

“How will you do that?”

“I’ll do… this.” As he finished the last word, his hair began to change colors, even as a glowing symbol resembling an eye began to appear on his forehead, in between his eyebrows.

“All right, big boy, you wanna dance?” Yang asked challengingly as she popped her knuckles while staring up at a massive villain calling himself ‘Muscular’. “Last chance to run before I open a can of whoop-ass on you.” She had followed Midoriya after he had informed Mandalay that he knew of Kota’s location, saying that he shouldn’t be allowed to go off on his own. She was certain that the teacher was mad at her for ignoring her shouts for them to come back, but they had more important things to worry about at the moment.

“Ha!” the villain guffawed as he cast aside a huge cloak that had hidden his bulky frame. His left eye had been lost in a battle years ago, and so a false replacement sat in the empty socket, but his right eye gleamed with a bloodthirsty delight. “You sound just like the last few posers I took down before I joined the League. None of them lasted more than a second against me- but that didn’t make the sight of their blood in the streets any less thrilling!”

“Careful, Xiao Long!” Midoriya grunted as he clutched at his left arm. “He’s strong!” Next to him, Kota was trembling in mute horror as he stared at the massive villain that would have splattered him against the mountainside that he had been hiding in, had not Midoriya swooped in at the last second to save his life, and getting injured in the process.

“I can see that, buddy,” she grinned as her purple eyes flared red. “But so am I.” Slamming her fists together in front of her, her hair burst to life with a golden fire as she squared off against Muscular, whose eyes had taken on a hungry gleam. “Let’s go, big guy!”

“Yes!” he crowed. “Show me your blood!” His muscle fibers burst through his skin, tripling the size of the limb right before he smashed his fist into Yang’s body, sending her straight into the side of the bluff with a pained cry, her aura dying instantly as she was buried under a pile of rocks.

Midoriya’s jaw dropped as he realized that in all likelihood, Yang was dead under the rubble. Now it was just him standing in between Muscular and Kota, and he was exhausted from the day’s training. He couldn’t escape someone with Muscular’s speed if he had to carry the child. I’ve only got one option if I’m gonna keep Kota out of his hands.

“Hey,” he whispered to the frightened child as he fixed a smile on his face while taking up a fighting stance against the terrifying villain, whose arm was reducing itself in size- apparently Midoriya didn’t constitute as much of a threat as Yang had. “It’s gonna be okay, promise. I’m going to save you, Kota.”

“Ha!” Muscular laughed again as he slowly stalked toward his prey. “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, kid! I dunno what kind of quirk you’ve got, but you don’t have nearly as much fight in you as that chick did! Spilling your blood is gonna be a breeze!”

One for All, Full Cowling!

“You’re not getting past me, you hear?! You stupid villain!”

“I don’t like this one bit, Hikari,” Blake said from next to her partner, who neglected to look at her in turn.

“It was this or run away, and I won’t leave Tokoyami,” he said as his brow furrowed harder, the glowing indigo eye on his forehead shining slightly brighter as he faced the sounds of something massive crashing through the forest. “They’re coming, but two of them went down.”

“I told you that they weren’t very durable.” Blake shifted uneasily as Dark Shadow roared its challenge to the nighttime.

“Yeah, well, it would’ve been suicide to send Shoji by himself, and I can’t move around very fast like this,” he replied grimly, his now-purple-blue hair ruffling in the breeze that carried the scent of smoke. “Your shadow clones make enough noise to keep it occupied, and that’s all that we needed after Shoji got its attention.”

After comparing notes on their quirks, Blake revealed that although it was difficult and draining to do so, she could produce several of her shades at once, and have them act independent of one another, though they all disappeared after taking even the slightest bit of damage. Kurai had her generate five of her duplicates, which followed Shoji, who made as much noise as he could with his Dupli-arms in order to attract the attention of the monster. After he had done so, he had temporarily made himself scarce while Blake’s clones led the beast toward Kurai, who was waiting for the precise moment to launch an attack that would disable Dark Shadow without harming Tokoyami.

The newest bellow set Blake’s teeth on edge, and she unconsciously edged closer to Kurai as she muttered, “He’s almost here…”

“I know, let me concentrate,” Kurai growled, two small balls of indigo-colored energon appearing at his command, one in each hand. “I only get one shot at this.”

No sooner than he had spoken than did Dark Shadow burst into their line of sight, allowing them to see Tokoyami straining with all of his might to keep the monster at bay, but only in vain. “Get away!” the boy pleaded. “Now!”

“Can’t do that, Tokoyami!” Kurai shouted back, his arms already moving. “Sorry in advance!” The two bolts of energy flew forth at his command, arcing away from each other, and distracting Dark Shadow long enough for him to will the projectiles to change course and collide right in front of the dark beast. The resulting explosion produced a flash of light so brilliant in contrast with the dark that they had been wandering around in that Blake and Shoji were blinded for a few moments.

“Hikari, what’s going on?!” the girl demanded, dreading the sense of impending doom that told her that she was about to torn into pieces by Dark Shadow. “Did you get him?!”

“We got him,” the boy said tiredly, filling Blake with relief. She heard some movement, followed by the words, “Tokoyami? You alright?”

“Forgive me,” the other boy said, kneeling in the dirt. “You could have been killed because of my lack of control. And Shoji-!”

“I’m okay,” the tall student said as he walked into the small clearing that Kurai had used for the ambush. “No one is hurt because of you, Tokoyami. If it were the other way around, you’d tell us to think on this later, right? If we’re all okay, then we should worry about getting back to camp.”

“Two problems with that,” Kurai said as his hair faded to black and the symbol of the eye disappeared from his forehead. “One, I picked up on something going on up ahead. Did someone get past you two while Dark Shadow was rampaging?”

“It’s possible,” Shoji answered tiredly. “Maybe some of our classmates that were behind us continued on the path after Dark Shadow went into the trees.”

“Okay, cos I’m pretty sure that there’s two or three people up ahead, and I don’t think that they’re getting along.” Kurai rubbed his head painfully before he added, “The second problem is that I’m low on power, and I can’t see very well. If we run into more trouble, you guys won’t be able to rely on me.”

“Then rely on us,” Blake told him, causing him to turn a skeptical look on her. “I know I said we should run, but you were right. I just… Look, I’ll tell you the story another time, but the important thing is that I was wrong. You just showed me that we always have more than two choices. So I’ll show you that even someone like me can become a hero.”

“…Okay, Belladonna. Your call this time. Do we go check out the fight, or do we rush back to camp?”

“You killed his mom and dad…!” Izuku grunted as his body lit up with bio-electricity once again. “And you won’t even take the blame for it?!” His veins surged red with raw power right before he launched himself at Muscular, who was laughing at the two boys.

“What’re you gonna do about it, pipsqueak?!” he guffawed. “Hit me with that puny power of yours’ again?!”

One for All…! Deku grimaced as he braced himself for the agony of broken bones.  One hundred percent! “Detroit… SMASH!” His blow landed on a surprised Muscular’s face, sending him careening into the mountainside to be buried in a landslide right next to where he had put Yang’s body.

Kota yelled out in fright as the gale force winds that resulted from the powerful blow knocked him out into open space, with nothing between him and a seventy-foot drop to the tallest tree beneath him. Before he could fall too far, though, something caught the scruff of his shirt and held him firmly in place, allowing his feet to dangle against the rock face of the cliffside.

“Gotcha,” a muffled voice grunted. “Sorry ‘bout that.” A few seconds later, Kota found himself sitting on solid ground, which allowed him to turn around and see Izuku, panting tiredly with his shirt torn to ribbons.

“Thank you,” Kota began. “I’m sorry I-” He let out a gasp as he beheld the older boy’s right arm, which had turned an ugly purple from his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips. “Y-Your arm!”

“I know, but it couldn’t be helped,” Midoriya answered as he looked back at the rubble piles. “I had to leave my legs unbroken so that we could get back to camp, hopefully fast enough to avoid any other villains. Hop on my back so we can-”

The sound of shifting rubble and a pained grunt cut him off, and caused both boys to seize up in fear when they realized that Muscular was the one pulling himself out of the rocks. “Wow,” he chuckled as he reached into his right pocket. “I didn’t expect that out of a kid. I gotta say, you got me more fired up than anyone has in a while- probably not since those Water Hose losers! So now I’m gonna crush you, and spray your blood all over these rocks! It’ll be one hell of a painting!” He roared with laughter as he reached up and put something on his left socket- a new artificial eye, this one deep red in color, like blood that’s been left to dry for a night.

“Stay back!” Deku shouted, instantly powering his arm back up to full charge, not caring that such an act might completely obliterate his limb. All that mattered was keeping his promise to Kota- making sure that he would be safe, no matter the cost.

“Nah, I think I’m gonna start the bloodshed for real, now!” Muscular’s entire body began to swell in size as his muscle fibers tore and rebuilt themselves outside of his skin, enhancing his strength enough that a flicker of doubt began to take hold in Deku’s mind. “Showtime, kids! Let’s see… your BLOOD!”

With a rush of wind, he was upon Midoriya, his fist coming down for a blow that would reduce the boy to paste if it connected. Muscular let out a shout of ecstasy that mingled with Kota’s scream of terror into one, terrible noise.

Before either Deku or Muscular’s blows could land, however, a new element was reintroduced to the picture. “Ultimate Move: SUN DRAGON FIST!” A girl’s voice entered the scene, followed by an explosion of white-yellow energy that heralded Yang’s interference, as the bloodied- but still very much alive- girl shot out of the rubble that had buried her and delivered a vicious uppercut to Muscular’s jaw that punched through the swollen muscles and broke the bone, launching him skyward at a high velocity.

“Xiao Long?!” Deku gasped as he let his power fade away, Muscular’s body continuing to climb even now. “You’re not-?!”

“He hit a lot harder than I thought he would,” the blond girl admitted as she clutched at her midriff, where a black-and-blue bruise was growing. “Too bad for him, I hit harder.”

“That looks bad,” Midoriya said worriedly as he gazed at her toned stomach. “You’ve probably got internal bleeding, and there’s definitely some broken bones.” Somewhere in the forest, a resounding crash announced the end of Muscular’s journey. From the sound of things, even that brute wouldn’t be getting up for a while.

“You’d know, huh?” Yang grunted as she pointed at his arm. Before he could make an excuse, she said, “Never mind. Right now, you need to get the kid back to camp. You can move faster without me, and he’s the priority. Send some help this way, and I’ll start making my way on my own, got it?” As she spoke, Kota kept switching his gaze between the two of them, his eyes filled with tears that he could not explain.

“Are you sure?” Midoriya asked her doubtfully. “I don’t wanna leave you in your condition.”

“Look, you’re gonna get help faster for both of us if you move without me,” Yang said as she sat down and leaned her back against a large rock that had been knocked out of the mountainside earlier in the fight. “I’ll stay here, if that makes you feel better. That way the teachers know exactly where to find me.”

“…Alright,” Midoriya finally agreed, crouching in front of Kota as he did. “Get on, now. We gotta get her some help.”

“O-Okay,” Kota sniffled as he clambered onto the older boy’s back, trying not to hurt his arms any more than they already were. “I’m sorry I caused you guys trouble.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Yang said with a tired grin. “Go with Midoriya- he’ll take good care of you.”

“Come on,” Deku grunted as lightning illuminated his body. “We’ll be back with help, I promise.”

“Midoriya,” Yang said before he could leave. “Remember to tell the teachers what the villains are really after.”

“I won’t forget,” he promised. “Stay strong, Xiao Long. I’ll be back soon!” With a burst of wind and lightning, he darted off into the night, leaving the blond girl alone on the mountaintop.

“I hope you’re good for that, Midoriya,” she coughed painfully as blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. “Cos if you’re not, I’m pretty sure Dad’s gonna kill all of your teachers when he finds out that I didn’t make it.” Her eyes slowly drooped closed, which in turn allowed her to pass out of awareness.

Kurai let out a string of curses that would have gotten him killed by his mother as Todoroki erected an ice wall between them and their enemy. The other students were looking askance at him, he was sure. Certainly, he uttered some colorful language every now and again, but the oaths he had just used would have impressed a sailor.

“And I thought Bakugo had the record for foulest mouth in your class,” Blake commented.

“Shut up!” he snarled, his head pounding like a drum that worsened with every second that passed. “This is some grade-A shit we’ve gotten ourselves into!”

“Someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on?!” Bakugo shouted at no one in particular. “Why’re there villains here, and why’s Saiyaman freaking out about it?!”

Kurai’s group had run into Todoroki and Bakugo- the former of which was carrying an unconscious student from class B- shortly before they were attacked by a villain; one that Shoji claimed was the person responsible for severing his hand. Since Kurai couldn’t see, he asked for a description of what the others were witnessing, even as Blake moved to get out of the line of fire. As soon as they told him that their opponent was a man dressed in a shroud, save for his mouth, which spat out blades upon blades, the young man began to sound like Bakugo on a bad day.

“That guy is called Moonfish!” Kurai shouted as cracks began to form in the ice, while the villain on the other side let out a ghoulish scream. “He’s a serial killer that’s supposed to be on death row with zero chances of parole! The judges denied every appeal that he came up with!”

As more cracks resounded throughout the night, Tokoyami took the time to ask, “How do you know this man?”

“My dad didn’t make the arrest, but he worked on enough cases related to this nutjob that I know we should all be very, very scared of him!” Kurai hissed as the icy barrier began to break apart. “Todoroki, don’t let him anywhere near us!”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” The instant the frozen wall broke apart, Todoroki created another one, though this one was noticeably weaker than the first. “He’s persistent.”

“Stop…! Hiding!” the deranged Moonfish wheezed, sounding as though his mouth and windpipe were filled with liquid of some kind. “Beautiful flesh! It’s mine! It belongs…! To me!”

“What does he do to the people he kills?” Blake asked as they began to spread throughout the trees in an attempt to hide themselves from the crazed villain as he used his blade-teeth to continue cutting at their defenses.

“His MO?” Kurai growled as she forced him down behind a tree trunk. “He eats his victims, sometimes alive.”

“Oh my-!” Blake sounded like she wanted to be sick, and even Bakugo was being surprisingly quiet after hearing that bit of news.

“Yeah, and that includes pro heroes, one of whom was formerly ranked number seventeen!” the blinded boy added angrily. “Much as I hate going against the teacher’s orders, there is no choice here. We don’t fight this bastard, we will die, that I can guarantee.”

“Now that’s something I can get behind,” Bakugo grinned as he readied his quirk for battle. “Who knew that Saiyaman had it in him to break the rules?”

“This is gonna be self-defense, plain and simple,” Kurai warned the others, even as Todoroki went to work creating another ice wall in order to buy them some more time, much to the frustration of their pursuer. “We’re allowed to use our quirks to protect ourselves in situations like this, even without adult supervision.”

“I’m less worried about what the teachers will say than I am about getting eaten by a homicidal maniac!” Blake hissed at him.

“Hey, I’m scared, and my brain goes either comedian or legalistic when I am,” Kurai shot back. “Sorry, this part comes from being raised by a cop. You get scared, start telling yourself what you know out loud, so you don’t freeze up!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Shoji grunted as the newest ice barrier began to crumble. “He’s coming.”

“I’m hitting my limit for what I can do with my ice, and I can’t risk setting something on fire,” Todoroki warned them. “Bakugo, you need to be careful, too. A big explosion could blind us.”

“Don’t give me orders, Icy-Hot!”

Something clicked in Kurai’s migraine-addled head, and he sat up straight. “Dude, that’s it!” he exclaimed. “Bakugo, make a big blast, I don’t care which way!”

“He’ll set fire-!”

“Everyone else close your eyes, and let me handle Moonfish!” he interrupted Todoroki as he concentrated past the stabbing pain in his skull, willing his power to tell him what his eyes temporarily could not. “I don’t have energy to spare!”

Come on, body… he growled internally. I know I’m at my limit, but that can’t stop me right now! …Come ON! Go beyond!

His forehead flickered with light, and his hair began to shift colors as he forced his body through the pain, allowing himself to see in every direction, past the trees and the ice wall that was soon to crumble. It allowed him to see Bakugo moving out from behind the tree that he had ducked behind, his palms facing each other in front of his chest as he drew in a deep breath. He could see Moonfish, ravenously tearing apart the frozen obstacle that kept him from his prey, practically drooling in anticipation of his favorite meal.

“Attention all students!” Mandalay’s voice cut into the proceedings, startling both parties enough to delay the standoff for a moment longer. “By the authority of the hero Eraserhead, you are hereby granted permission to fight back! Defend yourselves and return to camp as soon as possible! Ragdoll, if you can hear me, go help Eraser with a student on the rise two clicks east of camp, they may be seriously wounded! To the student named ‘Kacchan’, stay away from the villains- they’re after you!”

Realizing that this might be their best chance, Kurai leaped out of his hiding place and shouted, “Bakugo, NOW!”

“Don’t give me orders!” the blond shouted back as he pivoted on his heel. “Go to HELL!” His scream was accompanied by a burst of light comparable to military-grade flash bombs that blinded everyone in the vicinity, even those that had shut their eyes against what was to come- and one very surprised villain that had suspended himself in the air by using his deadly metallic fangs.

“Light!” he wheezed as his teeth began to thrash about wildly, desperate to cut and tear into the students that he had been pursuing. “Too bright! Need to see…! Flesh! My pretty, wriggling meat! It’s… MINE!”

“You have so got to die,” Kurai growled before firing an energon blast that smashed into Moonfish’s face, stunning him momentarily- but not knocking him out like he had planned. “Oh… crap.” As the last vestiges of his power faded away, he found himself standing alone in the dark, armed with nothing but his senses of sound, smell, and touch.

“Did you get him?” Blake called out from where she was still hiding.

“No,” Kurai answered flatly, straining his ears to try and get a sense for what was happening around him. “I hit him, but I’m out of power, and now I’m a sitting duck.”

“I can smell it nearby…” Moonfish wheezed, sounding like he was getting closer. “My… beautiful FLESH! Give it to me!”

“Get out of there!” Shoji shouted. “He’s coming at you!”

He must have changed some of his hands into eyes after Bakugo’s attack so he could see, Kurai realized as he took a hesitant step that led to him snagging on a root and crashing into the dirt, bruising his ribs, a shin, and a very unfortunate place that made him want to curse violently again.

“Bakugo!” Shoji’s voice rang through the trees once more, and Kurai had sinking feeling in his gut at the tone. “He’s coming for you, not Hikari!”

“Huh?!”

“Yes!” Moonfish wheezed as he continued to move through the brush. “You, I must take! But no… No… No, no, no… It’s supposed to be mine, all mine! I can feast! On all of them! YES!”

Wait, Mandalay said that they were after Bakugo! Kurai realized. In all the craziness of the moment, he hadn’t paid much attention to what the woman had actually said, only that it had distracted Moonfish enough for them to attack. He’s a sitting duck now, and you’re completely out of power! Great plan, Hikari!

“Son, when you think you’re done, always give it one more push.” His father’s words came back to him, then. “And if you really were done, that’s that. But don’t ever let yourself wonder if you could have made that final effort, when it seemed like your goal was just out of reach.”

But I am done, he thought tiredly as he gathered up his legs underneath him, even as he heard an explosion to his right. I’m blind, my strength is gone, and I couldn’t put out enough energy to power a lamp, much less take this guy out.

“Don’t ever allow hindsight to disappoint you.” He could almost feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, lifting him up, encouraging him to give more than he had. “If you run out of endurance today, just borrow some from tomorrow.”

His feet were steady beneath him, and he could feel the heat from one of Bakugo’s blasts, which he seemed to be generating at random, trying to fight off an enemy that he could not see. But Kurai could hear Moonfish- his ragged breaths in between the blond boy’s attacks, the sound of old wood as it was torn apart by something metallic, and the ice chunks that broke under the force of the villain’s massive fangs.

Okay, Dad.

Kurai’s legs bunched up underneath him as energon surged into them, allowing him to shoot forward at the speed of a bullet from a rifle, but not at Moonfish. No, his target was at the center of all the fire and sound, and he flung his right arm out at the last second to catch Bakugo in the chest and push him out of the way of a jagged tooth-blade. At the same instant, Kurai unleashed a beam of raw energy in the direction that the tooth had come from, smashing into Moonfish’s torso, and blasting him into a thick tree, which then promptly exploded. The villain was unconscious instantly, many of his fearsome incisors torn out by the roots by the force of the blast, never to be used again.

Kurai crashed into a tree as Bakugo went rolling away, sputtering angrily. The blinded boy hissed sharply as his right arm throbbed with pain from the point of contact with the large trunk that had stopped him from hitting the ground again. “Jeez, not being able to see blows,” he growled as his headache intensified. “On the other hand, I can’t believe that actually-”

“Hikari!” Blake shouted hoarsely as she ran up to him. “You-! You-!”

“Yeah, yeah, that was dumb,” he said as he waved his left hand dismissively, his right arm hurting too much to move at the moment. “It wasn’t premediated, I just-”

“Hikari, you need to sit down, right now!” Shoji ordered as he approached, something like panic in his voice. “Right now!” The second utterance was followed by Kurai being forced to sit, much to his irritation.

“Hey, what gives?!” he demanded, his head swimming from the pain now. “Don’t do that, I might actually hurl.”

“Hikari, how do you not feel that?” Todoroki asked breathlessly. The alarm in his voice really got Kurai’s attention, so he tried to look for his friend, but still could not see anything in the gloom that had veiled his eyes.

He heard another set of footsteps approaching before the owner recoiled with alarm. “Lady Luck and gods have mercy,” Tokoyami gasped.

“What exactly am I supposed to feel?” Kurai asked as he shrugged, wincing at the pain in his arm. “I guess I hit that tree with my arm harder than I thought I-”

“That’s the freakin’ point, Hikari.” Bakugo’s voice, contained in those five words stopped Kurai dead in place, forget the fact that he sounded legitimately frightened for once in his life.

He never calls anyone by their name, except for Kirishima and Uraraka.

“Guys…?” Kurai asked in a quavering voice as he began to feel something wet drenching his right side, starting at his pectoral muscles, and trickling steadily down his ribs. “What’s wrong with my arm?”

“Hikari-”

“Todoroki,” Kurai grunted as he blindly reached out with his left had to grab his friend’s shoulder like a vice, panic filling his voice as his body began to grow cold, and his head swam like a child drowning in the ocean. “What’s wrong with my arm? Why can’t I move it?”

Even as he asked the question, his mind flashed back to the second that he had blasted Moonfish and moved Bakugo out of harm’s way. He remembered feeling his hand connect with Bakugo’s chest, and then nothing from that arm but pain… and a sound.

The sound of something heavy hitting the forest floor.

Back at the camp, Mina suddenly shivered, goosebumps breaking out on her skin as she rubbed her arms to try and warm back up. Kirishima saw this, and moved away from where he had been talking with Iida in order to approach her.

“Hey,” he said with a concerned frown as he sat next to her. “You okay?”

“I… I dunno,” she replied as she placed a hand over her heart, almost unconsciously. “I’ve never felt like this before, but…” She hesitated, unsure if what she was going to say was foolish or not.

“But what?” her friend prompted gently.

She looked him in the eye and whispered, “Kirishima… I feel like someone just walked on my grave.”

“Why can’t I move my arm, Todoroki?”

“Hikari…” the heterochromic boy answered in a scared voice. “I’m sorry. You don’t… have an arm there. Not anymore.”

“Oh g-” Kurai choked out. “Oh God…” His stomach spasmed, and he was violently sick all over himself and others. Before any of them could even recoil with involuntary disgust, a loud, piercing scream of raw, animal agony erupted from Kurai’s lungs, carrying for miles throughout the forest.

Chapter Text

Kurai was in a state of hysterics after the defeat of Moonfish, crying and sweating in agony, his classmates all close to panic, unsure of how to deal with such a grievous wound. They had some basic first aid training, but none of them really knew what to do in the case of someone’s arm getting cut off. The limb was unsalvageable- several of Moonfish’s incisors had torn it apart in the half-second before Kurai had managed to blast him. Even Bakugo, who could normally bluster his way through just about anything, seemed too rattled to know what they should do. In all reality, they realized that Kurai just might die in front of them that night.

After a few moments of rapid thought, however, it was Blake that came up with an idea. “Todoroki, you need to cauterize the wound,” she had said as she grabbed the heterochromic boy by the shoulder to get his attention.

“I can’t,” he had said as he backed away slightly, touching the burn scar on his face as he did so. “I can’t use my fire like this… The pain alone could cause his heart to give out.”

“He’s gonna die from blood loss if you don’t!” the girl insisted. “We don’t have the equipment to make him a proper tourniquet, plus there’s no telling what kind of diseases that psycho might’ve had in his teeth. If you don’t do this, Hikari has no chance of making it!”

Todoroki had frozen, different voices warring in his head over control of his next actions. On the one hand, he might kill his friend even faster than the blood loss would. On the other, he could potentially save his life, but the burn scars might make it impossible for his nerves to be connected to any potential mechanical replacement.

“Do… it.”                                                                                                                

The group turned in surprise to see that it was Kurai who had spoken, rocking himself back forth as he clutched desperately at the stump where his limb used to be. “I can live… without my arm,” he groaned. “Todoroki… Please! Get it over with! I need…you… to be the hero right now!” He retched from the pain again, but his stomach was out of contents to eject. “Please!” he gasped out.

Todoroki groaned to himself before he ripped off one of his sleeves and knelt in front of his friend. “Bite on this,” he ordered as he placed his left hand on Kurai’s wound. The boy obediently allowed the fabric to be placed in his teeth, and he bit down on it firmly as he gazed at his friend with a fierce, agonized determination.

When Todoroki hesitated again, Kurai nodded hurriedly, his face continuing to drain of color as his blood pumped out of the wound with every beat of his panicking heart. Todoroki closed his eyes and murmured, “I’m sorry, Hikari.”

There was a burst of light, a muffled scream, and the smell of burning flesh and bone.

“Whoa, Ashido!” Kirishima yelped as his classmate doubled over, clutching at her stomach and mouth. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong,” she groaned softly, her eyes unfocused as he tried to get her to look up at him. “Kirishima, something’s happened to Kurai.”

“What’s going on?” Vlad King asked gruffly as he started over to look down at the girl. “Is she sick?” Aizawa had run out of the room and left him in charge of protecting them and any of the other students that made it back to the base camp while he tried to rendezvous with the other Pussy Cats.

“No, I don’t think-”

FWOOOOSH!

The door blasted down behind Vlad to admit a wall of scorching blue flames that were hot enough to take everyone’s breath away as they dove away from the entrance. In response, Vlad unleashed crystalized blood to protect the students behind him. Mina and Kirishima were a little further back in the room, so they were out of the direct line of fire, but they also were more of a target for whoever had attacked them.

Said person didn’t take long to come through the door, and he looked like something out of a nightmare. It would have been easier to count the parts of his skin that weren’t horribly disfigured by burn tissue, not to mention that he seemed to have grafted the burnt flesh to what remained of the healthy skin with multiple body piercings, and he had dark, spiky hair that barely veiled burning blue eyes that matched his flames. A Cheshire grin stretched his face as he levelled a palm at Mina and Kirishima before he said in a voice drier than sandpaper, “Poor little wannabes. If only there was a real hero around to protect you.”

He sent a roaring pillar of fire from his hand that would surely reduce them to ash, even with Vlad charging at him from the side. Mina went to counter the attack with her acid, hoping to snuff out the fire, but Kirishima beat her to the punch. “I got your real hero right here!” he shouted as he hardened himself as much as he possibly could while spreading his body out to keep Mina from being touched by the vicious flames. For just a second, Mina thought that the heatwave was playing tricks on her already-blurred eyes, but it certainly looked as though her old friend had taken on the appearance of a living rock- one that weathered the fireball and came out a little singed, but with nothing in the way of a permanent injury.

Before either of them could move to counterattack, Vlad had grabbed the villain and slammed him against the wall while trapping him in another barrier of crystalized blood.

“You okay?” Kirishima asked Mina, who nodded in a bit of a daze.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “You?” Behind them, Vlad was beginning to interrogate the villain, so they assumed that he would have everything handled on that end.

“Better than I expected, actually,” he laughed as he scratched at his now-frizzy hair. “Dumb villains made a mistake thinkin’ they could just walk in and take us down.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Mina said as she suppressed another shudder of bone-chilling nausea. “Maybe…”

“What happened?!”

“We should be asking you that.”

Midoriya had just arrived on the scene, having been drawn toward the sounds of combat earlier. He had been stunned to see Kurai unconscious and minus an arm while Todoroki had turned his outer shirt into a rough bandage to protect the now-burnt flesh and staunch the blood flow that had persisted due to the severity of the original injury. Now he stood among them with one arm broken by Muscular’s attack and the other by his own quirk, looking in a right state that made some of his friends wonder why on earth he had come out after them.

“I went to rescue Kota and ended up fighting a villain,” the boy now said, sounding out of breath. “Xiao Long helped me out, and she was injured, but I was able to meet up with Mister Aizawa and pass Kota on to him while I came out to look for Kacchan.”

“Wait, you saw Yang?” Blake asked as she stumbled to her feet unsteadily. “Is she okay?!”

“We were both hurt fighting a villain, but she dealt him a finishing blow,” he answered her. “She decided to stay behind because of a hit she took so that it would be easier for the pros to find her later. Mister Aizawa was going to bring her back as soon as he made sure that Kota was safe, but she seemed relatively okay when I left her.” With barely a moment to pause, he asked, “I take it that the villains already came after Kacchan?”

“They haven’t gotten to him yet,” Shoji said as he looked at the blond student, who grit his teeth angrily.

“Stop worrying about me, dammit!” he snarled. “Saiyaman’s the one who needs help!”

“Seriously, how did he end up like this?!” Midoriya panted.

“We’ll explain on the way,” Todoroki said before another exchange could get started. He moved to pick up the unconscious class B student as he added, “Bakugo is right, Hikari needs urgent medical treatment as soon as possible. He’s not bleeding out anymore, but he’s lost plenty to begin with, not to mention what the shock of this has to be doing to his body. Shoji, can you carry him with your hand like it is?”

“Of course,” the larger boy said as he moved to scoop up the insensate teenager. “You can rely on me.”

“We should cut back through the woods,” Midoriya said, his mind having successfully switched to analytical mode in spite- or perhaps because- of the situation. “The Pussy Cats might still be fighting the villains at the gathering point for the test, and it’s longer of a route. We should cut straight through.”

“What if we run into another villain like the one who did this?” Blake asked with a shudder as she actively tried not to look at where Kurai’s arm had gone to rest among the roots of a tree.

“We blast ‘em to hell,” Bakugo snarled as his palm sparked ominously.

“We have Kacchan and Todoroki, plus Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow,” Midoriya pointed out. “He’s more powerful in the dark anyway, right?”

“Yes, but he’s nearly impossible to control without a source of light,” the bird-headed student replied with a shake of his head. “Hikari brought me under control earlier, but that’s obviously not going to happen a second time.”

“Will my flames suffice?” Todoroki asked as he stepped away from Kurai and Shoji.

“…Probably.”

“Then we move out and we move fast,” Midoriya asserted. “We gotta get Kacchan away from the villains and Hikari to a hospital. The best way to do both those things is to go back to base as fast as possible. Hopefully we run into some of the others along the way and add them to our numbers so we can protect them.”

“I don’t need-!” Bakugo started to shout, but then his voice faltered and he looked at the grass behind him, which had been stained red. Before anyone could ask him what he was talking about, he growled, “Let’s go. Saiyaman’s not gonna get any better with us just standing around and making plans.”

“Hiyah!” Ruby shouted as she delivered a high-speed side kick to the head of the masked, knife-wielding girl who had swiftly emerged from the woods to slash at Ochaco. The swift blow sent her tumbling down the path, away from the two of them and giving the younger girl a chance to formulate an idea.

“Hey, Uraraka?!” the American called over without taking her eyes off their enemy, who was already staggering to her feet, in spite of the hit she had just taken. “Can you make one of these trees float without affecting the ground underneath it?”

“I should be able to, why?” the other girl panted as she grabbed at her arm.

“I have an idea, just pick a good-sized one and let me know when it’s done!” Ruby replied as she blurred into a storm of rose petals that surrounded their attacker.

“Okay!”

“Ooh…” the girl within the storm giggled as her golden eyes widened at the sight around her. “It’s the same color as blood… Red like roses and blood is so pretty, isn’t it?” Tilting her head upwards, she then said, “I know Ochaco’s name, but I don’t know who you are. What’s your name, huh? I’m Himiko Toga, by the way.”

“Nice to know the poster girl of crazyville’s name!” Ruby called out sarcastically as she focused on maintaining a dispersed form, having seen Toga’s arsenal of knives and needles on her outfit. If she starts throwing those, it’s gonna be tough to keep myself from getting hit somewhere or other, she thought tiredly.

“Rose, I’ve got it!” Ochaco suddenly called out, and Ruby reacted by heading toward her friend’s voice, dissipating the cyclone of wind and petals as she reformed next to the injured girl, who had placed her fingers on the bark of a middling-sized tree and was now looking confused. “Now what? The roots are still buried, so it’s not like I can use it as a weapon.”

“Not with that attitude,” Ruby said with a grin as she took a running stance. “Normally I do this with my scythe, but your quirk will make it a hundred times easier.”

“Do what?” Ochaco asked as she eyed Toga, who was now making a swift approach with a large needle and knife in each hand.

“This!” With another violent burst of wind, Ruby shoulder-checked the tree and ripped it out of the ground, roots and all, before she used her speed to fashion a funnel of wind that hurled the tree at Toga, who had stopped in place with a look of alarm on her face. The American girl then shot out of her own wind funnel and got behind Toga just long enough to kick her square in the back and put her in the path of the slipstream that was bringing the tree to crash right into her less than a second later.

When the wind stopped and the dust had settled, there was a perplexed-looking Toga underneath a tree trunk positioned just so that it wouldn’t kill her from the crushing weight, but it wasn’t going to allow her to move around without a lot of help, either. “This is a first,” the blond villainess said blankly. “Normally I’m the one who leads with this when I wanna get to know someone.”

“Yeah?” Ruby panted, the extensive use of her quirk over the course of the day having caught up with her again. “How’s that… worked out for you so far?”

“Well, I can’t say that I’ve had a lot of friends,” Toga giggled. “But the ones I did have, I know really, really well.” Something about the way she included the past tense made the two students feel as though they didn’t want to learn any more about this villain than they absolutely needed to.

“Should we knock her out?” Uraraka asked as she move closer to her classmate, still impressed by how quickly she had taken down their assailant. She had released her gravi-kinetic hold on the tree the second that she had seen that Toga was trapped, so she felt somewhat safer for the moment.

“I’m starting to wonder if she has some kind of resiliency quirk, cos I totally thought that she would’ve been KO’d by the tree,” Ruby admitted. “Either way, I’m thinking a big rock would be nice right about now.”

“I don’t see one of those,” Uraraka shrugged helplessly. “Can’t you just use your quirk to hit her real fast?”

“I would, but I’m honestly too tired to try anything for another minute- I don’t wanna kill her on accident,” Ruby replied, giving both of the other girls pause. Seeing this, she explained, “My quirk is super hard to control, so if I’m tired, and I slip up, I could end up putting a crater in the forest from the impact, not to mention that miss crazy-pants and I would probably end up in pieces everywhere.”

“Can’t you just move one part of your body super-fast to avoid that?” Ochaco asked, stunned by that amount of power that Ruby apparently possessed.

The younger girl immediately shook her head in the negative as she said, “My quirk affects my whole body at once, so I can’t just use it on one part or another like that. It’s part of why it’s so hard to get a hang of, you know?”

“That’s so nice for you to share everything like that!” Toga giggled before Ochaco was tackled to the ground and a large needle was jammed into her leg. It happened so quickly that even Ruby was confused as to what just happened, but somehow Toga was now straddling the other girl and siphoning her blood into a metal container that rested on her back. Seeing the look of shock on Ruby’s face, she smiled eerily and said, “Don’t worry your pretty head, Rosy. You’ll get your chance to know me soon enough.”

“R-Rosy?!” Ruby sputtered as she took an unarmed combat stance. “You know what, get off my friend!”

“Can’t do that,” Toga giggled. “And you can’t make me, not without risking a mess of blood, right? Ooh, that would be so pretty…”

This chick looks like she gets off just talking about blood! Ruby thought as her tired mind raced, trying to figure out a way to get Toga off of her classmate without causing major injury to Uraraka.

Toga’s smile widened as she leaned closer to her captive’s head and whispered, “You know, you smell like I do… You’ve got a crush on someone, don’t you?”

Eh? Both Ochaco and Ruby froze, utterly boggled at how Toga’s mind could possibly be making a connection between bleeding someone out and having a crush.

“I know the look,” Toga went on, apparently unaware of her targets’ reactions. “You start to admire someone, and then you start wanting to be like them, you know? But after a while, you start to realize that isn’t enough. You start wanting to actually become them… Right, Ochaco?”

“Get off of her!”

A familiar voice echoed out of the darkness of the trees right before a long leg shot out and sent Toga tumbling away from her prey, followed by the owner calling out, “Ruby, you okay?!”

“Blake!” the younger girl cried out in relief as her teammate interposed herself between them and their enemy, with several of the other students coming up behind her.

“Who is that girl?” Todoroki grunted as he slid to a stop alongside Blake, the air around him dropping several degrees as he readied his ice.

To their surprise, Toga made a sulking face and said, “Too many people, now… I don’t feel like getting killed tonight.” With a small shrugging motion, she sheathed her blades and started to walk away with the farewell word, “Toodles.” She did pause for a just a second as she looked over her shoulder with what looked like a blush before she vanished into the dark of the trees with another disturbing giggle.

As soon as she was gone, Ruby ran over to her friend with the words, “Thank goodness! We heard the announcement and then that crazy chick showed u-!” Her mouth paused, hanging open as she saw the state that Midoriya and Kurai were in, and Uraraka didn’t do much better.

“Deku!” she cried out as she started to limp toward them, her leg having been freed of the needle, though a small puncture wound continued to trickle blood while she moved. “What happened to you?! And- god, Hikari!”

“We don’t have time to waste on lengthy explanations,” Todoroki said grimly as he beckoned for Uraraka to come to Kurai and the other unconscious student. “Make these two float with your quirk so we can move faster. The sooner he gets medical attention, the better.”

“O-Of course!” she said, though she still looked nauseated by the sight of his missing arm and pale body. Shifting her look toward the others, she asked, “What’re you all doing out here? I thought we were all in separate groups.”

“Hikari and I decided to try and find others like us in the forest once we heard Miss Mandalay’s voice,” Blake answered a little tonelessly. “We met up with these guys and decided to stick together to protect Bakugo and Hikari after he was seriously wounded. We’re all headed for the base camp.”

“Uh, Blake?” Ruby asked as she looked at Uraraka, who had just used Zero Gravity on Hikari, making it easier for Shoji to carry him. “If you guys are protecting Bakugo, shouldn’t he be somewhere you can protect him? You know, like, close by?”

“Wha?” Midoriya chuckled awkwardly as he turned around. “He’s right… here…” A thrill of alarm went through everyone as they realized that Bakugo was indeed nowhere to be seen.

“Where did he go?!” Blake demanded of no one in particular.

“Terribly sorry about that,” a new voice called from the treetops, drawing their gazes upward and toward a masked man with a feathered top hat. “With the history of being a performer, my flair for the dramatic should hardly come as a surprise to those who know me. However, since you do not, I shall introduce myself as Compress, master magician and escape artist.” With a click of his fingers, half of a tree disappeared, and a small marble appeared in the palm of his hand. “I used a touch of magic to gather up Bakugo as so we may have a discussion about his future in a more relaxed environment than a burning forest.”

Tokoyami reacted first out of the group. “Todoroki, get ready,” he snarled as his eyes gleamed in the darkness that began to come alive around him. “Dark Shadow!!!” The writhing beast roared as it was granted release from its master’s body and shot forward, rushing for what would possibly be a killing blow against Compress.

Before it could make the connection, however, a blast of fire drove it back in time for the villain to begin making his escape. Seeing this, everyone turned to Todoroki while Tokoyami shouted urgently, “No, not yet!”

“It wasn’t me!” the heterochromic boy protested.

“I’d stay right where you are, if I were all of you,” another new voice said as slender shadow began to emerge from the tree line. “If you value the life of your wounded comrade as much as a hero should, you’ll do well to allow Mister Compress to escape.”

“Wounded comrade?” Tokoyami repeated as his shadow withdrew into his body. “What is she-?”

“Guys, where’s Hikari?!” Shoji asked as he looked down at his empty hands. “He was just right here!”

“Eh?!”

“Oh, children?” the shadowy figure said as they came to stand in the moonlight. She turned out to be a young woman, probably in her early twenties, with long black hair that veiled most of her face, allowing only a single amber eye to look at them with a strange intensity. As she stepped into plain view, she held up a black-gloved hand to display a small marble, identical to the ones that Compress had been showing off earlier. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

“Dammit!” Todoroki swore as he and the others prepared for combat, knowing that if they didn’t resolve this quickly, they would lose any chances at rescuing Bakugo from the other villain.

“Ah-ah,” the woman said with a slow shake of her head before she waved her free hand and engulfed an adjacent tree in flames. By the time the young heroes realized that she was the one who had driven back Dark Shadow, the tree had been reduced to a pile of embers that their new enemy then extinguished. “I promise not to do the same to your friend if you stay where you are and behave. Move to attack me, and you’ll lose both of your friends.”

“Why should we believe that?!” Ruby demanded hotly. “You’re just gonna kill him, no matter what we do!”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the woman said, her tone and mannerisms completely unhurried, as if she were having a leisurely chat with a stranger about the weather. “Not everyone in Shigaraki’s group thinks as I do, but there are a few of us who fight for more than destruction for destruction’s sake.”

“What the hell does that mean?!” Midoriya shouted at her, obviously aching to chase after his comrade, but being unable to do so for fear of Kurai’s life. The villains obviously wanted Bakugo alive, so his life was in no immediate danger, but their crippled friend was another matter altogether. Now that it was clear that it was the League pulling the strings for this assault, they all knew that the crazed leader of the gang would dearly love to see Kurai killed for his hand in their defeat at the USJ. They had no doubt that whatever this woman was saying, she wouldn’t hesitate to terminate their friend if it suited her.

“There are some in the underworld, myself included, who believe in the ideologies of the Hero Killer,” she said now, causing Midoriya and Todoroki to exchange a worried look. “Before a field can been sowed, the soil must be torn up and reshaped, yes? The hero world has become mired in stagnation and hypocrites who become public champions for the acclaim it gives them, and no other reason- something I’m sure you can understand, yes, little Todoroki?”

The heterochromic boy’s eyes narrowed before he said in a voice as sharp as an icicle, “Leave my father out of this. He has nothing to do with you holding my friend hostage.”

“Hmm,” the woman smiled ominously as she bounced the marble in the palm of her hand. “In any case, it has become apparent to those of us in the shadows who sympathize with Stain that the time has come for the current status quo to be torn up and remade into a field ready to receive a new era.”

“What is she talking about?” Ochaco asked nervously. “Who is this woman?”

“Ah, pardon my rudeness,” the woman said with a mocking inclination of her head. “I am Cinder Fall, member of the League of Villains, and follower of the Hero Killer.”

“So these are the kind of people that lunatic stirred up, huh?” Todoroki muttered angrily.

“Are not revolutions started by those that the current society perceives to be madmen?” Cinder smirked. “I intend to make good use of Bakugo’s power and temperament. Honestly, who among you thought that he could actually be a hero? He’ll be a menace no matter what path he chooses in life. At least with us, he’ll have a chance to be a useful menace.”

She looked as though she was about to add more, but then her head suddenly exploded into a mud-like substance as Blake’s fist emerged from behind her, and her shadow image vanished from next to Tokoyami. The rest of her body was quick to dissolve before the startled students’ eyes, leaving behind the pale blue marble that contained their wounded peer.

“What was that?” the bird-headed boy asked as he bent down and retrieved the marble. “I thought she had a fire quirk.” He thought that he could just make out something like a reflection of their friend inside the warm little ball, but with the waning moonlight, he couldn’t be sure. He just hoped it meant that Kurai really was in there, and that they might be able to get him out.

“We’ll have to figure it out later,” Midoriya said hurriedly. “Obviously they were stalling to let the other guy get away! We gotta catch up if we’re gonna get to Kacchan in time!”

“I’m going on ahead!” Ruby declared, only to be stopped by Blake, leading her to ask, “What?!”

“Going alone would be worse than stupid,” the older girl said tightly. “Can you take me with you?”

“Yeah, but it’ll be a rough landing.”

“I don’t care, we gotta get that guy before he gets away with whoever else is out here,” Blake told her. “Without him, who knows how we’re gonna get Hikari out of the marble?”

“Guys, go!” Midoriya begged them. “We’ll catch up as soon as we can!”

“Right!” Ruby said as she grabbed Blake around her waist while putting herself under the other girl’s left arm. “See you guys soon!”

With that, they were gone in a rush of wind and rose petals, leaving the others to try and formulate a plan that would allow them to provide backup in time to prevent the villains’ escape.

“Twice, Dabi, Compress, do you read me?”

The villains being addressed paused as they stood amid the darkening woods while the taller of the two reached up and tapped the com piece lodged in his ear. “We copy, Cinder,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“My clone was defeated, and two of the hero kids are closing in on Compress,” the woman answered. “Last I checked, they were close to where you are.”

“Those kids are pretty persistent,” Twice muttered. He then perked up and yelled out, “Aw, are ya kidding?! I expected Compress to get carried away with his showboating, but how’d you let a bunch a kids get the drop on you?!”

“Save it, we need to be at the extraction point in the next few minutes, or else-”

Dabi was suddenly cut off by the sound of howling winds, snapping branches, and a high-pitched girl’s voice shouting, “Give us back our friends, or I’M GONNA LOSE IT!!!” The next thing Dabi knew, he was tasting dirt and blood in his mouth.

Ruby and Blake had caught sight of the villain calling himself ‘Compress’ easily enough, as the orange in his suit clashed with color of the blue flames illuminating the forest as he leaped from tree to tree. The younger heroine had then cut the brakes on her quirk, substituting the amazing control that allowed her to use her quirk so effectively for raw power that sent her and her friend on a brutal collision course with the man, knocking him out of the air and sending him plummeting to the ground.

As it just so happened, this was the spot where Dabi and Twice were stopped, putting them right in the line of fire when Ruby body-slammed Compress, and Blake wound up getting tangled with the villain dressed in the black-and-gray bodysuit. “Ow!” the man cried as he stumbled to his feet. “What’s the big idea, lady?!” As soon as he was steady, he narrowed his eyes at Blake and muttered, “These are two of the students who weren’t in UA last semester… They’re more capable than we gave them credit for.”

Meanwhile, Dabi was more or less out of the fight due to the blow he had suffered to the head, and Ruby was now punching Compress in the stomach, repeatedly. “Give them back, give them back, give them back!” she kept shouting as the man tried in vain to throw her off- apparently Ruby was stronger than her small frame would suggest.

“You-! scoundrel-! of a-! girl!” he coughed out in between her strikes. He was also trying to use his quirk on her, but he couldn’t gather his thoughts well enough to make use of his powers.

“Hey, get off Compress!” Twice shouted as he tried to make a dive at Ruby, only to have Blake strike him in the head. He tried to get back at her by using some kind of flexible metal that came from his wrists and was shown to be razor-sharp when it sliced through some tree branches without any physical hesitation. The only reason Blake wasn’t dead the second that it connected with her stomach was because she managed to substitute an afterimage to take the hit for her.

Just as she was about to deliver a knockout punch to Twice’s jaw, a blast of blue fire drove her back, and drew her attention to Dabi, who was now back on his feet. Evidently, he was quick to recover, even from a hit like Ruby’s. “Stand down, heroes,” the scarred young man said flatly as he aimed a palm at the younger girl, who froze in place. “Or I’ll turn you both into ashes.”

Blake cursed inwardly- she was just as tired as Ruby, and it was getting hard for her to produce the shadow clones and mirages that helped her to confuse her opponents. Now they were outnumbered, and she had no idea when reinforcements would arrive. If only I had my gun!

Fortunately, help arrived sooner than expected. With a collective yell, Todoroki, Shoji, Tokoyami, and Midoriya crashed into Dabi in a similar manner to how Ruby had done only moments prior, and this time, it seemed as though he wouldn’t be getting up for a while. Using Uraraka’s Zero Gravity and Todoroki’s fire, the group had managed to follow the American girls and could now provide relief.

Todoroki immediately sent a barrage of ice at Twice, putting a defensive wall between him and Blake in the time that it takes a person to blink. “Are you okay?!” he called over.

“I’m fine, but don’t let that guy get in close!” she warned him. “He has some kind of tape blades in his wrists!”

“Is that his quirk?”

“I don’t think so, it seems like a support item!”

While this was happening, the others had decided to focus on getting what they wanted from the man who had trapped their friends. “Give… Kacchan… back!” Midoriya yelled as he glared at Compress, who now looked very frightened, especially for someone wearing a full-face mask.

“Give him back?” the beaten man laughed nervously. “What an odd thing to say. Bakugo doesn’t belong to anyone- he’s his own perso- oof!” He was cut off as Ruby slugged him in the stomach again.

Tokoyami then moved in closer and glared down at the man with contempt as he said, “What happens next is your choice, fiend. Either you release our comrades willingly from their prisons, or I let Dark Shadow out to use you as a plaything.”

If it were possible to sweat through ceramics, Compress was doing it now. “Let’s… not do anything hasty,” he started to say, only to have Tokoyami’s beak twist into a scowl. “Alright, alright!” He flicked a marble from his sleeve and caught it between his fingers. Before Ruby could grab it, however, he threw it away from himself as hard as he could, causing the students to all shout in alarm and charge in the direction of the discarded marble. With a snap of his fingers, Compress released his hold on the two marbles, with one spitting out Kurai onto the ground behind Shoji, who immediately moved to stand over him in a protective manner. The other marble, however, released a large chunk of Todoroki’s ice, leaving the lot of them bewildered at what had just happened.

“First trick of a magician’s trade is sleight of hand,” Compress coughed as he got to his feet. “I had the thought that you might prove a bit much for me to handle, so I took the time to prepare a couple of decoys.” As he spoke, Dabi walked out from behind Todoroki’s ice wave- and stood over another Dabi, the one that the boys had knocked unconscious during their entrance.

“Uh… what?!” Ruby demanded.

“Nice trick, ain’t it?!” Twice called down from atop the ice. “No matter how many of you there are, I can outnumber you in seconds.”

“Stop bragging, Twice,” the conscious Dabi ordered. “We’ve got our hands full, and I’m not as durable as my original.”

“My apologies,” the other villain said, followed by the words, “Up yours, pyro! You should be bowing down and worshipping me as your god! You wouldn’t even exist without me!”

“What is with this guy?” Shoji muttered as they eyed him warily.

“I don’t know, but my guess is that he has something to do with the duplicate villain,” Midoriya answered, cringing as his arms flared angrily in pain.

“It doesn’t matter,” Todoroki reminded them. “We still have to retrieve Bakugo, and now we gotta deal with these other guys.”

“Don’t forget me,” a familiar voice said, accompanied by Cinder’s appearance from behind the ice wall.

“And me!” chirped Toga as she skipped out from behind some trees.

“The good news just keeps coming,” Blake grumbled.

“Kill ‘em all,” Dabi ordered the others. “Go for the injured kid, first.”

The following fight was short, but furiously intense. Wounds were dealt to both sides, with no clear winner emerging by the end of it. The students had a slight number’s advantage, but they were all exhausted from the day’s training, and Midoriya was already badly injured, not to mention that they had to protect Kurai, who was still unconscious and slowly losing blood, even in spite of the bandages and burned tissue. The blood-crazy girl, Toga, seemed disturbingly fixated on the wounded boy, though Izuku also held her attention for a few moments.

Things finally came to a head when the portal villain, Kurogiri, appeared in order to spirit away his colleagues, who still had Bakugo in their possession. Compress was about to step through a warp gate, but a sparkling laser shot at him out of a nearby clump of bushes and struck him across the face, destroying the mask and nearly knocking him down in the process. At first everyone thought that Kurai must have recovered enough to get in a surprise attack, but it turned out to be Aoyama, who had been hiding nearby with an unconscious Jiro and Hagakure, waiting for the right moment to strike.

His gambit nearly worked, but the arrival of a Nomu served to drive the young heroes back long enough for Compress to release Bakugo from the marble so that Dabi could grab him by the throat and drag him through the portal to God-only-knew-where. As the villains began to make their escape, Toga told the heroes that Kurai could expect to meet her again- properly, next time, she assured them. Izuku screamed his desperation as he tried to reach out for his friend, but in the end, Bakugo told him to stay away. Then the portals closed, and the teenagers were left with aching wounds and the agony of defeat.

As Midoriya cried in pain and sorrow, Todoroki could only stare down at Kurai’s bloodied stump with the thought, He sacrificed so much for someone who hates him… and it was for nothing.

The hero students had mostly congregated back at the cabin and were talking among themselves in lowered, worried tones, wondering what had become of their missing friends when the medical teams began to arrive, which consisted of a handful of ambulances and a helicopter. Several kids who had been poisoned were taken in the ambulances while the others with lighter wounds were treated by the EMT’s on-site.

Kirishima was given some treatment for superficial burns that he had sustained during the flame villain’s attack, but he was a lot better off than some of the others, such as Yaoyorozu, who had been brought in by Awase of class B with a severe head injury. Mina was with him to keep him company when they heard shouts of surprise coming from closer to the trees.

Fearing another villain attack, and without a clear line of sight, the students braced themselves for another fight, but Aizawa waved them all back as he ran across the open area. “What’s going on?!” Kirishima called out.

“Everyone, calm down!” Iida shouted to be heard above the noise as EMT personnel followed the Erasure Hero. “It’s just the other students returning! There’s no danger!” This filled them all with a measure of relief, Mina in particular, whose shoulders sagged as she released a breath that she didn’t realize that she had been holding.

“Well, that’s good,” Kirishima laughed as he sat back down on the steps that they had been occupying. Turning to his friend, he added, “Told ya there’s nothing to worry about. Hikari’s gonna be here as soon as the med teams finish examining him.”

“Yeah,” she said heavily with a wobbly smile. “Thank God.”

Just as she had said this, however, there was a shout of alarm from one of the medics, and the people who had been remaining on standby at the helicopter surged forward, shouting for everyone to clear the way. Seeing this, Kirishima frowned and turned to ask Kaminari what was happening, since he had slightly better view of proceedings than they did.

“Not totally sure, but it looks like Midoriya busted himself up pretty bad,” the electric boy cringed. “They might be airlifting him.”

“Do you see Kurai?” Mina asked worriedly.

“No- Wait, yeah,” the blond boy nodded. “Uh… They’re putting him on stretcher, and it looks like there’s blood on his shirt.”

Just like that, Mina’s stomach dropped again, and she clambered to her feet as she asked, “How bad is it?”

“I can’t tell from this distance, but it looks like the EMT’s are freaking out,” Kaminari said as he paled a few shades. “Yeah, a few of them look pretty worried.”

“I’ve gotta get over there,” Mina said as she started forward, only to be blocked by another medic.

“Sorry, kid,” she said with a shake of her head. “We gotta let them do their job without interference.”

“Please, ma’am, that’s my boyfriend!” Mina begged. “I won’t get in the way, I just wanna know what’s going on!”

The woman hesitated before she pulled up her radio and asked, “Aiko, what’s the status of the wounded on your end? My hands are free if you need assistance.”

“Yes, please,” said the other person, sounding rushed. “We’re airlifting a student in critical condition, and we need help with the others who have been wounded.”

The woman held up a hand to forestall any movements from Mina while saying, “Can you please verify the ID of the student in critical condition? I’ve got family concerned about the status of…?” She looked at the students pointedly, prompting Kirishima to speak quickly.

“Kurai Hikari, ma’am.”

“…a student named Hikari.”

There was pause before Aiko said, “Yes, it’s Hikari. Tell the family that we’ll be airlifting him to Hosu General, no passengers.”

“I’m on my way,” the woman nodded as she started to move. Over her shoulder, she said, “You heard him, no passengers. Sorry, but that’s all I can do for you. You need to stay put.”

“But-!”

“Ashido, you heard her,” Kirishima said as he and Kaminari moved to prevent the pink girl from chasing after the woman. Even in spite of the worry on his face, the redhead gave her a smile and said, “He’s tough. Whatever’s happened, I’m sure he’ll pull through.”

“Dude’s tougher than any of us,” Kaminari agreed.

“Ashido?” a familiar voice called from up ahead, causing the three of them to turn around. “Is Ashido around here?”

“Todoroki?!” Kirishima called out. “Is that you, man? Ashido’s over here!” There was a bustling of movement that ended when a familiar mop of red-and-white hair shoved his way through the throng of students. He looked tired and dirty, but there were no visible injuries, which is probably why he was able to slip past the EMT’s so quickly, Kirishima thought. “Hey man, what’s going on? The medics were saying that-”

“What happened to Kurai?” Mina interrupted as she stepped closer to the heterochromic boy. “They said he’s in critical condition!” Her eyes were wide, and she was clearly close to panic.

Todoroki looked at her with defeated eyes before he said, “Kaminari, Kirishima, can you give us a minute?” Once they had moved to do as he asked, as well as turn away any of the other students who had wanted to know what was going on from the boy, he stepped a little closer to Mina and said, “I’m sorry, Ashido. Hikari is alive, but we couldn’t protect him. He’s…” The young man faltered, an uncharacteristic catch in his throat as he looked into Mina’s watering eyes.

“What happened, Todoroki? Why is Kurai being taken away so fast that I can’t even go check on him?” Her voice was quavering, and he could see just how close she was to a breakdown- how much she had been worrying about him this whole time.

And now, this? he thought despondently. Even so, he knew that she needed to hear what had happened, no matter how much it hurt to admit just how badly they had been defeated. So he drew in a breath and said, “We encountered a violent villain in the forest. We tried to defeat him together, but he was too persistent, and in the end, only Hikari had the strength to take him down before he killed Bakugo, but it cost him. It all happened so fast, that I… He…” Todoroki hesitated one last time before he made himself tell the truth. “The villain cut off most of his right arm. He lost a lot of blood before I-” His eyes wandered down to his left hand as he shuddered, and he was barely able to say, “We slowed the bleeding down, but that was all I could do… I’m sorry, Ashido.” He looked ready to cry, which was shocking enough on its own, but Mina hardly even noticed that.

All she could see at the end of her tunnel vision was Kurai, having finally been given a clear line of sight as they loaded him into the helicopter, covered in blood and pale enough to resemble a corpse. Her leg muscles tensed up in preparation to run after him, forget what any of the medical professionals had told her. She needed to get to him, to-

“Ashido.” She felt a familiar presence beside her, one that had often been accompanied by a restraining scarf over the last few days, but not this time. All Aizawa did was lay a firm hand on her shoulder and say, “There’s nothing you can do for him, and I can’t have you causing a scene now, of all times. I’m sorry.”

“But… I-”

“I’ll make sure that you’re one of the first people to see him at the hospital, even if I have to drive you myself,” the scruffy man said to cut her off. “I’m sure that seeing you will do him some good- and he’s going to need all the good he can get in the days to come. For now, I’ll ask that you be patient, just like everyone else.” When he was sure that she wasn’t about to run after the boy, who was now in a helicopter with whirring blades, Aizawa moved away to speak with Vlad and Mandalay, the latter of whom looked incredibly worried.

As the aerial vehicle began to take off, buffeting those nearby with the gusts of wind, Mina nearly fell over, her body having stopped responding to her commands, only to be caught up by someone much taller than she. “Iida?” she asked dumbly, still feeling as though her limbs were weighted with lead. She noticed with only the barest of interest that the class rep was crying freely as he helped her to sit down.

“Can’t have you injuring yourself,” he said in a shaky voice. “Kurai would never forgive me if you got hurt while I was around.”

At long last, Mina began to weep and groan out her grief, and as she did, Iida joined her in her misery and fear as they both hoped and prayed that their dear friend would live. He has to live, she thought as she held on to Iida with an unreasoning desperation. I can’t imagine this world without Kurai in it!

Chapter Text

The sound of helicopter blades whirred across the nighttime sky as the emergency vehicle hurtled toward the nearest hospital. Inside the transport, a trio of EMT’s were working ceaselessly, trying to sustain the life of one very weak student, none of them overly confident of his chances of surviving his ordeal.

“Victim suffered major blood loss in correspondence with the right arm, he’s gone into hypovolemic shock!” One of the workers, a middle-aged man, kept his eye on the boy’s vitals, praying that the weakened heartbeats would sustain themselves long enough for them to get to the hospital. Due to the severity of his wound, and the necessity for an immediate treatment, the boy had been the only one approved for an airlift- the other students that had been badly injured would be taken back into the city via ambulance. They had to take into account and compensate for the changes in air pressure that the flight would put on the boy’s ruined body, but the speed at which they could get him to the hospital outweighed those concerns.

“Does he need a quirk particulate in blood transfusions?”

“Negative, quirk is non-heteromorphic!”

“Wound status?” Another EMT, this one a younger woman, was using her quirk to dull the boy’s sense of pain as best as she could. They couldn’t afford to give him anesthesia at this point, or else he could flat line.

“According to his classmates, the remains of the arm was cauterized via an incendiary burst from a quirk, so it’s likely sterile, and the bleeding has slowed.”

“That might also be due to how much blood he’d lost by that point.”

“According to his student ID, he’ll need B-negative blood… Misa, radio the hospital, tell them to have several bags ready.”

“Yessir.”

The older man looked down at the pale boy as he breathed shallowly and murmured, “Hang on, kid. Don’t you dare die on my watch, you hear?”

“Dear?” Moka Hogo-sha widened her eyes in alarm as her husband stood up from where he had been sitting by their younger son’s bedside, pale and jaw locked as his hands shook while he pocketed his phone. “What’s wrong?” The last time he had looked like this, he had been on the receiving end of the news that his brother had died in the line of duty.

“That was Eraserhead,” he answered numbly. “The camp was attacked by the League of Villains.”

“What?!” Despite the alarm clutching deep at her gut, she kept her voice down, not wanting to wake Akarui after he had fallen into a peaceful slumber. “Is Kurai okay? A-And the other students?”

Her husband was silent for a few seconds before he slowly shook his head in the negative, and Moka felt her stomach drop into a yawning chasm. “It’s bad, Moka,” he said grimly. “One of the students was kidnapped by the League, but it seems they want him alive, so we might be able to get him back. I have to get to the office to get the manhunt started- the League is now being recognized as an official terrorist organization instead of just a local gang. It’s a national-level threat, now.”

“Kurai,” Moka said stubbornly, having noticed that he was avoiding the subject of their child. “What happened to him? Where is our son?”

“On his way to here to the hospital,” he answered flatly, appearing drained of nearly all his vitality. “A villain got him in the forest. Eraser didn’t have time to get me all the details, but from what I understand, Kurai put himself between a classmate and a villain, and now he’s injured seriously enough that they’re flying him out.”

“How seriously?”

“…I need to make a call.”

The doors to the hospital burst inwards as Kurai was wheeled in on a mobile bed, the nurses shouting at the other staff to get out of the way as they made a beeline for the surgery room. “We’re losing him!” shouted one of them, a woman with blue skin and hair. “They better have those bags ready!”

“The patient’s parents are on their way down, they wanna know his status!”

“They can wait until the surgery is done!”

At this point, Kurai could have well been a corpse with how pale and gray he had become. The only indication that he lived were his shallow breaths into a c-pap mask and the off-beat beeping of the heart monitor that he had been attached to.

The second that he had been transferred onto the operating table, however, his heart faltered, and the increasingly irregular blips on the EKG let the doctor and nurses know that things were getting much worse. “Clear him!” the doctor ordered, sweat already lining his furrowed brow as he began to use his quirk to control Kurai’s blood flow in the remains of his arm, keeping his wound from shedding any more of the precious liquid. “His heart’s gone into ventricular tachycardia, we need a defibrillator, now!”

One of the nurses transformed his hand into a pair of sharp scissors that slashed through the boy’s shirt, leaving his lean abdomen exposed to the air and surgical lights. Another prepped the machine and stood by, ready for the doctor to give the order. He did so, and the young man placed the metal pieces in the correct areas before shouting, “Clear!” A surge of electricity pumped through Kurai’s body, causing his back to arch involuntarily before the power was cut, and he slumped back on the table.

Fortunately, he only needed the one jolt and a few seconds of CPR to get his heart going steadily again, which filled the doctor with a temporary surge of relief, but he knew that his patient was far from safe. His years of experience told him that they had just barely pulled the boy back from an asystole, and Kurai was nowhere near out of the woods. “Get the blood transfusion going, now,” he ordered brusquely. “Yuuki, get those scalpels and stitches where I can reach them. Ryoutarou, make sure to keep that AED charged! Daizo, if he drops into ventricular fibrillation, you’re in charge of CPR, so keep that pump prepped! Shigeru, clean his left leg so we can graft from the thigh! Move it people, this kid’s still in bad shape!”

One minute earlier…

Kurai opened his eyes to see that he was standing before a massive gate that looked as though it had been shaped out of the largest, purest diamond born from someone’s wildest fantasy of riches. The fence surrounding it was made of gold- and yet it did not seem quite like the gold he was familiar with. This substance, whatever it was, seemed as though it represented the very idea of the purest gold that one could imagine. Beyond the barrier, he could see countless people and fine buildings, all of them made of pure marble that lined the streets of gold. They all radiated strength and safety, and somehow, a grand purpose that he simply could not wrap his mind around.

Looking down at himself, he was surprised to see that he was dressed in his favorite casual clothes, and even more shocking, his right arm was fully intact, as if his injury had never occurred at all. “Huh,” he muttered as he looked back up, his mind finally registering what had happened. “Somehow I imagined more clouds and angels singing everywhere.”

“The choir is actually further inside, near the throne room,” said a familiar voice that caused Kurai’s eyes to widen, and his jaw to drop as he spotted the speaker. That person smiled widely at him and held out his arms to either side as he stood at the entrance to the grand city. “Hey, Kurai. I didn’t expect to see you for quite a while longer, but it’s good to see you, anyway.”

“Uncle Shiro!” the boy exclaimed, running toward the man as fast as he could, colliding with him hard enough to nearly knock the other man off his feet. “It’s so good to see you!”

“You too, kid,” the older man laughed as he released his nephew. “You’ve filled out since I last saw you- I bet the ladies love you down below.”

Kurai let out a laugh of his own as he grasped his uncle by the shoulders and answered, “Just one, but she’s amazing- way out of my league.”

“No girl is out of your league, my boy,” Shiro laughed again. “I’ve seen a bit of what you’ve been up to, and I gotta say, I couldn’t be prouder of what you’ve accomplished.”

“I feel like I could have done more, but I guess that’s all done, now,” Kurai shrugged, feeling oddly at peace with the fact. “You know, I thought I’d be more upset about being dead, but somehow I feel like everything is gonna sort itself out- and it takes a big load off of my shoulders.”

“You mean that part about you becoming one of the next Symbols of Peace, like All Might?” he uncle asked with a raised eyebrow. “I think you would’ve been even better than the man himself, and this is coming from a cop that’s grateful to him for helping us out of more than one bad situation.”

“Hey, if you knew about that, then you already know about Midoriya, right?” Kurai countered. “He’ll be a good enough hero for the both of us, I know it.”

“Maybe,” Shiro shrugged. “I get to see and hear a few things about you and our family every once in a while, so I have a general idea of what you’ve been through. But I gotta say, Kurai, I think your work isn’t quite done just yet.”

“Come again?”

“They’re getting ready to try and take you back down there,” Shiro said as he cocked his head, as if he were listening to something in the distance. “Time doesn’t really work the same up here, so we have a little while before they get going on that.”

“Wait, seriously?” Kurai asked, his eyes going wide again, this time with worry. “Don’t I get a say in whether or not I go back?”

“You can always take it up with the ancestors,” Shiro replied as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating a huge castle that towered far above the other buildings in the city. “It’s ultimately their call, but I’m sure they’d hear you out, if you’d like.”

“I mean…” Kurai hesitated, looking down at his right arm and flexing his hand a few times. “What’s waiting for me if I do go back? A lot of pain and suffering, for starters, not to mention a legacy that I’m not too psyched about taking on, if I’m being honest.”

“You’ve got that girl you mentioned,” Shiro pointed out. “What’s her name- Mira?”

“Mina,” Kurai corrected him. “She’s great, and I love her, weird as that might be for someone my age.”

“Kid, I was in love with your aunt from the time we were in junior high.”

“Okay, so there’s that,” Kurai conceded. “I know Mom, Dad, and Akarui would miss me, along with all my friends, so that’d be a downer. Plus I know I could do a lot of good as a hero- I’d be able to make sure that the stuff I’ve had to go through doesn’t happen to other kids like me.”

“All that’s true, but you know that you’re not really obligated to go back,” Shiro told him. “Don’t feel like you have to.”

“Okay, which side are you on?” Kurai asked with a wry grin. “One second you’re hinting that I should go back willingly, now you’re saying that I shouldn’t feel bad about staying. Which is it?”

“Both. My point is that either way, you can afford to be at peace,” Shiro explained as he patted his nephew on the back. “You’ve done a lot of good in a short time, and you can be proud of that. But you could do even more good for the people down there, and if that’s the case, you should do it gladly, because the opportunity is there. I’m real proud of you, and I just want to see that you’re content with your path, no matter which way the ancestors send you.”

“I think that’ll be pretty hard to do if I do go back, but I’ll give it my best shot,” Kurai shrugged. “If that ends up being the case, is there anything you want me to tell your family?”

“Send your aunt my love, and tell Shukin to stay away from my pipe collection,” Shiro said with a half-grimace. “Your grandfather gave me that, and they’re not really supposed to be for recreational use.”

“You seem more upset about the pipes than the fact that he’s smoking underage,” Kurai laughed, though he was surprised at his cousin’s irresponsible behavior. He knew that Shukin had a mischievous streak, but not quite like that.

“I did the same thing back in the day, so I can’t really judge,” Shiro sighed. “If you don’t mind, tell your father that I never regretted joining him on that raid.”

“Even though Endeavor never felt anything about your sacrifice?” Kurai asked, his voice a little irritated.

“Even so,” Shiro laughed again. “Don’t you worry about him, understand? He has a role to play yet.”

“…If you say so,” Kurai sighed. Raising an eyebrow as a thought occurred to him, he said, “From the way that you’re talking, I’m guessing that the doctors are about to succeed in reviving me, aren’t they?”

“Sorry, kid,” Shiro shrugged. “Time’s up. But I’ll be waiting for you again, when the time comes.”

“Same spot?” Kurai asked, feeling his eyelids suddenly become heavy.

“You got it. Good-bye, Kurai. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope it’s a long time before I see you again.”

“I’m gonna be a hero,” he replied drowsily. “No promises about me taking my time in getting… back here…” And with that, he fell back into slumber, his spirit journeying swiftly back to the realm of mortals.

“…hear me, kid?”

I’m getting really sick of waking up in hospitals.

“Hey, I need to know if you can hear me.” A nurse- at least, he assumed it was a nurse- said a little more loudly than before. “Tell me your name if you can hear me.”

“…Hogo-sha,” he croaked out, his throat feeling like sandpaper. “Kurai. UA student, class 1-A.” Despite his return to awareness, he kept his eyes shut, not wanting to force them to deal with the bright lights that would no doubt be pointed at his face. Fortunately, he wasn’t in any real pain, though he imagined that was likely because of whatever painkillers they had managed to put him on. He could also feel some kind of mask that had been fitted onto his face, though he wasn’t quite aware enough to figure out why he would need one yet.

“Good, that’s great,” the nurse said, sounding relieved. “Can you open your eyes?”

“Is there a light pointed at my face?” Kurai groused.

“We’ve got the lights dimmed in here so you can get used to them,” the man assured him. “Please open them so we can determine that they’re working properly.”

“Fine.” Making sure to move his eyelids slowly, he was relieved to find that the nurse was telling the truth about the lighting in the room. As he flicked his tired orbs from spot to spot, he realized that he was not in a standard room like the last couple of times that he had been confined to a bed. “Where am I?”

“The ICU ward at Hosu General,” the nurse explained as he moved into Kurai’s field of vision. “You’re a breathing miracle, kid. The doctor didn’t think that you were gonna make it.” He was a plain-looking man, save for the third and fourth eyes that sat on his brow.

“Pretty sure I didn’t make it,” Kurai coughed, his throat somehow feeling even drier than when he had first come to.

“You almost flat-lined for a few seconds, but after they got your heartbeat going steady, the doctor was able to perform surgery.”

“Surgery?” Kurai repeated thickly, not understanding at first. Then his eyes were drawn down toward his right, and he felt his heart sink. “Oh, yeah. That.” His arm had been completely severed a few inches above where his elbow had been. In place of the limb was a mound of bloodied bandages, underneath which he knew he would find stitches and skin stretched tightly together. On reflex, he clenched his left hand, though the movement was somewhat impaired by the IV tube sticking out of a vein.

“I’m sorry, kid,” the nurse said sympathetically as he made some notes on his tablet. “Your classmates said that they had to cauterize the wound, and that the arm was pretty much in pieces when they left it. The bleeding is from new incisions that you sustained during the operation that I mentioned earlier. Some skin was grafted from your left leg, so that’s gonna be sore for a while, too. You can get a replacement prosthetic in the future, but it won’t be the same, and due to the burns you sustained, the operation and rehabilitation needed to connect the nerves will be painful.”

“When can I see my family?” Kurai asked a bit raggedly, not wanting to listen to the bad news that he had already guessed at.

“They’re here, and so are some of your friends, but the doctor wants to come in and see you first,” the nurse replied calmly, seemingly unaffected by Kurai’s change in tone. “You’ve been out for more than a day.”

“Wait,” Kurai said, alarm shooting through him hard enough that he nearly sat up, only to be defeated by the fatigue that the blood loss had inflicted on him. “My classmates. How did I forget to-? Is everyone okay?!”

“Calm down, you’re still very weak,” the nurse said firmly as he moved toward a sink. “From what I know, most of your classmates only sustained light injuries, and the ones that were hurt badly have already been seen by Recovery Girl. They’re all expected to make full recoveries.”

“Damn,” Kurai muttered as he leaned back into his pillows. “I guess we should be grateful that no one was killed.”

“With you on the mend, that’s certainly true.”

By the time that the doctor came in to see him, Kurai had started to inch back towards the realm of sleep, so it wasn’t until the man was at his bedside that he registered that he had a visitor. “Good morning,” the man said as he peered down at his patient. “I’m Doctor Akabane. How are you doing?”

“…You have very red eyes,” Kurai answered through his mask. Indeed, the man’s eyes and hair were both the brightest color of crimson, enough to remind the patient of a shiny new street sign. I think I hit my head on that tree harder than I thought.

“Still woozy from blood loss, I see,” the man chuckled a little dryly. “That should go away soon enough. You got lucky- we had some of your blood type stored, but we also had a fresh donor who volunteered on your behalf.”

“Yay.”

“Are you in any pain right now?”

“No, sir.”

“Did the nurse inform you of your skin graft?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, Recovery Girl should be over to help you heal over the next few days, but she did say that she’s going to have to space out the sessions in order for your body to recover its natural energy reserves,” the man explained as he peered at a chart on his clipboard. “I’m sorry that we weren’t able to do anything for your arm.”

“I’ll live,” Kurai grunted noncommittally.

“You cut that pretty close, too,” the doctor said with a wondering shake of his head. “You’d suffered enough blood loss to kill you on its own, not to mention the blunt-force trauma to your head, among other injuries your classmates said were inflicted by villains while you were unconscious.”

“As far as head injuries go, that’s pretty light for me.”

“Yes, I’ve seen Recovery Girl’s notes on the side effects concerning your quirk,” Akabane sighed as he lowered the charts. “The fact that kids like you are allowed- encouraged to- push yourselves so hard under these circumstances, in spite of the villains going after you… Makes me kinda glad that my daughter didn’t make it in, if I’m being honest.”

In spite of himself, Kurai found equal measures of his curiosity and irritation being aroused. “Your daughter wants to be a hero?” he mumbled thickly, deciding that it might be better not to throw shade at the man responsible for his well-being at the moment.

“Yeah, but she wound up going to the general studies course at UA,” the man answered. “She’s a first-year, like you.” He hesitated before adding, “She really admires your class, seeing all that you guys have accomplished.”

“Such as nearly getting pulped by a monster the first week of school and getting mutilated by a cannibal during summer break?” Kurai deadpanned. There goes good manners, I suppose.

“Well, while that’s true, you’ve also survived both times, gone on to win the Sport’s Festival, and stopped a major terrorist strike on I-island,” the doctor countered, seemingly having missed the change in Kurai’s tone. “Your parents raised a good kid, Hogo-sha. That being said, I don’t think anyone would blame you if you decided to hang back from the hero course after this. Being a hero… Well, it can take more than just a physical toll, and not just on the heroes themselves.” He almost seemed to be saying the last part to himself more than to his patient.

Kurai’s eyes narrowed before he said, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Finally sensed that he must have irritated the boy, Doctor Akabane made a gesture of apology before saying, “Sorry, that was insensitive. I mostly meant to say that even if you continue in the hero course, you’re not going to be able to participate in a lot of the physical classes until you’ve got a replacement arm and been through the proper rehabilitation.”

“Look sir,” Kurai sighed as he aimed his gaze up at the ceiling. “Going into the hero course, I knew that something like this could happen. I accepted those risks, and even if I’m still just in school, I have to accept the consequences of my actions. If it was this or my classmates getting killed and eaten, I’d do this again, every time. So don’t dump a pity party on me- I need help getting better so I can get back into it as soon as possible. Can you help me to do that?”

The doctor was quiet for a minute before he chuckled sheepishly and rubbed at his neck while he said, “I guess it’s for a good reason that you’re in the hero course, huh? You’re right, it’s my job to get you up on your feet. Sorry I let my own feelings about all this get in the way.”

Kurai shrugged and replied, “You’re a good dad if you’re worried about your daughter’s well-being, sir. But if it’s all the same to you, you should work on your bedside manner.”

“You’re not dying!”

“Not anymore, you mean.”

The visit with the doctor took less than fifteen minutes, but Kurai was impatient, so the time seemed to pass a lot more slowly than he was used to, much to his irritation. However, it felt rather ironic that when at last his family was allowed into the room, he nearly wished that he could send them away as soon as he saw his mother’s face crumple in light of what had happened to him.

“Do I really look that bad?” he asked with a wry smile beneath his breathing mask as his father stepped in behind his mother, who was already fighting back the tears. “If I look as bad as the painkillers are keeping me from feeling, then I know I look pretty bad.”

“I see your sense of humor has survived,” his father said with a strained smile, though it was clear that even he- the hardened police officer that had seen all manners of evil that Japan had to offer- was rattled by the sight of his son’s mutilated body.

His mother approached him slowly, reaching out to him, but also drawing back just shy of touching him. Seeing this, he reached out his left hand and said, “Mom, I’m on so many narcotics right now, I don’t feel a thing. Touching me is not going to hurt.”

“You’re not on any drugs,” his father informed him. “They told us that if they had given you any anesthesia, your heart would have given out. Fortunately, one of the orderlies that assisted in the operation has a quirk that blocks a person’s ability to feel pain for a certain amount of time. She’s been coming in every few hours to refresh the effect, but she says it’ll wear off completely by tomorrow, even if she uses it again.”

“So that’s why I’m not on cloud nine despite the fact that I can’t feel anything?” Kurai mused. “Please tell me I get drugs once this gimmick is up.”

“Something that every police officer wants to hear from their son,” his father said with a wan smile as he placed both hands on his wife’s shoulders, who still had yet to speak. She could only switch her gaze between Kurai’s face and his stump of an arm. “But yes, you’ll be put on painkillers as long as the doctor says you’re strong enough to handle them.”

Trying to force himself to think about something else, Kurai cleared his throat and asked, “How’s Akarui?”

His father hesitated before he answered, “He’s doing well, all things considered. He’ll be up here tomorrow to visit you. He’s been trying to hide the fact that he hates the wheelchair- even I wouldn’t have guessed, but it turns out that your mother pays a little more attention to him than I do.”

Kurai couldn’t help but smile at that, just a little bit. “You’re only busy every day trying to keep the city safe, right? I think it’s okay if you miss a few social cues from your son. I’ll probably be the same if I ever have a family in the middle of my hero career.”

“Hero career?” his mother repeated, finally having found her voice. “You’re still… going to become a hero, even after this?”

Kurai looked her in the eyes, all humor vanishing from his face as he replied, “I’m going to become a hero because of this. If I have the power to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen to someone like me, then I owe it to that person to become the best hero I can be. No one else should have to suffer like this, Mom.”

To his surprise, she gripped his arm tightly and told him, “I was worried that this was going to stop your dream of becoming a hero like Shiro- I know how much you looked up to your uncle.”

Kurai blinked at her a few times before he said in a blank tone, “I expected you to be trying really hard to talk me out of becoming a hero after this.”

“Our family doesn’t turn away from evil, son,” his father said as he laid a hand on his shoulder, his mother nodding in agreement. “I wouldn’t stop from something like this, so your mother and I can hardly expect you to cower now. That, and we’re proud of you for choosing to continue facing the darkness, in spite of this.”

“Yeah, well…” Kurai shrugged with another grin. “It’s easy for me to say this stuff now. Let’s see if my bravado holds up once I can feel pain again.” His father laughed a little at that while his mother kissed his forehead tenderly, causing him to close his eyes and relax just a little bit.

“I wish that you wouldn’t keep putting yourself in these situations, but after everything that your father has done, and all the things I’m sure that you will be able to accomplish, I know better than to ask you to stay safe,” the woman sighed as she drew back, her eyes still misting.

Kurai’s brow quirked upwards a little bit at that. “For the record, I didn’t choose to get involved in this one. Moonfish attacked me and my friends while we were trying to get to the base camp without running into any villains.”

“Did you say ‘Moonfish’?” Hikari’s father asked with alarm. “That villain is supposed to be-”

“On death row, yeah.” Kurai shrugged before adding, “Pretty sure he’s on his way back to the chamber, minus his teeth. He might’ve taken my arm, but I hit him hard enough that he shouldn’t have been able to go anywhere for quite a while.”

Before his father could make a reply, he was interrupted by his cell phone’s ringing. Kurai recognized the tune as being from the station, so he kept quiet while his father retreated into the corner of the room, a frown on his face. “Yes?” he muttered as he put the device to his ear. “This had better be important. I said not to call unless- Oh? …I understand. I’ll be there soon… Soon is when I arrive at the station, Detective, and I’ll remind you only once that my son is a victim in all of this, too! So don’t you dare implicate that I lack a sense of urgency for this case, unless you want to go back to being a beat cop!” With an angry motion, he hit the disconnect button and shoved the phone in his pocket.

Kurai was shocked- never, in his whole life, had he seen his father lose his temper when it came to police work. Certainly he got angry with his sons, and with home repair projects, but when it came to his job? It was unheard of for him to act unprofessionally.

“Dad,” he said carefully as the man approached the bed again with a scowl on his face. “What’s happened?”

“…You don’t breathe a word of this to anybody outside of your class, understand?”

“Yes sir.”

His father sighed and rubbed his forehead as he said in a low voice, “One of your classmates was taken by the League during the attack. I’ve had every officer in the area that I could spare looking for him.”

Kurai felt his blood go cold, in spite of the fact that his body’s pain receptors had been temporarily disabled. “Was it Bakugo?”

“Yes.”

Kurai felt his stomach drop before anger seized him, and he glared at his ruined limb with something like disgust. “I lost my arm keeping him safe,” he spat bitterly. “You’re telling me that was for nothing?”

His parents exchanged a glance before his father replied, “Moonfish likely would have killed your classmate, along with you and the others, orders to capture him or no. Based on the statements gathered from your peers, I have no doubt that you saved his life.”

This reminder helped Kurai’s temper settle down a little bit, but the fact that he had more or less failed in the end still felt like salt in the wound. Looking up at his dad with a hard light in his eyes, the boy asked, “You have a lead on where he is, don’t you?”

“We think so.”

“Then do me a favor.” Kurai clenched his remaining fist before growling out, “When you find him, don’t let any of your men get hurt like me. Tell them all to be careful- and then beat the League of Villains’ asses into the dirt.”

“Language, son.”  His mother gave him a disapproving look, in spite of herself, while his father merely nodded once.

“They will all face justice,” he promised. “We’re bringing in Endeavor and All Might for this, along with several other top-ranked heroes.”

“You know, for once I’m glad that you’ll be working with that pyromaniac. He’s not likely to let the League off with a warning.”

“No… No, he’s not.”

He talked with his father and mother for a few more minutes before the commissioner had to answer the call of duty. His parents left together, but his mother mentioned that she would be back once his friends had a chance to visit him. He wished his father good luck, and then he was alone again.

He had avoided mentioning his meeting with his uncle, Shiro, mostly because he wasn’t certain that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. It had all seemed too perfect, too much like something that someone desperate for a peaceful ending could have conjured in their death throes.

No, he thought after a few moments of silence. After what I just went through, happy dreams should be the last thing my mind could come up with. I don’t care if my heart never stopped beating, I know what I saw- where I went…

He didn’t realize that he had fallen asleep until he was awoken by the sound of someone crying next to his bed, on the side with his mutilated arm. He slowly opened his eyes to see Mina sitting on the bench, sobbing softly with her face buried in her hands as her shoulders shook.

“…Hey, sweetheart,” he said groggily, prompting her to gasp and look up at him through a film of tears. He noticed that his mask had been removed while he was passed out, so he didn’t have to struggle to make himself heard through the plastic and tubing.

“Kurai, you’re… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Her eyes were deadlocked onto his while his heart sank at seeing her despair.

“Did they not tell you before?” he inquired softly as he reached for her, just managing to fasten a weak grip on her hand when she placed it on his stomach.

“No, they did, I just…” Mina mumbled hesitantly. “You were taken away in the helicopter before I could even get to you. I wanted to go with, but they wouldn’t let me- again.”

“Well, you’re here now.” Kurai said, trying to make himself smile for her, but finding that the will to do so had deserted him. Instead, he tried to find the words to lift her spirits, even a little. “That makes me feel a bit better.” He noticed that her eyes were purposefully avoiding his arm, but beyond that, that they seemed to be attracted to something on his head. “Do I have one of those brain scanner things on me?”

“Wha-? No,” she said with a slow shake of her head. “I just noticed your hair, is all. I guess it wasn’t important enough for anyone to bring up earlier, but seeing it is still weird, I guess.”

“My hair?” he repeated sluggishly. “What, did it get burned or something, too?”

“No, it-” Mina paused before she looked him back in the eyes a murmured, “They didn’t tell you?”

“No…?”

“Oh,” she said tiredly. Normally when she had a secret to tease someone with, she would play it up and build on the suspense as much as possible, especially when it came to taunting Kurai. Now, however, she simply told him, “A bunch of it turned silver on this side.”

Kurai’s eyes widened ever so slightly as he tried to reach up to touch his lengthened strands, but of course, such an action was no longer possible for him. His eyes glassed over again and he sank further into his pillows as he murmured, “Must’ve been a result of the shock.” He had heard about this happening from his father a few times before- how people’s bodies would sometimes manifest signs of their near-death experiences outside of the immediate physical consequences of the events. Some people developed the shakes, some would undergo drastic personality changes, and some would manifest a shock of white hair seemingly overnight. There were other symptoms, but they escaped Kurai’s exhausted mind at the moment.

Mina just stared at him with a quivering lip as tears continued to spill from her eyes while she trembled in her seat. Eventually, she said, “This is usually about the time where you make a joke about this.”

“…I got nothing,” Kurai admitted, his voice cracking as tears stung his eyes. “I… Even I can’t laugh about this, Mina, not anymore. I don’t know what to do…” Weakly, he shut his eyes tight, as if trying to blot out the world around him, and Mina felt her heart break all over again.

She moved quickly to snake her arms underneath his back and pulled him close, careful not to touch the bandaged area. Truth be told, she really wanted to kiss him, but she also knew him well enough to be aware of the fact that he would more than likely feel suffocated by such a gesture at the moment. The last thing that she wanted was to cause him any more discomfort right now.

Kurai leaned into the embrace as best as he could before he finally felt the stinging in his eyes transform into salty rain that fell into Mina’s shirt. He didn’t know why exactly he had been putting up a front with his parents and the hospital staff, or why his resolve was crumbling at that moment, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because he had wanted his parents to worry less about him- after all, they still had Akarui’s situation to deal with. Maybe it was due to the fact that in every brush with danger that he’d had so far, he had never wavered in his decision to become a hero, and he didn’t want them to think that he was losing his grip.

He just couldn’t tell anymore. All he could say was that being in Mina’s arms, and letting his grief and fear out in the safety of her embrace, was the only thing keeping him from completely falling apart.

Kurai had lost his arm. An integral part of his very existence had been violently ripped away from him, and it might have all been for nothing. The shock of the wound and his closest brush with death yet would have been bad enough without the knowledge that it could have been a useless endeavor. If Bakugo was killed by the League- or worse, recruited by them- then his sacrifice would be meaningless. Together those facts were aiming to crush his spirit into dust, and in that moment, Kurai was unsure whether or not he could keep up the fight like he had vowed to do.

After all, if his encounters with evil had shown him anything, it was that he was just a child playing at the role of a proper hero. He had stood up to Nomu, and nearly gotten himself killed without even managing to defeat the monster. He had fought alongside Gang Orca and almost cost the pro hero his life because of his own vendetta. Even in fighting his way up the tower at I-island, his brother had paid the price for his success. Now he was hanging onto his own life after fighting a villain that belonged on death row with the aim of protecting his peers, and the other boy had been taken anyway.

Every time the goal is within my grasp, it slips away, he thought despairingly as the tears began to soak into his girlfriend’s shirt. Am I not cut out to be a hero after all? His shoulders began to shake as his fingers awkwardly clutched at her back, and the soft sobs forced their way out of his throat.

“I’m sorry…” he whispered, his voice muffled by her shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t do that,” Mina replied in a lowered voice, though he could feel her tears dripping into his hair. “You can’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault. The League did this, not you.”

“Mina, I…” Kurai paused in mid-sob before saying, “I don’t know that I can do this anymore. Even after… Akarui sacrificed his own quality of life to help me, to make me better, and even now… I’ve failed at every turn. A real hero doesn’t-”

“A real hero?” Mina cut him off as she held him tighter, saying, “They don’t give up when life keeps knocking ‘em down. They pick themselves and stand their ground. And I know that my hero has it in him to come back from this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, I know that the hero Kai is going to triumph over every villain that comes up against him.” She pulled back so that she could look at him through her own teary eyes and add, “You’re gonna be the best hero that the world has ever seen, Kurai. You’ve been getting knocked down, yeah, but you’ve also been standing up to the forces of evil, keeping the rest of us safe since we started at UA, and you’re not stopping now.”

Her words touched him, but the weight of his defeat and anguish still sought to smother him like an avalanche. “I want to believe in what you’re saying,” he admitted as he dropped his gaze, too ashamed to meet her eyes. “But… how do I come back from something like this? I’m a cripple again- a liability to others. What if this is a sign that I’m not meant for this?” In spite of his defeatist’s words, his tears were slowing down considerably.

Mina reached under his chin and brought his gaze back up to meet hers’ so that he could see her determined expression. “When you were being held back by the aneurisms, it didn’t stop you from trying to become a hero. It didn’t stop you from reaching out to Midoriya and helping him control his quirk. It definitely didn’t stop you from winning the Sport’s Festival, and there’s more than a few villains that you took down during the raid with Gang Orca that can testify to your abilities. Your mind didn’t stop you back then, so your arm shouldn’t now.”

She held eye contact with him for a few seconds to make sure that he had gotten the message before she took her hand off of his jaw. As soon as he was able to speak, he asked in a low tone, “Will you help me get to where I need to go? Cos I sure as hell don’t know what to do now.” The only thing that he was certain of in that moment was that if he was going to move forward in a positive way, he couldn’t do it alone.

“Whatever you need,” Mina promised him. “I’ll protect you until you’re ready for whatever the world can throw at you.”

“You sure about that?” he asked her as his eyes dropped again. “The world seems bent on throwing just about everything at me.”

“Look at me.” Once the wounded boy had met Mina’s searching gaze again, she told him, “I love you, Kurai. That means that I’m gonna tackle your problems with you, however crazy it may sound.”

Shiro’s words about his wife came back to Kurai, so he managed to crack the tiniest smile as he said, “You’re not crazy… And thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Despite her tears, Mina smiled as she sat on the bed next to him, putting her hand underneath his as she did so, not wanting to mess with the IV that was on top.

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Yeah-huh.”

“Stay the night with me?” he asked in a small voice. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get any solid rest, otherwise.”

Mina’s face sobered a little as she reached up to brush some of his hair out of his face and murmured, “Of course. I won’t leave you alone for a second, I promise.”

“Even if my mom flips out?” Kurai teased weakly as he blinked away some of the residual tears in his eyes.

“Well- I mean…”

After a few more moments of quiet with just the two of them, Mina sent a text from her phone, which saw Iida and Todoroki coming into the room a short while after that. Iida, Kurai was surprised to see, had tears in his eyes as he beheld the sight of his friend’s ruined limb, and Todoroki was so taciturn that he reminded the others of how he had been when they had first met each other.

“Kurai, I’m so sorry that his happened to you,” Iida said in a broken voice. “I failed you, as a class rep, and as your friend.”

“Nothing to be done about it,” Kurai shrugged as he forced a weak grin onto his face. “I suppose that this is what I get for giving you so much grief about Stain.”

“You didn’t go out of your way to find trouble,” Iida argued vehemently. “You and the others were attacked, like at the USJ, and you had permission to fight. You did nothing to deserve this, and yet…” The bespectacled student stopped, his words failing him as he cast his gaze to his feet in shame and sorrow. “It should be me on that bed, not you.”

“I’d rather it be me than you,” Kurai replied firmly, though Mina caught his eye for a second when he looked away from their de facto leader. Drawing in a breath to steady himself, he went on to say, “When I become a hero, this will be something that I always look back on as a reason to keep fighting. It’ll be hard, and I already hate that it’s happened, but as I’ve been reminded, this isn’t the first time that my body has tried to hold me back. I beat it before, and I’ll do it again. I won’t let this happen to someone else, not if I can do something to prevent it.” Mina said nothing, but she squeezed his hand lightly in a silent gesture of approval.

As Iida straightened up, Kurai told him, “You’re the class rep, but not everything that happens to us is on you.” Turning to Todoroki, who had yet to say a word, he added, “My condition isn’t your fault, either. In all reality, you probably saved my life.”

“I overheard the doctor talking to your parents,” the other boy replied in a dull tone. “He said that you were nearly dead for a few seconds. If I hadn’t burned you-”

“If you hadn’t cauterized my arm, I’d probably be fighting infections in addition to a worse case of blood loss,” Kurai corrected him, having noticed that his friend was reaching up to touch his own burn scar. “Your fire saved me, Todoroki. You did good.”

“…It still felt wrong, using my flames to cause my friend pain,” his friend replied, looking sad. “I keep trying to look at it like you’ve described, but I just haven’t been able to.”

“Dude, my boyfriend needs a pick-me-up, not a buzzkill,” Mina said as she crossed her arms with a frown. “He’s trying to thank you for what you did, but you’re too focused on feeling bad that you can’t even acknowledge that.”

Todoroki blinked a couple of times before he bowed to Kurai in accompaniment with the words, “She’s right. I’m sorry, Hikari.” As he stood back up, he asked, “Is there anything that I can do for you?”

“Just keep me updated on what’s going on with our classmates that ended up in the hospital,” Kurai grinned slightly, glad to see that his friend was at least being made not dwell on what had happened in the forest. Next trick is to get me to stop thinking about it.

“I can help with that,” Iida said as he took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes. “Jiro and Hagakure are actually in a couple of rooms down the hall due to severe poisoning.”

“Apparently there was a villain that was producing an airborne toxin that mixed with the smoke from the fire,” Todoroki added. “Tetsutetsu and Kendo from class B took him down, but he had already succeeded in poisoning several of our peers by that time.”

“Yaoyorozu was injured by another one of those Nomu creatures, but Recovery Girl was able to heal most of the head trauma that was inflicted,” Iida informed him. “Miss Xiao Long was admitted with several broken ribs and serious internal bleeding, but she’ll be okay in a few days, provided she does what the doctors tell her. Midoriya also suffered broken arms, but the only permanent damage he sustained were the scars on his hand being made a little worse.”

Todoroki cut back in to say, “Everyone else was visiting Yaoyorozu when we got the news from Ashido that you were cleared to have visitors. They’re all waiting in turns to come see you, provided that you’re up to it.”

Kurai hesitated, not wanting to be rude, but he also knew that he’d have to switch to conventional painkillers soon, which would leave him in poor shape to receive visitors, not to mention how tired he felt. “What time is it?” he asked after a moment of quiet thought.

“It’s late morning,” Todoroki answered. In the ICU room, which was mostly cut off from the outside, it was difficult to tell if it was morning or evening, as the clock on the wall did not indicate a.m. or p.m. “You’ve been sleeping for a full day and two nights.”

Seeing Kurai’s reluctance to accommodate their classmates, despite it being early in the visiting hours, Mina cut in now, saying, “Maybe everyone else can come later. I know I’d want a nap after everything that’s happened to him.”

“Sorry, guys,” Kurai apologized when Iida looked a question at him. “I know I’ve been sleeping for a while, but she’s right. I feel like crap.”

“No small wonder, given your injury, surgery, and blood transfusions,” the taller boy mused. “Just be sure to thank Uraraka as soon as you’re able.”

“Huh?” Kurai looked at his friend with no small amount of confusion at the sudden change in subject. “What’s Uraraka done?”

“She’s been providing some of the blood for you since your physiology is compatible,” Todoroki answered, surprising Kurai. “It was lucky, really. You have one of the rarest blood types, and the hospital was running low on the supply. She volunteered to help out as soon as she found out that she was a match for you.”

“Oh,” Kurai said, surprised and touched that the girl would do that for him.

Back in the day before quirks existed, Kurai could have been a recipient for O-type blood, but due to the way that the human body had changed with superpowers, it was now better for people to not cross-donate, instead sticking to their own blood types.

“I woulda been first to help, but I’m AB,” Mina said with a rueful grin. “Sorry.”

“Seriously, people, stop apologizing for stuff you can’t control,” Kurai chuckled softly. “I’m just grateful that you’re each here, so let’s leave it at that.”

“Very well,” Iida said swiftly. “We’re glad that you’re alive, Kurai, and we look forward to helping you recover however we can. We’ll all move forward from this, together.”

“Agreed,” Kurai nodded. He then raised the stump of his arm and said with a completely straight face, “Shake on it?”

Chapter Text

Of all the ways that Mina Ashido had imagined being in a bed with her boyfriend, the thought of keeping him company after a villain had nearly killed him was not something that she had thought up. Although given their chosen profession, she supposed that she should have seen it coming. Just not like this- not as young as they were, not so fresh in the world of heroics. They were supposed to be worrying about nothing more than math tests and combat practices, not whether they would live to see the next day. Such things were supposed to be in the realms of adulthood, several years away from them, but here they were anyway.

As she lay next to him on the hospital bed, underneath a couple of comfortable blankets, she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the bloodied stump that remained in place of a once-mighty limb. That hideous wound had also already warped his body beyond the obvious- he had lost a surprising amount of weight in three days, the lines in his gaunt face had hardened, and a shock of silver hair had appeared on the right side of his head, stretching from the nape of his neck to just in front of his ear, and crawling up past his temple. He had endured harsh beatings before, but not on this level, neither physical nor psychological. Now all that Mina could do was listen to him sleep fitfully under the influence of painkillers fed to him via an IV drip, silently cursing the villain that had done this to him.

It’s a good thing that guy is already on death row, or I might just get Kurai’s cop dad to leave me alone with the guy long enough for my quirk to ‘accidentally’ turn him into a puddle. As the dark thought crossed her mind, she felt another few tears slide out of her eyes. She nearly wiped at them, but she didn’t want to accidentally jostle Kurai awake just yet. It had been difficult for him to find sleep, even with the knowledge that she would be with him for the night, and she wanted him to get as much rest as possible before he was made to face cruel reality once more. So she let the tears fall into their pillow, wishing with all her might that she could reach over and grab his right hand, and let him know that it had all been a bad dream, and that it was time for them to go and endure one of Aizawa’s stupid tricks again.

But his hand wasn’t there, and it wasn’t a nightmare that they could wake up from. First his uncle, then his brother, and now this, she thought glumly. Is it too much to ask that he would be able to catch a break? Just once?

He had dozed off for a while the previous day, long enough that he was able to muster up the energy to see the rest of his classmates, sans the American girls, and of course, Bakugo. Everyone had been very kind to him, volunteering to help him however they could, offering to bring him homemade meals, any movie that he wanted to watch- Yaoyorozu, somewhat to Kurai’s surprise, even offered to more less give him copies of her class notes as soon as their studies resumed, provided that he wasn’t able to attend school by then.

When Midoriya and Uraraka came in, Mina noticed that the brunette was sticking closer to their green-haired friend a little more than she normally did, but she decided to ask the other girl about it later. For his part, Kurai made sure to thank Uraraka for the blood transfusions, to which she replied that she was more than happy to do so. It also seemed to him that Midoriya wanted to talk about something other than their respective recovery time expectations, but he said nothing outright. The maimed boy decided to text him in private later- something that he realized was going to be significantly harder to do now, as he had been right-handed before the summer camp. Maybe it’s something about All Might?

The only somewhat bad part that happened was when Kaminari offered to bring him a PlayStation Mach IX for entertainment- only to remember that the controller required two hands to use. Since Jiro wasn’t present to reprimand the boy for his behavior, Su used her tongue to smack Kaminari on the back of the head for his insensitivity.

Recovery Girl visited him to give him a small healing session and to change his bandages, which Kurai refused to look at while she worked. He knew that he would have to see the ruined limb without the wrappings eventually, but for now he just wanted to try and ignore the ugly sight. The Youthful Heroine offered her condolences once she was finished, and then she departed to go look in on the other students.

As soon as visiting hours were close to being over, Kurai’s mother had returned with an overnight bag, but she had stopped in the door when she saw Mina gently caressing her son’s head, lulling him into a shallow sleep. The pink girl had looked up at the older woman, startled, but she managed not to wake up her boyfriend as she got off the bed and moved toward the entrance.

“Mrs. Hogo-sha, I-”

“Are you planning to stay with him for the night?” Moka asked bluntly, bits of her husband’s no-nonsense attitude manifesting itself in that moment. Despite her brusqueness, she kept her voice lowered, as not to wake her son.

“Yes ma’am,” Mina nodded quickly, using the same volume as the other woman. “He asked me to.”

“I’m sure he did,” the older Hikari murmured. “Under any other circumstances, I would have you removed from his room while I grounded him to his father’s favorite holding cell down at the station.” Mina’s eyes widened slightly, but she said nothing, waiting to hear his mother’s verdict, just in case there was a chance that she wouldn’t make a scene.

Moka eyed her critically for another few seconds before she continued in a relatively neutral tone, “With the shape that he’s in, I doubt that he would be up for letting his hands wander… so to speak.” Mina had glanced back at Kurai, hoping that he hadn’t that last comment, but his mother clicked her fingers sharply, bringing her attention back to her. “Eyes on me, Miss Ashido. That’s my son lying there, and as you can see, he’s going to have a rough life ahead of him. Even if he gets a prosthetic, he won’t be able to use his quirk out of that arm, which will just make having a successful career that much harder on him. He does not need an extra burden on his shoulders in addition to all that has already happened to him.”

“I don’t-”

“If you are going to stay the night with him, you are going to do it on two conditions,” the older woman cut her off swiftly, fire in her violet eyes that frightened Mina in a way that no villain ever could. Seeing this, Kurai’s mother nodded with satisfaction before saying, “First off, you will not even entertain the idea of doing anything indecent with my son.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.” That was a total lie, but she certainly wasn’t going to act on any of those thoughts with the current situation being the way that it was.

“Good. The second condition is that if you ever dump him, I will personally make you disappear.” Mina flinched and instinctively reach up to rub her neck while Moka continued to put the fear of God in her. “If my son breaks up with you, that’s one thing. I can accept that. If it’s a mutual break, I’ll even let that slide. But if you ever break his heart, there won’t be enough physical evidence left for my husband’s forensics department to even identify your remains as human… Do I make myself clear?”

Mina had stared into the eyes of death twice now- once at the USJ, and once during her internship with Mister Brave. Neither of those occasions made her tremble like she had in that moment, or made her feel as though ice was creeping its way up her spine and into her skull. It was all she could do to swallow past the sandpaper in her throat and say, “Y-Yes ma’am.” Because there wasn’t a single molecule in her body that doubted that Kurai’s mother wouldn’t do what she was promising to do.

“Good girl,” Hikari said with a charming smile as she stepped away from the door. “Call me if he needs anything, and get some rest. I’d say that you two kids have earned it.”

“Wait, Mrs. Hogo-sha?”

“Hmm?” The woman stopped and turned back to look at the pink girl with a raised eyebrow.

“I… I love your son,” she confessed, her face blushing lilac as she looked down at the floor. “I’d never do anything to hurt him, promise.”

“…I believe that you’re in love with him,” the elder woman replied after a moment, causing Mina to lock eyes with her again. “But just as it’s easy to fall in love, it’s also very easy to fall out of it.”

“W-What does that mean?”

Kurai’s mom sighed and walked back over to where Mina stood before replying, “People often confuse infatuation and love for the same thing, Ashido. Love- real love- is a decision that you make daily. It means caring for them, during the times where he makes you feel like you’re the queen of his world, but also the days when you want to put his head through a wall. It’s the ultimate commitment, so I’ll ask you again; are you prepared to stay with my son, knowing what I’ll be expecting of you?”

“…Yes ma’am.” Mina finally looked at Kurai’s mother with a firm resolve that saw to her straightening her back and standing with confidence in front of the woman. “Like I said before, I do love Kurai. I wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

“Hmm.” Moka smiled at her as she turned around again, saying over her shoulder, “Prove it, kid.”

Mina shuddered a little as she recalled the previous evening, deciding that it would be better if she got out of bed before Kurai’s mother had a chance to come in and jump to any unfavorable conclusions. Yawning broadly as she moved toward the sink, she picked up her phone from where she had left it and checked her notifications. She was mildly surprised to see a message from her oldest brother, Mako, so she opened that first.

‘Just got in last night with Micha, heard from Mom and Dad that you were at the hospital with your boyfriend. Need anything?’

The contents of the message surprised her- like she had told Kurai, her relationship with her brothers wasn’t the greatest one. Then again, they’d pretty much be marked as human scum if they didn’t check on their kid sister after she survived a villain attack, she thought as she began to type a reply. After the USJ incident, she had spoken with him briefly in a group call where their parents were present, but she hadn’t heard from them since, except for the odd email or social media post.

‘Not right now, thanks for asking,’ she wrote. ‘How was the bar exam?’

Closing that conversation, she was then intrigued to see that she had a message from an unfamiliar number. What’s this?

Clicking it open, she was surprised again when she read, ‘This is Blake. Is it okay if I visit Hikari today? I had something that I needed to tell him.’

She was with him and the others when he got injured, Mina remembered. Her fingers flying, she answered, ‘Yeah, I’ll let you know as soon as he’s ready for visitors. Just one question, who gave you my number?’

Before she could put the phone down, she got a reply from her brother that read, ‘Aced it. You’re talking to Japan’s hottest new lawyer.’

Shaking her head in amusement, Mina replied, ‘Any chances of you being able to sue the League of Villains for psych damage?’

Just then, of course, Blake messaged her back. ‘I’m in the hospital with the other girls, visiting Yang. Asui gave me your number when I said that I wanted to get in touch without coming close to Hikari. Not sure that he wants to see me, but thanks for keeping me posted.’

Weird, why does she think that? Mina frowned as she added Blake as a new contact in her phone. Kurai didn’t say anything about her this whole time, good or bad… Probably because he’s more concerned about losing an arm.

Her phone buzzed again, but she hardly noticed it, as that’s when she heard some grunting sounds coming from where Kurai lay on the bed. Turing around in alarm, she gasped as she watched him tossing and turning in his sleep, muttering in an almost frenzied manner while he reached out blindly with his left hand, trying to grasp what, she wasn’t sure. Because his mask had been removed the previous evening, it was just making it that much easier for him to move around right then. Dropping her phone on the floor without a second thought, she rushed to his bedside as his heart monitor began to beep more rapidly, alerting her to an accelerated heartrate on his end.

“No, no, no,” she said as she put her hands on his good shoulder and chest, trying to keep him from thrashing around too much. “Kurai, sweetie, listen to me. You’re gonna bust your stitches if you keep doing thi- Ah!” Her shriek was drawn out of her as his subconscious activated his quirk, enhancing his strength enough to fling her against the wall, stunning her as her head hit the door, followed by the floor. “Ow…”

This was followed by a silence so complete that it made the heart monitor sound like a fire alarm with batteries about to expire. “…Mina?” Kurai asked groggily, his voice shaky. “Mina, are you-?”

“I’m okay,” she grunted as she forced herself to her feet. This proved to be a bad idea, as her head swam, and she all but fell onto her boyfriend’s legs and groaned as nausea assaulted her stomach. “Less okay.”

“Did I-?” he started to ask, but then stopped, already knowing the answer. “I’m so sorry, Mina! I was having a bad dream, and I guess I-”

“Dude.” Mina awkwardly swung her hand, up and over so that it landed awkwardly on his chest. “I’m all good. Just gimme an Advil and some coffee, and I’ll be good as new.”

“But I-”

“Dude, I will roll over there and kiss you if that’s what it takes to shut you up,” she grunted as she lifted her head slightly to look into his worried eyes. “I also might puke, but the two are unrelated. You didn’t do it on purpose. I forgive you, so let’s move on.” She even gave him a crooked smile to show him that she was okay. Internally, however, she vowed to prank him for this, as soon as he was capable of going home.

Down an arm or not, that really hurt! She thought as her head, back, and right shoulder throbbed painfully.

Trying to focus on something else for the moment, she asked, “Do you remember what you were dreaming about that freaked you out so much?”

“Yeah.” His voice sounded haggard, as if he had just run a marathon without drinking anything for a whole day beforehand. “I saw him. Moonfish, he… I was back in the forest.”

“Oh.” Mina wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to say to that. “I… I guess I can understand why you would have woken up the way that you did.” She now felt bad about her sudden urge to get back at him, so she wracked her aching head for a way to make it up to him.

“It was you.”

His sudden utterance took her by surprise, leaving her wondering at what those three words meant. “What was me?”

“Instead of Bakugo, it was you in the forest,” he said in a dull tone. Mina slowly lifted herself off of his legs as he continued to mumble, “Everything else is the same. I can smell the fire and poison in the air. I can feel the ground beneath my feet, the pain in my head from overusing my quirk, the pounding in my chest that tells me that I’m about to die.” He clenched his hand into a fist as his tone became bitter. “The only thing that’s different is that you’re the one that Moonfish is after. And I just…” A deep, shuddering breath caused his body to tremble as he managed to get out, “I’m not fast enough this time. You’re torn to pieces in front of me, and then I can feel his teeth tearing me apart-!”

“Kurai, stop!” Mina begged him as she reached over and grabbed his left hand, which had unconsciously seized his right arm and started squeezing the ruined limb with an intensity born from his powerful quirk. “You’re hurting yourself.”

Glancing down at the wrappings, which were beginning to show crimson spots again, he cursed and lay back in the pillows, the tears in his eyes impossible to miss. “Great,” he said bitterly as he glanced at her before quickly looking away. “Do you mind calling the nurse so I can get this fixed?”

“Sure,” the pink girl said as she reluctantly released his hand and reached for the remote. Tapping the button that connected her to the nurse’s station, she cleared her throat and said, “This is Hogo-sha’s room, some of his stitches seem to have come undone. He’s bleeding through the bandages again.”

“We’ll be there momentarily,” said a man on the other end. “Try to keep pressure on the wound until we do.”

“Yes sir.” The line went dead, and she put the remote/phone down as she looked around the room for something in the way of a first-aid kit that could help them. “Uh…”

“Do they have towels in the bathroom?” Kurai grunted. Apparently they had decreased the amount of painkillers that he had been receiving overnight, because he could definitely feel some soreness in his right arm now.

“Right, yeah!” Mina confirmed as she dashed over to the room and grabbed the large piece of fabric. Returning swiftly, she hesitated in front of his wound and asked, “Is it okay, if I uh…?”

“Yeah, just be gentle,” he requested as he shut his eyes against a new wave of pain. “I dunno if it’s cos that nurse’s quirk finally wore off completely, or what, but this really hurts now.”

“That might be more because you kinda used your quirk to beat yourself up,” Mina pointed out as she put the towel on him, applying pressure like the nurse had instructed.

“Oh, yeah. Just…! Ow! Got any distractions?”

Mina grinned slyly at him, despite the situation, and said, “I can think of a few things.”

“Things that don’t involve my heartrate going up any more than it already is?” he added, knowing how her mind worked. “I’m losing blood, remember?”

“Buzzkill, dude.”

“Mina…” he muttered as he squeezed his eyes tight against a new wave of pain. “Distraction, please?” Sweat beaded on his face, and his heart monitor was alerting them to his increased pace again.

“Well, you’re really limiting my options here,” she said, forcing a smile into her voice, despite feeling sick at how much pain Kurai had to be in. “Um… Oh! Belladonna said that she wanted to come see you later, if that’s okay?”

“Sure?” he grunted, confusion further distorting his features. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I dunno, she seemed to think that you were mad at her, or something.”

“Why would I-? Oh.” Gritting his teeth, he hissed out, “Yeah, she and I kinda had an argument on our way to the campgrounds. All things considered, though, I really don’t care anymore.”

“Cool, I’ll let her know that she can come up.”

“Preferably after my arm gets stitched back together.”

“Right, sorry.”

“Hey, Mina?”

“Yeah?” She looked at him as he cracked his eyes opened, a film of tears still residing in front of his brown orbs.

“Thanks for being here.” He unclenched his fist and laid his hand on her arm, adding, “I know I’m being difficult, but this means the world to me.”

“Yeah, well…” The girl blushed as she leaned over to kiss his fingers and murmured, “Don’t get used to it, buster. You better believe that I’m gonna make you pay me back with interest for all this.”

“Any chance we can increase the rate of interest?” he half-laughed, though the expression was ruined by another grimace born from his agony. Despite this, it made Mina smile just a little bit to hear him sound his usual self, even if for just a second.

The nurses came in and had Mina wait outside while they re-did Kurai’s stitches, leaving her free to message Blake with the news that he was willing to see her once the staff was done with him. Resigned to waiting for a little while, the girl went down the hall to make herself some coffee, grimacing when she saw that the hospital only had the cheap stuff.

“I should ask Su to bring something better,” she muttered to herself as she reached for the bland-looking packet.

“You’re not seriously going to drink that sorry excuse of a coffee, are you?” Mina turned around, surprised to see Weiss standing in the doorway to the pantry, who was holding a clear plastic can that looked suspiciously like coffee grounds to the pink girl.

“Unless you’re offering to share, I don’t really have much of a choice,” Mina shrugged as she gestured to the contents of the can. “I had a rude wakeup call a little while ago, so I need something to get going, or I’m gonna be a wreck all day.”

Weiss tilted her head at Mina, as if studying her for a moment, before she strode toward the countertop where the kettle was heating up. “How do you take your coffee, Miss…?”

“Ashido,” she reminded the white-haired girl. “And I usually have a cream and five sugars.” Weiss snickered at that, prompting Mina to cross her arms and ask, “What?”

“Ruby takes the exact same thing,” she chuckled as she grabbed a few cups from the shelf. “No wonder you seem to have so much energy all the time.”

“Oh,” the pink girl said, feeling a little silly for getting defensive with the American girl. “Well, thanks for making.”

“I was getting some for the others, so it’s not too much trouble,” Weiss shrugged as she began to put different requested items in the cups. Glancing at the other girl out of the corner of her eye, she then asked, “Did you spend the night here?”

“Yeah,” Mina yawned, making sure to cover her mouth, as she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet. “Kurai didn’t want to be alone, so I kept him company. They’re redoing his stitches right now, so I thought I’d come down for a coffee break.”

“Ah,” the other girl said neutrally. Mina half-expected her to make some comment about such actions reflecting badly on their student body, but all Weiss did was move on to say, “Ruby stayed overnight with Yang, since she’s the only family in town. Blake and I came back with Recovery Girl, since she’s going to be our hostess while we stay in Japan.”

“Recovery Girl is already here?” Mina asked, suddenly feeling a little more awake. “How long has she been in the hospital?”

“We got in like fifteen minutes ago. She’s just finishing up with Yang, and then she’s going over to see your boyfriend.” Weiss hesitated before she turned to look at Mina with the words, “I’m sorry about what happened to him, by the way. I know we got off to a bad start, and I’m still not quite sure what I think of him, but no one deserves what happened to him.”

“…Thanks,” Mina said a little awkwardly. “Do you, uh…? He can have visitors now, as long it’s three people or less at a time.”

“Maybe later,” Weiss replied politely as the kettle began to boil. “I’m sure he’d rather have company that he gets along with right now. I’d be rude to disturb whatever peace he can manage at the moment, and I know that I can be… difficult.” A small sigh escaped the pale girl’s lips with the last word, but Mina thought it best not to comment on the matter.

A strange silence- neither hostile nor friendly- descended on the pair of aspiring heroines until the coffee was ready, and Mina thanked the other girl for the beverage. As she turned to leave, Weiss said, “Text Blake.”

“Huh?”

“If you need more coffee, I mean.” Weiss’ back was to Mina, but she seemed sincere with her words. “I have more if you or Hikari need it. This hospital has decent food, but the beverages are downright terrible.”

A small smile turned Mina’s lips upwards at the kind gesture. “Thanks, Schnee. That’s really nice of you.”

“You’re welcome, Ashido,” the albino girl acknowledged. “Now go see your boyfriend. I’m sure that his stitches are done by now.”

After Recovery Girl’s visit was complete, most of Kurai’s bleeding stopped, and he only required relatively light bandages. The session clearly left him feeling tired, but he refused to go back to sleep in spite of the older woman’s advice to do so, not wanting to risk another nightmare so soon after the most recent one.

In order to distract him from his pain and exhaustion, Mina invited Blake into the room so that she could talk to him about whatever was on her mind. The raven-haired girl came in with hardly a sound to announce her presence- even the door seemed to move more silently than normal.

“Hey there,” Kurai grunted as Mina helped him into a sitting position. “Mina said that you wanted to talk?”

“I’m actually here to say goodbye,” Blake answered quietly, stunning the couple. “Once Yang is out of the hospital, I’m going to get on the next flight back to the States so I can transfer into the general studies program at my school.”

“What? Why?” Kurai demanded, utterly bewildered at her declaration. “You’re not scared of fighting, are you? Once you got going in the forest, you handled yourself like a pro.”

“I’m not afraid of battle,” Blake admitted, her eyes downcast. “But I am afraid of the people around me getting hurt because of the decisions that I’ve made.”

When Kurai made no reply to that, Mina looked back and forth between the two of them a few times before she asked, “Did I miss something? Belladonna, this isn’t your fault, not even remotely. The League of Villains are the ones that-”

“I’m the reason that Hikari is where he is right now.” The other girl cut her off, her tone sad and remorseful. It took Mina a second to realize that she was crying. “When we first ran into Tokoyami and Shoji, I wanted to abandon them in order to get back to the camp. When he let me make the decision to run straight for camp, or to go find the villain that was attacking Todoroki and Bakugo, I chose to fight. Both of my choices nearly got him killed, and I don’t see much of a future in being a hero that only endangers the lives of her peers. I’m quitting now, before anyone else gets hurt because of me. I’ve always been best at letting other people down- even my quirk is best suited for letting something else take the fall for me.”

“No.” Both girls turned toward the bed to see Kurai looking at Blake with fire in his eyes, despite his pale face and weakened frame. “You don’t get to quit, Belladonna. I won’t let you do it.”

“You can’t stop me,” she said, though she sounded uncertain of herself.

“I’m not giving up on being a hero after what just happened to me, so you’d better not, either,” he grunted as he slowly moved his left leg to hang off the bed. When Mina went to stop him, he waved her back. After he moved his right foot to do the same, he growled out, “I am in so much pain that the narcotics are hardly doing anything. The doctors think that I’ll have to deal with phantom pains for the rest of my life, in fact. I won’t be able to use my quirk out of my primary fighting hand. I can’t even sleep without seeing the faces of everyone that has tried to kill me in the last few months, but none of that is stopping me, and do you know why?”

“…Why?”

“Because I have friends that won’t let me quit,” Kurai hissed as he slid off the bed, wobbling unsteadily until Mina moved to grab him up under his shoulders, helping him to stand up straight. “Because they know that I can be a good hero, one that won’t let other people suffer like Midoriya has had to, or Xiao Long, or me. I’m not there yet, and I won’t be for some time, but I’m still going to get there. And if all of this doesn’t stop me, then you really don’t have an excuse to quit, either.” Blake looked like she wanted to say something, but he held up a hand to cut her off before adding, “I don’t know a lot about you, Belladonna, but I know that you wouldn’t be here, in Mister Aizawa’s class of all places, if you didn’t have the potential for greatness in you. And you owe it to all the people that you’ll save someday to work your hardest to ensure that you train to make the right decisions from now on. And you can start…” Grimacing as he took a couple of steps forward with his girlfriend’s help, Kurai reached out his hand to Blake and concluded, “By choosing to stay at UA High- your hero academia.”

When Blake didn’t immediately take his hand, Mina grunted out, “Seriously, Belladonna, could you shake hands with him, already? He’s heavy.”

“I’m not that heavy- I even managed to drop eight pounds recently,” he replied with a wry smile over his shoulder, which got Mina to roll her eyes at him. Looking back at Blake, Kurai wiggled his hand a little bit and said, “Come on, Belladonna. My arm’s getting tired, and I don’t have a spare anymore, so I gotta take good care of it.”

“I’m gonna drop you,” Mina threatened, which drew a tired chuckle out of him.

Slowly, Blake reached out and gingerly shook his hand, careful of the IV still piercing his flesh. “I’ll finish the semester at UA,” she told them. “If I’m still not convinced that this life is for me by then, I’m switching to general studies.”

Kurai and Mina glanced at one another, then nodded in unison. “Good enough,” Mina grinned. “Hey, Belladonna?”

“Yes?”

“…Can you help me put him back into bed? His legs are giving out.”

“Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly as the American rushed to help her new classmates. “Recovery Girl’s quirk pretty much wiped me out.”

Blake left shortly afterwards to go see Yang and her friends, leaving Kurai and Mina alone for the second time since he had woken up. Realizing that his family might be coming soon, she took the opportunity to ask him about something that had been bothering her over the last few hours.

“Why are you putting on a show for the others?” She was sitting next to him, massaging his legs to stimulate the blood flow, as per the suggestion of the doctor.

Kurai was surprised to discover that his girlfriend was an excellent masseuse, but her question distracted him from that particular detail for the moment. “I’m not entirely sure,” he answered honestly. “I dunno if it’s because I want them to think that I’m as tough as they’ve been saying I am all year, or so that they don’t get even more discouraged after what happened to Bakugo, or some other reason entirely.” Looking into her caramel-colored eyes, he added softly, “I just know that for some reason, I can’t put up appearances when it’s just you and me. Or rather, I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I trust you, and I want you to feel comfortable around me.”

“Oh yeah?” she grinned lightly as she switched over to his left leg. “So there’s nothing that you wouldn’t tell me?” She meant it as a joke, but when Kurai didn’t respond immediately, and she saw the troubled look on his face, she frowned a little bit and asked, “Is there something that you won’t tell me?”

Kurai’s mind raced, knowing that he had baulked, but he couldn’t well tell her about All Might and his past, nor the truth behind Izuku’s powers. On the other hand, he didn’t want her to lose faith in him, either. So he decided to say, “There are some secrets that aren’t mine to share.”

“Really?” she asked, her smile back as she continued to work on his leg. “What, do you know some stuff about your dad’s job that you’re not technically supposed to know?”

“You could say that,” he nodded with a small sigh of relief as he realized that she wasn’t really too worried about the matter. His girlfriend was a tad on the nosy side, but even she could recognize that- especially in the line of hero work- there were just some things that couldn’t be shared without the express permission of the one that originally held their secrets.

“Okay, well aside from any super-secret police stuff, or any world-ending catastrophes that you’ve pinky-promised to never speak of, is there anything that I should know about you?” He winced as she massaged a particularly tender spot on his calf, which she quickly apologized for.

Turning red from what he was about to say, Kurai told her, “Just that I’m in love with a really great girl who I think is gonna be an amazing hero.”

“Was that supposed to be a secret?” she giggled. “Cos you already told me that.”

“Anything wrong with me saying more it than once?”

“Not at all.” She released his leg in favor of moving up the bed to bend over and kiss him on the mouth, enjoying the gentle contact that she had been missing since camp began. As she drew back for a breath of air, she murmured, “Thank you for being yourself around me. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

That night, their world would change forever.

Kurai’s mother and brother came in to see him, and it actually turned out to be a nice visit for the boy, as he was beginning to feel a little better thanks to Recovery Girl and the painkillers that he was being put on. Mina spent a lot of the time talking to Akarui, who was able to communicate via the computer that had been built into his wheelchair. He couldn’t use his mouth to talk, but he could type out whatever he needed to say, as his hands were relatively unaffected thus far. From what Kurai could see, the two of them were getting along a lot better than they had before the events of I-island, which brought him a measure of much-needed happiness.

Since Akarui had finally been cleared to go home, he and their mother left a little early, so they could get him situated back at the house, though their mother did leave behind a bag with some fresh clothes for Kurai, should he want to change out of his hospital robe. Before they left, the younger brother joked that they should have put a plaque with their family name on his hospital room, as Kurai was- quite by coincidence- scheduled to move there once he was gone. Since Kurai didn’t need a constant supply of blood anymore, he was cleared to leave the ICU, though the nurses would still be checking on him regularly. His IV was also removed so that he could move about more freely and start taking his pain medication via pill instead of liquid drip.

Since the rules about visitors were more relaxed in the new room, and he was feeling a little better- despite needing Mina’s help to walk due to his sense of imbalance and weakened muscles- he let his classmates know that they were free to visit him as they pleased. This led to the majority of the class coming to see him for a little while before they all went their separate ways.

The only one to remain behind was Midoriya, who asked Mina if he could talk to his friend in private. She was reluctant to leave his side, but he assured her that he would be okay for a few minutes without her. So she went to go grab some food for them from the cafeteria down below, promising to return with some KFC, an old favorite of Kurai’s from when he was little.

As soon as she was gone, Kurai had sobered his expression and murmured, “Is this about All Might?”

“No,” Midoriya answered swiftly. “I know you can’t help us, but I just wanted you to know… Todoroki, Kirishima, and I are going to try to rescue Kacchan. If Yaoyorozu is on board to help us track him down, we’ll make sure to finish what you started.”

His words didn’t really surprise Kurai, though whether it was because he was just exhausted or he just knew that his friend was determined to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong, he wasn’t sure. “I’ll assume that Iida tried to talk you out of it? Or does he not know?”

“Most of our class knows, except for Hagakure and Jiro,” Midoriya admitted. “They’re still recovering from the effects of the poison. But yeah, most of the others are against the plan.”

“You do know that you’re breaking the law, and that I’m the son of the Police Commissioner, right?” Kurai reminded him gravely. “Even if we are All Might’s heirs, we need to play by the rules.”

“The teachers want us to stay out of it, but there’s nothing in the law that keeps us from attempting a rescue as long as we don’t use our quirks to harm anyone,” Izuku pointed out. “I nearly rescued him, Hikari. He was right in front of me, but my arms were busted, and I couldn’t grab him before they were warped away. I let your sacrifice go to waste, and I just can’t live with that!”

“…Don’t do this on my account, or because you feel guilty,” Kurai finally said after moment of awkward silence. “I did what I could, and then some, all without succeeding in the mission to get him to safety, and no one is to blame for that failure but me. That said… if you have a chance to do the right thing, I shouldn’t stop you from taking it- as long as it is the right thing to do.” A hard light crept into Kurai’s tired eyes. “If you act out of line like Iida did in Hosu, I’ll make sure that my father knows what you were up to, and then let the hammer of justice fall where it may, even if it’s on my head for letting you go in the first place. Do we have an agreement?”

“We do,” Midoriya said as he reached out with his right hand to shake his friend’s, only to realize his mistake a little too late. “Uh… Hikari, I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it,” the wounded boy sighed, reaching out with his left hand to grasp his peer’s. “Go get him, and make sure that you all come back safe.”

“I will.”

Then he was gone, and Kurai was left completely alone for the first time since he had been maimed. He gingerly touched his injury without looking it, wincing as his stitches responded angrily to his soft probe. If I didn’t have this, would I be going with him? he had wondered.

Before he could think about it too much, Mina had returned with the food, and he eagerly ate, having had little to sustain himself since he had woken up. It was more difficult than he had thought it would be, eating only with his left hand, especially when it came to the chicken. His grip was awkward at certain angles, and he couldn’t seem to get all the meat off the bones like he had been able to when he’d had the use of both arms. However, he refused to ask Mina for help, not wanting to mark himself as an invalid when it was more than possible to feed himself.

Once they had finished their meal, Mina went to take a shower while Kurai began to flip through the channels on the TV in his new room, eventually settling on a station that ran old anime from the days before quirks. He was delighted to find that one of his favorites, Noragami, was having a marathon of the first season, and it was only on the second episode, so he hadn’t missed much. Since it was on one of the more obscure channels, the dub was in English, but Kurai didn’t mind too much, since he was nearly fluent in the language.

Mina came out just as the third episode began the opening sequence, a towel covering her frizzy hair, though it did nothing to conceal the irritated look on her face. Cocking his head at his girlfriend, Kurai asked, “Something wrong?”

“I forgot to ask Su to bring my shampoo and conditioner,” she grumbled as she sat in a chair next to him, rubbing the towel on her scalp to try and get a little more moisture removed. “I had to use the crappy stuff that they provide here.”

“I might need to go in for a wash,” Kurai realized aloud. “I’ll assume that I didn’t get cleaned while I was unconscious?”

“Nah, and the doctor said you’re not allowed to soak your wound yet, remember?” she reminded him. “I can help you with a sponge bath if you want, but a shower is out of the question, buster.”

He hesitated, wondering if she wasn’t just trying to get a reaction out of him, but he also knew that his mom had brought him a pair of board shorts so that he could have assistance in getting clean without compromising his dignity- at least, as much dignity as a teenager whose arm had been torn off could salvage. Sighing to himself as he shuffled toward his bag, he said, “I’d appreciate it. Just give me a minute to change into my shorts.”

In truth Mina was tempted to tease him, but she knew that his ego was pretty fragile right now, and given how hard he was fighting with the zipper on his bag, she decided that she’d be better off helping him instead of trying to rile him up. Moving back toward the bathroom, she said over her shoulder, “I’ll go make sure that the water is still running warm. Come in after you’ve changed, ‘kay?”

“Mina.”

“Yeah?” She stopped just short of the door and turned back to see Kurai smiling at her gratefully. “You need me to get something?”

“No, I just wanted to say thanks for everything that you’re doing- and what you’re not saying,” he chuckled softly, knowing she would understand.

Flashing him a bright smile of her own, she told him, “Yeah, don’t get used to it. You’d better believe that I’m gonna step it up when we get out of here with ways to make you look like a tomato.”

“Duly noted.”

After Kurai was clean of the residual filth that had stayed on his body since the training camp, plus some of the dried blood that had collected on his arm and torso, he definitely felt a little more refreshed. Mina let him wash himself for the most part, simply standing next to him and lending aid whenever he specifically asked for it. She also had a small portable speaker with her now, so she had some hip hop music going in the background for them, tapping her fingers or nodding her head to the beat of whatever tune happened to be playing at the time.

Once they were headed back into the room, Kurai asked her, “Thinking up a new routine?” His girlfriend was an avid break dancer, and her fighting style certainly showed it if one paid attention.

“Not really,” she replied cheerfully. “It just helps to have a good beat to relax to, you know?”

“I relax best with a good book or tools in my hands,” he grunted as she helped him to sit down on the bed before turning to bring his bag to him. In the background, the TV was still running his show, though Mina had muted it to make room for her music.

“I didn’t take you for a handyman.”

“Not as in home repairs, I mean my bike,” he replied as she brought him a dragon ball shirt and sweatpants. “Thank you.”

“That makes more sense,” she giggled, though her face fell a little as a thought occurred to her. “Are you gonna be able to ride it anymore?”

“Depends on the grade of prosthetic that my parents are able to afford,” Kurai shrugged. “If we can get a good one through our villain insurance, it should work pretty well- enough that I can move it almost like my old one, so long as I don’t do anything to crazy with it.”

“You mean fighting like just about every hero is expected to?” She gazed at him with concern as his mouth went a little grim.

“I’ll adapt,” he said firmly as he started tugging on his pants. “It’s gonna suck, and I hate it, but I have to learn to work with this. My only other option is to give up, and as I have been informed by someone that I care about very much, throwing in the towel isn’t a real option. So, I’ll figure something out.”

“Maybe Akarui will have an idea?” she asked him hopefully, causing the boy to put his face in his hand. “He’s already on it, isn’t he?”

“Little troll told me that I screwed up his hard work, and now he has to clean up my mess again,” he grumbled as he finally managed to fit the fabric up to his waistline. “Other than that, he wouldn’t tell me what he was planning.”

“Is it safe for him to keep using his quirk like he is?”

“No, but it’s technically a heteromorphic-type quirk, which means that it isn’t physically possible for him to shut it off,” Kurai reminded her. “That’s part of the problem with his tumor- it gets more aggressive the more his quirk gets used, voluntarily or not.” He then held up his shirt asked, “Can I get a hand with this?”

Before she could give him an answer, his phone started to buzz, alerting him to a call from Akarui. “Speak of the devil,” Mina said as she handed the phone to Kurai, who stumbled over the ‘accept’ button a couple of times before being able to let the call go through.

“Hello?” he asked, a little confused. “Akarui, are you there?”

*It’s me.*

Both teenagers looked at the phone in surprise when the voice of K2SO, a droid from the old Star Wars Rogue One movie, came in over the speaker. “Akarui, how are you doing this?” his elder brother demanded. He recognized the voice because it had been Akarui’s favorite character in the franchise.

It was a few seconds before they received the reply, *I’ll explain at a better time, right now, turn your TV to the news.*

Puzzled by the bizarre request, Kurai asked, “Which one and why?”

*Take your pick, they’re all focusing on the same thing. You’ll see why once you do.* With that, the line went dead, leaving the two teenagers utterly bewildered.

“He just keeps finding new ways to be annoying, even when he’s half-paralyzed,” Mina muttered as she reached for the remote, turned the volume back on, and switched it to one of the local news’ stations. The second after she did, the sound of the remote hitting the ground followed the students’ jaws dropping. “Kurai… Is that-?”

“Kamino ward?” he asked hoarsely. “I think so.”

“The scene below is straight out of a nightmare!” the reporter on the TV exclaimed as the helicopter footage showed wreckage of destruction untold since the days that All Might stepped onto the scene. Entire buildings had been obliterated throughout the sector, and many more were in pieces. There was no telling how many people were already dead, and judging how recently Akarui must have seen what was happening, things were just getting started.

“Half of Kamino Ward was destroyed in an instant,” the clearly-rattled man continued. “All Might is currently fighting the villain that appears to have caused the blast, but… I just don’t understand how one person can be that powerful! He’s destroying the city and more than holding his own against the Symbol of Peace!” As the camera zoomed in, the viewers could make out All Might’s bulk crushing someone or something underneath his full body weight.

“One person did that?!” Mina practically shrieked. “One guy?!”

Kurai felt his blood turn to ice, while his breath seemed to completely desert his lungs. One man? He thought, a horrible suspicion stealing into his mind. Someone powerful enough to cause this kind of destruction… Someone that All Might didn’t just wreck with a single punch… Oh God, please don’t let this be what I think it is!

“Dude, is All Might looking… beat up?” Mina’s words snapped Kurai out of his panicked thoughts for a moment.

“Huh?”

“Look at his face, it looks all mangled, and he’s bleeding!” She pointed urgently at the screen, where the camera had been able to zoom in even further, which showed something that made Kurai even more afraid.

“No…” he whispered.

Mina was only half-right. While All Might was indeed bleeding from his mouth, it was doubtful that it was the villain that had done it. That came out of his lungs, he realized, having seen it happen to the weakened hero a couple of times since learning his secret. And his face isn’t busted- he’s changing back into his normal form!

“Whaddya mean, ‘no’, he’s clearly-! Kurai?” Mina was now looking at him, great concern written on her brow. “Kurai, you’re really pale! Are you bleeding again?”

“No, not bleeding,” he said hoarsely as he began to shake his head. Inwardly he added, If he fights this guy any longer, his secret will be out! And we can’t lose All Might yet- Izuku and I aren’t ready! …Buddy, I hope you weren’t anywhere near that crapfest! The thought that his friends might have been caught up in the battle between these two titans was almost enough to induce a panic attack in the boy, on top of everything else that had happened to him.

On the TV, All Might was suddenly thrown back with some kind of an air blast that nearly sent him flying into the news’ helicopter, only being stopped by a small white-and-yellow blur that set him down safely on the ground, a few yards away from the villain. Now that the hero wasn’t crushing the man anymore, Kurai was able to get a good look at him, and all doubt left his mind as to his identity.

That’s him, he thought, feeling vertigo seize him in the clutches of his horror as the faceless villain in his nightmares was finally given form. He wore a suit that would have made him appear gentlemanly, if not for the broken black skull mask which shrouded part of his own mangled face, screaming death and catastrophe to all that saw it. He looked nothing like Kurai had thought he would, in the brief moments when he had considered what All Might’s greatest enemy would appear to be, but he was infinitely more terrifying. That must be him… All For One.

This was worse than any scenario he could have envisioned. If All Might continued to fight, the secret of his wounded status would be revealed to the world. On the other hand, if he didn’t fight All For One now, and defeat him, it would certainly fall to the heroes Deku and Kai to face him someday, and after seeing what the man was capable of, Kurai severely doubted in their ability to do that.

“Kurai, do you know who that villain is?” Mina asked him, shaking him by the left shoulder. “You sound more scared of that guy than the reporter does, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like a demon,” he wheezed, his throat drier than a desert. “He’s… He’s…” He couldn’t stop himself- he knew that he shouldn’t say anything about All Might’s past to anyone without the man’s permission, but it was all just becoming too much for him to handle. He felt like he needed someone outside of all of the madness to talk to, someone that could have a more grounded perspective on the insanity that he was being subjected to.

“Mina, that guy is-”

An aerokinetic explosion suddenly ripped through Kamino at the behest of All For One, aiming for a building where many heroes and civilians could be seen trying to escape this battle of the gods occurring not a few hundred meters from where they lived. At first, amid the wind and dust, it appeared as if there would be several hundred more casualties to add to what was already going to be a horrible night in history, but that quickly changed.

“Did All Might block that?” Mina asked, her voice filled with awe as the camera showed that the buildings had not been damaged any further, despite the ferocious blast. “That’s amazing… What the-?”

“Shit,” Kurai swore as he felt himself fall back onto the incline of his bed.

The screen showed a weakened All Might, his hero costume hanging loosely off of his bony arms and legs while his eyes had sunken in to accompany his hollowed cheekbones. Fresh blood covered his fingers, forehead, and mouth. Kurai and Izuku’s worst fear had come to pass- the Symbol of Peace had been exposed as a walking cadaver. He looked so frail that if someone tapped him, his ankles would roll over in his oversized boots.

“I-Is everyone else seeing this?” the reporter asked off-screen, sounding just as bewildered as all of his viewers. “All Might has been… shrunk somehow?!”

Mina looked up at the TV with wide eyes, then back at Kurai, back to the screen, and then back to him again. “You don’t look surprised by this,” she said softly. “All Might turns into a skeleton, and that’s your reaction? It’s almost like…”

“Remember how some secrets aren’t mine to tell?” he asked tightly before she could finish. Pointing a trembling finger at the TV, he added, “That’s one of them.” When Mina said nothing for a moment and the two super humans appeared to be at something of a standoff, he went on to say, “All Might… This guy almost killed him a few years back, and he thought that he’d done him in. But this villain… All For One… He survived, and All Might knew that if they fought again, the world could lose its Symbol of Peace. So… he asked me and Midoriya to train under him- to become the All Might of the next generation. He asked us… to train so that we could fix his mistake- to someday defeat All For One.”

Mina’s eyes went wider than dinner plates as she whispered, “He asked you guys…? He wanted you to fight that?” She pointed at the screen again, which showed All For One saying something undetectable to All Might. “And you said yes?!”

“Mina, please keep your voice down,” Kurai hissed as he placed a finger over his lips. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but I feel like I’m losing my mind with everything that I have to deal with! I told him that I would take up the fight in his name because only me and Midoriya have the kind of power that could someday defeat this guy- at least, that’s what he told us.”

“Do you think he was lying?” she asked as she sat down on the bed next to him, looking thoroughly rattled. Both of them kept their eyes glued to the screen, morbidly interested to see which one of the two men would make the next move.

“No…” he admitted hollowly. “But after seeing this… seeing what he’s done to All Might and the city… I don’t know how anyone could possibly defeat that thing.” As he spoke, he felt terror, pain, and anger- yes, anger at the villains, but also at All Might, who had placed such a tremendous burden on his shoulders by being careless with his power.

Mina saw these different emotions warring across her boyfriend’s face, and her mind raced to find the words to say. Clearly she still wasn’t getting the full picture, but the bombshells that he had just dropped were clear indicators of the fact that he had been dealing with a lot more than he had let on, which were more than enough on their own. He’s hurting, but he still needs to believe in the guy that saw enough potential in him to make him his successor, she thought as he tightened his remaining fist, unable to tell if he was glaring at All Might or All for One.

Her jaw firmed up as the words finally came, and she murmured, “Whatever else has happened to All Might, or whatever he asked you and Midoriya to do, he’s still the greatest hero that the world has. Even if he looks like a skeleton, I believe that he can do this, because he’s always pulled through before. He’s still there, still standing.”

Before Kurai could say anything to the contrary, the camera showed the man settle into a limping stance, his right arm swelling back up to the muscular size it was whenever he used his quirk. All For One floated up a few meters into the air, red electricity crackling along his own expanding arm.

Looking at Kurai directly for a moment, Mina nudged his shoulder gently and whispered, “He’s still fighting, Kurai. He’s fighting for the chance that you won’t have to.”

With those words, the boy felt his anger at the hero melt and fall away from his heart. She’s right, he realized, feeling shame replace the anger. He could have just fled under the dust cloud, and no one would have been the wiser. He could have left the other pros to do the fighting so that he could protect his public image, but he’s still there, even though he’s half-dead by now. He’s been hurt so much more than I have, and he’s never once complained about it- he’s out there, doing his duty, while I’m in here, griping and worrying about stuff that might not even happen.

There was a sudden rush of fire that announced the arrival of Endeavor, along with Edgeshot and a few other pro heroes, but the camera obviously wasn’t going to tear away from the main confrontation. From what they could tell, a few of the highest-ranked heroes were aiming to assist All Might in his battle while the others moved to assist evacuation efforts.

The two teenagers felt their stomachs drop as All For One effortlessly beat back attacks from Edgeshot and Endeavor, all while trying to kill the heroes that were rescuing innocent civilians. In spite of their best attempts to pin down the ancient menace, he eventually got fed up with their interference, clearing the area of all but himself and All Might with another air shot that was powerful enough to throw off the helicopters in the sky, which in turn obstructed the viewers’ line of sight into what was happening.

What happened next defied belief, even for a world full of heroes and villains. All For One’s right arm quadrupled in size and length, iron spears, metal nuts and bolts bursting through the skin, all serving to turn the villain into a misshapen hunchback, not unlike his mortal enemy, who waited for the oncoming storm with the look of a predator in his darkened blue eyes. Seeing it all, Kurai questioned how his teacher could bear to stand against such overwhelming, implacable evil.

“Here we go,” Mina whispered, her hands finding his and gripping it tightly.

The pair exchanged four blows in total. The first was a collision of their engorged fists that sent All Might reeling, and nearly stopping Kurai’s heart when he thought that the man had fallen for a second. Then the blond hero steeled himself, just dodging the horrendous limb in time to put enough power into his left arm so that he struck All For One a solid blow across his face, destroying his demonic mask and sending shockwaves across the destroyed sector. However, this left his right arm completely broken- just like Izuku’s arms used to wind up whenever he used One For All. Even as he recoiled in pain, his left arm deflated, leaving him all but helpless before his hated foe.

Seeing this, All For One used his air power to hurl himself at All Might, monster fist-first. When he somehow missed, he hesitated, sensing that he had made some kind of crucial mistake. It was at this time that the crowds could finally hear their number one hero’s voice rising above the chaos and noise.

“…I didn’t put my back into it, that time!” All Might drew back his mangled arm, dripping with blood, and he seemed to clench something. Without needing to be told, Kurai knew that this was it- if All Might failed in this next attack, All For One would return in force, and it would be up to him and Izuku to take up the fight against this demon.

Then, miracle of miracles, All Might’s right arm swelled back up to fighting size, completely healed. All For One stumbled in his gait, clearly not having predicted this particular development. The Symbol of Peace charged forward with a mighty war cry, fresh blood spilling from his mouth as he dealt the Enigma of Destruction a terrible blow to the face, crushing him into the ground, a monstrous tornado shooting up from the point of impact.

“United… States of… SMASH!!!”

All Might’s ultimate move annihilated the remnants of Kamino, tearing out buildings by their roots and flinging them skyward. The helicopter filming the battle was nearly hit on four separate occasions before the winds began to die down and the crew could take stock of what the final result of the battle was.

When the lens managed to focus back on the destroyed ground, All Might was hunched over, unmoving- but All For One wasn’t getting up, either. The villain was lying on the ground, out cold or dead, they weren’t sure. Kurai could not breathe- he could not take in a breath until he knew for sure just what had happened. Even the sounds of the hospital around them seemed to die away as they awaited the verdict.

The instilled silence remained absolute across the nation until All Might weakly raised his left hand above his head and resumed his hero form in all its glory. He was battered, bloodied, and his normally-immaculate hair was a mess, but he was standing tall. “He… He did it!” the reporter cheered, sounding as though he were trying not to cry from relief and joy combined. “All Might wins! The villain is down- he’s not moving! All Might stands victorious! He saved us all again!”

Kurai let out a huge gasp of relief as he realized that the nightmare was over- not just for him, but the world over. All For One would never threaten them again. All Might had fulfilled the generations-long destiny of the people that used One for All, and taken down the mighty villain that ruled from the shadows. Mina was laughing and crying at the same time as she hugged him tightly, and he hugged her back, feeling that a huge weight had finally come off of his shoulders. Throughout the hospital, patients and staff alike were cheering loudly, chanting the name of their hero, a sound that could be heard as an echo coming from the packed streets down below.

Thank you, All Might.

In the wee hours of the morning, Police Commissioner Hogo-sha was out with his men, having decided that if he could demand assistance from off-duty officers, he could be out there with them, doing the hard work, too. He had been coordinating with Uwabami, the Serpent Heroine, to find and evacuate victims in the remnants of villains, since the battle between All Might and All For One had concluded, and had decided that he could afford to take a moment to call his wife and let her know that he was all right.

“…Okay, tell Iida that we’re very grateful,” he said with a large smile on his aged face. Being on the force for more than three decades had really started to take its toll on his physical appearance, especially with situations like this one. “I’ll give Kurai the good news on my way home. Is Miss Ashido still there with him?”

“Yes, she’s been very good to him.”

“You scared her, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged, Officer.”

“That’s my lady,” he laughed as he noticed one of the heroes waving him over, indicating that they needed assistance with getting someone out of one of the buildings. “I need to go. I love you.” As he started toward the ruin, the caped man nodded and went inside.

“Love you, too. I’ll tell Akarui that you called.” With that, the line went dead, and he put the device in his pocket.

Letting out a sigh, he muttered under his breath, “I’m gonna need something stronger than coffee to get me through this hellhole of a night…” He jogged over to the building that he had seen the hero enter, clicking on his flashlight as he made his way into what might have been a receptionist’s area. He had to crawl in to fit through the opening, but there was plenty of space inside once he was in.

He was only half-surprised when something shot out from inside the darker part of the rubble, and knocked the device out of his hand while simultaneously destroying the torch, leaving him in the dim light of the falling moon. “Color me impressed,” he said flatly, remaining exactly where he was. “You set this up pretty quickly, given your losses.”

“You really want those to be your last words?” a deep, echoing voice rumbled ominously.

“No, I actually have a few for your boss.” Hogo-sha glared into the yawning darkness that seemed to be coming to life as he snarled, “Tell him that I only regret not doing it sooner.”

“All For One does not take kindly to betrayals,” the dark voice replied as even the meager light from outside began to fade. “For tonight’s events, your own life is forfeit, though you may take comfort in knowing that your family’s lives are being spared.”

“And that will be your League’s undoing,” Hogo-sha laughed, despite the creeping shadows. “My sons will not be broken- I see that now. Pray to the god you believe in before they come for you, because when they do, you’re going to wish your master had never reached out to me with his offer.”

“I said that their lives are being spared,” the shadow hissed. “Only time will tell what hell Shigaraki will inflict on them when he finally realizes his destiny, and assumes the master’s throne.”

“Ha!” Hogo-sha laughed, refusing to be intimidated. “They’ll take his hell, and they’ll return it with interest. Nothing you say can convince me otherwise.”

“Then die with wasted breath,” the shadow rumbled. However, even he was impressed when the Police Commissioner expired without a scream, a stubborn smile fixed on his corpse, as if it were one last act of defiance to All For One.

Kurai yawned as he woke up, jostling Mina awake as he stretched his arm over his head, though she quickly nestled back into his chest, determined to stay asleep for as long as she could. Smiling softly, Kurai reached for the remote and clicked on the TV after reading a couple of notifications on his phone, including a text from his mother, keeping the volume low as he surveyed the rescue efforts of the heroes and police officers. I wonder how many of them are out there, he wondered groggily, his right arm aching in protest of his missed pain medicine dosage from the previous evening. He’d been so caught up in what was happening with the fight that he had forgotten to ask for it, and the hospital had been flooded with new patients, which had led to the staff forgetting to bring it.

“I’m standing in the remnants of Kamino Ward, where heroes and police are working tirelessly,” a female reporter stated as the sun began to rise behind her, illuminating the horrific battlefield. “Rescue efforts began during All Might’s fight, but the scope of the damage is nothing less than staggering. Authorities are estimating huge casualties. The villain who caused this is being led into police custody- oh! He’s over there right now!” Sure enough, All For One was being forced into a containment unit with as many power suppressors covering his body as there could be without suffocating him. “Endeavor will oversee his prison transfer while All Might and the other heroes remain on high alert-”

The reporter suddenly stopped talking as All Might, in his weakened form, raised a puny limb in order to point a single finger at the screen. “Now…” he wheezed. “Now… it’s your turn.” Finished, he let his arm hang loosely at his side as he remained in place, a hollow fragment of the man that he had once been.

Kurai felt the weight that had lifted from him begin to settle back in, even as Mina raised her head and looked at him with worry. “Sweetie?” she asked him. “What’s wrong? You’re all pale again, and your heart is going nuts.”

“All Might…” he whispered as tears threatened to leak out of his eyes. “He’s done. That was it.” Mina jerked her head back, suddenly looking much more awake.

“You’re saying-?”

“He was talking to Izuku and me,” he said, his tongue feeling numb from the weight of those words. “He’s saying that it’s up to Deku and Kai to take up the standard. It’s… our turn.”

Mina looked like she wanted to say something, but she was stopped by a knock at the door. “Police,” they heard, so she quickly scrambled out of the bed to help him up. “Can we come in, Hikari?”

“Gimme a second,” Kurai grunted as he swung his feet out of the bed and into his slippers. “Sorry, I just woke up.”

“What’s going on?” Mina murmured, looking as though she were still reeling from All Might’s message to her boyfriend.

“Probably Dad, he has to be escorted by officers during his uniform hours,” he answered as he wiped at his eyes before they began to walk toward the door. “My guess is that he was escorting some civilians to the hospital and figured that he’d stop in for a minute. Mom sent a text that said that he was gonna stop by.”

“Ooh, if it’s him, I should probably clean up a little bit,” the pink girl grinned. “Wouldn’t want him to think that we were up to anything, right?”

“…Next time, just say that you need to use the bathroom, okay? I’m good to get to the door.”

“Thankyouyou’rethebest!” she exclaimed before she bolted toward the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

“Hikari?” One of the officers called in. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah, sorry, almost there.” He forced himself to chuckle as he reached the door handle. Dad’s probably had a rough night- he doesn’t need to see me freaking out since I’m gonna have to be the next Symbol of Peace alongside Izuku.

Composing himself, he opened the door and said, “Good morning, office-” His words died in his throat as he saw that both of the men in front of his door had their hats off, and wore sorrowful expressions.

Chapter Text

It was raining as three teenage boys stared down at the stone slab that had their family name carved into it. The police force had already given the twenty-one gun salute in farewell of their former leader, and the funeral procession had moved on some time ago. Even their mother had gone to speak with their extended family members that had come to offer their condolences for the family’s loss, leaving the trio of young men to say their farewells in private.

All of them were dressed in sharp black suits with fresh haircuts, though one of them was confined to a wheelchair, and another of them with a shock of silver hair had an empty sleeve where his arm used to be. “This takes me back,” said the last and skinniest of three, his voice subdued. “Never thought I’d be standing here again- not for a long time, anyhow.” The other two said nothing in response, simply letting the rain continue to soak into their already-wet clothes. Shukin glanced at his cousins out of the corner of his eye before he asked, “Should I leave you guys alone?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Shukin nodded and walked past Kurai, patting him on the shoulder before he did the same to Akarui, murmuring, “Let me know if you guys want to talk.”

*Thanks.* Akarui’s synthetic voice replied, courtesy of a program that would speak anything that he typed into his wheelchair’s tablet.

With that, their cousin was gone, and the two of them were left completely alone in the graveyard reserved for officers that had fallen in the line of duty. Mina had been there with them earlier, but she had to go home in order to sort out some things about UA with her parents, so now it was just Kurai and Akarui. Neither of them moved for a very long time, unable to tear their gaze away from their father’s resting place.

The officers that came to tell Kurai about Hogo-sha’s death had informed the family that the man had been assisting in the evacuation of a partially collapsed building when the support structure had finally given way, crushing him and thirty-six civilians that had been unable to escape. Despite the fact that he had been in no way obligated to do manual labor alongside his men, their father had seen to saving as many people as he could through both his coordination with the police and heroes, as well as his own physical efforts. If the boys were being honest with themselves, it was hardly surprising that he would die like that, but it didn’t make the fact hurt any less, especially with everything else that had happened to them in the last few weeks.

“I don’t get it,” Kurai finally said, his voice hoarse from disuse. As Akarui turned his chair to allow him to look more directly at his brother, the other boy continued on to ask, “Is there some unspoken law of the world that says that you and I aren’t allowed to be happy? Is it wrong for us to hope for that?”

*I don’t know.* Akarui replied. *But there’s no going back for us, now. With Dad and All Might both gone, things are about to get a lot worse around here. We need to do our part to keep the people safe that they fought so hard to protect.*

“How?” Kurai scoffed as he finally turned to look at his brother, his eyes red from the crying that he had been doing. “I’m down an arm, which crippled my ability to use my quirk in addition to my body, and you’re halfway to being a vegetable. Not to mention that neither one of us is close to getting our careers off the ground. What are a couple of kids gonna do for a world without All Might and Dad in it?”

*All Might believes in you.* The younger boy answered. Since he had heard David Shield’s confirmation that the former number one hero was losing his power, he had been filled in on the necessary details by his brother and Midoriya, who had been with him at the time. Thus he knew that the two of them were in line to be trained by the man in order to eventually take up his mantle. *We can continue to learn, and grow. I may not have much time left, but you definitely have a long life ahead of you, and I know that Dad would expect you to make the most of it. After all, he didn’t try to discourage you from attending UA, despite what happened, did he?*

“No.”

*Then take that as a sign that you’re still on the right path. If we both keep working hard, and keep doing good, then maybe, someday, we’ll be able to find that we are happy with what we’ve done. Besides.* Akarui’s mouth twitched slightly as if he were trying to smile, in spite of the situation. *You still have Ashido. And I’ve seen enough to know that she would do anything to make you happy, if you just let her help you.* Before Kurai could say anything to the contrary, his brother held up a hand before adding, *You have a bad habit of pushing people away when you’re hurting, and putting up a front of being okay. Don’t do it this time. Let her in.*

“And what about you?” Kurai sniffed as he wiped at his eyes. “What’re you gonna do when the depression starts to kick in, and I’m not around to talk to?” The day after he had been discharged from the hospital, the family had received a letter saying that UA was turning into a dorm school, and that the teachers would be coming around soon in order to discuss the details in person. Kurai’s mother had already told him that the decision was entirely up to him, as she did not wish to go back on his father’s final wish for him to continue on his chosen path, no matter her own feelings on the matter. It seemed clear to Kurai that she now wished for him to choose a safer path in life, but it was like Akarui said; with their father gone, it was up to the next generation to take up the standard as soon as possible.

*Same thing I always do. I’ll talk to Mom.* Akarui replied in answer to his sibling’s question.

“Ouch.” In spite of themselves, the two of them shared a smile, glad that they were able to- even if it was just for a second- have an interaction like they used to, before everything had gone to hell for them. Beckoning to his brother with his hand, Kurai said in a low tone, “Come on. We don’t want Mom to send someone out here to get us.”

*But I like being cold and wet. It gives us an excuse to keep being sad.*

“We hardly need an excuse at this point, Brother.”

The rest of the funeral was a somber affair that was held at the Hogo-sha residence, with many people- heroes, police officers, and civilians- speaking highly of their father. The biggest surprise to the two boys was the arrival of a scrawny blond man with his arm in a cast and a couple of bandages on his head. He shuffled along more than he walked, but he was standing well enough.

All Might did his best to be unobtrusive, but it was inevitable that he would be noticed, given how his weakened state had been exposed by All For One, and he soon found himself being surrounded by several of the guests that had questions for him before he could reach Kurai and his brother. It wasn’t until they heard the quiet clamor that had surrounded him, followed by a couple of his bloody coughs that drew Kurai’s attention.

“All Might?” he inquired as he moved to get a closer look.

“Young Hikari?” he coughed again, wiping at his mouth. “Is that you?”

“Yes sir,” he answered as he made his way through the group of people. “Excuse me.”

“Ah, good, you’re here,” All Might said tiredly as he laid his hollowed eyes upon his student. “My condolences for your family, young man. Your father was a good person, and I’ll miss him and his support for the heroes across our nation.”

“Thank you, sir,” Kurai replied as he shook hands awkwardly with his teacher, still not used to using his left arm to do so. “I appreciate you coming out here to support my family.”

“Of course,” the injured man nodded as they released each other. Glancing around at the people with expecting looks, he asked, “Is there somewhere that you and I can talk with your brother in private? I have something that we need to discuss.”

“Yes sir,” Kurai nodded as he beckoned for his teacher to follow him. To everyone else, he said in a slightly louder voice, “Please excuse us, this is a private affair for my family.” The onlookers seemed a little put off that their chance to talk to the retired pro was being denied, but they could hardly go against the wishes of a crippled boy that had just lost his father.

Making sure to grab Akarui on their way, Kurai led them into his father’s office, which had remained untouched since his death. Trying to ignore the memories that the room contained, he locked the door behind them, and then turned to face his teacher and ask, “What did we need to discuss, sir?”

“A couple of things, but we can start with the specifics between you and I,” All Might began. Glancing at the office chair, he asked, “Is it alright if I sit? I just got out of the hospital late last night, and I’m still pretty beat.”

“Of course,” Kurai nodded, for which the older man thanked him.

“I’ll get right to it,” the blond man sighed. “I’m officially retired as a pro- my body won’t let me fight another battle, and the last of my power has gone. I have no choice now but to entrust the future to you and young Midoriya, as much as I wish I didn’t have to.” The older man looked at his student with pain in his eyes before he lowered his head to him in a seated bow. “Forgive me, young Hikari. I know that this burden has been weighing on you this entire time, and given what you’ve had to suffer through, I have no right to ask anything else of you. But still…” He paused to take in a labored breath before he asked, “Will you still allow me to train you and young Midoriya, so that you can become the next heroes that inspire others to fight for peace? Will you take on the burden that I can no longer carry?”

Kurai blinked, in awe of the fact that the number one hero was bowing to him, seemingly intent on staying that way until he gave his teacher an answer. It took him a few moments before he said, “Sir… I won’t lie to you. I’m way less than thrilled about taking on your responsibilities. I’m not like Midoriya- I never wanted to be number one.

“That said, I’ve been getting a lot of reminders this week about why I should keep going on, even if life continues to knock me down. Because I was born with so much power, and because I was raised to do the right thing, I have an obligation to use these skills to the best of my ability. And if that means that the Symbol of Peace is counting on me to take up the standard, then I will. And even if that weren’t the case, the fact of the matter is that my father isn’t around to keep people safe anymore, so I’ll do it for him.

“So to answer your question sir, I will do whatever is required of me,” Kurai finished, unconsciously gripping his stump, which had been freed of stitches and wrappings the previous evening.

“Thank you, young man,” All Might sighed as he straightened up. “This means a great deal to me, knowing that young Midoriya doesn’t have to take on this burden alone.”

*Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, why am I here?* Akarui’s electronic voice asked when Kurai held his tongue, unsure of how to respond. *I knew that you were losing your power, but I don’t see what Kurai and Midoriya taking your place has to do with me.*

“Ah, yes, young Hikari,” All Might said as he turned slightly towards the younger boy. “I am here… to tell you that your invention was a success. Ingenium’s physician contacted me and Recovery Girl, and she’s agreed to do the surgery the first weekday after everyone in UA has moved into their dorms.”

“Surgery?” Kurai repeated, his eyes going wide. “Did Akarui manage to come up with a treatment for his tumor?” For the first time in a while, he felt hope stirring in his chest that just maybe, things could get better.

“Er… no,” All Might answered, causing Kurai to visibly deflate. “The doctors are still working on your brother’s case. Actually, he came up with an invention for you, following your injury.”

“You did what now?” Kurai asked his brother, who looked suspiciously smug for a paralyzed person. “Akarui, what’s he talking about?”

“Your brother knew that any standard prosthetic you received to replace your arm would not be able to handle your quirk, even one of the more high-end products that your insurance would cover,” All Might explained. “So he designed one, and sent the blueprints to the Iida family’s personal bio-mechanist. He initially claimed that he would not be able to make the thing, but he just found a way to make it work. He’s making it as we speak, and Recovery Girl has offered to do the surgery to attach it to what’s left of your original arm.”

“You’re serious?” Kurai asked as he touched the sore spot again while looking at his brother. “You did that for me?”

Akarui managed another one of those lip-twitches that had replaced smiles for him before answering, *Good thing Tenya’s dad vouched for me, or else the doctor probably wouldn’t have listened to a twelve-year-old.*

“…Thank you,” Kurai said sincerely, his muscles shivering at the thought that he might have a complete body again, soon. “One of these days, I’m gonna find a way to pay you back for all that you’ve done for me. It’s cost you too much, in my opinion, but I’m still grateful.”

All Might smiled at the two brothers, glad to know that they still had each other to rely on. However, he had one last bit of business to attend to. “Sorry to interrupt you two, but there was one more thing,” he told them. “The UA dorms that I mentioned before- the faculty needs to know if your mother is on board with our plans.”

“She said it was up to me, and I’m in,” Kurai told him. “I understand that you’ll probably need a signature on legal documents, but if you don’t mind, could you bring them by another day, or email them to her? Now’s not really the best time.”

“Of course,” All Might nodded. “I understand completely. I’ll come back tomorrow, but that’s the deadline. We’re sending movers out this weekend to gather your things, so you’ll need time to pack. Young Hikari, given your situation, Cementoss and Power Loader have offered to come by and help you move your things. If you wish to make other arrangements, please let them know by tomorrow.”

“Yes sir,” Kurai nodded, surprised and touched that the teachers would offer to help him with the transition. Then again, they’re probably trying their hardest to get on the parents’ good sides. It’d hardly be cool of them to tell a crippled kid to pack up and move just like everyone else.

“Well, I’ll take my leave,” All Might grunted as he forced himself out of the chair, coughing a little bit as he did. “Thank you both for your time, and once again, I’m sorry for what happened. I wish that I could have been able to save him.”

“You saved a lot of people, regardless,” Kurai replied, feeling his throat tighten just a little bit. “I know that he gladly traded his life for that outcome.”

*Mister All Might?* Akarui’s question stopped the man at the door. *Would you mind staying at the house for just a little longer? I understand if you’re busy, but I think our mom would appreciate it.*

“…Of course, young man,” All Might nodded with a tired smile. “I can spare a few minutes.”

“He also wants your autograph,” Kurai informed him. “He forgot to ask for it on I-island, and he’s been kicking himself ever since- figuratively, of course.”

Akarui glared at him before typing out, *I can remotely program your new arm to explode, don’t think I won’t.*

All Might chuckled at the exchange before he turned back to Akarui and said, “Sure, I’d be glad to sign something for a fellow hero. Is there something in particular that you wanted me to use?”

“I know what he’d like,” Kurai said as he moved to unlock the door and quickly disappeared into the hallway.

*All Might?*

“Yes, young Hikari?”

*Did you mean what you said? That I’m a hero?*

All Might gazed at the boy with no small amounts of sympathy and compassion as he answered, “Young man, you’ve given up your health and free will in order to help your brother succeed on his chosen path. You’re definitely a hero in my eyes.”

*Akarui.exe has stopped working…*

That weekend, their mother having signed the paperwork to transfer Kurai into the new dorms, the moving company arrived to take the boy’s belongings from the house. Mina had come over during the week with Uraraka and Midoriya to help him pack up his clothes and memorabilia into boxes, since he and Akarui couldn’t really do it themselves, and their mother had hardly come out of her room in the last few days except for when All Might had returned to deliver the documents that he needed.

What really surprised him, though, was when more than half of class 1-A showed up on his front doorstep during the late morning that it was time to move out. “Guys?” Kurai asked as he saw everyone but Team RWBY, Todoroki, Bakugo, Aoyama, Hagakure, and Sato on his porch. Behind them was a large moving truck, with two men moving to open the back doors and lower a ramp. “What are you doing here? I thought-?”

“We asked the teachers if it was cool for us to help you move your stuff, and they gave us the green light,” Kirishima said with a toothy grin. “We’re all here for you, man.”

“What kind of class rep would I be if I didn’t help my friend in need?” Iida asked earnestly.

“Everyone else lived too far away to help with the move,” Kaminari explained. “All of us already sent our stuff ahead to the dorms, and we thought you could use an extra ha- er, help?” He was wary of Jiro’s ear jack hovering next to his head, threatening him with a concussion if he said something insensitive again.

Kurai smiled a little bit at everyone before he said, “Thanks, guys. Come on in, my stuff is in the first room down the hall.”

“Need any extra tape?” Sero joked as he walked past.

“Only if it can be used to tie Akarui’s hands to his legs,” Kurai answered. “He’s been playing death march music out of his wheelchair every time we packed another box.”

As his classmates filed into the house, Mina lingered back to give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. “You doing okay?” she asked him softly.

“No,” he admitted as he rested his head on her shoulder. “But maybe moving into a new home will help me move on.”

“Hmm,” she mused as she stroked his hair gently. “Let me know what I can do, okay?”

“Date night.” She drew back slightly, surprised to hear him suggest such a thing. Raising an eyebrow as he looked at her, he said, “I’m not kidding. We have the weekend to unpack and get settled in, so let’s go out on Sunday. Knowing Aizawa, we’re gonna have very little free time this summer, so we’d better take a chance while we can.”

“Okay, sure,” she grinned happily. “But we’ll be living in the same building from now on, so date nights will be mandatory on Fridays, even if it’s just a stay-home one.”

“Deal,” he agreed. “This Friday might not work, though.”

“Why, you got plans?”

“Something like that.”

“You gonna fill your very cute girlfriend in on it?” She blinked her long eyelashes at him as she threw in a very adorable smile.

However, he wasn’t about to clue her in just yet. “It’s a surprise,” he told her, causing her to pout and bump him in the cheek with one of her horns, and none too gently.

“Hey, Hikari!” Jiro called from up the hall. “Is this a vintage Lisa album?!”

“What?!” he shouted as he suddenly dashed down the hall, leaving an amused Mina standing by the door. “I had that boxed up!” A second later, she started laughing when she heard him yell, “Kirishima, I saw that! Stop using your quirk to open my stuff!”

“C’mon, bro! The box was labelled ‘entertainment’, how was I not supposed to get curious?!”

“You’re lucky I only have one hand right now!”

“Kirishima, stop disrespecting your fellow student’s privacy!” Iida reprimanded his classmate. “It is beneath the dignity of a UA attendant!”

As Mina continued to giggle, she heard a slight whirring sound that announced Akarui’s presence. *Thanks for looking after him.* The boy typed out the message as soon as he stopped moving forward. *I know you put the others up to this- it’s a good way to get his mind off of things for a bit. I’m glad to know that someone who loves him is going to be there to help him out with all of this.*

“What about you?” Mina asked him, looking concerned for the boy. “Are you gonna be okay with him leaving, especially with your Dad being gone and all?”

*Somebody needs to keep an eye on Mom.* Akarui made a slight shrugging motion. *My aunt and cousin might move in with us, but until then, she’ll have to make do with me. Also my physical therapist, Nagata.*

“Well, if you ever get lonely, we can always arrange a visit,” she promised him. “You probably can’t come on campus, but we should be able to come to you.”

Before he could type out another reply, they heard Kurai yelling, “No, no, no! Iida can carry that one, you stay out of it, Kaminari!”

“What, why?!”

“Because I don’t trust you with power tools!”

“Hey, that time in the support lab was an accident!”

A couple of hours later, everything was loaded onto the truck, and the two men drove off, saying that the boxes would be loaded into Kurai’s room when he got there, and that they would even assemble the bed for him, though he would have to do the rest of the actual unpacking himself. “Don’t sweat it, dude,” Sero told the crippled boy as they drove off. “We’ll help you out with that, too. Sato’s actually down to help once we all arrive.”

“Yes, please don’t feel the need to unpack without assistance,” Yaoyorozu assured him. “We will be more than happy to get you settled into our new home.”

“Thanks,” he told them as they started to file out of his house. “Are we all gonna ride the train together?”

“That was the plan, yes,” Iida nodded sharply.

“Cool. Would you mind giving me a few minutes to say goodbye?”

“Of course, ribbit,” Asui nodded. “The next train doesn’t leave for thirty minutes, so we have plenty of time to get there in time to meet the teachers at the dorms.”

“Great,” Kurai said as he turned around. “Be back soon.” With that, he found himself walking down the hallway to his now-empty room, where he stopped, just inside the doorframe. It was bizarre to see it that way, especially since he had never actually seen it empty. This had been his room since the time he was a toddler, and to have it vacant now almost made it feel as though it would be wrong for him to set foot in it- like the fact that since it was now empty of his belongings, it should be void of his presence altogether.

*Weird seeing it like that.* Kurai turned around to see Akarui sitting just a few feet away, an album of some sort held in his lap. *If Shukin comes to live with us, Mom says that it’ll be his room, so at least it wouldn’t be empty that way.*

“I hope that they do,” Kurai said as he walked toward his brother. “I know it’d be good for Mom, seeing as Aunt Sakura knows exactly what she must be going through, and how to get through it.” Glancing at his brother’s hands, he then asked, “What do you have there?”

*Nearly fell out of my chair getting this.* Akarui held up the album after typing out his message. *It’s from Dad’s office. It’s a photo album, with all of his favorite pictures of you. Mom, he, and I are in it too, but it was his way of keeping track of your growing up. He has others for Mom and me, but I thought that you might like to take that with you- keep him close.*

Kurai was touched by the idea, so he took the album and tucked it under his arm before saying, “Thanks, Akarui. I can hardly believe that I’m actually gonna miss you.”

*I’ll miss you, too.*

Kurai then leaned down and hugged his brother, careful not to move his neck as he did so. “I’ll visit when my schedule permits it,” he promised as he straightened up. Sighing to himself, he added, “I suppose that I should say goodbye to Mom.”

*Don’t bother.* Akarui’s message confused Kurai, so the younger boy explained, *I tried to get her to come out once the last boxes were being loaded, but she played deaf.*

“How do you know she isn’t sleeping?”

*I heard her moving around in the room. I’m paralyzed, not hard of hearing.*

Kurai felt hurt by this. “Why doesn’t she want to come out to say goodbye?” he wondered.

*She probably thinks that it will be less painful for her if she doesn’t have to face the moment of your leaving.* Akarui guessed. *I’ll see if I can get her to call you later, but she’s been pretty depressed. Dad’s gone, you’re leaving for a fresh start, and she’s stuck taking care of me by herself, at least for a while. Can’t be easy.*

“No, but…” Kurai sighed again, then decided to leave it be. “All right. Tell her I love her, and that I hope that she’ll call me soon.”

*You got it. Good luck, Kurai.*

“And to you, Brother mine.”

Kurai had to admit, the new dorm building looked impressive. He had half-expected a gray building with the bare necessities inside of it- after all, it had only been three days since construction had begun on the project. What they got instead was what looked like an apartment complex for trust fund kids, and that was just the outside.

This is actually shaping up to be a lot cooler than I thought it would, Kurai conceded to himself while his classmates’ conversations buzzed in his ears. Everyone had arrived, save for the American students, but they were expected to be along any minute.

“It’s so great that everyone could come back to school,” Sato said as he glanced at the heads surrounding him. “I was worried that we’d all get split up.”

“Yeah, my parents took a lot of convincing,” Hagakure groaned.

“Makes sense, you and Jiro got the worst of the gas attack,” Kirishima mused.

“My parents were actually pretty cool about it,” the earphone jack girl informed them.

“What about you, Hikari?” Ojiro asked the resident cripple. “I mean, you clearly got the go-ahead, but did it take a lot convincing for your folks?” The group grew so quiet that you could hear a pin drop in the grass in front of the 1-A dorm building. It took the tailed boy a couple of seconds to realize what he had said, and when he did, he got paler than a sheet. “H-Hikari, I-”

“The last conversation I had with my father consisted of him telling me to continue on the path that leads to me becoming a hero.” Kurai cut him off tonelessly, which somehow made it worse for the other boy. “My Mom wasn’t about to go against that, so here I am.”

Before Ojiro could attempt to apologize again, they all heard a higher-pitched voice shouting, “Hey, guys! We made it in time!” The class turned as a collective to see Ruby, Yang, Blake, and Weiss all approaching with suitcases in hand. The two sisters seemed as lively as ever, while their friends remained fairly stoic.

The moment that they came within easy speaking distance, Yang and Ruby walked over to Kurai and surprised him by giving him a bone-crushing group hug. “Er, what-?” he managed to croak out. Off to the side, Mina was looking less than happy about what was happening, but it wasn’t like he had any control over it.

“We heard about your dad,” Ruby said quietly, though she and her sister did not relinquish their hold. “We’re so sorry.”

“We lost our mom pretty early on,” Yang explained. “We’re here if you need anything, man.” Mina looked less annoyed now, but she hoped that the embrace wouldn’t last too much longer. Fortunately, the two of them had the good sense to put him down soon enough, aware of the fact that his damaged body could only handle so much right then. As they stepped back, the elder sister grinned and couldn’t refrain from rubbing the boy’s head where his hair had changed colors while telling him, “I’d say that’s a fresh look, but I think Smolderoki over there has it patented.”

Now that she said it, the rest of the class had to admit that the two boys did somewhat resemble one another when it came to their hairstyles, even though Kurai’s was much shorter at the moment, and the discoloration on his right didn’t quite reach the halfway point on his scalp. “The two of you almost look like you could be brothers,” Asui even commented, causing both boys to blink in surprise as they reflexively reexamined each other.

This was when Aizawa came out of the building, looking as haggard and worn as ever. “Class 1-A,” he called out gruffly. “You’re all here, good.”

“Mister Aizawa!” Kirishima replied as the man came closer. “You’re back, too!”

“We were kinda worried that you might not be our teacher anymore,” Asui commented as he stopped a few feet in front of them. “The media guys seemed pretty mad at you.”

“I was surprised, too,” the man shrugged. “But I guess they just decided it would be more efficient to have the same teachers return, regardless of the media outcry.”

“In other words, screw ‘em,” Kurai muttered under his breath. That was fine with him- other than his interview alongside Gang Orca, he had never had a positive interaction with the paparazzi. That feels like it was a lifetime ago, he thought morosely.

“Before we get started, there’s something I need to clear up,” Aizawa announced, causing all of the students to quiet themselves almost instantly. He glanced around all of them for a few silent moments before he sighed and said, “I’m going to set aside a number of things, and just say this; Kirishima, Iida, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, and Todoroki. You five broke the rules and went to rescue Bakugo, despite our warning to leave it to the pros.” When everyone continued to simply stare back at the man, he sighed again and said, “Based on everyone’s lack of a reaction, I’m going to assume that you knew something about this, but chose not to disclose the fact. So if it weren’t for All Might’s retirement, and the loss of Commissioner Hogo-sha, I would expel every single one of you right now, save for Xiao Long, Bakugo, Jiro, and Hagakure.”

Team RWBY looked rattled by this, but the others had more or less expected him to say something like that, so they stayed completely quiet while they waited for him to finish. He didn’t take long to say, “You all may have been aware of this plan, but the five I mentioned are the ones that broke the rules. As such, you will need to behave as model students- prove that I can trust you again, or else leave my class. Now, come along- enjoy your new home.” Without bothering to see if anyone was following him, he started walking toward the entrance to the five-story building.

The fact that there was absolutely no break in his tone or speech patterns left even his regular students feeling thrown off. We’re supposed to get excited about living here after that? Kurai thought as he rubbed his stump again.

“Is he always like that?” Ruby whispered to Uraraka, who nodded a little glumly. “Yikes.”

“Tch.” Bakugo snorted before grabbing Kaminari by the arm, saying, “C’mere, bolt-brain.” He dragged the other student behind some bushes, where they heard a loud yelp, followed by a sharp burst of electricity that spat out a stupefied Kaminari, who immediately began to babble senselessly, and setting his classmates to laughing while Bakugo walked around him with a sullen look on his face.

“Hey, Dumb Hair,” he grunted as he stood in front of Kirishima. “Here.” He held out a wad of money to the redhead, whose eyes bugged out at the sight.

“Did you shake him down for cash?!” he yelped.

“No!” Bakugo snarled as he slapped the money against his friend’s chest before letting it drop, Kirishima barely catching it up in time. “It’s my money, you idiot- to replace what you spent. Don’t say I never did anything for you.” With that, he walked past the others, seemingly intent on following Aizawa.

“What was that about?” Kurai asked his girlfriend, who shrugged helplessly.

“No idea.”

“Kaminari!” Bakugo barked over his shoulder. “Show ‘em your dumb side.”

“Yay!” the blond boy babbled, causing Jiro to double over laughing.

“Man, you’re hopeless!” she giggled.

“Hey, guys!” Kirishima said with a large smile as he approached the larger group again. “I know that this won’t make up for us getting you all into trouble, but I’ll order us all some dinner to celebrate our new living arrangements tomorrow night!”

“Awesome!” most of the others shouted.

“Pus utra!” Kaminari agreed.

As they all started moving to follow their instructor, Kurai was surprised when Todoroki walked over to fall in line beside him and Mina. “Something up?” he asked his friend curiously. After all, it wasn’t like Todoroki to be the one to approach others without a specific purpose in mind.

“I’d be proud,” the other boy said in a low tone while keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“You’d be proud?” Kurai repeated, his confusion growing. “Proud of what, exactly?”

“Asui said that you and I look like we could be brothers now,” Todoroki replied, his gaze unchanging. “I’d be proud if you were. I know Akarui is.”

Those words left Kurai so dumbstruck and tongue-tied that he found himself unable to say anything until after they had made it to the building that they would be staying in for the rest of the school year.

Aizawa showed them that the first floor had a common kitchen area that connected to a dining area that could also double as a study hall. Next to that was a nice-looking lounge with several plush couches, a large, brand-new TV and entertainment center that looked like it could hold a lot of movies, or a few game consoles. Down the hall they would find the laundry rooms, bath area, as well as elevators that could take them up to the floors that they would live on. Everything looked like it had been taken out of a ‘modern living’ catalogue and directly inserted into the place.

“We’re living in a mansion…!” Uraraka swooned, prompting Izuku to catch her up before she fell back on her head.

“There’s so much space!” Mina laughed excitedly, jumping up and down like a kid in a candy store with their parent’s credit card.

“Wait, both bath areas are in the common space?” Yang whispered excitedly to Blake. “This is awesome!” The raven-haired girl could only introduce her hand to her face in exasperation of her friend’s antics.

Unfortunately for Yang’s plans to catch some of the boys with their pants down, she was overheard by Aizawa, and he made sure that she knew it. “They’re separated by gender,” he growled as his eyes glowed crimson at her. “And you’ll behave yourself.”

“Yes sir!” she immediately squawked.

After that, he explained that while there were a total of thirty-two rooms spread across the top four floors, each level would only house six students, and in no particular order. Each one had its own mini-fridge, walk-in closet, toilet, A/C and heating system, plus a balcony with enough room for a small table and two chairs, if a student could get a set.

The only one that seemed apprehensive about the size of the new living quarters was Yaoyorozu- everyone else was incredibly impressed with what they had been given. “This about the same size as the closet at home, but I’m sure I can make it work,” she murmured to herself as she looked about one of the rooms that would remain empty, though a few of her classmates heard her.

“This place is the size of my parents’ house!” Uraraka exclaimed before she started to fall over again, and this time Midoriya wasn’t quite fast enough to catch her.

“Ochaco!” he yelped.

Ochaco? Kurai repeated in his head as he looked on from inside the doorway. Since when does he call her by her first name? He decided that something must have happened between them while he was laid up in the hospital, but he knew that there would be time to ask about it later.

Once they had become familiar with the layout, Aizawa told them that they had the weekend to get unpacked, and that they would find all of their belongings in their assigned rooms. “I’ll tell you more about the lessons we have planned for you on Monday,” he informed them. “Until then, get to work, and keep the place clean while you do.”

As he passed by Kurai, he said in a lowered tone, “Your room was built a little differently than the others, so you’ll have some extra room to fit in a work table that you can use for maintenance whenever you need it. Power Loader will also be receiving schematics, just in case you need to alter the prosthetic.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank Principal Nezu, he’s the one that arranged it,” his teacher replied. “And, Hikari?”

“Yes, sir?”

“…You have my condolences for your loss,” Aizawa murmured before he departed, leaving his students to settle into their new home. Considering that he had never once thought to speak to a student about their private life before, Kurai imagined that this was about all the pity that he could expect from his teacher.

Still, coming from him, it’s quite a bit.

The class spent the rest of the day unpacking their belongings, many of them taking fifteen-minute shifts in pairs to help Kurai set his place up. He made a note in his head to get something for the class as a whole to thank them for everything that they had done to help him.

He did insist on unpacking one box himself, a larger one that had gone in a space that the other students realized their rooms were lacking. “Hey, what gives?” Kirishima asked as he took note of the area, which increased the square footage in Kurai’s room by about one-third. “Why’d you get such a big place?”

“Some of the equipment in my costume requires maintenance from time to time, and I like to handle that stuff myself,” the boy answered with a shrug. “As long as I don’t alter anything on my weapon, I’m allowed to do small repairs in my room. I’ve been doing my own work on my motorcycle for a long time, so I’d like to keep up the habit.”

“You ride a motorcycle?” Tokoyami asked in surprise.

“Yeah, it was a gift,” Kurai replied. “My dad started teaching me to maintain it when I was seven- he used to ride- but I finally got my license a little while before school started.”

“Wait, so what happens to it, now?” Kirishima inquired as he used his quirk to hammer in a nail that would hold up a Kurai’s autographed photo of himself and Gang Orca in the hospital together.

“All Might pretty much gave me his parking spot in the faculty lot so that I could bring it with me,” Kurai admitted, causing both of his classmates to do a double-take. Seeing the disbelief on their faces, he explained, “It’s been here since yesterday evening- it was his idea. He doesn’t own a car, and he said that he didn’t want the space to go to waste. The only condition that he gave me was that I have to take him places every once in a while.”

“Man, between you and Midoriya, I’m not sure who the teacher’s pet is,” Kirishima joked with a toothy grin meant to take any sting out of his words.

By the time everyone was finished, it was late in the evening, but they were all satisfied at having their living spaces all ready to go. “And now we’ve even got a day to unwind a little!” Kaminari grinned as he leaned back on the sofa where Midoriya and Kurai were sitting, the latter massaging the irritated tissue on his right arm. “I know we coulda died and all, but it’s pretty cool that we all get to live together like this!” All of the boys- minus Bakugo- were now relaxing in the common area, enjoying the new furniture that had been given to them.

“Yes, a unified class is just what we need after everything that has happened!” Iida declared in agreement.

“So, he never relaxes, does he?” Sero asked Kurai, who immediately shook his head in the negative.

“Our families went on a beach vacation together six years ago, he spent most of the time reading on how to care for engines that get clogged with sand and ocean water,” the boy chuckled, though he did wince a bit as his severed arm throbbed painfully. “The only part when he actually got in the water was because his brother threw him in, and then he spent the rest of the time checking that his radiators hadn’t gotten ruined by the saltwater.”

“It could have been a real problem!” Iida protested, waving his arms frantically, irritation plastered on his face. “I hadn’t been in the ocean since before my quirk appeared, so I didn’t know what it would do!”

“Pretty sure that Tensei tested what would happen to bio-mechanical engines in saltwater before you even got your powers,” Kurai countered dryly. To the others, he added, “Spoiler alert- nothing bad happened.”

“It could have!”

“Hey guys!” Mina’s voice interrupted what was set to become a heated conversation, and the boys turned to see her flanked by all of the girls, except for Asui. “You all done unpacking?”

“Yep!” Midoriya answered with a thumbs-up.

“Sweet,” Kurai’s girlfriend said with a mischievous smile. “Cos me and the girls were all talking, and…”

“We wanna take a look around and see who’s got the coolest room in the dorm!” Hagakure finished, leaving all of the boys dumbstruck.

“For the record, I’m against this nonsense,” Weiss informed them from the rear of the group. Blake looked like she agreed, but she said nothing either way.

“Why, cos you think you’ll lose?” Ruby snickered, causing her teammate to glare at her angrily.

“It’s not a contest, you dolt!”

“Sounds like one to me!” Kirishima exclaimed as he got to his feet, surprising his friends with his enthusiasm. “Let’s do it!” Rallying the other boys, he led the way to the elevators and staircase, eager to see what everyone’s personal tastes happened to be.

“Hey, Weiss,” Yang said in an undertone as they trailed behind the others. “This’ll be a perfect chance to see Mister Icy-Hot’s private space. Aren’t you a little bit curious?”

“No! Don’t be absurd!” the pale girl sniffed as she turned her nose up at her classmate. “Such things are beneath me. I don’t need to see what Todoroki’s bedroom looks like to be peers with him.”

“Well, they aren’t beneath me,” Yang snickered as she went ahead with the others. “Hey, wait up! Don’t get to the good part without me!”

Weiss’ cheeks heated up before she called out, “W-Wait! Someone needs to go along to make sure that things don’t get out of hand!”

The second floor had six rooms occupied, and Midoriya’s was first to be inspected. Apparently it only then dawned on him that everyone was going to come in turns once they were at his door, because he suddenly yelled, “Wait, no! Don’t! You can’t go in there!”

Unfortunately, he was too late, if the laughs from Uraraka and Hagakure were anything to go by. “Deku, you’re such a fanboy!” the gravity girl giggled as she made room for a few more of the students.

Upon seeing the room, Kurai turned to his friend and said, “You might have issues, dude.” The entire room was All Might-themed; from the bedcovers to the posters covering every other inch of the walls, even the curtains had their color palette taken from the retired hero. There were also several shelves worth of All Might books, action figures, and other collectibles.

“I-I just admire him…” the green-haired boy practically whimpered as he turned bright scarlet while hunching over his desk.

Seeing this, Uraraka moved over and patted him on the back, careful not to touch him with all five fingers, and said, “Aw, cheer up, Deku! Any hero would be lucky to have a fan this devoted to them! I’m sure someday you’ll have a fan like this, too!”

“That’s… not really what I’m going for,” he groaned, though he seemed to perk up a little bit at her words.

“Next room!” Mina sang once everyone else had gotten a turn to check out the interior design, a skip in her step as she moved out the door.

“For the record, I thought your room was totally awesome,” Ruby whisper-shouted to Midoriya as they left it behind. “I want half the stuff in there.”

“Sis, you worry me,” Yang told her.

Next up were Aoyama and Tokoyami, both of them truly bizarre in their own way. Their more flamboyant classmate’s room was decked out from top to bottom in shiny, sparkling things, including a disco ball that reflected even more light from the ceiling. The girls’ opinions differed from not being surprised to somehow actually expecting more.

The boy with the raven’s head did his best to keep the others from entering, but Ashido and Hagakure overpowered him, opening the door to a room that seemed to practically swallow any light that entered it. Everything was colored black, or a very, very dark shade of purple, and it was difficult to see anything other than some odd-looking keychains and gothic art pieces. Most of the girls were a little too intimidated to even go inside, but there was a sword in the corner that Midoriya, Blake, and Ruby took an interest in. Before they could get their hands on it, though, Tokoyami shouted at them to leave, and since his voice seemed to be taking on the qualities of his Dark Shadow, everyone decided that they’d seen enough.

Kurai’s room was meant to be next, but he stood resolutely in front of the door and muttered one word; “No.”

“You don’t get a choice!” his girlfriend chuckled as she jabbed him in one of his ticklish spots, causing him to topple over on the floor, his sense of balance still off due to the lack of his arm, all of which served to leave the door handle completely unguarded. Spinning right around the gasping boy, she opened the door and stuck her head in- only to quickly back out and shut the door just as fast as she had opened it. Kurai struggled to rise until Mina moved to help him up and said, “Sorry I did that. I didn’t know.”

“Next time, just… take my word for it,” he sighed as he accepted her help.

“Did we miss something?” Sero asked Iida, who simply shrugged, looking just as confused as they were. “I mean, we helped him move in- it’s not like we haven’t seen most of what’s in there, already.”

“True, except for that one box-”

“Okay, guys, let’s move along,” Mina said to cut off Todoroki as she moved away from the door. “Nothing that we need to see in there.”

“Okay…” Ojiro said blankly, reflecting the feelings of most of the class. Now they all really wanted to know; what could Kurai have in there that he didn’t want to show anyone?

“I think that’s everyone on this floor,” Ruby said a little too quickly. “Let’s go up-”

“No, it’s not,” Kaminari said as he crossed his arms. “Pretty sure that there are two people left on this floor.”

“No there aren’t!” Ruby protested.

“Wait, are the girls getting judged, too?” Blake asked, suddenly looking very worried. “I don’t know if that’s such a-”

“I’m down!” Mina exclaimed excitedly as she started walking across the hall, toward a door with her name on a plate next to it. “We can start with mine!”

“I don’t like this,” Kurai said under his breath as everyone else moved to follow the energetic pink girl.

“Why, cos you two won’t be alone?” Kaminari teased him.

“Let’s be real, that’s probably gonna happen at some point in the next few weeks, whether I want it to or not,” Kurai deadpanned, though his thoughts continued to wander on the matter. Aizawa has to know that we’re together. Seems kind of against his whole ‘I-do-everything-that-is-logical’ shtick to put us right across the hall from each other. What’s his angle…?

“Don’t sound so excited about it,” the electric boy chuckled. “You’re lucky, dude. Girls like her don’t come along every day. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

“…Did you just admit to checking out my girlfriend?” Kurai asked the other boy, who suddenly looked very nervous.

“Hey, you know what? I think I’m gonna go weigh in on the whole room contest thing- gotta be thorough, you know?” With a nervous laugh, he bolted for Mina’s room, along with the rest of the class.

“That’s what I thought.”

Mina’s room featured a more-than-healthy palette of pink and black coloring that was somehow girly and bizarre at the same time. Upon being dragged over by the others to see it, Kurai turned to his girlfriend and said, “I expected more Ridley Scott.” He had been to her house multiple times prior, but he’d always declined to visit her room before now.

“Hey!” she protested. “Just cos I like ‘Alien’, it doesn’t mean I’ve gotta have my walls covered in the stuff!”

“I feel like that was directed at me, somehow…” Midoriya said under his breath.

After that, Ruby also did her best to block the entrance to her room, but was ultimately defeated by her sister’s iron grip dragging her away from the entrance, despite her wails. Once inside, most of the others began to laugh, having a certain sense of ‘déjà vu’. Only Midoriya refrained from chuckling, and that was because he understood Ruby’s pain.

Her entire room was covered in hero merchandise, but her books and posters were mixed with famous hero gear, mostly of the firearm variety. Americans sure love their guns, Kurai thought as he inspected a poster that included the rough schematics of an anti-tank rifle, titled the ‘Hecate Mk. II’, capable of punching through military-grade vehicle armor at over a mile away.

The room featured a lot of black and red coloring, which Kurai found interesting. Psychology generally shows that when people are constantly exposed to red, they’re more irritable, and prone to violent outbursts. Yet Ruby was one of the most happy, light-hearted people that he had ever met. I guess there’s an exception to every rule.

“Hey, this room has more space in it, like Hikari’s!” Kaminari pointed out as he moved to a workbench littered with various tools. “What gives?”

“Back at Second Amendment, we were always expected to maintain our own gear,” Blake answered him. “Part of our exchange program is that we have to keep that up, so UA has provided us with the necessary tools and space to do so.”

“What kinda stuff are you guys maintaining?” Jiro asked as she inspected what looked like a whetstone and oil used to clean a large blade.

“You’ll see on Monday,” Yang grinned as she popped her knuckles. “Our hero costumes just came in through customs, and I am so ready to be back in action!”

“Your ways are strange,” Tokoyami said as he walked out of the room, followed by his classmates.

“I feel so judged…” Ruby whined from next to Midoriya as everyone moved on.

“Join the club…”

The class proceeded to inspect the rest of the rooms (minus Asui and Bakugo), and for the most part, they ended up being what Kurai expected. The only exceptions were Sero, who had a Caribbean-beach theme, and Todoroki, who had so completely remodeled his room in the style of a Japanese temple so that it hardly bore a resemblance to the other units at all.

Sato’s room was the last to be visited, and while his decorating skills were rudimentary at best, his baking skills were high-class, if Yaoyorozu and Weiss’ reactions to his chiffon cake were anything to go by. “None of my four bakers could make something this delightful!” the American heiress declared while the group was eating the still-warm cake in the common area. “If you don’t make it as a hero, you should come to my estate as the head dessert chef, Sato. “

“Uh…? Thanks?” He turned to look at Ruby, who shrugged little helplessly.

“We’re still training her out of giving backhanded compliments,” the younger girl told him. “They’re as close to saying nice things as she can get right now.”

While this was happening, Kurai was struggling to use his fork on the fluffy food with his left hand, and he was having limited success. Mina had gone to get a box and slips of papers for people to write down their votes for the best room, so he was by himself at one of the tables- until Yang plopped down next to him.

“Hey, guy,” she said with a cheery smile. “Got a question for ya.”

“What’s up?” he asked, frowning as his stump flared with pain, and he jerked his fork, dropping the piece that he had spent the last two minutes acquiring. “Dammit.” Setting down the fork itself, he turned to Yang and asked, “You had a question?”

“Little bird told me that you’ve got a motorcycle, right?” Yang chose to ignore the frustrated look on the boy’s face when she posed her question.

“Yeah,” he replied, his expression reverting to a more neutral one. “What about it?”

“Can I borrow it sometime? I’ve got one back home, and I don’t wanna get out of practice.”

“No.” He turned back to his food and picked up the fork.

“I’ll pay for the gas I use.”

“No.”

“I’ll top off the tank whenever I take it out?”

“No.”

“I’ll wash and detail it?”

“No.”

“What if I-?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me-!”

“No.” With the last utterance of the short word, he clenched his fist and warped the fork beyond use. Glaring at the now-useless piece of metal, he let out a grunt and stood up, dropping the utensil on the table. “I think I’ve had enough cake. I’m going to bed.” As he left, Yang noticed the beads of sweat on his brow that he had to wipe at before he passed her by. “Tell your sister she can have my piece if she wants seconds.”

“What was that all about?” she asked of no one in particular once he was gone.

“That motorcycle was his uncle’s.” Mina informed her somberly, startling the blond girl. She hadn’t heard her classmate’s approach. “It was willed to him, and his dad taught him how to maintain it. It’s one of the only things he has left that connects him to the both of them.”

“Oh, shoot,” Yang said, feeling like she had just been punched in the stomach by Muscular again. “I had no idea. Now I feel like a total jerk.”

“It’s not your fault, he didn’t tell you,” Mina sighed. “I was hoping that he’d stick around for a little longer, but he’s been pretty moody the last few days, understandably.” She looked at the elevator down the hall, which showed that it was now resting on the second floor.

“That, and I think he might be in pain right now,” Yang informed her, drawing the pink girl’s attention back to her.

“Say what?”

“He was sweating, and he kept grabbing at his stump.”

“Oh, crap,” Mina blurted right before she took off down the hall, dropping a box filled with blank paper slips inside it.

“Ashido?!”

“Do the vote without me!” she called over her shoulder as she ran past Yaoyorozu and Uraraka. “I gotta check on something!”

“What was that about?” the gravity girl asked.

“No idea.”

“Something tells me that Hikari is involved,” Blake commented. “Maybe one of us should go with her, make sure that he’s okay.”

“We’re on it,” Midoriya said as he and Iida put their plates down. “We’ll be back soon.”

“Put our votes down for Todoroki!” the class rep added as he followed his friend.

“Kurai, open the door!”

They found Mina pounding her fist on the last door down the hall, to no apparent avail. “Ashido, what’s going on?” Iida asked as he and Midoriya came closer. “Did he lock himself in?”

“Yeah, it’s no good,” she said worriedly. “I think he’s really hurting, but he won’t let me in. He won’t even say anything.”

“I could always break down the door if we need to, but at that point, I feel like it’d be better to get Mister Aizawa,” Midoriya told them.

“No,” Mina said firmly with a swift shake of her head. “The last thing he needs right now is for the teachers to be doing another psych eval on him. He had to go through plenty of those at the hospital, already.”

“Ashido, we need to do something,” Iida insisted. “If he won’t let us in, we have to get someone to help us.”

Mina looked like she wanted to yell at him in frustration, but then an idea presented itself to her. Raising a finger to her lips, she said, “Yeah, okay, I get it. We’ll get the teachers.” Beckoning the confused boys to follow her, she walked a few paces away and pointed at Midoriya’s door, keeping the one finger over her lips as she did. Once they had followed her, she whispered, “Midoriya, your balcony lines up next to his, right?”

“Yeah,” the green-haired boy nodded, keeping his voice low. “Wait, do you want us to jump over and get in through the window?!”

“Shh!” she hissed at him, instilling silence in both boys immediately. “We do way more dangerous stuff during combat practice, it’ll be fine. And by the way, the only one going in is gonna be me.”

“Ashido, I strongly suggest that we-”

“Zip it, Iida.” Her sharp tone surprised the both of them- she was always so carefree and happy-sounding. This level of intensity was a little unnerving, coming from Mina. “You’re gonna go stand at the door and keep trying to talk to Kurai while I get in the through the window. Midoriya, stay on your balcony until I text you that everything’s cool in there.”

“Wait, why wouldn’t it be okay?” he asked, looking worried for her. “He’s not gonna hurt you, is he?”

“No, but if he does need medical attention, I’ll need extra muscles to keep him in place until Recovery Girl shows up,” Mina answered him. “His quirk can get unstable if he’s not thinking clearly, and if he’s getting phantom pains again…”

“Didn’t they give him medicine for that?”

“He doesn’t wanna take ‘em,” Mina grumbled. “Says that he needs to learn to live without depending on drugs as a coping mechanism.”

“An admirable goal, but not one that can be achieved within weeks of receiving such a hideous injury,” Iida commented.

“No kidding, class rep,” Kurai’s girlfriend snapped. “I just wanna see if we can resolve this without getting the adults involved- happy medium for him and us. Now are you two gonna help your friend, or am I gonna have to melt his new door?”

“I’m in,” Midoriya promised. Turning to the taller boy, he added, “C’mon, Iida. If the teachers get involved, he won’t be able to take steps toward handling this without them.”

“…Fine, but the minute I hear the signs of a physical altercation, I’m getting Mister Aizawa,” he told them. “People are unpredictable when they’re in pain, and I don’t want to see one of you hurt, especially by him.”

“Thanks, Iida.”

“Let’s do this, boys. Remember, don’t get a teacher unless I call for one, or he’s getting out of control. And don’t say anything once you hear me talking to him- a commentary is the last thing he needs in all this. In fact, just don’t listen in past me getting into the room, okay? I’ll yell if I need you.”

Fortunately, Kurai had forgotten to lock his balcony door after opening it earlier to set a lawn chair on it, so Mina was able to get into the room easily via Midoriya’s balcony. What she saw once she was she inside distressed her.

Kurai was shivering in a ball on the floor, blood dripping from his stump, over his fingers, and onto the hardwood floor. It was barely visible in the moonlight that was the sole source of luminance in the area, but it was hard to miss once she knew what she was looking at. With a shot of alarm, she realized that he had scratched himself so hard that he was carving furrows into his own flesh. She could hear him crying softly into his shirt, the sound just barely audible when she silently opened the glass doors. I couldn’t even hear him from the outside, she thought as she stepped into the new room. I had no idea that the phantom pains were this bad!

“Kurai?” she asked softly. He played deaf, so she tried again, saying, “Kurai, did you skip out on your meds?”

“Go away,” he groaned softly. “I’m fine.”

“You are bleeding all over your floor from an arm that you lost a week ago!” she shouted at him, not caring that Iida might hear her. “You’re not fine! You need to take care of yourself!”

“I am…” he grunted, breathing heavily. “I need to learn…to cope without the damn drugs! Agh!” Clenching his fingers more tightly, Mina felt her heart tear as new cuts began to weep out of the ruined limb.

“Stop, stop!” she begged him as she moved to sit beside him and grab at his wrist with both of her hands, trying to pull his claw-like grip away from his already-ruined limb. “You’re making it worse!” Unfortunately, his quirk made him too strong for her to pry his hand loose.

“It can’t… get worse!” he spat, his sweat running in rivulets down his body, mixing with the tears coming out of his face.

“Kurai Hikari, if you don’t take your meds right now, I will have Midoriya come in here to force-feed them to you, don’t think I won’t,” she growled, feeling her own eyes sting with sorrow and frustration. “You can’t move forward if you can’t think beyond your ability to feel pain. No one’s saying that this is gonna be a permanent solution, believe me. But right now, you still need to heal- from a lot of things besides your arm, and you can’t do that if you’re like this.”

“Mina…” he croaked. “Leave… me… alone!”

“No!” she shouted as she let go of his wrist and wrapped her arms all the way around him, not caring that her shirt was quickly getting stained with his blood. “You’re not alone, Kurai, and I’m not gonna let you think otherwise, not even for a second! You’re not allowed to go through something like this without me, not anymore!”

“Stop…” he begged, his grip on his stump loosening. “You’re gonna… get bloody…”

“Like I care,” she said as she hugged him tighter. “My shirt can be replaced, dummy. You can’t, and like I’ve told you before, I have a very strict policy concerning dead boyfriends.”

“I’m not-”

“Maybe not today, but someday, if I let this go right now,” Mina answered, feeling his grip weaken further. “I’m here to keep you going, Kurai, not let you sink. I love you too much to let you get hurt, especially when you’re the one doing the hurting.”

“Dammit, can’t I…? Can’t I just… mourn in private?!” He was crying again.

“Not like this, no,” she said stubbornly, finally managing to grab his remaining hand and hold it in her own. “Once you’ve come to a good place, you can mourn for everything that you’ve lost on your own. But for now, I’m gonna be here for you, whether you like it or not.”

“…I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

“There’s a lot of things you should be sorry about,” she teased him lightly, her tears turning into ones of relief as she felt the mood in the room change just a bit. “What are you sorry for, exactly?”

“I ruined the day for you by… being selfish,” he hissed as more pain shot throughout his ghost of an arm. “And I was… rude to everyone… when they wanted to see the room.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly the most respectful girl when I made you move outta the way,” she half-laughed, still feeling the tears sliding out of her black eyes. “So let’s just get you your medicine, wash up in the sink, and get you to bed. Where’s the stuff?”

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, Mina helped Kurai to take his medicine, change into fresh clothes, and clean his stump’s cuts before bandaging him up with stuff from a first-aid kit that he had in one of his drawers. Once he was settled into bed, she kissed him on the head and asked to borrow one of his shirts, since her top was more or less ruined by bloodstains. She didn’t want to call unnecessary attention to him if someone happened to see her in a bloody shirt, so he agreed to loan her one of his t-shirts.

Fortunately, they wore a similar size, so once she had changed, she went out into the hall, immediately shutting the door behind her with a long sigh. I thought the girlfriend was supposed to be the high-maintenance one in the relationship, she groaned inwardly. Not that she regretted her relationship with Kurai- she was just stressed and worried for the both of them at this point.

“Is he okay now?”

“Gah!” Mina yelped as she turned to see Iida still standing by the door. “Jeez, Iida, you’re gonna give a girl a heart attack! I thought you’d have left by now.”

“My apologies, but I wasn’t going anywhere until I was certain that he was alright,” the tall boy replied. “Also, I’m pretty sure that Midoriya is still out on the balcony, per your instructions.”

“Oh, crap!” Mina swore as she yanked her phone out of her pocket and punched in a few words to Izuku. “Poor guy’s been out there the whole time!”

“Kurai?” Iida reminded her. “What’s the situation with him?”

“It was like I thought,” Mina half-lied, not wanting him to know that Kurai had unintentionally injured himself- apparently the class rep had honored her request not to listen in on whatever was said between the two of them. “He really just needed to take his meds to help with the pain. He’s actually sleeping now, so thanks for not calling someone over. He needs all the rest that he can get right now.”

“Excellent,” Iida smiled, looking relieved. “I suppose I’ll head off to bed, myself. Good night, Ashido. And… thank you, for looking out for him.” Mina felt a little bad for keeping the whole truth from the class rep, but she also knew that if he saw the blood, he would get the teachers involved, and she didn’t want that just yet.

If he does it again, I’ll have to at least consider it, she thought as she watched Iida leave. But for now, I just want to give him the chance to rest in safety…

Her phone buzzed, alerting her to the fact that Midoriya had come inside, and was now getting ready for bed. Sending a reply to apologize once again, Mina then hesitated in front of her boyfriend’s room. She had originally been planning to spend the night in her new room, enjoying the fact that she had a place that she could truly call her own, but now she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to do that.

He does sleep better when I’m with him, she thought as she reached for his door handle. And he definitely needs his rest after what just went down… But if Aizawa finds out I spent the night in his room, he might kick us out… Although he didn’t actually say anything about us having sleepovers.

True, he had told Yang off about the showers, but he hadn’t said a word when it came to visiting privileges between rooms. Ah, screw it, she decided. If he chews me out later, I’ll just remind him that he wasn’t specific about it.

With that, she opened the door, ducked inside, and locked the door behind her. Kurai hardly stirred when she slid in under the covers with him, except to mumble something unintelligible. Kissing him on the head once more, she laid her head down and whispered, “Sleep well, Kurai. You’re not alone.”

And sleep well, they did.

Chapter Text

Kurai woke up feeling very sore, but cozy and secure at the same time. He felt the sunlight starting to tickle his eyelids, so he yawned and started to stretch his arm over his head, but a somewhat familiar weight was pressed against his body, keeping him from doing so. What smells like strawberries?

Cracking his eyes open, he heard a soft mumbling coming from right in front of him, in addition to being unable to see much more than pink fuzz amid his blankets. It took a few seconds for it to click what- or rather, who- he was looking at, but when he did, he just let out a sigh and murmured, “Did you lock the door?”

“Mhmm,” Mina answered as she nuzzled further into his chest. “I unplugged your alarm clock, too.”

“Mister Aizawa is gonna kill us if he finds out about this.”

“Totally worth it.”

“…Agreed.” Kurai’s stump ached and stung, however, so he added, “I need a change of bandages and some painkillers before I change my mind again.”

“You got it,” his girlfriend said as she raised herself off the bed, gave him a kiss, and then hopped out, stretching her arms overhead as she yawned. “You stay in bed, I’ll get the stuff.”

“Thanks, but I feel like I need to get up and move,” he grunted as he unconsciously began to scratch at his stump. “My legs are all stiff.”

Mina saw him scratching out of the corner of her eye, so she smacked his hand away, causing him to yelp involuntarily. “I don’t want you to open the scabs,” she explained as she moved to get the first-aid kit. “Now hold still while I change this stuff.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said a little apologetically.

Once she had started to unwrap his stump, she took a moment to ask him, “So, what do you wanna do today?”

“Hmm?”

“You said you wanted to go on a date, so what did you have in mind?” she grinned at him, though the expression wilted as she started to unveil some of the wounds, a few of which were sticking to the cloth, making her boyfriend grimace in pain. “Hang on, I’ll get some water.”

“Thanks,” he hissed as he forced himself to look away from the injury again. “To answer your question, I was thinking about going to an escape room, followed by a strawberry hunt.”

“Wow,” Mina said, looking impressed. “You’ve always said that you didn’t know anything about dating. Everything we’ve done so far has just been dinner or a movie together- not that I mind. It’s just unexpected, you know?”

“I invited you to I-island with me, and we have study dates all the time,” he protested, shifting his weight as Mina moved a towel underneath his leg, as to catch the blood that was going to leak out of his stuck bandages, and keep it from getting on his bedsheets.

“Dude, we got attacked by villains, plus your brother ended up in the hospital on that island, and anything that has the word ‘study’ in it is automatically disqualified from being a real date,” she replied, slowly pouring water from a cup onto his bandages in an effort to loosen up the scabs that had stuck to them.

“I’ll give you I-island,” Kurai said with a visible wince as she started to slowly tug on the bandages again, this time feeling them give a little. “Just rip them off, get it over with,” he hissed.

“Can’t do that,” she said with a negative shake of her head. “If I did, you’d just end up with the same problem when you bleed into the new bandages later. Recovery Girl is at the hospital today, still helping out with the victims of the League’s attack, so we can’t take you to her in order to heal you. Not to mention that I don’t think you really want to explain those cuts, do you?”

“…No,” he whispered.

Realizing that she had been unintentionally harsh, Mina paused in her work and cupped his chin in her hand so that he would look at her while she said, “I’m sorry I said that, Kurai. It wasn’t cool.”

“You’re right, though,” he sighed. “I’m sorry that I put you through that last night.”

“It’s okay,” she told him as she went to go get more water to pour on his shoulder. “Like I told you, I’m here whether you want me to be or not. So part of my job in being your plus-ultra girlfriend is putting up with you when you’re acting like a total dingus.” As she returned with the water, she kissed him on the cheek again before going to work with the cleansing liquid.

“You certainly are plus-ultra,” he half-laughed, half-cringed. “There is something that I wanted to run by you real quick, though.”

“What’s that?” The water that came off of his stump was now sanguine, and Kurai was glad for the thick hand towel resting underneath the remnant of his arm.

“Midoriya and Uraraka,” he said as he peeked back toward his girlfriend, her dark eyes narrowed in concentration as she worked at peeling away the stubborn bandages without causing him further harm. “What’s the story there? I noticed that they’ve been closer since I woke up from my injury. Did something happen between them?”

“Nothing official, as far as I can tell,” Mina giggled. “You know how they both are when it comes to this stuff. I mean, Midoriya is shy on a good day, so it’s no surprise that he’d tiptoe around this kinda thing.”

“So they’re not dating.”

“No, but I’d love the chance to change that,” the pink girl said with a devilish smile that Kurai couldn’t deny being attracted to. “You wanting to play matchmakers?”

“If you’re down for it, let’s drag ‘em both along for our date, make it a double,” Kurai replied as the first sore was finally freed. “I got her to admit that she likes him during camp right before the villains attacked, but understandably, other things have taken priority since then. I feel like nothing is ever gonna happen unless we give them a little nudge- ow!”

“Sorry,” Mina grimaced as she looked at one of the scabs, which was now oozing a little. “I thought that one was coming off easier.”

“It’s all good,” her boyfriend grimaced. “As I was about to ask, did you have something in mind to get them on board without realizing what we’re doing?”

“I dunno how stealthy we can be about it, really,” Mina admitted as she poured more water on his aching stump. “Let’s see… If we can’t be sneaky about it, why don’t we go in the opposite direction?”

“What, clue them in on what’s going on, but not give them a say in the matter?” Kurai guessed.

“Pretty much. You in, Cupid?”

“Only if you don’t call me that again.”

“But it’d be such a cute hero name!”

“No.”

“What about-”

“Nope.”

“Maybe-”

“Not happening.”

“I-”

“Nu-uh.”

“Fine. I’ve got Uraraka, what’re you gonna do about Midoriya?”

Kurai smiled, despite the stinging in his arm as Mina pulled the last of the bandages away from him and set them aside for washing later. “Like you said, he’s not the most assertive guy in our class. So…”

“Hey, guys,” Kurai said as he approached his friend at the breakfast table with a bowl and spoon in hand. Izuku was eating with Todoroki and Iida, the three of them consuming varying cereals. “Good morning.”

“Ah, Kurai,” Iida said as he gave his friend a small wave by way of greeting. “Did you sleep well?”

“Surprisingly, yeah,” Kurai admitted as he moved to sit next to Midoriya. “I owe you two a big thank-you.” He was wearing long sleeves, an unusual choice given that it was the summer, but the others quickly realized that it was easier for their friend to hide the missing appendage with the extra fabric, so none of them commented on the matter.

“Just don’t make us worry like that again,” Iida chose to say in a reprimanding tone. “I’m glad that you’re doing better, but if that happens again, I’ll have to-”

“I know, I know,” Kurai said as he reached for a yellow box near Todoroki. “Thanks, anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” Midoriya replied, looking relieved that Kurai was in seemingly better shape than the previous night. “But, uh, are you gonna talk to a doctor about what’s going on?”

“What happened last night?” Todoroki added, feeling like he was missing something big. “Is everything alright, Hikari?”

“They’re better than they were,” he replied to the half-and-half boy. “I guess I didn’t really say anything before cos I figured you all had more important things to worry about, but I might as well tell you since it’s a problem that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Fact is, I’ve got phantom pains in my right arm, and they haven’t been getting any less vivid since I got out of the hospital.”

“You mean you’re feeling wounds that aren’t actually there?” Todoroki replied, looking grim. “Is there a treatment for that?”

“It’s completely psychological,” Kurai explained as he poured the cereal into his bowl. “Doesn’t make it feel any less real, though.”

“Pain is in the mind,” Iida quoted.

“Exactly.” As Kurai put down the cereal box, he pointed to the milk sitting in front of Midoriya and asked, “Mind passing me that?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” Once he had the carton in his hand, however, he frowned at it a little. “It’s kinda tepid,” he grumbled, before an idea came to mind and he looked a question at Todoroki.

“Give it here,” his friend sighed, causing Kurai to grin at him. One second later, the milk was back at a refrigerated temperature, and the handicapped boy was on his way to a quick breakfast. “Thanks. Now, as I was saying, my mind keeps trying to get some kind of sensation out of my arm, which of course, isn’t there anymore. So it’s trying to recreate the last feeling that I had in it before I lost the damn thing, and- crap!” The curse was drawn out as he overfilled his bowl, spilling milk all over the table. “Stupid hand…” No doubt about it, the days of inactivity and the harsh toll that his injury and recovery had put on him had served to weaken his body, badly.

“Here, we’ll help,” Midoriya said as he dashed off to grab some napkins from the kitchen.

A few moments later, when the table was clean and Kurai could start on his breakfast, Todoroki spoke up again. “So when will you be able to get a replacement arm?”

“Not sure,” Kurai replied with a shrug. “There were a lot of people that were hurt in the battle at Kamino, many of them worse than me. Hospitals and insurance companies are being flooded with patients that need treatment, so who knows how long it’ll be before all the madness gets sorted out?” Gripping his spoon as well as he could, Kurai was able to get a fairly large amount of the sweet cereal onto his utensil and into his mouth.

“When you get a prosthetic, do you think that it will help with the pain?” Iida asked him, looking concerned. “You can’t take painkillers forever, but you can’t live with constant agony, either.”

“If a new arm doesn’t help, then maybe I’ll have to see a psychologist with a hypnotism quirk, or something,” Kurai shrugged after he finished his mouthful. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.” Turning to his green-haired peer, he was finally able to broach the topic that he’d been wanting to get to. “What are you doing today, Midoriya?”

“I was planning on getting some training do-”

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re not training today.”

“But I-”

“Nope.”

“It’s impor-”

“Shh!”

“Kurai, you can’t just-!”

“Not talking to you, Tenya.”

“So if I’m not training, what am I-?”

“Put on some casual clothes and then meet me in front of the dorms,” Kurai answered. “We need to have a little chat.”

“We do?” From the look on his face, Kurai guessed that his classmate was thinking that it was along the lines of something to do with One For All.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna be a long conversation- think we’ll go for a walk,” he added. “I could use the exercise.”

“Okay…?”

“Hey, Ochaco!” Mina said in a peppy tone as she sat down next to Uraraka, who had been talking to Asui excitedly about what the next semester would be looking like for them. “Got any plans today?”

“No, not really,” the brunette answered with a smile. “I’m all unpacked, so I was just gonna chill out for the day, maybe go grab some mochi from the convenience store after lunch.” She waved goodbye to Asui as she took her leave, apparently needing to speak to Yaoyorozu and Jiro.

“I’ll do you one better,” Mina replied as she hopped up off the bench and held out a hand to her friend. “Let’s get you changed into something cute- we’re gonna enjoy our last day of freedom before Mister Aizawa loads us with tons of homework again.”

“Oh, did you have something in mind?”

“You bet, but you can’t go out looking like you just crawled outta bed. C’mon, we got work to do!”

“Wait, why does that matter?”

“Just cos!”

Kurai waited patiently for Midoriya on the front steps, doing his best not to scratch at his scabs through his sleeve, which had begun to itch again. He was relieved when the freckled boy arrived to distract him from the irritation, though his friend looked worried.

“Hey, I know we haven’t had a chance to talk in private since All Might retired, but-”

“Forget about all that,” Kurai interrupted, surprising Midoriya. “We’re not gonna worry about any of that today, man. We’re gonna hit up the town and have a good time, away from everyone else- no legacies, no villains, no hero work. We’ve been going nonstop and then some, and I’m sick of it. I need a day off, and so do you.”

“Are you serious?” Midoriya asked, looking even more surprised. “You just… wanna go hang out?” He was dressed in a pair of khakis with a pale blue shirt, perfect gear for a stroll on a summer day.

“Is that so weird?”

“W-Well, sort of…” the green-haired boy admitted. “You’re not exactly what I’d call a social butterfly, and… Well, it’s been a long time since anyone just wanted to hang out with me, just because.”

“You came to our Sport’s Festival post-celebration,” Kurai pointed out.

“True, but that was more of a class thing. I… haven’t had a friend ask me to do this for a long time. I’d kinda forgotten it was an option.”

“Sorry if I neglected that part of being a friend,” Kurai chuckled, though he felt bad for Izuku. Now that he knew that the other boy had been quirkless for most of his life, he could imagine that his childhood would have been anything but easy- quirkless people nowadays were shunned about as badly as people with special needs used to be before quirks came about. Because of how positive and humble Izuku was, it was easy to imagine that he would have been well-liked in the past, but now Kurai knew better.

“No, it’s not your fault!” Midoriya insisted. “Thanks for inviting me along.”

“Not a problem,” Kurai chuckled as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. “One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I invited a couple of other people along- they should be out in a few minutes, hopefully.”

“Oh, is Ashido coming?” Midoriya guessed.

“Her and one other.”

“Iida?”

“Wait and see.”

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Mina said as Uraraka came out of her bathroom wearing a pair of shorts and a light purple top. “What’s the deal with you and Midoriya? Kurai told me about the little chat that you guys had back at the camp.”

“Oh, that!” Ochaco laughed nervously. “Well… I mean, I haven’t been trying to hide how I feel, especially from myself, but I don’t see a reason to turn his world upside down, you know? I’m happy with the way things are right now.”

“Okay, but wouldn’t you like them to be better?” Mina asked insistently. “C’mon, that guy totally adores you! He always confides in you, and you both spend more than half your free time together- it’s like you’re dating already!”

Uraraka blushed at that, but she kept her composure. “Yeah, but like I said-”

“Girl, you can’t keep using his shy guy nature as an excuse,” Mina interrupted. “I dunno the whole story, but I’m under the impression that the guy had a rough childhood. It’s hard for him to take the initiative when it comes to other people.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it,” the pink girl insisted. “Name one person at UA that he’s made friends with because he approached them first. You told me that you talked to him right before the entrance exam, and Iida approached him on the first day of class. Todoroki and him might have started out on a rough patch, but Todoroki was the one to approach him first, and open up their interactions. Kurai even offered to help him out without knowing him during the practical test.”

Uraraka fidgeted in place, trying to find an exception to the circumstances, but being unable to do so. She knew that Mina was right- Deku was not socially inclined, or even all that active. If something was going to change between them, it would more than likely have to fall on her to make that happen. Still…

“How do I know that it’ll turn out okay?” she groaned as she flopped face-first onto her bed. Muffled by the sheets, she also asked, “What if he doesn’t like me back?”

“Okay, honey, we already covered reasons that he does like you,” Mina giggled as she patted the other girl on the back. “Second, I’ve been where you’re at. I know it seems like something has to go wrong, just cos you want to believe in the chance that it won’t. But trust me, it’ll all be okay. In fact, it’s gonna be better than okay. It’ll be plus ultra.”

“Okay, but how do I ask him?” Uraraka asked, her voice still muffled by the sheets. “How’d you ask Kurai?”

“I didn’t,” Mina laughed again. “I told him. But you’re not me, so do what feels like first nature.”

Uraraka lifted her head off the bed to say, “It feels natural to just avoid the subject altogether.”

“Okay, just do what feels second-nature.”

“So, what exactly are we doing today?” Midoriya asked as he paced back and forth in front of the steps that led into the dorm. Kurai was watching him with a bemused expression from his seat on the same stairs, still actively trying to ignore the itching and stinging in his arm.

Too bad those meds don’t cure itchiness, he thought sourly. Out loud, he answered, “We’re gonna start with an escape room, have lunch, and then the afternoon will be a surprise.”

“An escape room?” Midoriya repeated, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “I’ve heard about those, but I’ve never done one before!”

“My cousin, Shukin, and I used to go with Tenya when we were younger,” Kurai replied, remembering days that made him smile a little. “We took Akarui with us a couple of times, but he’d always figure it out so fast that it was no fun.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Midoriya laughed.

“You can see what?” Both boys turned to see Mina walking out of the doors with Uraraka in tow. The brunette looked a little distracted, so Kurai guessed that his girlfriend had already laid out some of the groundwork. Let’s get this party started, he thought as Mina came down and put her hand in his.

“We all set?” she asked him.

“Yep, this is everyone,” he nodded, causing Uraraka and Midoriya to look at one another in surprise.

“A-Are you sure?” Ochaco asked nervously. “I’m sure that Iida and Su would love to-”

“Nah, this is for members of Team Midoriya, only!” Mina said dismissively, using the name of the group that they had formed for the cavalry battle at the Sport’s Festival. “C’mon, guys!” With that, she started leading the way off campus, Kurai in tow.

“Do you think that they’re planning something?” Midoriya asked as he and Uraraka followed them at a respectable distance.

“Looks like it,” she sighed.

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“How do you know that?” Uraraka turned to look at her crush, who had a happy look on his face as he gazed after the young couple.

“They’re our friends,” he replied simply. “Even if it’s something unexpected, I know that they’re just looking to help us, which is pretty amazing. Even though Hikari has a lot of problems right now, he’s still trying to be a good friend to us. The least we can do is humor him, right?”

“…Yeah,” Uraraka said with a forced smile. “You’re right as usual, Deku.” However, in spite of her feelings of disappointment at the fact that he was clearly missing the real point of this outing, it wasn’t lost on her that his smile brightened at the sound of his hero name- the name that she had changed, just for him.

The escape room turned out to be a lot of fun for the quartet, and a much-needed break from all the constant hero training and League of Villains insanity that had been following them all year. Izuku and Kurai were the ones that picked up on most of the clues in the area, but Mina and Ochaco had fun picking up on the odd hint and watching the boys go to work on sorting them out. The boy with green hair looked like he was having the time of his life during the adventure- and in a sense, he probably was.

Having grown up a pariah since he was in pre-school, this was the first time in over a decade that he was surrounded by good friends, just doing something that he enjoyed. There was no need to wonder if Bakugo was about to turn the corner to yell at him or torch his stuff. He was on his way to becoming a hero like he had always dreamed about, and he had good friends to help him accomplish that goal.

Yeah, he thought happily as Ochaco sat close to him at the restaurant’s corner booth, perpendicular to Kurai and Mina. I have the best friends that anyone could ask for.

“So, how’d you know about this place?” Uraraka asked as they opened their menus. “I’ve never actually had Italian before.” The building that they were in was close to full with people seeking a respite from making home meals or TV dinners for the weekend lunch rush.

“This is where my Mom and Dad went on their first date,” Kurai answered with a little smile, causing the others to look at him in surprise. “It’s been rebuilt a couple of times over the years because of hero and villain activities, but this is the place.”

“Oh, wow,” Midoriya said as he looked around the warm building with a new appreciation. “I can see why they would come here- it’s really nice!”

“You sure you’re okay sharing a spot like this with us?” Uraraka asked him with a concerned look on her face. “We can go somewhere else if it’s uncomfortable.”

“I wouldn’t have brought you guys if I wasn’t sure,” Kurai said with a negative gesture. “Besides, I’ve been wanting pizza since summer vacation started, and no one does it better than these guys.”

“Sounds good to me!” Mina said as she eyed the menu hungrily. “Ooh, can we get the meat lover’s?”

“Let’s see… loaded with pepperoni, beef, sausage, bacon, ham, chicken, turkey, and anchovies…” Kurai blinked at the last part. “Nix the fish, and I’m in.”

“Sounds good to me,” the pink girl grinned happily. Glancing at Midoriya and Uraraka, who were poring over the same menu, she asked, “What about you guys? You gonna share a dish, or get your own?”

“What’s a calzone?” Uraraka asked.

“Think a pizza sandwich,” Kurai explained. “It’s got the crust on the outside, and a bunch of sauce, cheese, and meat on the inside.”

“I’ll try that!” Midoriya said excitedly.

“Is there like a salad or soup menu I could look at?” Uraraka wondered as she eyed the prices. “I’m not all that hungry.”

“Order whatever you really want,” Kurai insisted. “This outing was my idea, so I’m paying.”

“I can’t let you-”

“You can and you will,” the maimed student said to cut her off. “Today’s about having a good time, not worrying about a few extra yen. If something looks appetizing, order up.”

Reluctantly, Uraraka took another look at the menu before she pointed at another item and said, “Can I get the Bottarga?”

“Yep,” Kurai said as he reached for the electronic tablet sitting next to him, tapping a few buttons in order to place the order. “I’ll also order some Focaccia to get us started… What do you all want to drink? There’s a really good orange soda that Akarui loves here.”

“What’s Focaccia?” Midoriya asked.

“That sounds yummy,” Mina said at the same time.

Grinning as he made the addition, Kurai answered, “It’s a type of rosemary bread that serves as an appetizer.”

“What do they have for dessert?” Uraraka inquired. She had the sweet tooth in the group, so the question didn’t surprise Kurai.

“I’ll pick us up some of their gelato another time, but we’re actually gonna go somewhere else for dessert,” he explained as he confirmed the order and put the tablet back. “After that, we’ll head home.”

“What time is our curfew?” Mina asked.

“We have to be back on campus by six o’ clock,” Midoriya answered without hesitation. “Though I think we’d be better off getting back a little earlier than that so Mister Aizawa doesn’t get on our cases.”

The rest of the group exchanged a look, then said in unison, “Good idea.”

“Here are your drinks,” said a waiter that approached them, carrying one beverage in each of his four arms. “Your appetizer will be here soon, and- Wait, Hikari? Is that you?”

“Hey, Ransei,” Kurai said with a friendly smile. “How’s business?”

“It’s been good, although I can’t say I know the details of what’s been going on recently,” the other young man answered as he brushed his hands on his uniform to rid them of moisture. “Man, I hardly recognized you with that new hairdo! I’ve actually been in the Caribbean until yesterday afternoon- needed some time away from home, you know? I haven’t seen the place this busy in a while, but I guess folks are just looking for a break. I’m guessing that’s why you guys are here?” By this point, he had taken the menus from the students, missing the uncomfortable looks that most of them were trading. He clearly hadn’t picked up on Kurai’s missing arm just yet, but the others gathered that he was hiding it on purpose, as best he could.

“More or less,” Kurai nodded, ignoring the worried glances that the others were giving him. “Tell your parents I said ‘hi’, alright?”

“Yeah, sure!” Ransei nodded rapidly. “Speaking of parents, where are your folks? It’s nice to see new faces, but yours’ and the Iida family are some of our favorites.”

“…What, I’m not good enough on my own?” Kurai half-laughed as he reached for his glass, his movements a bit unsteady.

“No, I-”

“Dude, Mister Hogo-sha died last week, same night that All Might had to retire,” Mina said quickly, stunning the waiter. “Can we please get our appetizer?”

“O-Of course,” the man replied, looking shamefaced. “Please, forgive my insensitivity, Hikari. Your meals will be on the house today.”

“No,” Kurai said with a negative shake of his head. “You’re gonna take my money, or else I’m gonna put my foot up your ass. My Dad never accepted a free meal from you guys, and I’m not about to start, either. You guys make good food, and it deserves to be paid its due.”

“I… I’ll speak to my father,” Ransei said after a brief moment of hesitation. “Your bread will be along shortly.”

“Thank you,” Mina said before Kurai could reply. Ransei left quickly, wringing all of his wrists as he did. “Maybe coming here wasn’t such a good idea.”

“No, it’s alright,” Kurai shrugged before he sipped on his drink. “My dad is dead. The world isn’t going to stop spinning because of that fact, and it would be unfair of me to expect everyone to know my situation. I can’t be upset at someone just for being ignorant.”

“You know, you’re a pretty cool guy, Hikari,” Izuku told him. “I honestly thought that my childhood was rough, but yours’ has gotten seriously messed up. Even still, you’re still trying to become a real hero. I gotta admire your persistence.”

“Says the guy that risks breaking his bones every time that he uses his power,” Kurai countered. “I might’ve had a hard time maintaining my quirk until recently, but I never shattered my limbs to gain self-control.”

“No, you just risked bleeding straight outta your brain,” Mina chuckled. “Seriously, thank goodness that part of your life is over with.”

“You know, there’s something I keep forgetting to ask,” Uraraka piped up after a quiet moment. “How did you two meet? It seemed like you knew each other before our first day as students.”

“Oh, that?” Kurai asked while reddening just a little. “Well, we actually were in the same block for the entrance exam. We met just minutes before the test started.”

“I thought he was cute, so I decided to talk to him,” Mina said, unabashed while her boyfriend looked at her with embarrassment. “He was kind of a downer when I first chatted him up, but fortunately, I have a smile that he couldn’t resist.”

“I think you’re overselling it a little bit.”

“I don’t!” She kissed him on the cheek, which shut him up long enough for her to add, “We started talking about quirks, but then the test started, and we went our separate ways. Fortunately, we ended the test pretty close to one another.”

“Yeah, ‘fortunately’ is the right word for those guys that I saved,” Kurai grumbled. When Uraraka and Midoriya gave him puzzled looks, he decided to elaborate. “The zero-point robot showed up, and a group of geniuses decided that it would be a great idea to tackle it head-on. The long and short of it was that I had to save them when their plan fell apart, and one of them took exception to that.”

“He tried to fight you?” Midoriya guessed.

“Yeah, and I was close to blowing my top with how much I had strained my quirk by that point,” Kurai admitted. “Fortunately, I had a stalker nearby.”

“Hey!” Mina objected. “I was so not stalking!”

“You sure about that?”

“Completely, though I will call it a very happy coincidence.”

After the couple had shared in a smile, Kurai turned to his friends to ask, “What about you two? Did you run into each other during the test?”

“Right before orientation, actually!” Uraraka answered excitedly, just as the bread arrived. Once they each had a piece, she continued on to say, “Poor Deku tripped on the path, and I kept him from falling with my quirk.”

“Wow, you’re a regular damsel in distress, aren’t you?” Kurai teased the other boy.

“No way, he totally paid me back for it, and then some!” Ochaco insisted. “You should’ve seen him in the test! He jumped up super high and wasted the zero-pointer with one hit!”

“I saw that Ochaco had gotten trapped by some of the rubble,” Midoriya admitted with red cheeks as he looked at his lap. “I didn’t want her to get hurt, so I just moved without thinking. In hindsight, I should’ve had a better plan in mind- if wasn’t for her, I would have been hurt a lot worse.”

“Did you break your legs with that that jump?” Mina guessed.

“And the arm that I hit the robot with,” the green-haired boy sighed. “I was about to break my other arm so that I could make a safe landing when Ochaco slapped me to negate my gravity, which kept me from getting hurt even more.”

“So, wait,” Mina said as she held up her hands in a sign for a timeout. “She saved you in front of the school, you saved her in the exam, after which she saved you again? Sounds like you still owe her one, buddy.”

“Oh! I hadn’t really thought about that…”

“She’s kidding,” Uraraka giggled as she nudged Midoriya in the arm. “And I’m not keeping count, got it? I get the feeling that you and I are gonna save each other a few more times down the line, you know?”

“I’m looking forward to it!” her best friend grinned happily.

“A toast, then,” Kurai said as he raised his half-empty glass. “To Deku and Uravity- I look forward to watching you both save countless lives in the future.”

“And to Kai and Ashid Queen,” Uraraka laughed as the others raised their glasses. “I have a feeling that a lot of villains are gonna regret their life choices whenever you two show up!”

“Yeah, bad guys beware!” Mina laughed in kind.

“Actually, that has me thinking…” Midoriya said as they set their glasses down. “Hero teams used to be way more popular before All Might came on the scene.”

“And with him retired, you think that they might make a comeback?” Kurai guessed.

“Maybe. The Wild, Wild Pussycats did pretty well for themselves, even though each of them on their own aren’t that strong. There are others that are still active, but none of them contain the top pros.”

“It’s harder to win acclaim for yourself when you’re part of a group,” Mina pointed out. “And when people are trying to work their way up the ranks, it’s easier to stand out when you’re a one-person act, or maybe have a few sidekicks that don’t get much screen time.”

“You had an idea, Deku?” Uraraka asked.

“Yeah!” he nodded quickly. “I was thinking that maybe we could think about forming a hero team after we get our licenses. It wouldn’t have to be anything permanent, but it might be good to know that we have people we can trust watching our backs when we’re first getting started as pros.”

“I dunno,” Kurai grinned. “You’ve always told me that you want to be number one. You sure you can get there with a couple of slackers like us dragging you down?” He gestured to himself and Mina as he said this.

“I kinda wanna smack him, but he’s right,” Mina sighed.

“That, and my injury gives me enough pity points to merit an invisible shield.”

“Grr…”

“I’d love to be on a team with you, Deku,” Uraraka told him with a bright smile and slightly reddened cheeks. “Even if it’s just for a little while, I think it’d be great to start our pro careers together.”

“I like the idea, but it’d be difficult to convince a pro to take on four new sidekicks simultaneously, let alone creating our own agencies right off the bat,” Kurai said, his expression growing serious as he began to consider the logistics involved. “If we could make it work, though, we’d have a pretty balanced team to work with. We’ve got me and Midoriya as the heavy hitters, Uraraka wants to be a rescue specialist, and Mina is a good all-rounder.”

“Not to mention cute and approachable,” she added with a snarky grin. “I’d make a kick-ass mascot for our agency.”

“Agreed, and agreed,” Kurai chuckled as he clinked his glass against hers’. “But you forgot the part where you deck the daylights out of villains with the best of ‘em.”

“Gotta keep something hidden as a surprise.”

“So what name would we go under?” Uraraka asked, apparently getting really into the idea of them making a team. “We can’t really use our own names, so Team Midoriya is out.”

“We also don’t need to have the word ‘team’ in it,” Mina giggled.

“Let’s shelve this for another time,” Kurai said with another grin, having spotted their food coming toward them. “The main course has arrived.”

“That was super-fast!” Uraraka commented as the others turned to see what he what he had described.

“The head chef’s quirk speeds up the cooking process of any dish that he touches,” Kurai explained. “I dunno the particulars, but it’s delicious.”

“I’ll bet!” Uraraka said eagerly as Ransei began to set down the food on the table. “This looks so great!”

“As I mentioned before, this meal is on the house,” the waiter told them as he stood up straight again.

“And I’m pretty sure I told you where my foot was gonna go if you tried to give us a free meal,” Kurai said with a smile.

“My father insists.”

“Well, send him out if he’s got a minute, please,” the maimed student replied. “My father will roll over in his grave if I let this one slide.”

“…I’ll see if he has a moment,” Ransei finally answered through a grimace. “Please excuse me.”

“Why’re you so insistent on paying up?” Mina asked once the man was gone. “They’re trying to be nice to you.”

“Dad busted a drug lord that used to keep his contraband in the owner’s cellar while extorting ‘protection money’ out of them,” Kurai explained. “It was the first case that he made as a detective. Ever since then, my family has done what they can to contribute to Ransei’s family business.”

“That’s why your dad took your mom here,” Midoriya realized aloud. “This place has a lot of good memories for you guys, huh?”

“Some of the best,” Kurai laughed. “Let’s just eat for now, and I’ll take care of the bill afterwards.”

The food turned out to be excellent, much to the delight of the other three teens. Once their bellies were full, Kurai went to the back of the restaurant to speak with the owner while the other three enjoyed the last of their drinks. After the owner claimed that their card readers were temporarily down, Kurai flipped the proverbial tables by leaving a ‘tip’ roughly the price of their combined dishes in Ransei’s pocket as they made their exit.

From there, they made their way to a greenhouse where a number of young people- the majority of them being couples- could be seen entering and exiting. Upon standing in front of the entrance, Midoriya asked, “Is this a strawberry farm?” From the entrance, it was easy to see that the couples were picking the fresh fruit off the branches and dipping them in various sauces before feeding one another the sweetened pieces.

“Yep,” Kurai answered as he paid the admission fees and then turned toward a table where there were trays holding varying types of chocolate in their pockets. “Alright, they said one for two people. Mina, you’re obviously with me, so that leaves Uraraka and Midoriya to share the other one.” Shooting his now-red-faced friends a quick smile, he said, “C’mon. I’ve never been to one of these before.”

As Mina walked past, Uraraka grabbed her arm and whispered, “You guys planned this, didn’t you?”

“Totally,” the pink girl giggled. “Your move now, Ochaco. You gonna make this awkward, or are you gonna turn up the heat on your shy guy?”

Uraraka’s only response was to blush even harder and move toward Midoriya, who looked just as nervous as she did.

Not even five minutes into the activity, and Uraraka realized that Mina and Kurai had somehow given her and Izuku the slip, leaving the two of them relatively alone among the bushes. “How did they even…?” she wondered aloud.

“Maybe one of them had to use the bathroom?” Deku tried.

“Something tells me that’s not it…” she sighed. “I mean… this is a date spot.”

“Oh, right!” her best friend exclaimed. “I guess they just wanted some alone time!” If it weren’t for his red face and barely-concealed stuttering, Ochaco would have assumed that he was completely oblivious to the type atmosphere that they were now essentially trapped in.

Still, there’s worse ways to be trapped, she thought as she looked at the tray in his trembling grip. Maybe Mina’s right… We’re here, I might as well try something.

“Hey, Deku?” she asked as she moved closer to one of the bushes, having spotted a bright cluster of the fruits. “You wanna try some of these?” She could feel her face getting red again from what she had in mind, but now she was determined to see it through, nerves be damned.

“S-Sure!” he all but yelped.

So he really is nervous, she thought with a hidden smile as she reached for the strawberries. But he’s really cute when he’s freaking out. For the first time, she could somewhat understand Mina’s attempts to fluster her boyfriend.

Picking a trio of the ripe fruits out, she turned back around and held up the cluster with a smile and asked, “These look good?”

“Y-Yeah, they seem nice,” he stuttered again as he awkwardly held up the tray. “Which one w-would you like to try first?”

“I like sweets, so I’m gonna try the honey,” she answered as she scooped the first strawberry into the selected dipping. It turned out to be very good, so much so that she nearly forgot her plan to only eat half of it. Barely managing to contain her delighted taste buds, she pulled the piece away from her mouth with a cheery smile and said, “Ooh, that’s really good!” Before her courage deserted her, she held the remaining part of the fruit out and added, “You wanna try it?”

Izuku’s face turned redder than Kirishima’s hair. The tray in his hands wobbled even more, but he managed not to drop it as his brain tried to process what he was hearing. “Y-You want me to…?”

“I wanna share this with you, Deku,” she said as her voice nearly cracked, hoping beyond hope that she hadn’t just made the biggest fool out of herself.

The green-haired boy blinked a few times before he looked around wildly, leaving Uraraka wondering just what he was up to. Eventually Izuku returned his wide eyes to her and asked, “D-Did Ashido and Hikari s-set this up?”

“Kind of?” Uraraka answered honestly, her own hands trembling as her stomach began to drop, fear threatening to take over. “A-Am I wrong? Do you not wanna…?”

“I do!” Izuku yelped before he slammed his hand over his mouth, his eyes growing even wider. Muffled by his fingers, he added, “I just said yes… I wanna share the strawberry with her… Holy whoa, is this a dream?! Am I dreaming?! Or is someone playing a joke on me? This can’t be real, I’ve never shared something like this with a girl, much less a girl that I really, really like, or one that’s my best friend, or, or, or…!”

“Deku!” Uraraka giggled, her heart soaring as his eyes refocused on her. “You do know you’re talking out loud, right?”

“I did? I am?” he squeaked.

“Uh-huh.”

“So you heard…?”

“You really like me?” she asked him hopefully.

“…Yes,” he whispered. “But I… I never thought that… Nobody ever liked me enough to wanna be friends with me before UA, much less… And, and you’re so amazing and strong, while I’m just…” He paused, his mouth working up and down before he managed to get out, “And I’m just ‘Deku’, the worthless wannabe.”

“No way!” Uraraka insisted as she lowered her hands. “I know you said that Bakugo used that name to make fun of you, but I like it- I like what you’ve done with it! It’s like you told him, remember? From now on, ‘Deku’ is the name of a hero! It’s the name of the hero that saved All Might, Iida, and even Kota and Bakugo!” Moving closer to him and looking deeper into his verdant eyes, she insisted, “Deku is the name of my hero, because he’s amazing!” At this point, she didn’t care if there were onlookers, or the fact that Mina and Kurai were probably spying on them nearby- all she saw was Izuku Midoriya.

“…You really think I’m that awesome?” he asked sheepishly, the tray still trembling in his grasp. “I-”

“If you think that I’m amazing, you’ve never looked in the mirror,” she interrupted, her high energy now building up to override her crush. “Any girl would be lucky to have a chance with you, but I hope that I got to you first.”

“Y-You’re definitely first,” he stammered, his mind reeling. “And I… never would have dreamed that someone like you… could ever look at me like this!”

“I’m definitely looking, Deku,” she said with a smile through the furious blush that had completely colored her face. “I have been for a while; I just didn’t realize it until recently.”

“I-I-I’ve liked you since you first rescued me in front of the school!” he blurted. “You were so nice, and-!”

“Deku!” Uraraka laughed again as she moved around to his side and grabbed onto his arm. “You don’t need to explain it all to me. I’m just happy that you feel the same way that I do.”

“Sorry!” he yelped again. “I’ve never been in this situation, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“For now, let’s just enjoy the afternoon?” she suggested hopefully.

“S-Sure! I’d really like that, Ochaco.”

From a few rows over, Mina put away her mini-binoculars and held up her left hand to her boyfriend with an impish grin on her face. “We rock,” she laughed as they exchanged a hi-five.

“Nice,” he chuckled. “I’d say that this date was success.”

“Agreed,” she nodded. “Next on the list?”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Jiro has a thing for Kaminari, and Yaomomo is always looking to Todoroki for inspiration, but I think that Schnee might be on that bandwagon, too… Hmm, the boy’s got options.”

“Oh no,” Kurai said with a negative shake of his head. “No, no, no. I’m not getting caught up in any more of this. I only went through with this one because I’m good friends with Midoriya.”

“Well, I’m good friends with Jiro, and you’re buddies with Todoroki, so there.”

“Ashido, no!”

“Ashido, yes!”

Chapter Text

“Nobody’s seen him?” When all that Mina’s classmates would do was exchange worried looks, her shoulders sagged and she let out a small groan of distress.

She had woken up that morning with a smile on her face, ready to face the challenges that UA would throw at her as she and her friends began their lives as dorm students. Yesterday had been a perfect outing- Kurai had taken her out on the town for a really fun time, and they had successfully engineered a situation out of which Midoriya and Uraraka walked out hand-in-hand. When they got back to the dorms, Kirishima had kept his word and ordered dinner for everybody that wanted it, and a lot of the students wound up playing in a tournament of Super Smash Brothers Apocalypse- something that Ruby and Yang turned out to be surprisingly good at.

Those that weren’t invested in the game wound up talking in smaller groups, but everyone seemed to have a good time. At no point did Kurai seem like he was ‘off’, in the sense that he had been during their first day at the dorms, and Mina made sure that he had taken his medicine before she went to her own room for the night.

But when she had gone to meet him outside of his room in the morning for breakfast, she found that his door was unlocked, and he wasn’t in bed. Having quickly searched his living quarters, she thought that he must have gone down ahead of her for breakfast, which would have actually been a good thing, in his case. His father’s discipline had seen to him being an early riser since childhood, but with everything that had been going on, he had begun a habit of sleeping in when he could. If he was getting up early, that meant that he was feeling well enough to attempt returning some routine to his life.

However, when she got down to the lobby, she soon realized that he was not having breakfast, or even in the showers, having had Iida check the boys’ side of the rooms. Worse, nobody seemed to have any idea as to where he could have gone, and now she was starting to get worried.

“Maybe he went for a run?” Hagakure suggested to her friend.

“Kurai hates running,” Mina said with a negative shake of her head.