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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"Aizawa-sensei!" Karma caught the teacher just outside the staff room, black hair still a mess, and his yellow sleeping bag under his arm. "There's something I need to talk to about."

"If you can't deal with surprises like the class this morning and value induction more than seeing how you compare to others you have no place in the hero course." Aizawa rolled his eyes, there was always more than a few complaints at his actions.

"No, I couldn't care less about that, it's about the guy who looks like he has giant grapes on his head. Is it possible to have him removed from the class?" Karma couldn't have cared less if Aizawa had thrown them off a cliff, if he was so easily phased by a change of plans he wouldn't have made it through last year.

"Why do you want him to be removed from the class?" Aizawa sighed, he wanted to get the last of his work done and go home, but he guessed as the homeroom teacher he was required to hear Karma out.

"For one thing he's a creep. We barely met today, but the amount of time he has spent sexualising the girls already makes me want to push him in front of a train. Nagisa is a boy who admittedly looks feminine, and his comments were down right vile about Nagisa being in the boys changing room. To put it frankly I don't see him ever being a hero, and I refuse to let him be in the same class as Nagisa." Karma wasn't going to lie to himself or anyone else, he was far from a hero and didn't really care if he got kicked out for the threat of killing Minetta, he was only here because of Karasuma anyway.

"Aizawa-sensei!!" A yell and storming footsteps interrupted any response the teacher could possibly give.

"What is it?" Aizawa groaned, it was only the first day, but the green haired boy running up to him was already an obvious problem child, but he couldn't expel him without the guilt of his likely death weighing on him.

"Shiota is outside, he's being attacked. Kacchan is out there with him right now." Izuku explained, breathing heavily after sprinting all the way there.

Karma acted faster than Aizawa could, running at a speed they had mainly used to try to catch Korosensei. It wasn't a speed that was easy to keep up for a long time, but he would be damned if he let a little fatigue meant he let Nagisa get hurt.

-----

Present Mic half carried the dazed student to Recovery Girl's office, though it was hard to tell, Nagisa's eyes looked like he might be under the effects of a quirk. He didn't know what had happened, though he figured Nagisa might have at least a slight concussion, but that was currently Aizawa's job.

"Recovery Girl, I have a patient for you." Mic kept his voice quieter than usual, aware that Nagisa's head was likely painful.

"What happened? It's the first day, I don't want any regulars." Recovery girl, a short, elderly woman with a rather harsh personality, turned to look at Mic and Nagisa with irritation.

"I don't have the details, but there was some kind of altercation out the front as Shiota was leaving. Can you treat him?" Mic moved Nagisa towards Recovery Girl, his eyes showing he was clearly struggling to focus.

"I likely can, but I would prefer you took him to the hospital and get him properly checked out. It will help you handle… everything." Recovery Girl gave Mic a look that clearly said that if they were not currently planning to take this case the legal route then they should.

"I'm fine, really. It's no big deal." Nagisa sounded perfectly clear, though Present Mic was still taking most of his weight.

"Mr Shiota, I'm sorry, but currently you aren't in a state where you can think clearly, and as you have not arrived at home yet, we have legal rights and obligations over you. You need to go to hospital and get properly checked out." Recovery Girl's voice was gentle as she spoke to Nagisa.

"But-" Nagisa tried to argue again.

"No buts. You're going to the hospital." Mic fully picked Nagisa up, hoisting him up by his arms.

"What's going on?" The purple haired, tired Hitoshi was in the doorway, having been summoned by Karma, who had ducked out to go outside.

"Toshi, your dad and I will be home late. If you have any clothes you're alright lending before we can go shopping please put them in the guest room. Otherwise you know how to handle things." Mic's tone was affectionate, as he worried a little over the dark circles under his eyes.

"Okay, let me know if you need me for anything." Hitoshi looked the situation up and down.

-----

"He has a concussion, and there are signs of some minor brain trauma, but as he is a student in UA I think it would be best if Recovery Girl treats him. Her quirk can do better than anything else, and from her work we can trust her to do it right." The doctor explained to Mic and Aizawa, who had arrived at the hospital as Nagisa was going in to be seen.

"How long should he remain in recovery?" Aizawa asked, even when being healed with a quirk, a concussion needed time to recover from, and he wasn't going to just let him go back to class, a place with lots of screens and lights, before he was absolutely certain he was alright.

"At least 3 days, otherwise I think Recovery Girl would be able to tell you better. Would you prefer we contact her, or can you deal with that yourself?" The doctor looked at Nagisa with concern.

He was just about keeping it together, but it was clear that whatever quirk was used on him was what was helping him to sound coherent, and it was wearing off. He was  trying to sit still, but was visibly swaying.

"Thank you, we'll be fine. If you don't want him to stay here I think it's best we get him somewhere he can stay and rest." Mic gave Nagisa a look of worry too.

"If you need any more help you can't get from Recovery Girl, please just come back. I'm sure you know better than most how serious concussions can be." The doctor stood up, holding the door open for them.

"Thank you." Mic nodded, Aizawa hoisting Nagisa up and supporting him as they walked out of the room. Mic lowered his voice to just above a whisper, leaning close to Aizawa's ear. "You have started filing a report about this, right?"

"Yeah, not got a lot of evidence yet, I said we'd take temporary custody of him, sorry for not asking you or Hitoshi first." Aizawa responded in a much softer tone.

"Don't worry about it, I already assumed that's what would happen. Hitoshi said he'd choose some clothes until we can go shopping." Mic grinned, as much as Aizawa hated showing it, he had a soft spot for anything weaker than him, that being the real reason he would expel most of his students. Misguided though he may be.

"Oup," Mic noticed Nagisa's eyes starting to close and his feet missing steps. "Don't fall asleep just yet, I promise you can rest soon."

-----

"I can't do much this time, bring him back tomorrow. Do not let him take part in class tomorrow." Recovery Girl looked up at Aizawa and Mic as Nagisa sat on his new bed in their spare bedroom.

There was no visible change after Recovery Girl used her quirk, though Nagisa stumbled to his feet.

"I should get home now, right?" Nagisa asked, Aizawa ready to catch him, but not yet touching him.

"You're staying here tonight, we have some of Midnight's quirk. We need you to be sleeping well for the healing." Mic explained, taking out a canister containing the quirk.

Usually the mask attached would need to be placed on the person receiving it, as the canister contained a weakened version of her quirk due to distance from her and storage, but as soon as it was opened Nagisa fell.

Aizawa caught him quickly, Mic closing the valve on the canister again, both men looking at Recovery Girl for an explanation.

"He must have been exhausted. Let him sleep, bring him to my office tomorrow afternoon, don't wake him up." Recovery Girl took the canister back from Mic. "I'll see myself out."

Chapter Text

"Aizawa-sensei!" Karma greeted the tired man, the only one of the class's worth of students waiting outside the teacher's lounge an hour and a half before the school day even started. 

Aizawa groaned, not wanting to know what kind of issue this many students had with him. They were all wearing the UA uniform, though the subtle differences let him know they were from multiple different classes. He didn't remember what each of them were, but 4 were from the hero course, and most were General Studies. 

Was this the real reason Karma wanted Aizawa to kick out Minetta? To get one of his friends into Class 1A? 

"What do you want? Be quick and then leave." Aizawa rubbed between his eyes. 

Mic was the one able to take the day off to keep an eye on Nagisa, but from the first day Aizawa was already exhausted. Why did All Might have to choose a successor in his class? Then he would have been able to give all of these children a dose of reality and expel them. 

"It's about Nagisa," An orange haired boy who seemed more comfortable talking to Aizawa than most non-hero course students were. 

"Well, about his mother really." A fairly short girl with green hair that was showing brown at the roots, hair tied much like Nagisa's. 

"We were all in the same class last year, his mother came by once and was..." The black haired, golden eyed boy now speaking shuddered, as did most of the others. This speaker had the air of a leader around him. "After that it turns out our teacher asked Ritsu to record everything that happened between them." 

A girl with greyish brown hair held her phone up to show a purple haired girl who was also wearing the UA uniform even though he was sure there was no student by her name in the school. 

"While yesterday's incident was enough to start an investigation, with Nagisa's father hiding evidence and Nagisa suffering from a concussion it's hard for you to gather evidence of her actions. I have everything, even yesterday's recorded. Unfortunately I don't have the reason Sensei asked me to record on video, but I do have evidence that she used her quirk to hide it." The girl on the phone was very expressive, Aizawa realising that this wasn't a video call, the girl was some kind of software on the device. 

"Why were you asked to start recording, and did Nagisa know?" Aizawa unlocked the door to the Teacher's lounge, sitting at his desk as the students walked in. 

"Nagisa was told, but unfortunately forgot due to it coinciding with an incident his mother's quirk caused him to not remember properly. I was asked to start recording after she drugged him and brought him to our classroom. I don't know what happened then, and Sensei doesn't remember why she brought Nagisa there, but there was an assassin involved." Ritsu looked disappointed that she couldn't be more helpful, though the other members of Nagisa's old class flinched hearing about the incident. 

"Please send me the records that you have, they can be sent to my work email." Aizawa sighed, wondering if these students would take the hint they were dismissed. 

"Oh, I already downloaded the files on your UA account. I also increased the security of all UA systems and UA cloud services. And as Nagisa is staying with you I also increased the security of all of the technical security for your house." Ritsu smiled brightly, appearing on Aizawa's laptop as he opened it. 

"Back." Another student joined them in the teacher's lounge. 

The student had white hair and spoke briefly. He looked almost as tired as Aizawa, and he wore an bandana that looked like it had been made of an old net. 

"Did you get to see him?" One of the General Studies kids who hadn't spoken before asked the newcomer. 

"No." The newcomer's voice carried an odd seriousness. "I asked the man who answered the door to give him a walkie talkie I made as he has a concussion." 

"You made a walkie talkie?" A large, strong, almost thuggish student looked at the newcomer. 

"It's connected to the group chat." 

And that seemed to be enough of an explanation for the students. Chattering while leaving out about half of the words or context, leaving Aizawa to understand what he had just experienced. 

"..-Karasuma-sensei-.." 

Aizawa's breath stopped for a moment as he heard that name. 

Since when had Tadaomi been a teacher? 

Then again it may not be the same Karasuma. It likely wasn't. 

While Tadaomi had attended UA with Aizawa, he hadn't been able to attend in the hero course due to being quirkless. He had still insisted on training with Aizawa. He had ended up becoming a governmental professional; specifically in the Ministry of Defence. 

They had never really been on bad terms, but as both men were more about rationality than anything else, they hadn't spoken in a while. 

----- 

It took Nagisa a while to wake up, his eyes not wanting to open and the bed almost pulling him into it. It took him only a slightly reduced amount of time to realise that he was not lying on the same sheets as the morning before. But he couldn't remember anything since school ended, so he probably just needed to clean it, one of his parents having bought a different detergent than usual. 

When Nagisa did open his eyes, finding himself in a room he didn't remember at all, feeling like his brain had melted to the lowest point, forming a heavy mass that was hardly capable of thinking. 

It was another few minutes before Nagisa sat up, looking around the room. There was an outfit laid out for him, and it was mercifully masculine. It looked to be oversized, but that was something Nagisa could deal with far more easily than the self-hatred of being forced to wear feminine clothes. 

Nagisa's head didn't exactly hurt, but he felt like he could hardly think. 

Perhaps that's why he was remaining so calm in a situation where he had no information. 

Nagisa was slow as he made his way out of bed, changing out of his UA uniform he had apparently slept in and into the outfit that was laid out for him. That wasn't a school uniform, just something casual, that smelt strongly of cats, and was very soft and comfortable if not Nagisa's usual, more formal, style. 

Wasn't today another school day? 

Nagisa stumbled slightly as he got to the door, opening it quietly. There was a man with his back to Nagisa. He didn't look like a threat, but neither did many assassins. Then again, there was no longer really a reason for Nagisa to be around assassins. 

Nagisa stood in the doorway for a few minutes before he recognised the man; Present Mic. He had been in charge of the entrance exams to UA, and Nagisa was pretty sure he had heard his voice as one of the many heroes who showed up to the mountain after they had killed Korosensei. 

Nagisa's steps were silent as he approached Mic, who was doing some work on the sofa, a cat on his lap as Nagisa could see as he drew closer. 

"Um-" Nagisa wasn't sure what to say first, he had managed to come up with a few questions while waiting in the doorway, but his brain was struggling to choose one to start. 

"Jesus!" Mic jumped wildly at the sudden announcement of Nagisa's presence, the cat complaining at the jerking around. "Fu- how long have you been there?" 

Nagisa shrugged, used to the surprised reactions to his presence by now. 

"Isn't it a school day?" Nagisa asked, Mic closing his laptop and getting to his feet. 

"Not for you. You have a concussion, so you're not going to school for at least a week. We do need to go in to UA this afternoon so you can get treated by Recovery Girl though. No screens, no bright lights, no strenuous exercise." Mic handed over a small walkie talkie that even in his confused, slow state Nagisa immediately recognised as Itona's work. "You friend dropped this off for you. The lights are removed, so you should be fine. You let me know immediately if you start to get a headache." 

Nagisa let himself be seated on the sofa, the cat that had previously been purring on Mic's lap immediately curling up on his. 

"Um, where are we?" Nagisa's eyes followed Mic as he picked up the laptop, going into a different room. 

"You're at mine, 'Toshi, and Shota's. Hitoshi is our adopted son, he's in your year, we have temporary custody while the courts decide what to do with your parents." Mic called through from the other room. 

Despite his quirk, his voice was at a normal volume. Nagisa assumed the house had been soundproofed. Maybe it was for this Hitoshi and Aizawa, or maybe it was for Mic too. 

When the words made it through Nagisa's brain fog he could feel his body go cold, the only warmth from the cat on his lap. 

"Why- why are my parents being investigated?" Nagisa started petting the cat without thinking about it, his body needing the warmth. 

Nagisa might not like some of the things that his parents did, he might hate how his mother tried so hard to make him be a girl, but he didn't want to lose them. They were his parents, his mother especially had sacrificed so much for him to have a good life. She had been the one who had stayed and raised him during the divorce, and while they didn't always agree, he knew she just wanted what was best for him. 

"You don't remember what happened yesterday?" Mic came back into view, looking at Nagisa sadly. "Your mother attacked you at the gates of UA, she was shaking your head violently, hence the nasty concussion." 

"Does she have to be investigated?" Nagisa asked quietly. 

"Yes, and she will have charges raised against her and will, if the courts are fair, be found guilty. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. As both your temporary guardians and teachers at UA we will get you therapy to help through this." Mic wasn't going to pretend that his heart wasn't breaking as he saw Nagisa's desire to protect his mother, but that's not the way around protection works, and Mic didn't want to lie to Nagisa. 

"Anyway," Mic's tone brightened as he changed the subject. "Lunch breakfast, what do you want?" 

Chapter Text

Karma's attention was rudely snatched away from his phone where 3-E were discussing the best ways for them to mess with Hiromi Shiota without it affecting the case against her by an explosion on his desk. Of course, as it seemed nobody in 1-A knew how to do anything without their quirks, the cause was Bakugo Katsuki. He'd almost awarded himself a positive impression from Karma, too, having been the one to put all of this in action. 

"Extras like you should pack up and leave the hero course to those of us who can actually handle it. Your little friend already did." Bakugo wasn't yelling, but the smirk on his face made Karma want to do something that would definitely get him kicked out, the blond's eyes flicking to the empty seat behind Karma. 

"You talking about Nagisa?" Karma's tone was light, but his eyes held an unspoken threat. He wasn't as good as Nagisa at the unsettling almost threats, but he wasn't as useless as people may think. "Because he's still a part of this class, and I promise if you went through half the things he dealt with you would be dead." 

"What?" Bakugo looked angrier, though he still backed up. "You think I can't handle being smacked around?" 

"I know you can't take down a trained military professional who wants your head on his mantle." From the fact that the words left Karma's mouth he knew it didn't count as exposing what happened last year. 

It had only been discovered after the death of their best teacher; their non-disclosure agreements were more than just pieces of paper that promised a higher fine than the reward money. They had all been drafted through a quirk, rendering their voices mute if they tried to talk about the events of 3-E to anyone who didn't know about that giant yellow octopus. 

"And he can? He couldn't even handle a civilian woman." Bakugo sneered. 

"He actually did it twice!" Ritsu's cheery voice came from Karma's phone, leaving Karma lost as to the second time. "The man is now in prison for trying to kill the class!" 

"If you want either of us out of this class, you're going to have to prove you're really that far above us." Karma pushed the blond away from his desk with a finger, his mind far more on the blue haired boy right now than Bakugo. 

That wasn't to say Mr Explosions wasn't going to have his comeuppance at all, just that Karma couldn't be bothered right now. 

"How is he?" Midoriya, the suspicious member of their class, looked rather too concerned about a class member he didn't know. 

Unnecessary pity that the members of 3-E had long gained a distaste toward. They were quirkless, but still just as if not more capable as anyone else, they didn't need anyone's pity. It was probably the first thing Korosensei had noticed about them, he had never once shown pity. 

"He's got a concussion, but he's been through worse." With all the assassins the class had been forced to work with or against how could they not? 

Admittedly Korosensei had always stopped them from having many serious injuries, and none of them had had concussions, but Akari had died. Then there was 2.0, Nagisa being one of the members who had so narrowly avoided breaking bones. Even if a concussion was medically classed as worse, back then they'd had no access to healing quirks. 

----- 

"Hey guys," Nagisa's tired voice crackled from the UA side walkie talkie at lunch, the other members of 3-E all squeezing around one table. 

"Nagisa!" Akari, the first one to finish her mouthful picked it up from the middle of the table. "How are you feeling?" 

"I'm alright, it's just a headache." Thae argument of a concussion being a lot worse than a headache was left unsaid until they could be fact to face with their classmate. "Present Mic is in a meeting at the moment, but after that I'll be coming in to see Recovery Girl. Apparently I should be fine in 3 days, but Aizawa-sensei and Present Mic are planning to keep me out of classes until next week at the earliest." 

"That's good, we'll try to drop by after classes tomorrow. Let us know if you're seeing Recovery Girl again." Isogai took the walkie talkie. 

They had been planning to try to see him today, but if he was visiting Recovery Girl he'd likely be too tired to host. At least they knew he was being cared for. 

"I'll try." Noncommittal, but at least it wasn't a rejection. "How have classes been?" 

"It's the beginning of the year, so it's all pretty boring." Meg took the turn to speak this time. "Everything covered in lessons so far is stuff from last year, I guess it's true he prepared us for the future." 

She wasn't talking about Korosensei, they all knew how he had prepared them for the future, with skills both in and out of the classroom, not to mention the reward money. 

"Nothing much is happening in the hero course either, apparently we're going to have some mock battles when you're back, and everyone is losing their minds about All Might being our teacher for some lessons. I think it might actually give Midoriya a heart attack." Karma laughed, thinking back to how the green haired boy was practically frothing at the mouth at the revelation that was anything but a surprise. 

"He's number one for a reason, I guess. He's popular." 3-E were perhaps unusual in the student body of UA, their energy not really being taken up by favourite heroes, and even when they did talk about them, All Might was almost always absent from their conversations. 

They were assassins at heart now, why would they waste their time discussing someone they'd never be able to match the moves of? 

"At the speed we're going through things I doubt you're going to need to catch up on anything when you get back." Okuda was in support, but it was reasonable to assume that the two courses went through the main subjects at similar speeds. "So, so focus on getting better." 

"It's really not as bad as everyone's making it out to be." The audio crackled as Nagisa's dishonest denial came through. It was likely what Nagisa believed too, which was something everyone who heard wished they could change, but if even Korosensei had failed, they were unlikely to. 

"Well it's not like it's any of our decision now." Ever soft Kanzaki took the most diplomatic route, neither confirming nor denying Nagisa's words. 

Before anything else could be said, the bell to mark the end of lunch rang, Nagisa also saying he heard Present Mic sign off from the call. They all agreed to talk tomorrow if they couldn't before then. 

----- 

"I noticed you haven't put an order in for a hero costume through UA, you're going to need one when you get back so you can get used to it before using it for real. If you need any help Aizawa and I can talk you through any questions." Present Mic looked at Nagisa through the mirror, Nagisa sitting in the back of the car as the tinted windows should help to protect his eyes. 

"No, I've already got one." Nagisa shook his head. "Our PE kit last year was pretty high tech, and Karasuma-sensei agreed to hold onto mine for me, he'll probably send it directly to UA soon." 

"Won't that have Kunugigaoka's name on it? I doubt you want to run around as a hero with a school emblem on your costume." Mic also doubted it would be very comfortable or safe either, not that the hero course was lacking in costumes in those departments. It was one of the reasons they had students start designing and wearing them in first year, so they could figure out the best balance of design and function. 

"They don't have any logos on the outside, and we did make some adjustments." Nagisa didn't go into much detail, but Mic guessed he would see eventually. Aizawa would have words if it wasn't appropriate. 

"Well as long as you have something to wear. Adjustments are almost always made after the first session with them anyway. UA does have some funding for costumes if you need it." Mic pulled into one of the staff spaces as they reached the side entrance to UA, one that was still close to the main building given their oversized campus the back entrance would have been foolish. "Right! Sunglasses on!" 

"Is all of this really necessary?" Nagisa did as he was told despite the question, the sunglasses blocking out more than usual ones did, rendering him almost blind in the car, he definitely wouldn't be comfortable wearing them alone, though a pro hero like Present Mic wasn't as comforting to him as it would be for others. "I didn't need anything like this the previous times." 

"You see, that doesn't fill me with confidence." Mic sighed as he took Nagisa's arm, guiding him through the school. 

The hallways were empty, all other students in their respective classes, Mic choosing to go around Support knowing it was as common as not for the halls to be filled with students fleeing toxic gasses and fires from whatever experiments they were carrying out. 

"Smart idea, using those glasses." Recovery Girl nodded at Mic as she saw Nagisa enter, her room darkened for this visit, but by necessity it was brighter than someone with a concussion would need. "How are you feeling today Nagisa?" 

"I have a headache, but I'm alright." 

"He slept until about noon and didn't remember what happened yesterday. He also struggled to figure out what we were having for lunch." Mic supplied the nurse with more useful information than the patient, Nagisa blushing a deep red. 

"There is nothing embarrassing about taking care of your health, young man." Recovery Girl chastised, though she was pleasantly surprised he didn't have the repulsed reaction many students gave when she used her quirk, giving no specific reaction at all. "Make sure he eats dinner tonight, depending on his appetite little and often is best. Bring him by tomorrow for another healing, after that I think it's best to leave it up to time." 

The journey back was quiet, Nagisa falling asleep almost as soon as they reached the road, having forgotten to remove the glasses. 

Chapter Text

"Am I going to meet the new person staying here, or are they going to live like a ghost?" Hitoshi tossed his bag aside, flopping on the sofa and letting one of their grey cats jump into his lap, still seeing no signs they even had another person living in the house. 

"He'll be having dinner with us, but don't expect him to act like a person until the weekend. He has a concussion and is being treated by Recovery Girl, but it still takes time." Mic took Hitoshi's return as a sign that it was time to start cooking dinner, Aizawa likely to be late due to dealing with the next stage of Nagisa's legal case. "His name is Nagisa." 

"He's in dad's class, right? How'd he manage to get a concussion already? And how far away does he live?" Hitoshi had shared his house with the occasional student Aizawa approved of before when they lived too far away from UA to be safe after healing, though it was the first time he'd lent his clothes he supposed it was also the first time he was old enough to be attending UA himself. 

"Abuse. We don't have to be the ones who take him in full time if you two don't get along, but we are obliged to look after him until he recovers." Mic's eyes flicked over to the closed door behind which Nagisa was still sleeping, the sunglasses beside his bed in case he needed them. 

"Shit, I sounded like a real dick there, didn't I?" Hitoshi grimaced at the judgemental way he's just spoken about someone going through the same thing he once did. 

"You didn't know and he didn't hear you. We're all dicks sometimes." Mic reassured. "The cats seem to approve of him, couldn't get Trinket off him when we got back, so she's purring on top of him as we speak." 

"Well who am I to question Trinket's judgement?" Hitoshi laughed. 

When time for dinner finally came, Trinket herded Nagisa to the table like he was one of her kittens, curling up on his lap again to purr as soon as he'd sat down. While the new member of the household was up and eating, it was clear he was more than half asleep still. Expecting anything akin to conversation from him was clearly expecting too much for him right now. 

Hitoshi was curious, though. 

The boy was small and very unassuming, looking like he could barely survive a strong breeze. He must have an incredibly powerful quirk to have ended up in A class despite that. 

Then again, while both his dads had refused to do so for him, Hitoshi guessed it was possible Nagisa had taken the referral exam, which he believed was much easier. 

Even then, it was impressive he hadn't been expelled yet, given whose class he was in. Aizawa had been known to expel whole classes if none of them reached his standards of being able to become heroes, giving them very limited time to prove themselves. Of course, it wasn't the end of their ability to become heroes, but their failures no longer lay at the tired teacher's feet. 

"I'll be at home until next week if you need anything, but I will be going back into UA tomorrow for another round of healing, but that should be the last." Mic was talking more to Hitoshi than to Nagisa, correctly assuming that the blue haired boy couldn't fully register what he was being told. 

"How long do you think the court stuff will take?" 

"Given he's a hero student it will be put as near top priority, so hopefully before too long." Mic couldn't be sure if Aizawa genuinely saw any promise in Nagisa, or if he was just looking for that increased urgency from the law to keep him in 1-A, but either way it did them well. 

"Hero students get everything." Hitoshi muttered with bitter malice as he skewered a slice of carrot with his chopsticks. 

----- 

At repeated, fervent knocks on the door Mic abandoned Nagisa on the sofa, an old shonen jump volume in the teen's hands as he flicked through it, not wanting to disturb his old classmates during their lessons. That too lay abandoned as Nagisa heard the voices coming from the door. 

"Is Nagisa staying here?" Akari's voice was the first to reach him, making him smile as he remembered they said they would be visiting today. 

He'd still had to go to Recovery Girl, but after a nap of about an hour he was as well as could be expected. The advice he was given now was to take care of himself and follow usual concussion advice until the weekend. That meant he still couldn't look at screens, be in bright areas, or around too much noise, but at least he didn't have to deal with the bone deep fatigue that came with Recovery Girl's quirk. 

"Hi everyone." Nagisa grinned, coming to the door himself as soon as he heard the familiar voice. "But UA only just let out, how did you all get here so fast?" 

"We took a shortcut." Karma shrugged as Akari practically crushed Nagisa with a hug. 

"You mean the short cut we were explicitly banned from using last year?" Nagisa raised an eyebrow as Akari let go, Mic stepping back so the boy could lead the others inside. 

"That's the one." Karma grinned. "We figured it didn't apply when we were forcibly separated from a member of our class due to a concussion." 

"I know for a fact not all of you are in 1-A." Mic gave a half joking withering look as he picked up the coffee he had been drinking to give the large group some room. 

"We were in the same class last year." Isogai provided, offering a bow to the teacher and owner of the home they had intruded in. 

"How are you feeling Nagisa?" Kanzaki pressed the inside of her wrist to Nagisa's forehead, taking note of the dark circles under his eyes. "We brought some fruit, games, drinks, everything we could think of." 

"I'm fine, really." Nagisa shook his head, though he didn't stop his old classmates' shows of concern. "Everyone's just blowing this out of proportion." 

"If you said that last year he might have actually carried through with that threat." Terasaka's gruff voice matched his actions as he somewhat aggressively ruffled Nagisa's hair. 

"Make sure you follow the instructions, concussions aren't easy to recover from." Itona's monotonous voice didn't hide the concern he, too, felt for Nagisa. It had also been displayed by the walkie talkie he had personally developed, made, and dropped off less than 24 hours after Nagisa had even been diagnosed with a concussion. 

"I don't really have the option not to." Nagisa laughed. "Ritsu's turned my phone into a brick and every other electronic is under lock and key. For some reason I had to submit a DNA test when I went in today." 

"That's to confirm if she had a right to you in the first place, it's a formality more than anything." Meg had stolen a knife from Karma's bag and was slicing apples for Nagisa, as though he was far more of a patient than he really was. 

It wasn't long before a plate of apple - Nagisa had no idea where the plate had come from, and from the look on Isogai's face it was expensive - and a bottle of a lychee drink had been shoved into his hands. 

"Nagisa," Karma leaned into the smaller boy as he used a distinctively singsong voice. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much can your mother handle spice." 

"Don't shove wasabi up my mother's nose." Nagisa shoved Karma's face away with a bunny apple slice in the red head's mouth. 

"Goddamnit, Nagi, you're so boring." Karma sighed, shaking his head. 

"Oh right! We told Karasuma-sensei and Bitch-sensei about what happened, so they may well be dropping by soon. Karasuma was insistent that he wouldn't do anything without your permission though." Kurahashi piped up from where she sat on the floor. 

"I never got to ask, what happened during the- the... fuck, the event Karma and I missed." Nagisa couldn't find the word for the life of him, getting him concerned looks, Karma trying to be his blanket, and all girls in reach squeezing his leg at different places. 

"Nothing much. The school is alarmed in the case someone without a visitor pass, staff ID, or student ID enters the premises, but as long as you have one of those it doesn't matter where you sit. There was a largely unnecessary tour, and then they showed us this really nice garden a previous student made that can help calm you. It is possible to eat lunch there, but you need explicit permission and or a member of staff with you." Fuwa always talked at a million miles an hour, but at least this time she wasn't pretending to break the fourth wall. 

"That's good, means we can practice parkour even though we don't have a mountain to climb." Karma had ended up awkwardly trapped between Nagisa and the back of the sofa, but he was too stubborn to admit it was a bad idea to be Nagisa's blanket and refused to even try to save himself. 

"Even if alarms don't go off it's going to look so suspicious to jump the wall every day to get in." Nagisa fed Karma another of the slices of apple he was given, the red head seeming to enjoy it. 

"Then we jump out every day the training is boring." Karma spoke as though it was the most obvious decision in the world. 

----- 

In an undisclosed part of Japan that was covered in snow more often than not, a 16 year old girl stood, hands shaking and a letter in hand outside her mother's room. 

"Mum!" The girl, long blue hair, soft round features and blue eyes, finally plucked up the courage to ask about the letter that held a message that couldn't be true... Right? 

"Yes sweetheart?" Her mother, much healthier already than she had been a few months prior when the band of actors had been visiting, opened the door to look at the slight teen. 

"Why does this say I have a brother?" 

Chapter Text

"Uh, hello?" Hitoshi stood looking at his living room that was so different from the day prior. 

Only yesterday it would have seemed that there was nobody else in the house aside from the cat sleeping on top of them. Today the living room was filled with UA students and the one person in Hitoshi's old clothes sitting on the sofa with Trinket on his lap. It wasn't just hero course kids, because Isogai and Meg were in his general studies class, but from how busy the room was it was hard to tell where the rest of them were. 

"You must be Aizawa-sensei's son, it's nice to meet you, I'm Shiota Nagisa." The boy dressed in Hitoshi's clothes addressed him with a smile that somehow set him on edge. 

"Hitoshi." The purple haired UA student introduced himself, making his way to his bedroom, not wanting to deal with that number of people. 

"He's in our class." Meg told Nagisa as soon as Hitoshi's door had closed. "He's nice when you get to know him." 

----- 

"Hey hubby, want me to cook you something?" Mic spoke with a low voice as he greeted Aizawa, the sky already dark and both kids in bed. "Everything going okay? You look tired." 

"Nagisa's case is more complicated than I expected." Aizawa rested his head on Mic's shoulder, silently agreeing to the offer of hot food. 

"They can't think it's alright to give your child a concussion!" Mic was horrified, but he didn't really put it past the government to do just about anything. 

The situation recently with the moon only confirmed it to him. Even All Might had no idea what had happened to the villain who had done the damage; what their quirk was, where they were being held, if they were alive, or even if they had demands. There were rumours that the villain didn't even have a quirk, and was rather the victim of some experiments which could make them a victim more than a villain. 

Perhaps the more concerning story going around is that the villain had become a teacher to a group of young children who had spent so much time under his thumb they either developed Stockholm syndrome or were too scared to speak against him. 

Mic wouldn't put it past them, seeing what the government had already demanded from the students of UA in the past. 

"No, thankfully the legal side of things are progressing quickly. That woman isn't biologically his mother, and it's almost impossible to find any legal documents proving she had a legal right to him. There's proof he did live with her since he was an infant, but she's never been pregnant and never legally adopted him. They've contacted his biological sister as the mother's a bit complicated to contact." Aizawa threw himself into one of the chairs at the dining room table. "Technically his biological family still has legal rights of him, but they live too far away for commuting, so they may still end up losing it." 

"How the fuck did she manage to get him in education if she doesn't have any legal ties to him? Surely she wouldn't have the paperwork." Mic was as quiet as possible as he got out the pots and pans he needed to cook Aizawa's favourite food. 

"Her quirk affects perception. If you know about it then the effect is limited and some people just have a tolerance, but I guess nobody was expecting her to be using fake documents so nobody questioned it." Aizawa sighed, letting his head hit the table. 

"It's probably best we tell the kid soon, but after he's recovered." Mic knew there was no possibility Nagisa knew, Hiromi's quirk had worn off by the time they had arrived back home on Monday - and it's only Wednesday, can you believe? - and he'd asked if there was a way to stop the case. 

There was no way he would do that if he knew he'd been kidnapped at some early stage of life. 

"We 'don't have the right' to tell him. Apparently he has to find that out in front of the court as though he was an outsider to this case because otherwise there's no way to prove he didn't choose to stay with her regardless." Aizawa would never understand the governing bodies or the decisions they made. 

They constantly threw children into deadly danger just because the adult heroes who had signed up for such things couldn't handle it or didn't want to. They were willing to raise an orphaned child with the only option of heroism, and now there was this situation with Nagisa. 

Then again, all you needed to do was look at them to tell how little they valued what mattered in reality. They always wore suits it was next to impossible to raise an arm in, let alone do normal life activities or basic hero work. They were all about looks and living in another world to most of the population. 

Was there really any reason for the public to not believe the rumour they had placed The Tentacle in a classroom of junior high kids? 

"What the fuck?" Mic wasn't using his quirk, but he seemed to have forgotten about staying quiet. "He's not allowed to know about life altering shit unless it's front of a room with his abuser and strangers? Have they lost their damn minds!?" 

"You really think those people ever had minds?" 

"Tadaomi did." 

"He's in the Ministry of Defence, he doesn't have a hand in things like this." 

----- 

"They want to do what to one of our kids!?" The drop dead gorgeous blonde woman slammed her hands down on the table, practically screaming as she leaned over the man she currently lived with. A thin gold band around her left finger, small stones of obsidian and tanzanite loosely mimicking the building where they had met. 

"I've only just found out, but legally we do have room to argue this." The man didn't seem surprised by the woman's actions and despite looking calm tension could also be found in his face and hands. 

"How did the octopus never figure out something as important as that? I thought he'd got everything about the kids that could have effects on their lives." The woman sat down again as though it was a race despite the two being the only ones in the modest house. "Surely this kind of thing would count." 

"I think he was also affected by that woman's quirk. He thought enough to have Ritsu gather evidence, but he didn't tell anyone else or get Nagisa out. It seems unlike him." 

"What are you going to do? Threaten to release the kids from their contracts?" The woman had never been a good cook, but she was decent enough at simple pasta dishes, but given she was the only one without a job they were eating the same few recipes rather a lot. 

"Irina," The man sighed, rubbing his eyes though it was more fatigue than irritation. "I can't do that, I'm as quirkless as they are so they aren't contracted to me. If I could I would already have done so, they deserve to be able to talk about this with other people too." 

"Then what Tadaomi? It's not like we have any power over them." 

"I have more legal authority over those kids than the people who made that decision. As long as I am the one to tell him and have it on record, I should be able to inform him." Karasuma looked down at his plate. 

The food wasn't bad, but recently work had been making any appetite hard to find and the repetition made it even harder. It was nothing against Irina, if anything it was saying that the year he had spent with 3-E made him feel better than ever before. There was no way to argue it hadn't reawakened his old dream of being a hero, but it had nothing to do with saving the world from Korosensei. 

It was all about the way those kids looked at him. 

No matter how badly he and the rest of the Ministry of Defence fucked those kids over their faith in him was unwavering. It made him feel like he was better than All Might in their eyes. It was hard to go back to an office after that. 

Chapter Text

Nagisa sighed, putting the book he was reading down. It was nothing serious but a headache was starting to form in a band behind his eyes. He'd handled worse headaches without anyone from 3-E noticing - even Korosensei continuing to teach none the wiser - but if he did anything to improve it Mic was sure to make a big deal out of it. The blond man had another meeting, but every other screen in the house had been rendered useless until he was considered fully recovered. 

An authoritative knock came from the door, and after a moment of hearing no movement from the room Mic was in, Nagisa approached the front door himself. If it was someone he recognised he would be able to guess what to do. If it wasn't then he could just come back an knock on Mic's door for the owner of the house to handle it. 

Part of him hoped it was Karma, the teen often skipped classes anyway, so it would be nothing new and god was Nagisa bored. It would be bad if it was him though, they were attending UA because the damn government had told them to. Sure, they neither liked nor trusted most of the government any more, but they sure didn't want to be on their bad side. Karma had to at least pretend to be paying attention in classes for long enough to appease the officials asking for their placements. 

Of course, it wasn't Karma at the door, but it wasn't a stranger either. 

"Karasuma-sensei? Bitch-sensei?" Nagisa opened the door, surprised to see his old teachers. "What are you doing here?" 

"Brat," Irina's voice was irritated, but her eyes were filled with affection Nagisa still wasn't entirely used to. "I know you know my name." 

"We need to talk to you, and unfortunately I need to record this conversation. Can you get the people currently looking after you? I'll need to take you somewhere for this." Karasuma was as formal as ever, but something Nagisa couldn't put his finger on was screaming concern for the small blue haired boy. 

"Sure, he's in a meeting right now." Nagisa looked over his shoulder even though Mic was loud enough even with the sound muffling the house had that the quirkless boy would have been able to hear him if the man was coming to the door. "Come in, I'll knock on the door." 

"Nagisa, you should be more careful with letting people in when you're vulnerable. You know there are shape shifting quirks." Karasuma chastised his old student when the door closed. 

Nagisa had a concussion, and even if he had healed mostly thanks to Recovery Girl, he was still vulnerable in a house he didn't know with no weapons or protective garments. Most of the world may not know about Korosensei, but the assassins the Ministry of Defence had hired did. While most had been willing to teach 3-E, at the end of the day all of them were willing to do the most depraved things for money. That made every member of 3-E valuable, but there were a fair few who set their sights on Nagisa specifically because of the promise he had shown. 

"First, you act like yourselves, and second Itona and Ritsu are developing a way to look through those. They can already use it to identify all of us compared to the shapeshifters they have access to." Nagisa knew that wasn't a large database, but he doubted there were many shapeshifters who knew the pair of teachers well enough to fool him who were truly after his life. "I may not be supposed to look at screens, but Ritsu would have ignored that if my life was at risk." 

Takaoka was the only member of the military who had such a vendetta against him, and that man had a strength quirk, not shapeshifting. 

"Alright, just remember to be careful, especially while you're attending UA. They aren't shy about showing off their students." Karasuma sighed, following Nagisa through the entryway to the living room, being sure to place his shoes neatly as he entered. 

"Um, Present Mic, there are guests who need to talk to me about something and record it. They need your permission." Despite calling through a door Nagisa's voice was still quieter than most. 

It was loud enough though. 

It hardly took a second before the door was flung open, Mic looking somewhat panicked at Nagisa's words. His expression changed from worry to confusion, though, as he locked eyes with the very formal man currently standing only a few feet away from Nagisa. Not even seeming to notice Irina as she inspected every inch of the room they all stood, the cats all avoiding the woman as though they had all developed an invisibility quirk. 

"Tadaomi?" Mic straightened up as he faced his old rival from his own days as a UA student. Not for grades, though, Tadaomi had both him and Aizawa beat there. "What brings you here?" 

"You know Karasuma-sensei?" Nagisa was usually better at keeping his questions to himself, but he knew for a fact that if he didn't find out more about this the others were never going to forgive him. 

"You're a teacher now?" Mic looked more surprised if that was even possible. "I didn't think you were the type." 

"Only for a year, I don't plan to go back. Conversely I can't say I'm surprised you're one. I always said you were going to strain your voice." Karasuma had a fond smile usually reserved for the members of 3-E as he spoke to the blond man, who coughed with a blush covering his cheeks. 

"I'm still an active hero, but I have a kid now, we can't both be risking out lives all the time." Mic justified, though it seemed like he needed the justification more than the governmental official. "But why do you need Nagisa?" 

"It's related to the case. I have permission to tell him early, though I can't say I like the conditions they set." Karasuma's words only filled Nagisa with more questions, though he guessed the answers were the reason for the visit. 

Mic seemed to know what Karasuma was leaving unsaid even if Nagisa didn't. 

"I guess it's a relief. Let me know when you're finished." Mic sighed, shaking his head before he looked up with a realisation. "Shit, you don't have my number, do you?" 

"Unless you've done the impossible for yourself and changed it in the last 10 years, I do." Was that a joke? From Karasuma? 3-E were simply not going to believe Nagisa about this. "Besides, Ritsu is already on your devices, so I can contact you anyway." 

----- 

Even from the cryptic way Karasuma and Mic had been talking about the information Nagisa was about to find out he knew it was nothing good. That feeling hadn't settled at all in the car ride despite Irina's general chatter, but the destination had only solidified it. It was a relatively non-descript building that somehow still managed to have the air of the base 3-E had been held in for a few hours after the final attempt to kill Korosensei went into play. 

At least he wasn't locked in a room again, but he was led to a room much like the interrogation rooms on cop shows. A camera in the corner was clearly recording, as Nagisa had already told it would be, but it still set him on edge. The high pitched hum of electricity wasn't helping his unsettled nerves or the headache that was still present. 

It was just Nagisa and Karasuma in the room, Irina supposedly getting him something nice to drink. Nagisa was pretty sure they were going to start before she was back though. 

"Nagisa," Karasuma started, proving the boy right even though that wasn't really something to celebrate. "How much do you know about the case against your mother?" 

"That it was started because she was mad about me attending UA and got into one of her moods at the front of UA." Nagisa moved his hands from the desk to his lap, unable to stop them from shaking. "That's about it." 

Karasuma pulled several sheets of paper out of a folder, sliding a bundle full of numbers and figures over to Nagisa, and another that was a small number of photographs. Nagisa looked up at his teacher less than a year ago, who gestured for him to look at the sheets. The numbers were difficult for him to understand, but the pictures were easy. 

There was a girl who looked exactly like him, in fact if it wasn't for the fact he'd never worn that kind of maid uniform he may have confused it for a picture of himself. The girl even had a similar hairstyle to the one Kaede had done for him on her first day in their class, though her hair was much longer so it did nothing to hide the length. It was exactly like looking in a mirror. 

Nagisa felt numb as he looked at the next; it wasn't as groundbreaking though. It was a woman who had similar features to the girl and thus Nagisa too, but her hair was brown rather than Nagisa and the girl's vibrant blue. The third was much the same, a picture of the two unfamiliar and yet shockingly similar women together. 

"What- what does this mea- have to do with- what does showing me this do?" Nagisa's voice shook as he searched the teacher's eyes for any sign that this was some kind of sick joke, or that there was a reason other than the one creeping into the back of his mind. 

The world was cold, Nagisa was cold, chilled to the bone. 

He couldn't tell if it was the shock or the headache, but Nagisa just wanted something warm. No. 

Someone warm. 

"As you know, you were asked to provide a sample for a DNA test for this trial, and we discovered Hiromi Shiota is not you biological mother. You were born to a woman named Itō Azusa, there's no record of your father, as identical twins. Mrs Shiota was an option for an adoptive mother for both twins in an open adoption due to Ms Itō's poor health. It seems she didn't want to agree to it, so she took one child and fled back to her home. Nagisa, you are that child. That girl is your twin sister, Itō Hotaru." Karasuma's voice held no emotion as he shattered Nagisa's words, the boy who looked so young for his age now his identical twin had been found didn't even notice the tears that had managed to escape and were pouring down his cheeks. 

"There's- there's no way you're right." But even as Nagisa argued he knew it was futile, the teen girl looked just like him and they had his real birth certificate poking out of Karasuma's folder. "If that happened then how could nobody have figured that out yet? After the lengths-" Nagisa's voice died, the recording clearly not going to be kept among people 'in the know' so to speak as the contract took Nagisa's voice away. "After everything done last year to check all of our identities after what happened with Akari how could this not have come up?" 

"Mrs Shiota had prepared fake documents and used her quirk when people weren't expecting it. It's a fault on our end things weren't checked more carefully. I'm so sorry you had to find out like this." Finally emotion showed in Karasuma's voice; guilt and pity. 

The combination made Nagisa nauseous. 

----- 

After the recording had been completed Nagisa had sat with Irina for a good hour, barely touching the over the top hot chocolate she had bought for him as he cried more than he ever had if you excluded when he'd been forced to kill his favourite teacher. After that they ended up going back to the house Irina and Karasuma shared for some takeout until Nagisa passed out where he sat. 

"I swear, someday I'm going to become someone with the authority to override decisions like that. It was evil." Karasuma glared at his glass of rye as though it was the drink that had offended him. 

"It would have destroyed him more to have to come undone in front of such a crowd." Irina tried to comfort the man, but she didn't know how when he'd broken the sobriety he'd had since they met. She doubted he'd ever been an alcoholic, let alone a recovered one though. 

"That crowd is still going to see it, he knows that as well as we do."  

Chapter Text

Karma wasn't so much of a coward he wouldn't admit he was nervous. Neither he nor the rest of 3-E had been able to get in contact with Nagisa since they all went to Aizawa's house on Wednesday last week. Even Ritsu hadn't been able to talk to him, though their teachers both last year and this year reassured them he was fine. 

Karma didn't believe it. 

Last time Nagisa had been this radio silent he'd landed himself in this situation with Ritsu having so many videos and audio recordings of the absolute shit he'd been through. Nagisa would have at least been reachable to reassure them all that he was okay if it wasn't something bad. And yes, Ritsu had found him in a few CCTV feeds at the weekend, but that could only confirm his physical wellbeing, nothing about his mental. 

But today was Monday, and if everything went well he should be able to see the boy himself. 

Most of the time Karma didn't mind having the house to himself, even if it was too large for him to use all of the space, but today he was all too aware of the empty rooms. Even at the best of times he just pretended the house was at most half the size it really was, mostly sticking to the rooms closest to the kitchen, but when he was stressed it was impossible to ignore them. 

As a result Karma was at school hours too early. At least with his student ID he was allowed onto the premises rather than being left to freeze outside. It was unusual for him to appear so studious. After getting suspended from Kunugigaoka he'd usually just go to some kind of arcade to waste time or sleep if there weren't any open. 

"And here I thought I'd be the first one here." The familiar voice made Karma look up to the doorway. 

It was Nagisa, but he looked different. 

It was a good different, though. 

The long hair that had always been a sore spot for the boy had been cropped short, though it was still long for male cuts. It turned out when it was short, the boy's hair was just barely curly, causing his thick locks to form a fluffy mass around his head that almost looked like a halo in the backlight. Given he'd bought the UA uniform himself without his mother having found out the hair was the only physical change, but just the way the boy stood changed. He still looked like he was going to fade into the background, but he stood with more confidence and it was- 

"Karma?" Nagisa took a step into the classroom, the red head realising that his face had gone very red as he took in the other's appearance. 

"Right!" Karma's voice was louder than it needed to be, the emptiness of the room only making it more obvious. "Sorry, just not used to this new look, obviously, it looks amazing! I can't believe I- you managed to keep the same volume, impressive!" 

Karma wasn't usually one to ramble on like this, but could you blame him? It hadn't even been a year since he'd realised he had a crush on the shorter boy in front of him. He knew that he had to get over the complicated parts of those feelings as soon as possible if he didn't want to force Nagisa to choose between himself and someone else. Kaede was already vying for Nagisa's affection though the boy hadn't seemed to notice yet, but Rio had also admitted to wanting to be with Nagisa in a romantic sense, and Karma was sure there were more. 

Nagisa thankfully didn't seem to be putting much weight into Karma's odd behaviour, giving a light but genuine chuckle as he took a seat on Karma's desk. At least whatever had happened hadn't taken away his smile and colour as it had last time. 

"What's up with the radio silence?" Karma offered Nagisa one of the strawberry milk cartons he'd got from the vending machines. His cheeks still hadn't lost the heat, and from their proximity now, Karma doubted they would soon. "Anything we can do?" 

Nagisa's face fell again as he took the drink, allowing the time he was taking to open it be a reason for his pause. Karma thought there had been something like this under his smile earlier, but asking when it wasn't in front of everyone they didn't know felt better. 

"Nothin-" Nagisa coughed, his voice becoming deeper again afterwards. "Nothing right now, but... When- when the- when everything gets to court, I- Please-" Nagisa sighed, shaking his head and taking a loud sip. "I don't want to be alone when I have to go." 

"You really think we'd let you be?" Karma nudged the other boy's leg. "I mean, fuck, if we'd go to space for Korosensei, you think some stupid legal court can stop all of us being there for you? Fat chance." 

Nagisa laughed again at the utter dismissal of his need to ask for the help he'd just struggled to request. Of course 3-E would never leave one of their own to deal with anything related to the law by themself. 

"She's not my mother." Nagisa's voice was barely above a whisper, but the room was empty apart from the two, and they were too close to have missed it anyway. 

Karma had so many questions, but Nagisa was clearly still struggling with this fact, so he had to wait for answers. All he could do was provide support and be a listening ear. 

"I was kidnapped when I was a baby. My mu- the woman who gave birth to me and a tw- and a sister are going to come here to meet me soon." Nagisa wasn't looking at Karma, though the hand offered was being squeezed hard. "Well, not UA obviously, but-" 

Nagisa shrugged, and the heat of Karma's cheeks were long gone, his awkward feelings about a crush entirely inappropriate. 

"As many of us as you want are here for you. I went to the space station for your choice, at this point I don't think there's anything I can't do to help you, and I'm not the only one who feels like that." 

"Thanks." 

----- 

It turns out all the members of 3-E had arrived at UA significantly early enough they could take one of the classrooms to themselves, though the 1-A classroom wasn't somewhere they could speak freely because Iida apparently came as early as they did. Nagisa hadn't talked again about not being Hiromi Shiota's son, but of course it would take time. 

"I swear this guy's going to get himself a fucking harem by the time we finish UA at this rate, Just this morning I had to save him from this cute blonde girl who was going way too hard in the flirting department." Maehara ruffled Isogai's hair aggressively as he laughed to the group. "She really didn't want to let you go, huh?" 

"I guess not being known as a member of 3-E means people don't secretly confess any more." Isogai sighed, hanging his head. 

"I know what you mean." Meg nodded, her bag more full than everyone else's. "My locker is basically unusable from all the love letters in it. So many people don't believe me when I say I don't have a quirk." 

"Actually I have a request for everyone." Isogai changed the subject after looking at the clock. "I want to tell my mum at least about what happened last year, and I'd like to talk about it with you guys there too. I already got permission from Karasuma-sensei." 

"Oh!" Nagisa perched up, his voice loud as Isogai mentioned their PE teacher last year. "I almost forgot to tell you all; Present Mic and Aizawa-sensei know Karasuma-sensei. I don't know quite how, but it looks like they used to be close." 

"When we're at Isogai's let's all stop Karasuma-sensei from leaving to interrogate him afterwards." Rio's eyes were alight with mischief at Nagisa's announcement, almost everyone agreeing with her. 

Karasuma had to be the one to tell outsiders about the octopus who used to be their teacher before they could talk about him, at least now that the creature himself was gone. As such in order for Isogai to be able to discuss everything with his mother the government official had to be there in person at least at the beginning. 

Really, he should know by now that his students were always interested in Dad Lore (trademark). 

Chapter Text

"As Nagisa is back with us, today All Might will be taking you all for a battle trial. I trust you have all either used UA's provided costume makers , in which case you can find them all here." Aizawa sounded bored as he pressed a button that resulted in thin draws all bursting out of the wall, filled with what were presumably high tech briefcases with a number on each that corresponded with their number in the register. "If you haven't done that then I hope you have your costumes with you. You have time to alter them, but the faster you can get used to your costumes the better." 

"I am here!" All Might announced, hanging from the door frame as he leaned into the room, Izuku's eyes lit up in front of Nagisa at the man, the opinion seeming to be matched across the classroom. "Coming through the door like a normal person!" 

"Is he always like that?" Nagisa leaned back so his head was almost resting on Karma's desk. 

"Well, when he looks like that he is." Karma shrugged. "Almost everyone eats it up, but it's fucking obnoxious." 

Nagisa was sure that All Might's overly loud and energetic act was going to get tired fast. It wasn't even like they were able to search for weaknesses to try to kill this man when he annoyed them like they were encouraged to last year. It would be relatively easy if they wanted to though. 

All Might only taught the hero course, with most of that time spent on 1-A, and those hours added up to a little below 3 hours a day. With All Might rarely being seen doing hero work outside of the weekends after it was announced he worked at UA really spelt it out for anyone paying attention that the man had a time limit. With the ways he was posing, protecting his side enough for Nagisa to be unable to ignore it, but likely the rest of the class didn't notice, Nagisa was sure there was an injury there. 

Nagisa was itching to reach for his old notebook and start making notes on his teacher again. 

But who says he couldn't? 

In fact, wouldn't it be a good thing to make notes about his classmates, their idols, and their teachers? Not in simple Japanese where the notebook only needed to be forgotten, stolen or lost for someone with bad intentions knowing how to kill the people in UA. But having facts about what could help everyone to improve, see the flaws in the fighting styles they had and the ways to either use or hide their weaknesses would be useful, no? 

"You do have everything with you, right? I mean, if anyone should have been reminded it's you, but-" 

Karma gestured to his own head rather than mentioning the brain injury Nagisa had suffered only 7 days ago. They were walking down to the changing rooms with everyone else, but they were both well aware that their cases were empty. All members of 3-E who needed them had chosen to keep using their old PE kits, and even non-hero course members had burrowed them away rather than return them. 

"Oh right!" Nagisa stopped in his tracks, Karma turning to face him. "Karasuma-sensei gave me some masks to add to our costumes. Don't let me forget when we're changing." 

"Hey Extra!" Nagisa half turned to see Bakugo, who was obviously fuming, smoke coming from his fists as he glared at Nagisa. It wasn't intimidating though, Nagisa seeing no likelihood of an attack coming. He was more likely to get punched by someone from the main campus. "You should drop the fuck out now before you get yourself more hurt. I don't even know why the fuck they let quirkless extras like you in the hero course." 

"Mother-" 

"Well dropping out now would be quite difficult for me." Nagisa spoke lightly, putting out an arm to stop whatever quip Karma had prepared. "But it's not like I plan to risk my life or anything, I'm well aware of how valuable our lives are, even if you aren't." 

Even if they had found the method to prevent Korosensei's explosion, they had still been forced to kill the best teacher they'd ever had to protect the lives of the world that could never know. The blood, or whatever Korosensei had in its place, on Nagisa's hands forced him to respect life more than he had before. After all, if Nagisa didn't put value in it then they had jumped the gun for nothing. 

"And I passed the same exams you did, and applied for the general studies course too, but they only wanted me here. I guess skill is enough to make up for some people's reliance of quirks." Nagisa shrugged, turning back to the changing rooms. 

"Why did you stop me?" Karma pouted as he followed the blue haired boy. 

"Because I didn't want to watch the dick measuring competition between you and the Pomeranian." 

----- 

Neither Karma nor Nagisa had bothered changing the camouflage of their uniforms, especially when they didn't know where they were going to be. As such both boys walked through the tunnel in the grey versions of their uniforms, Nagisa having a blue band around his arm just like he did during the capture the flag battle, Karma's red one now attached to his leg. Nagisa had his hood up, and Karma's jacket wasn't closed. The mask Karasuma had given to the pair was another new type of material the military were developing. This fabric should be able to filter the air around them to an extent that would let them survive a room filled with toxic gas for up to half an hour. The fabric had been dyed into an image of Korosensei's signature smile. 

"Is that an All Might reference?" Kirishima, a shining member of their class if not one who did well in their other lessons, grinned as he pointed to the mask Nagisa had pulled up already with a thumbs up. "I like it!" 

"Thanks, but it's not." Nagisa shook his head, though he guessed the wide smile and a yellow colour would be likely seen as more of an All Might reference than anything else. "Crimson Riot for you?" 

Nagisa was no expert in heroes, never having been very interested in them despite his current education. Even before last year's severe disillusionment he'd never been that keen on the overly perfect and clean image of All Might. It was like everyone forgot all the damage he caused and every time he failed. As such, even if Nagisa could hardly be considered a fan of any, he had spent some time when he was younger looking into the grittier ones. Many of them were worse, but Nagisa liked they at least weren't pretending to be something else. 

"You know Crimson Riot?" Kirishima looked thrilled at Nagisa's guess, presumably the correct one. 

"Not- not well." Nagisa took a step back from Kirishima, who seemed to be as talkative as Izuku when it came to his favourite hero. 

"You'd think this was a fucking costume party," Karma cringed, his voice low as he looked at the other students. 

Sure enough, few to none seem to have put any thought into the defensive ability of their outfits. Many of the girls had skintight suits, though Jiro had seemed to escape that fate. Besides, the number of different colours was almost blinding, though Nagisa had to forgive it as most heroes wanted to be flashy and noticed, even if that was his personal hell. 

"Nagisa-san," A very bubbly pink girl approached the blue haired boy, her costume a prime example of sex appeal over use. "I hope you're feeling better now you're back. Do you know where Deku-kun is?" 

Nagisa heard her, but he was distracted by taking in the quality of the fabric. It was surprisingly high quality for something so poorly designed, and that's all it was; fabric. There was no space for padding, nor anything in the costume itself to provide defence, and Nagisa knew it wasn't something her quirk could design. 

"What are you wearing?" Nagisa hadn't meant to come across as judgemental as he did, but could you blame him? 

"Yeah," Ochaco laughed, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "They ended up making a lot tighter than I meant, but it puts the pressure to reduce my motion sickness and the heels have springs in them." 

"Hang on a sec, I have a notebook with me," Nagisa pulled another blue notebook that was almost identical to the one he'd used to make notes on Korosensei. Obviously, this one was empty though given the danger of it falling into the wrong hands. "I can do a quick sketch for a different design you can try to get." 

As Nagisa was looking up at Ochaco to get the drawing of her right when he noticed an even worse hero costume behind her. 

Even Bitch-sensei wouldn't have been willing to wear something like that for something like hero work. It was essentially a one-piece swimming costume with the front section cropped open and a large belt around the waist. It belonged to Momo Yaoyorozu; a classmate with an almost identical body type to the blonde woman, and a creation quirk. The only positive thing Nagisa could think of about her costume was incredulity that it wasn't already hanging wide open to expose the entirety of her breasts. Even thinking that made Nagisa feel gross, especially when he saw that Minetta seemed to be waiting for the same thing. 

"Here, obviously you can change it, but taking some ideas from it would probably be a good idea." Nagisa tore the page out of his notebook and offering it to the girl, though she noticed Izuku join the group as soon as it touched her hands. 

"How very nice of you." Karma followed Nagisa as he approached Momo. 

"Eh, if we have Minetta in our class then then is it me being nice?" Nagisa shrugged as they reached the woman. "Yaoyorozu?" 

"Oh, Nagisa! Feel free to call me Yaomomo." The girl turned with a beaming smile that reminded the two quirkless 1-A members of the Kunugigaoka main campus kids. "What's up?" 

"Nothing much, I just wanted to offer you this quick costume redesign I made, it's not great, but I think it would be easier for you." 

"Everyone gather around, you're going to be put into teams of 2 and pairs will be randomly set against each other with one being the heroes and the other being the villains." All Might announced, 2 large boxes in front of him. 

Nagisa was in a pair with Izuku Midoriya, and Karma was paired with Katsuki Bakugo; the first set up for the battle trials. 

Chapter Text

"It's a shame we're up against Karma." Nagisa sighed, leaning back on the railing looking up at the building he and Midoriya were about to infiltrate looking for a mock bomb. 

"But the two of you look like you get along so well!" Nagisa laughed as his comment drew the very green boy out of his muttering. 

"Oh, we do, but if we were up against anyone else I could probably check in the windows. Karma knows that, so he will have been careful to avoid rooms with windows." Nagisa took a glance at the map they'd each been given. 

If there had only been one or two rooms that fit the job then Karma would have known Nagisa's thinking and instead done the opposite, but there were at least 4 rooms on each floor that fit the bill. The only exception being the ground floor where there was only one, large room. 

"The windows get pretty high up though, I doubt you can see clearly from far away. Unless you have binoculars." Midoriya eyed Nagisa's grey costume and its many pockets, Nagisa pulling out a small pair of foldable binoculars at Midoriya's words. 

"These aren't how I was planning to do it, though. Each ledge is pretty close together so I'd just jump from one to the other." Nagisa shook his head as he saw a flash of red by the rightmost window on the 3rd floor, either a ruse or the other teen keeping an eye on him. "You know Bakugo, right? How do you think he'll act?" 

"He-" Midoriya looked down, Nagisa trying not to judge the ugly green bunny-esque costume the other was wearing, he supposed his own looked odd too. "He doesn't really like me, and his quirk is really strong. He'll probably come after us rather than waiting for us to reach him." 

"Is he the type to listen to a plan Karma comes up with?" Nagisa nodded, settling for mental notes for now. 

"I doubt it." Midoriya sighed, looking awkward at the admission. 

Even if he didn't say it Nagisa already knew it was because Bakugo didn't seem to have a high opinion of those who were quirkless. At least not when they were planning to be heroes. 

"That's good for us. Can you keep Bakugo's attention?" Nagisa pushed himself forwards as, if his time keeping was correct, All Might was about to announce it was time to start. 

"I doubt I'll have a choice." Tears came from Midoriya's eyes shockingly easily. 

"I can't promise how long I'll take, but I'm relying on you." Nagisa was already setting foot in the building as All Might declared the start. 

----- 

"Know your place you damn extra!" Bakugo pulled his arm free from the cold grip Karma had on it, storming out of the room on the 2nd floor Karma had chosen for the bomb placement. 

"For fuck's sake." Karma muttered, kicking a chair that littered the room as the explosive blond left. "If he doesn't manage to take Midoriya out he's just handed them the win on a silver fucking platter." 

Karma wasn't stupid enough to wander around and allow time and opportunity for Nagisa to set up a trap for him. If all he had to do was secure the bomb then he would be free to go hunting after securing it. This training wasn't like real life, though. The "heroes" won and the "city" was safe if all the "villains" were captured. 

In real life that's how you get the bomb to explode. 

No, for the purposes of this training Karma had to secure the room and use it as a stronghold now he was alone. 

----- 

"Young Bakugo, you'll kill him-" 

"He'll be fine if he dodges!" Bakugo was so engrossed in fighting Midoriya; the one who had 'betrayed' him by pretending to be quirkless. His smile downright evil as he pulled the pin from his gauntlets, Midoriya's pleas of innocence not reaching him. 

Clap

It was a quiet sound in comparison to the explosion that was about to be set off, but somehow it still echoed through the hall, leaving both Bakugo and Midoriya frozen as their minds tried to catch up to Nagisa's actions. Honestly both of the other boys had entirely lost track of him when Bakugo had first found Midoriya. The serpentine movements of the shadow-esque classmate not drawing any more attention to his existence or location. 

"Now," Nagisa's next clap was much less shocking, the capture tape tied firmly around Bakugo's arms and waist. "I believe that means we're half way to winning, right Midoriya?" 

There was something about how Nagisa had immediately become just as unassuming as he had been the previous times they'd seen him was creepy. It had only just happened, but the appearance while taking Bakugo out of the exercise was the complete opposite of the one he had shown now or back on their first day. 

"Ye- yes!" Midoriya shook his head, scrambling to his feet as he approached his teammate. 

"You fuckin-" 

"You're out of this exercise." Nagisa's voice should have been sweet, using only a finger as his weapon placed against Bakugo's neck. "Take it gracefully." 

Midoriya was shaking as he looked between Nagisa and Bakugo, both understanding and not as the boy who had once been one of his close friends did as he was told. 

Was Nagisa really trying to be a hero? 

"Shall we get going?" Nagisa had once again lost the terrifying edge as he gestured the way Bakugo had come with his head. "Karma wouldn't have been able to move the bomb alone and this guy can't be quiet, so I know where it is now. I'll try to take as much of Karma's attention as I can and keep him away from the bomb, I need you to get there as quickly as you can." 

Midoriya nodded, shaking as he looked back at Bakugo, explosions coming from his hands from anger. 

----- 

Midoriya had almost forgotten his role in the plan as he watched Nagisa and Karma exchanging blows. They were fast, impressively so given how many of their attacks landed. Even their reactions to a well landed, clearly strong hit was hastened as though they both had speed quirks more completely than Iida's. 

"You just gonna watch Nagi do all the work?" Karma's aside to the green haired boy earned him a knee to the face, even as it snapped Midoriya out of his daze. 

"You trying to make my job easier?" Nagisa laughed as he hopped back, his eyes constantly flicking around the room to check the safety of where he was landing or anything else. 

"Aw, you think I can't beat both of you?" Karma cooed, grabbing Nagisa by the hair and throwing him to the floor by the door as Midoriya tried to enter. 

"You lost last time." Nagisa threw both feet at Karma as he approached his two opponents, getting to his feet as Karma stumbled back. 

"Fuck off," Karma rolled his eyes, his kick aimed at tripping Midoriya up blocked by Nagisa, though the other boy still stumbled. "I let you win, remember?" 

"Only after I gave you the chance to." Nagisa's fist met Karma's stomach more truly than Karma's could have met his due to the jacket being open. 

"Training over, hero team wins!" 

All Might's voice rang through their ear pieces as Nagisa caught Karma's hand as the red head lost his balance. 

"And by the way you set it up, nobody would have accepted your win back then." 

"If that's what helps you sleep at night, Nagi." 

Chapter Text

"The hero team wins, but the student who gets the best score from this exercise is young Akabane." All Might announced as the 4 students made their way to the observation room, Bakugo silent though clearly still angry. 

"What? Why?" Karma wasn't going to say he hadn't tried, even if that fight was more of a warm up than a real battle, but he'd been given basically no chance to shine. 

His partner never even listened to him, which gave him no opportunity to make much of a plan other than hoping for what never happened. He'd even been a significant part of the reason why the heroes won when he's brought Midoriya back to earth. If this was the real world he would have been the world's greatest idiot, and if someone with the abilities of Korosensei was their teacher rather than this idiot who couldn't even remember his own lesson plan he would be being reprimanded rather than congratulated. 

"You were the one who played your role the best." Yaoyorozu nodded along to All Might's decision as though it was the best one to make. "Bakugo ran off ignoring the point of the exercise, Midoriya didn't get involved when he should and Shiota didn't act like a hero." 

"Okay, first of all, call him Nagisa, second of all what the fuck do you mean he wasn't acting like a hero? He was more fucking heroic than Endeavour," Karma spat the name of the hero who had been at least half the reason Itona had ended up following Shiro after throwing the child out when he was trying to ask for help after being abandoned with little more than an insult. Out of the corner of his eye Nagisa noticed the slightest flinch from Todoroki, the man's son. "And that fucker is the number 2 hero!" 

"Well first of all he was lying about his quirk." Iida announced like it was fact. 

"No I didn't. I'll show you my medical reports if you need to, but I have never had a quirk." Nagisa's voice was much quieter than Karma's yelling, but his anger was still present, presenting itself as an eerie air surrounding him. 

"Then how did you paralyse Bakugo and Midoriya?" Kirishima was the one who asked, but he clearly wasn't the only student interested. 

Nagisa was glad he still had the fabric of the Korosensei mask pulled up as his mouth twitched from the question. "It was an adapted sumo wrestling move a temporary teacher taught me last year. Took a little over a week for me to learn, but it's not a quirk. It works by breaking the concentration, and Karma can tell you how it doesn't always work." 

"Either way, young Akabane was the one who best played his role. I must tell you off for fighting at full strength against a peer you know recently suffered from a concussion." All Might called the conversation to a close. 

"That wasn't anywhere near full force though, more like a warm up." Karma laughed off All Might's warning. "If any of you think that was a full effort fight you're going to die when you come up against someone who wants to kill you. I still call bullshit on Nagisa not being heroic though." 

"Sneak attacks aren't manly bro." Kirishima put a hand on Karma's shoulder that was immediately shaken off. 

"Anything is a sneak attack if you aren't paying attention, Bakugo wasn't paying attention to anything but Midoriya, it's not my fault he forgot me." Nagisa shrugged. "I don't mind you getting this though, Karma, it's not worth arguing." 

"The premise of this training is bullshit anyway. You can win after all you do is capture the villains? The bomb would still go off, if anything you're more likely to get blown to kingdom come." Karma continued to complain, though Nagisa knew it was more an issue of teacher than activity. 

"Sometimes villains are stupid though." Nagisa shrugged. "Like a fish eye lens with a blind spot large enough for 27 people to hide in it, or bomb collars that don't blow up when pried off." 

"Why are you gesturing at your neck?" Uraraka asked as Nagisa tried to calm the other student down, making the blue haired boy freeze. 

"There was some... Drama last year." It was an understatement, but Nagisa couldn't think of a better excuse. "Shouldn't carry over to this year though." 

As the next 4 students made their way to the building, Minetta took the distraction of All Might as the perfect opportunity to be insulting. He was already having a nose bleed after being partnered with Yaoyorozu with her poor choice of costume, so it was hardly surprising, but Karma was still waiting to hear tell of his expulsion. 

"That sumo move or whatever makes him so creepy." 

"That's what makes him sexy." Karma grinned wickedly in English, All Might and Aoyama both spluttering at his words, though the rest of the students didn't seem to speak enough English to understand. 

Beside him, Nagisa stared at the red head, his eyes almost looking square. It wasn't quite repulsion, but it certainly wasn't flattery written on his face as he silently stared at the teen. 

"Stop looking at me like that." Karma quickly felt the shame set in, speaking in English as though that would hide the steady reddening of his face. 

"I'm not the one who said that, you are." Nagisa refused to erase the embarrassment until the next team began. "Can I have a pen?" 

"Uh," Karma patted all the many pockets in the old uniform searching for one, even though he knew full well Nagisa always had one. "Sure, here." 

"Thanks." Nagisa took Karma's pen as he pulled out his own, a piece of blank paper rolled up inside he could pull out of the side which wrapped itself op again when let go. 

Nagisa drew an X above a 3x3 grid, versions with dots beside them, an arrow in a clockwise motion and three lines all going left to right on the paper before returning the pen to Karma. Out of a different pocket Nagisa pulled out a new notebook, ready to take notes as he constantly did last year. His characters were neither Japanese nor English - the two scripts the boy knew best - but Karma recognised them from a code Karasuma taught them last year. It really only worked for English as it couldn't account for accents, replacing each letter of the alphabet with a section of the grid or X, doubling each section by adding a dot in one to make up all the letters of the alphabet. 

(Explanation here, of original code and Nagisa's at the bottom) 

Karma's passion subject was Maths, not English, so he couldn't translate Nagisa's notes easily, but he was sure it had relation to his drawings on the pen as they watched the... Well, it certainly couldn't be classed as a fight given how Shoto froze the opposing team to the floor, Hagakure having removed what little she was wearing but Ojiro didn't even try to fight after seeing the display of power. 

Honestly it was anything but impressive to watch their new classmates battles. 

Sure, most of them had useful, powerful, or flashy quirks, but they didn't seem to know how to do anything without them. Nobody was even trying when they came up against a quirk they saw as more powerful than their own; Ojiro being an excellent example of such. It was almost shameful to be in the same class as them. 

It took until only one pair was left for All Might to realise the flaw in his lesson plan; they were a class of 22, a number without an even half. Of course as things were there would be one pair without another to act as their villains or heroes, and stupid as the scenario may be, it would be unfair to have Uraraka and Iida be forced to fight solo when everyone else got to be in pairs. 

"Sensei," Karma raised a hand as Nagisa finished up a page of notes. "Nagisa and I can play the villain role for them." 

"Young Nagisa," It seemed All Might was at least willing to listen to Karma's telling not to use the boy's surname. "Is that okay with you?" 

"I don't see why not." Nagisa shrugged. 

In truth, he, and probably Karma, was itching for some proper training. It had quickly become obvious that this petty exercise hardly more than a warm up for last year's standards was all they had planned for today's training. It made sense though, they had 4 years to turn these kids into heroes who could continue to learn, 3-E had just under a year to kill Korosensei or the entire world would be destroyed and there would be no more learning for anyone. 

3-E were going to Isogai's after UA too, so there was no chance of them heading to the mountain for some independent training today. Doing the activity twice should scratch the itch better than nothing. 

"Alright, team K, Young Nagisa, Young Akabane, please head to the training ground for the last round." 

----- 

Their opponents this time had engines in his legs allowing great speed for running, though turning was likely difficult and his mind wasn't given the same speed. Uraraka had the ability to remove the effects of gravity from the items she touched, though overuse caused motion sickness. 

Overall, quick, precise moves against Iida should take him out, so he wasn't likely to be a threat when it came to defending the bomb. 

For Uraraka, the pair of ex-assassins decided that it would be good to find out exactly what that limit was. Even if they didn't win this round of training, it was likely to affect their score in this class less than their last time, especially as Karma was playing the same roll twice. As such finding out more information for Nagisa's notes was valuable information, and may well help keep track of her progress. 

As such, rather than guarding the bomb, the two of them had instead filled the space between the door and the bomb with everything they could get their hands on in the time limit for set up. Once again, they had chosen a room without windows, and they located the bomb in the centre, the furniture and other items were stacked haphazardly to increase the amount of time it would take for Uraraka to remove them. 

As All Might announced the time started Karma gave Nagisa a boost into the pipes of the ceiling of the first floor, the highest the two were likely to enter and otherwise a corridor they would have to walk through. Karma was interested mostly in separating the pair, making whichever was closest to Nagisa easy pickings and letting him have a little fun. 

The ear pieces they shared had a slight tone when pressed, so while it did no harm to Karma's part, both boys had agreed to use morse code without even exchanging a word. It seemed they had both come up with the idea last time, but couldn't be sure of their partners understanding or listening. 

Nagisa's eyes narrowed as he heard Karma's message. 

.. a breath -.-. .- -. another breath .... . .- .-. breathing was clearly the sign for a new word - .... . -- Karma's footsteps could be just heard as another word break .-- .. .-.. .-.. breath ... . .--. .- .-. .- - . breath .-- .... . -. breath - .... . -.-- breath .-. . .- -.-. .... breath - .... . breath ..-. --- .-. -.- 

-.-- . ... 

Nagisa moved quietly along the pipes, his mask now pilled down to avoid anything eye catching as he stayed in the shadows. 

"Did she not learn from Bakugo that running off was bad?" Iida's voice was damn near echoing in the silence of the corridor, his heavy armour was certainly not helping him stay quiet. 

--. --- - breath .... .. -- 

Nagisa's breathing wasn't enough for Iida to be alerted to his presence as the boy walked underneath him, none the wiser to his presence. There was certainly no need for him to use the clap technique this time, proven by the capture tape binding the boy before he could notice. 

"What?" Iida turned quickly to see Nagisa, clearly not even having even hearing the landing. 

"All finished here, how about you?" Nagisa didn't get a response. 

Nagisa decided to use Iida himself as a step to get back into the pipes of the ceiling. He knew full well they were in front of a camera, not to mention how by the book Iida was, there was really no need to worry he may run off pretending not to be caught. It was difficult to manage the pipes quietly at the stairs, but Nagisa didn't want to risk being seen on his way to the room, and by the nature of their defences he couldn't well wait inside. 

He needn't have worried though, seeing Karma almost mocking Uraraka with how he fought, his chin up and all. 

Karma kept that up until the timer ran out. 

(Page of notes decoded)

Chapter Text

"It's kinda sad the moon is breaking back to how it used to be." Nagisa looked up at the broken moon that had started collapsing back to the full sphere it used to be as it presented itself in the blue sky, the students returning to the changing rooms after All Might ran off. "Pretty soon there's going to be no evidence of last year left." 

3-E would forever remember their strange teacher, but all the skills they had learnt and developed to handle their strange teacher would all be awarded to UA's skills in teaching. Everything would be credited to teachers who bothered to see them no more than all the teachers they'd had prior, except perhaps Aizawa. The teacher who had broken them all out of the cages they had been placed in would only be remembered as a villain, and they couldn't even argue his case. 

"Isn't that a good thing?" Kirishima passed Nagisa who had stopped to look at the moon. "It means the villain lost and everyone is safe now." 

"We'll be reading through those yearbooks for a fucking decade." Karma ignored Kirishima's input, it not making him feel any better and he was the first to argue to keep trying to kill their teacher. "Evidence will last for that long at least." 

"Karasuma-sensei should be getting mine back to me after school today." Nagisa started moving again, Kirishima looking a little offended about being ignored. "I couldn't exactly smuggle it in my bag, so I had to hide it." 

"It was this big," Karma held his hands wider than his torso to indicate the size of just 1 of the 2 books they had been left by their teacher. "How the fuck do you hide something that big?" 

"With skill." 

"Why are your yearbooks larger than bricks?" Kaminari almost looked offended at how much work Korosensei had put into making them. "They're only ever like this big." Kaminari only used 2 fingers to indicate how thin a usual yearbook was. 

"Our teacher tended to go overboard. When we went to Okinawa the books he made were basically accordions." Nagisa laughed awkwardly as he remembered how into every activity Korosensei had been. 

"That wasn't Okinawa, that was when we stole the island trip from A class." Karma corrected, after all the books they took to Okinawa were ones they were able to use in the kidnapping incident. They couldn't have done that with books so large. 

"What do you mean you stole it from A class? Weren't you in A class?" Kirishima looked between the two in near identical costumes with confusion. Which was probably reasonable, it would make sense if the other members of 1-A had always been in the top class given how well respected heroes and hero students were. 

Karma burst out laughing mockingly, Nagisa just rolling his eyes at the red head. 

"No, we were in E class." Nagisa smiled awkwardly, the memories of the names their class used to be called still ringing in his ears. 

"I was going to go to the high school attached to our junior high, but only having 3-E students be able to attend UA does the same thing, don't you think?" Karma finally stopped laughing, now with his smirk that looked oddly like Korosensei. 

It wasn't like 3-E were the only ones from Kunugigaoka who applied to UA, most of those other students applying for the hero course along, the main course that they couldn't get at Kunugigaoka high school. The only Kunugigaoka students in 1-A were Karma and Nagisa, and they'd heard nothing from the 1-B students of there being any there. They truly had won once and for all. 

----- 

"Na~gi~sa!" Akari sang as the two students joined the over filled lunch table. "You had hero training this morning, right? How did it go?" 

"Karma called me sexy." Nagisa shrugged as he took the half seat beside the girl who still had green hair. "Otherwise it was nothing special. All Might was our teacher, but he didn't really do anything when Bakugo almost killed Midoriya, other than his bad attitude it was basically just a warm up though." 

"Well firstly, agreed, secondly All Might sounds like a shitty teacher then." Akari inclined her head towards Karma. "Obviously not today, but maybe in the future we should go back to the mountain for training after disappointing hero training." 

"We're certainly up for that. With skills like last year's if you don't use them you lose them." Maehara leaned forwards to snatch the strawberry milk off Karma's tray, but his half-hearted attempt was easily thwarted. 

"Oh, and our classmates thought Nagisa was lying about not having a quirk and called him a villain for stopping Bakugo himself. He was on the hero team." Karma swatted away the hands that were reaching only for his tray, only Isogai having a stingy portion and nobody trying to steal from Nagisa. 

"The fuck?" Terasaka's usual angry tone very appropriate at Karma's words. 

"So the quirkless students have to work twice as hard only to get scorned when they find something they're good at?" Sugino's eyes hardened as he gulped down the miso soup from his tray. "It's going to be like this everywhere, huh?" 

"Maybe this is why Karasuma-sensei asked us all to go to UA, to change their minds from the inside?" Kurahashi suggested, not that any of them were happy about their scape goat/guineapig status, but if minds were going to change it had to be someone. 

At least this way if it ever got confirmed that they were the students of Korosensei they couldn't be accused of secretly being villains. They could use UA as a shield to defend their own morals, shitty as it may be to need to do so. 

"Oi, Blueberry." It was better than Extra at least. "I- I need a fucking word." 

Bakugo looked to be in physical pain asking for the private conversation with Nagisa, the smaller therefore deciding to take mercy on him. 

"Nagisa," Akari caught the blue haired boy's eye, her eyes large as though pleading him not to go. 

"It's fine, we're not going that far." Nagisa reassured as he followed Bakugo out of the canteen. 

"Anyone know when Nagisa's trial is?" Akari looked at Karma now they were all together but away from Nagisa. 

"It should be going faster for him than it would be for anyone else, but still no news of a date. I can't think of a single reason she'd get him back." Karma didn't want to reveal Nagisa's new news himself unless he was asked to, but while it was obviously hard for the person involved, it was good news at the end of the day. 

"Well of course she should lose custody, but since when did they do what they should?" Fuwa leaned back against the plant box behind each row of benches. 

"I don't think last year had the desired effect on us." 

"What was the desired effect? Our deaths?" Karma laughed bitterly. "My parents might not love me, but I doubt they wouldn't have kicked up a stink." 

"Well that can't be what they wanted or they would have stopped Karasuma-sensei from requiring our safety." Rio argued. "Maybe just for us to be too traumatised to defend Sensei." 

"Our safety was only required after the bomb incident." Nagisa returned to the group, Bakugo stomping to buy his own lunch behind him. 

"That was quick, what did blondie want?" Yada gave a small wave to the returning teen. 

"Nothing much, just a big fish in a pond finding out he's tiny in the sea." 

----- 

"Karasuma-sensei!" A chorus of voices greeted the well-dressed man as they opened Isogai's door to reveal him. 

"Nagisa, your things." The man handed over a very heavy cloth bag, the remains of a plastic one still inside, clearly not able to withstand the books Korosensei had poured his heart into in his last moments. 

"Thank you," Nagisa stood to the side to allow the man into the small house where Isogai's younger siblings were running around with some gifts the classmates had brought. 

"Mum!" Isogai called into the kitchen where the woman was working on preparing a hearty meal for the guests. "Can we talk to you in private for a sec?" 

"Just give me a moment to get this on the hob and I'll be right there." The woman expertly side stepped the mock battle happening beneath her feet. 

"I wanna listen too!" Isogai's sister, the second eldest stomped her foot as she was denied entry to the room 3-E were waiting in for his mother. 

"Sorry, not this time." Isogai ruffled his sister's hair, encouraging her to go back to playing. 

"What seems to be the problem?" His mother didn't seem entirely happy leaving the kids to play without her in the room, but she had closed them out of the kitchen to avoid any burns. She was still dying her hands on a tea towel as she entered the room. 

"I'm sorry ma'am, but before the kids speak I need to show you this picture." Karasuma stood as the old classmates sat around looking uncomfortable now they had reached the moment of action. 

Nothing could really change at this point, Korosensei had left nothing but the books and pictures behind to prove he had ever existed, and he was gone now. $30 billion divided 27 ways, Ritsu rejecting giving her part to her creators, and pictures. They were both important, being how the group of 16 year olds had been able to buy the mountain to preserve their memories, but they didn't wash their hands clean. They were Korosensei's executioners. 

"What am I looking at?" The woman tossed the tea towel over her shoulder as she looked at the photo she had been handed. 

"Korosensei." The name that was usually impossible to say in front of other slid out of Isogai's mouth with ease. "The one who blew up the moon and... And our teacher last year." 

Chapter Text

"Oh god." Nagisa froze next to Karma as he saw the swarm outside the main UA gate. 

Apparently the press had found out All Might was a teacher now and wanted to get the details from the students, harassing everyone in the UA uniform for a statement. Even if Karasuma had managed to keep their identities secret that didn't mean they liked the media. What little information the public knew about Korosensei couldn't be further from the truth and it was all published by these types of journalists. Avoiding them was definitely the priority, but as only 2 it wasn't possible for them to both get over the smooth walls. 

"I'll toss you up and we'll meet inside." Karma gestured to the wall beside them. 

"I won't be able to pull you up though." If Nagisa was going to be at a height where he could both reach and hoist the other teen, or anyone really, he'd be no better than just jumping at the wall. Which is to say; utterly pointless. 

"I know, but wouldn't it be more interesting for them if a hero student tells them what All Might is actually like?" Karma's smirk was one all too familiar to Nagisa. 

"Don't be too much of a dick, he's important to a lot of people." Karma didn't bother to respond as he tossed Nagisa with ease. 

"What's it like to have All Might as a teacher?!" A microphone and cameras were shoved in Karma's face as soon as he came close to the reporters. 

"He's entirely incompetent, constantly having to read directly from his notes. Being as loud and obnoxious as he always is doesn't help either." Karma forced his way through the crowd who seemed intent on holding him for as long as possible. "At least he's not the only teacher, now if you'll excuse me I'd like to squeeze as much education as I can from this place." 

"What was the one thing I told you to do?" Nagisa shook his head as the two teens entered the door for the first years. 

"To stop annoying Isogai into swapping houses." Karma referenced the conversation he'd pushed onto Isogai when they were all leaving after discussing everything that happened last year with Korosensei. 

Honestly Karma still thought it was a perfect solution; he wanted a smaller place to stay and Isogai's siblings honestly needed more space to run around. Sure there were things in his house that were technically very valuable, but those could all be moved into a single room they locked so the kids didn't get hurt by running into them. Karma couldn't believe that his parents really cared about the numerous valses and glass statues when they hadn't been back to that house in 10 years. 

"This morning." Nagisa deadpanned. 

"I was being honest, Nagi, is it so wrong to be honest?" Karma smirked. 

"Don't blame me when you can't hide from the press ever again." Nagisa shrugged, walking ahead. 

Today was, unfortunately, the day that a class representative had to be decided. Nagisa was sure that Karma would thrive in that role, aside from using his newfound power to torment their classmates, but Nagisa had no interest. He liked being a team player, but he was not a team leader by any stretch of the definition. The class was just so loud with students all arguing to be the class representative. 

"We should put it to a vote!" Iida argued, despite the argument against it that they would all just vote for themselves. 

"I'd like to be removed as an option." Nagisa raised a hand. "I don't want to be the class representative." 

"We will have it open to the entire class, it proves that the people who win the vote really are the best possible candidates." Iida refused to remove Nagisa from the vote, but at the very least his request should be listened to by the rest of the class. 

Or not. 

"Why the fuck do I have 2 votes?" Nagisa gestured at the board, Midoriya had narrowly beaten him with 3 votes, but that still left him tied with Momo. "Who voted for me?" 

"One of them was me." Karma grinned evilly. 

"Fuck you." 

"Language!" Iida, despite being one of the few students with 0 votes, tried to reprimand the blue haired teen as Midoriya looked ready to faint at his new responsibility. 

"No." 

----- 

"We brought Hitoshi to join us today, hope that's okay." Meg and Isogai joined the table with the purple haired boy. 

"It's a bit squashed, but that's fine!" Akari grinned, shuffling closer to Yada to allow space for Shinso to sit down. 

"Sorry, we mostly live in the same house and we still haven't really had much of a conversation. I'm Nagisa." The blue haired boy did regret not trying harder to get to know the new teen, but he still had a lot to think about after not very much time of having a concussion. 

"Hitoshi." The teen nodded as he sat down. "You're in the hero course, right?" 

"Yeah," Nagisa gestured to himself, Karma, Akari, Chiba, and Rinka. "5 of us are. Itona, Okuda, and Yoshida are in the support course." 

"What are your quirks?" Hitoshi asked, it was refreshing to be able to ask questions to a group who weren't family without them all being scared of his quirk. It was likely to end before too long though. 

"Technically I have an acting quirk and Itona was also born with a quirk, though he won't tell us, but they haven't been working properly since last year." Akari looked a little awkward. 

Her own had 2 causes of the issues; the first being that she had combined the identity of Akari the actress with a quirk that allowed her to step into every role, and Kaede the quirkless, pudding loving 3-E student. The second was the same affecting Itona; the tentacles. 

Accepting Korosensei's cells into their bodies and working towards the goals they had set for themselves had damn near stripped them of their quirks. They weren't exactly quirkless, but even after the tentacles had been removed their quirks didn't seem to listen to them properly. 

"And what about the rest of you?" 

"We're all quirkless." Karma shrugged, once again having to swat his old classmates' hands away from his tray. 

"But... You're in the hero course?" Hitoshi was taken aback. "And Aizawa isn't kicking either of you out, I don't know what 1-B's teacher is like, but he's also accepting you?" 

"We're quirkless, but that doesn't mean we're useless. We had some pretty intense training last year." Sugino was the one who answered, despite being in the general studies course himself. 

"And I'd hardly say Aizawa-sensei's quirk puts him leagues ahead of us either." Nagisa shrugged. "What's your quirk?" 

"Brainwashing." Hitoshi answered after a momentary pause, but he was the one who had started the conversation. 

"That's so cool, use it on me sometime, yeah?" Nagisa's eyes lit up at the idea. 

"You want me to use brainwashing on you?" Hitoshi had certainly never heard that one before. 

"Yeah, not when I'm eating, obviously, but you want to be a hero, don't you? I have no reason not to trust you and it might help you figure out better ways of using your quirk." Nagisa's enthusiasm only seemed to be growing. 

"Man, that would have been so useful last year." Sugaya shook his head with a smile. 

Before the conversation could continue, though, the school's intruder alarm went off. A level 3 breach. 

As the members of the overcrowded table got to their feet to follow the swollen crowd a glitchy scream came from their phones, a flickering image of Ritsu clutching her head visible on each of them. 

"Sorry Hitoshi, it's been nice meeting you, see you next time!" Nagisa yelled as the members of 3-E ran in the opposite direction to the crowd. 

The students ran, phones still echoing Ritsu's screams, behind Itona to the support classroom. It should be empty what with the intruder alarm and it being the lunch break, which would allow them to talk freely while figuring out what was going on with their AI friend. 

She'd never reacted like this before, not even when the copycat had hacked her to make her unable to help her friends. Nor when the entire ship Nagisa and Karma were enclosed in caught fire upon re-entry to the atmosphere. It had to be serious. 

"I thought-" Sugino's voice cut off without warning. 

"Who the fuck else is in here?!" Karma demanded, looking into the shadows of the darkened room. 

"Don't blame me," A girl with messy pink hair stepped into view, from her clothing she was also a support class member. "It's you lot who barged into my classroom." 

"It's not yours, Hatsume, it's Power Loaders." Okuda's voice was quiet as always, but the confidence was a testament to last year. 

"It's more mine than most of yours. Whatcha workin' on anyway?" The girl pulled a chair closer, sitting backwards as she looked at the screen where Ritsu was starting to calm down. 

"Our classmate." Itona gestured to the purple haired girl. "She's AI and started screaming after the alarm went off." 

"Oh! This is why you're making a body!" Hatsume looked excited. "And here I was thinking it was for something weird." 

"Do you mean bombs or pervy shit?" Yoshida's question went unanswered as Ritsu managed to regain her composure. 

"Ritsu! Are you okay? What was that about?" Hara clutched the edge of the desk with her fingers as the previous members of 3-E made sure they were all visible to the computer's camera. 

"I wanted to check on the main system after the security was broken through, but when I tried to look it felt like my RAM was being overloaded. I didn't know what it felt like to hurt physically, it's so awful." Ritsu was crying on screen, and there was no way for her friends to provide her any comfort. 

"I'll look into making it so that doesn't happen again." Itona always spoke in a monotone, but it was through his actions that he showed he cared. 

"We should probably let the teachers know too, there's no way that was a coincidence." Isogai nodded as the door was thrown open again and the light was turned on. 

"Back to your own classrooms." Power Loader snapped at the students. 

----- 

"Um, before- before we start I think Iida should be the class representative, not me." Midoriya was shaking as he stood in front of the class, the other students agreeing despite Momo's reluctance. 

"I don't care, just sit down so I can start the lesson." Aizawa sounded bored as ever when the door was thrown open. 

Itona walked in with a bag full of more support items than were reasonable given this was only their second week at UA. He didn't even spare a glance to the teacher whose class he was disturbing as he walked up to Nagisa's desk, dumping the items onto it. 

"I made these for you." Itona said, turning to leave again. 

"Thank you." Nagisa grinned, pulling items out of the pile and handing some back to Karma. "Hair elastics?" 

They were green, which wasn't really a problem, but Nagisa had finally been allowed to have a haircut. He didn't need hair elastics any more. Before he could ponder for long, though Itona was in the room again, taking them from his hands. 

"These are for Kaede." 

"How rude! Disturbing other classes not to mention ditching his own." Iida gestured to the door Itona had left wide open. 

"At least he didn't break in through a wall again." Nagisa shrugged, turning back to the front after sorting through the pile. 

Chapter Text

Nagisa and Karma had managed to get a pair of seats at the back of the bus rather than the open seating portion. For their first rescue training they wore the same 3-E PE kit they had chosen as their new hero costumes, Nagisa's yellow Korosensei themed cowl and Karma's pink one pulled down, pockets filled with everything Itona had given them, as they only half paid attention to the conversation happening at the front of the bus. 

"Something feels off." Nagisa leaned in close to Karma, his breath raising the hairs on the back of the red head's neck. "I don't like it." 

"Yeah, but what can we do?" Karma's response was equally quiet. "They insist following the previous schedule is best and don't seem to care Ritsu was in pain." 

"And what do you bet All Might won't even be there when we get to the rescue centre?" Nagisa raised his phone, multiple articles about the villains the hero had stopped on his way to work this morning. If he really was getting weaker then he was doing a piss poor job of taking his teaching duties seriously. 

"Why the fuck do I have chalk in my pocket?" Karma didn't even bother coming up with a likelihood, instead staring in confusion at the white stick he'd found in his pocket, having no recollection of ever having put it in. 

"Probably from when you were teaching Terasaka Maths." Nagisa shrugged, he'd been holding his own English study session at the time, so he couldn't say for certain, but it was something that sounded like the red head. 

As the bus stopped and everyone got off, the feeling of something being wrong only grew in the pit of Nagisa's stomach. Unlike him as it may be, he wasn't paying any attention to Thirteen or Aizawa talking about how quirks could be dangerous or All Might indeed having not shown up. It's not like he and Karma hadn't learnt more than their fair share about how these kinds of things could be used to harm people, the pair not even having quirks in the first place. 

Glancing at his phone screen Nagisa saw that it was completely black, with nothing he did getting a different result. 

"Sensei!" Nagisa raised his hand, cutting Thirteen off in the middle of describing how the students had already seen the limits of their powers. "Something's wrong. I have a really bad feeling and even though my phone was on full battery I can't get it to work." 

"Nagisa! It's rude to interrupt and-" Iida's lecture was cut off as Aizawa raised a hand, fixing Nagisa with a firm look that wasn't quite a glare, but was certainly heading in that direction. 

"Is it possible you just shut it down?" 

"No, but it's not a bad idea if everyone checks. I'd likely have heard Ritsu from someone else's phone if everyone else's worked though." Even if the teachers at UA didn't care about information they gained from Ritsu, it seemed Aizawa was at least willing to hear Nagisa out. 

Nobody else got the chance to pull their phone out, though, before a purple warp gate opened at the fountain in the centre of the USJ. No alarms went off, though the lights all around flickered, more than a few shattering. 

Upon seeing this Karma and Nagisa immediately pulled their hoods and masks up to hide as much of their faces as they could. The chances of them being in any way targets were low, but there were too many people in the underbelly of society who knew too much about them. They couldn't tell anyone about Korosensei, but the same secrecy was not extended to the students. 

"Engine boy, get back to the main building." Karma yelled as he and Nagisa threw items Itona had made that looked like Poké Balls, only completely silver. 

The two were different sizes, Karma having thrown a larger one that landed at the base of the stairs to form a translucent barrier between the students and the rest of the USJ, though it didn't reach the whole width. Nagisa's was smaller, landing about half way down the stairs, forming an identical barrier that took up the entire width of the stairs. 

"What were those?" Thirteen looked at the two boys, her voice tinny and just like when they had heard the countdown in the rocket to the space station. 

"Temporary walls, you can pass through from this side, they can withstand a decent amount of force. Class rep get going!" Nagisa explained, yelling at Iida as the other students all remained still, Aizawa raising his goggles to cover his eyes as he prepared to charge forwards to protect the students. 

"Why are we listening to-" 

"Do as they say." Aizawa cut Kirishima's argument off. "Thirteen, keep the kids safe." 

With that Aizawa was as good as flying down the stairs, passing through the walls without even slowing down as he started erasing quirks and taking down some of the weaker villains. 

"Do you boys have experience?" Thirteen's mirrored astronaut visor reflected the two former 3-E kids as she turned to them. 

"Thanks to-" Karma's head tilted back slightly as his voice was stolen. "Motherfucker! Yes, we have experience." 

"Not exactly with villains, but this isn't exactly outside the range of our experience." Nagisa remained calm beside Karma's anger at their gag. "Seriously, get going Engine!" 

"I can't leave everyone behind when we're supposed to be training to be heroes. And my name is-" 

"We know your name! But the less villains know about you the better. Names traditionally have power, what if having your name is what allows one of them to use their quirk on you!? And for fuck's sake go get us help, you are the fastest, you can get there before the rest of us and that is how you help us. Know when to retreat." Karma snapped at the class representative, already annoyed at being gagged when he wasn't even going to directly mention Korosensei. 

Iida looked conflicted, but with the eyes on him he conceded. As he reached the door the warp opened again from behind them. 

"Keep going, there's some type of armour on the warp user's neck." Nagisa grabbed Kirishima's arm as Karma grabbed Bakugo by the back of the neck as the two charged forwards, allowing Thirteen to use her quirk to allow just enough gravitational pull for just long enough for Iida to escape. 

"I see some of that class managed to clamber their way to UA." The warp user's tone was one all too familiar to the two. 

"Apparently you're worse informed than you think." Karma's tone matched the warp user's even as his chin stayed down. 

Their eyes were still on show, but it was unlikely that they had that detailed information on the 3-E students. If they did there was nothing they could do about it anyway. The boys' hair and mouths were covered which should at least make them take a little longer to be identified than before. 

The other members of 1-A looked at the pair with something between suspicion and confusion as a few of them tried to tend to Thirteen. 

There was a pause where nobody moved except Nagisa's hands behind his back. As soon as the warp started reaching over the students Nagisa and Karma tossed the students they were holding to the side and outside the reach of the warp, barely noticing as other students also managed to escape. Unfortunately it wasn't everyone. 

Of course, with the warp at least knowing what 3-E was to some extent, the pair was landed in the centre where Aizawa was already fighting out of his element. 

"What are you two doing here?" Aizawa demanded as he stood with his back to the two, but close enough to hear him easily. 

"Wasn't exactly our choice." Karma shrugged, slamming the head of a nearby villain into his knee, knocking them out cold. 

"We won't get in your way." Nagisa revealed what he'd been doing behind his back as he reached out to a nearby villain, Itona's small taser strapped to his palm taking the villain he reached out of action. 

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, a barrage of attacks making the two have to constantly swap opponents with little room for paying attention to actual time. There had been a scuffle by the door, but clearly no other heroes had arrived yet. 

Nagisa paused for a moment, having sworn that he had seen a burst of yellow out of the corner of his eye. 

That was a mistake. 

"I got you." A villain caught Nagisa's arm, damn near fusing with his sleeve as they reached for his face. 

----- 

Karma pulled the chalk out of his pocket, crushing it in his hand as he sent a shower of white dust down on Shiguraki as Aizawa's arm started to take the damage. His brown leather glove was now covered in white, but it was the same point he had made back with Grip at the hotel. 

"I can make dust too," Karma's voice was near song as he crooned down on the man. "I don't call in this many rejects to kill someone like All Might though." 

"What are you doing?" Aizawa demanded as Shiguraki let go of the teacher's arm; injured but nothing too serious, reaching instead for Karma's face. 

The trained assassin jumped back, but he wasn't fast enough to stop the mask from being pulled off his face. 

His entire face revealed a bullet barely avoided hitting him flying right under his nose. 

Soba? 

Why was there a soba smell combined with the usual metal and gunpowder? 

Karma grinned, creating as much distance between himself and Shiguraki as he could, he didn't need long after all. He pulled his hood down to pull the mask off his neck, raising it in the air as he pulled out the megaphone Itona had made them. 

"Anyone who switches to the hero side, I have a nice 1 billion USD for you!" He doubted it would change the minds of many, but this dumbass was willing to hire assassins to bulk his numbers. 

Any of them who knew about Korosensei knew by their continued lives that he had been killed and the reward money was now long out of reach. It was 1/10 of the original bounty he could offer, but it was a damn sight more than they could otherwise claim. The cowl only acted as proof of identity for any who had never seen the classmates. 

Shiguraki ran at him before Karma knew if any of them took the bait though. The villain was far less capable than Grip or frankly anyone else Karma had dealt with before, filled with a childish rage that was less predictable even if his moves were easy to read. He didn't have a speed quirk, but he was quick. Thankfully 3-E were trained for speed, a 3 v 1 situation was difficult, though, other villains keeping Aizawa busy. 

----- 

Getting Sniper to swap sides was a start, well aimed bullets flying past students at their attackers, but it wasn't enough. Iida clearly hadn't taken their advice to use Ritsu once he got far enough away, and it was taking him longer to reach UA than they anticipated. 

The total number with experience on their side was 4, only one having a quirk and having to monitor a much too wide space. 

Karma was playing keep away with the disintegration quirk man well enough. The combination of low skill and poor fashion choices making things easier for him. Every time he came close to landing a hit, though, either the purple fog or the oversized video game villain would force him to back off. 

Nagisa stood up, the villain who had been clinging to him like glue twitching from the small taser, taking Karma's situation into account. 

As long as that creature knew how to fear death he could take one thing off Karma's plate. 

He'd miscalculated though. There was no sign even of basic thought as the small boy was tossed aside, very thankful for the strength and protective capabilities of the old uniforms. 

Even with the lack of injury, the world fell silent as all Nagisa could hear was the blood pounding in his ears. 

A dark fog filled the central area of the USJ, thick and rolling, making it hard to breathe as bloodlust oozed from it. 

As the two closest to the source, what Nagisa and Karma were feeling right now were the antithesis of what could be expected. Fear, apprehension, even nothing could be more understandable than the sense coursing through them. 

Safety. 

Chapter Text

Akari tried to ignore it, but as she watched 1-A file their way onto the bus for their hero training that day dread flooded through her. It was probably because of what had happened only about a month ago now; when they had all had to face trained military personnel with quirks almost too perfect for their jobs just to be able to say goodbye to Korosensei... Goodbye and Happy Birthday. Still, even as she returned Nagisa's wave, she couldn't shake it. 

It felt like the last time she saw her sister head to work for Shiro. 

There was no real reason for her to believe anything was wrong, but somehow she felt like this was the last time she would ever see them. 

It was only when the bus left that she was able to tear her eyes away from where her closest friend and crush just stood, but she still couldn't concentrate on the English washing over her as Present Mic tried to teach them. Akari couldn't stay still either, her leg bouncing as she twirled her pencil like it was one of the knives from last year. Just as long as she didn't throw it at Mic on instinct. 

"Go." Rinka leaned close to Akari from her seat beside her. "We'll cover for you, don't worry." 

Permission was all she needed. 

Akari left the classroom without explanation, heading first to Recovery Girl. She needed some kind of excuse for leaving, after all. Some minor feigned illness would be enough of an excuse, besides, she needed some time to develop a character. 

The chances of her even matching pace with the bus were non-existent now she had used the tentacles and combined herself with Kaede, let alone being able to catch up with it. No, that was a hope that wasn't worth it, but she'd need a lot of stamina to be able to run far enough for UA to have used a bus to transport the students, not to mention how if her gut feeling meant anything it wouldn't end when she reached them. 

"Hello?" Akari poked her head into Recovery Girl's office, using a trick Bitch-sensei had taught her to make her face look paler than usual. "I have a really bad headache, do you have any painkillers?" 

"Let me check your temperature, I don't want a disease spreading through campus." Recovery Girl hopped off her chair, surprisingly nimble despite her age and need for a cane, thermometer of the kind that is put in someone's ear in her hand. 

Akari dutifully bent down for the older woman, getting a clean bill as far as temperature went. With a handful of sweets, 2 paracetamol tablets, and instructions to get a drink of hot water from the canteen Akari left the office. 

Her character was pretty much no different to her, though this character, too, was quirkless, with an almost miraculous stamina. It was easier that way, quirks now near impossible to take on, and the less complex a character the less necessary it was to properly enclose her true self to protect herself from becoming every character she played. 

She was running before she even left the building. 

Presumably somewhere near halfway she ran into a member of 1-A, a boy whose name she didn't know who had engines bursting out of his calves. He was running in the opposite direction; back to UA, though he was obviously much faster than Akari could be. 

"What happened?" Akari was sure her eyes were wild as she grabbed his wrist. "Is everyone else okay?" 

"There's a villain attack at the USJ, you should-" 

Akari didn't bother listening to the rest of what the boy had to say, taking off in the direction he had come from again. She wasn't even sure if she knew how to stop running any more, her lungs felt raw from her heavy breathing and her legs pounded more like she was falling than she was taking any kind of step. 

Please let Nagisa and Karma be okay. 

She lost her parents before she could even remember them, she'd lost her sister, the man her sister had been all but forced into an engagement in tried to kill them both, and the man her sister loved was killed in part by her own hands. 

She couldn't cope with more loss so close together. 

Please. 

---- 

"Anyone who switches to the hero side, I have a nice 1 billion USD for you!" Karma's voice rang through the USJ as Momo and Jiro were stuck on what to do. 

They had already been overwhelmed with the number of villains they were dealing with, and now Kaminari had been caught by a villain who had been hiding underground, of all things. This villain wasn't bluffing about killing the student, either, and he'd already caught Jiro using her quirk. 

That was when another villain they had missed appeared at the first's side, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

The first villain dropped Kaminari with a scream of pain, turning to the send villain in anger as he held the shoulder of the arm he'd just been holding Kaminari with. 

"What the hell?!" The villain snapped, not managing to come across as threatening with the tears in his eyes from the clearly broken shoulder. "You really believe they even have that money, let alone give it to you?" 

"Those kids?" The villain who seemed to have changed sides as Karma had enticed. "Yeah, I know they're good for it, the world still exists after all." 

----- 

Karma's eyes widened in horror as he watched the punch make contact with Nagisa, hurling him to the side as he bounced like a rag doll. The image of the bridge at the hotel blowing up playing in Karma's mind as he abandoned the villain he was fighting, running towards his classmate. 

"N-" Karma stopped himself, no names, remember. "Nicotine!" 

"How dare you hurt my students." A low, familiar voice rang out from behind Nagisa as he pushed himself up, a dark fog billowing out from the tall, twitching figure. Bloodlust potent enough to freeze even the creature Nagisa had failed to scare in place. 

One thought filled the students of UA: 

"There's no way we can beat that." 

Aizawa forced himself to move; this wasn't supposed to happen. He only kept his class this year because he trusted them all to be able to survive, but that doesn't mean he was planning for a villain attack so soon. Even when his two quirkless students landed themselves in the same area as him, they at least managed to match his pace, but that doesn't mean they could handle The Tentacle, the monster who blew up the moon who should be dead. 

But the villain didn't attack the students in front of him, dodging them, in fact, as he instead attacked the villains. 

"What are the chances I'm hallucinating right now?" Nagisa's voice was quiet, eyes fixed on The Tentacle despite his impossibly fast movements as he went to each villain in sequence. 

"Korosensei!" The name left Karma's mouth easily despite the loud volume. "I'm going to say none. You okay?" 

"Hang on, did you call me 'Nicotine'?" Nagisa sounded somewhat offended as he accepted Karma's offered hand to get back to his feet. 

"I panicked, okay?" 

----- 

Akari felt numb as she saw the giant octopus, currently black with rage. It seemed the people holding her back felt something similar as she was able to escape their grip now without much effort. She walked down two steps before Karma's yell broke her out of her stupor as she realised this was reality. 

"Sensei!!" Her voice was shrill as she screamed, her whole body behind it. 

Her voice hadn't even stopped echoing before the familiar yellow octopus with an ever smiling face was in front of her, a few steps below so they were eye to eye. He was in his characteristic robe-like outfit with his crescent moon tie that he'd received with a hole in it above his heart. He looked a little fuzzy around the edges, clearly a speed clone as he was stilly busy cleaning up the USJ. 

"Korosensei." Akari's breath hitched as tears of relief started gathering in her eyes. 

"Hai." Korosensei nodded, placing one of his hand-like tentacles on her head, making her hair go wild with the speed. 

"Hey!" Karma's voice broke through the emotional moment as he raised both arms in the air to wave. "Forever Flat!!" 

"Fuck you, Ginger Shrimp! I'm having a moment over here!" Akari yelled back, waving her arms in the air in return, though the tears remained. 

"I'm taller than you!" 

"Yeah, but your posture is shit!" 

"Says who!?" 

"Me, dumbass!" 

"Kaede," Korosensei pulled the girl's attention away from the red head. "Now is not the time to fight." 

"He started it." Akari pouted. 

----- 

Nagisa had collected the temporary walls they had set up as the students and Aizawa made their way back to the entrance, all the villains either having accepted Karma's announcement, been incapacitated by the students, or been tied up by Korosensei. 

"Oh, yay! My phone works again." Karma had an evil grin on his face as he searched through the images on his phone, Korosensei kneeling in front of Nagisa and Akari. 

"We thought you were dead, Korosensei! You made us think we killed you!" Nagisa had pulled his own mask down, which now they saw the inspiration was clearly an homage to this monster. 

"If you were still alive you should have let us all know! Do you have any idea how- how much it hurt?" Akari was blinking fiercely as her voice caught in her throat. "You know I don't have any family left! You're the man my sister loved and you left me too!" 

"Kae-" 

"Don't look at me!" Kaede pulled away from Korosensei's tentacle reaching out to her as her shoulders shook. 

Nagisa silently offered her a hug, Akari burying her face in his chest as she tried to keep her crying quiet, knowing full well that they were the centre of attention right now. She had cried for attention plenty of times, but she didn't like people seeing her so genuinely upset as herself. 

Korosensei's scream interrupted the moment, Karma having tried to stab him. 

"Sorry, Sensei, but I just spent my share of the reward money, and yet here you are, alive." Karma shrugged, making Korosensei scream again as he showed off the various blackmail pictures he had acquired over the year he was their teacher. 

At his words Akari and Nagisa froze. 

There was no way they were going to be able to pay that back. 

"Um, what's going on?" Mina raised her hand from where the rest of 1-A stood, watching the interactions between the former members of 3-E and their teacher. 

"That's the one who destroyed the moon." Aizawa provided the answer, having been brought in at the beginning to try to remove Korosensei's quirk only to discover he had none. He'd not been kept in the loop after that. "Despite what it looks like it doesn't have a quirk." 

"Excuse you, I am not an 'it'. I'll have you know I was born and raised right here on Earth." Korosensei was as expressive as ever as he responded in offence to Aizawa's explanation. 

"Korosensei was a human who had experiments done on him. The people who did this to him did the same thing to rats using some of his cells and they exploded, which is what happened to the moon. In the end, because they didn't have a way to contain him, they granted his request to teach our class last year." Nagisa explained as Akari moved away from him, wiping her face. "Korosensei, you took my knife." 

"Sorry Nagisa." Korosensei returned the knife, only touching it himself with a white square none of 1-A were close enough to tell if it was paper or cloth, but it didn't really matter. "I needed it to deal with the Nomu." 

"I didn't see any tentacles." Nagisa frowned slightly, presumably Korosensei was talking about the large villain Nagisa had failed to affect. 

"It's not the same process as mine, but it has the same weakness." 

Nagisa pulled out yet another notebook to write down what Korosensei was saying, as well as whatever they had picked up from the villains. 

"You really trust that?" Kirishima pointed at Korosensei, the 3-E students looking confused. 

"Well yeah," Karma shrugged. "Hard not to after everything he's done for us." 

Beside him Kaede was fumbling with the buttons of her blazer and shirt, puling it back to reveal the harsh outline of her scar from when 2.0 had stabbed through her chest. 

"Korosensei literally stitched me back together and brought me back to life." Akari explained. 

"I can see her bra!" Minetta's voice was a loud whisper, the three students changing like a switch was flipped as they glared at him. 

"Why the fuck is this thing still in our class? All he does is complain and perv." Karma rested his own knife on his own shoulder, his eyes looking like a wild animal as he glowered down at the shortest student. 

----- 

"All members of End Class, a bus is waiting for you, please come immediately!" 

Ritsu's message appeared on the phones of all former members of her class, all of them immediately rushing to do as they were told. It didn't matter to them how much trouble this would get them in. Ritsu wouldn't call them all if it wasn't important. 

"Where's Kaede?" Meg asked, leaning forwards as she hoped to see the girl running towards them, but nobody else seemed to be coming. 

"She already left. This is everyone, let's go!" Rinko answered, already having ditched her blazer as they all hurried to change into their old PE uniforms. 

With that the doors closed, even Okajima wasn't paying attention to the girls as Ritsu drove the bus with all of them changing. Nobody was speaking, but it was clear they were all worried. What could be so important that Ritsu would call them out of class? 

Whatever it was, they weren't the only ones who knew, as they hurtled past a group of their hero teachers. That didn't exactly make them feel better though. Sure, they'd had more than their fair share of experience dealing with people who either wanted to kill them, or didn't care if they died as long as they could get their hands on Korosensei's bounty. That didn't mean that they couldn't be at risk. 

When they stopped most of them had finished changing, though a few girls remained in the back as Hara finished up, but those who were already changed didn't wait. 

"Eh." Isogai, who was at the front of the group stopped as he saw what was waiting for them. "Korosensei?" 

"Korosensei!?" Maehara tried to lean over the barrier, but he had used too much force, resulting in toppling over in front of Isogai. 

"Move it!" Terasaka yelled from significantly far back in the queue to get out, directly between Okajima and the girls. 

Chapter Text

"Oi," The small group of assassins who had taken Karma's offer called out as 1-A and the teachers made their way out of the USJ. "What about our money?" 

A wicked grin grew on Karma's face as he recognised 3 faces from the hotel. 

"You think I keep that kind of cash on me? You all know where the mountain is, I'll leave it there and you decide how much you each get. Unless you want a rematch, that is." Karma already had his tubes of his favourite spicy condiments out and ready. 

"Karma... No." Nagisa sounded more tired than anything as he took the other by the shoulders, forcing him to be second into the sunlight. 

"Rematch?" From Kirishima's tone it was clear he was doubting if he even wanted an answer, but he'd already asked now, and he wasn't the only one thinking it. 

"Those three," Akari pointed to a tall blond man, a shorter man with an everyman face and brown hair, and a man with a gun his mouth. "Were hired to kill us last year. It was the only time we - or rather Nagisa - were the targets rather than Korosensei. They betrayed the guy who hired them, though, and Nagisa won so we all survived." 

"We still had to fight our way past them, though. Karma made us all think he was all about to die. The betrayal was not using a deadly poison on those of us Takaoka didn't want." Nagisa nudged Karma, a half playful glare directed at him as Nagisa remembered the terror of Karma's bluff. 

"Mhm, okay, what the fuck?" Mina's response seemed to be echoed by their other classmates, all of them now keeping their distance from the once End Class students and their teacher. 

"Was this the drama you mentioned in the trial battles?" Jiro's smile was anything but happy as her eyes flicked between the three and Korosensei, clearly not convinced they weren't about to be attacked. 

"No, that was a different time. That time we were just hostages used against Korosensei." Nagisa paused for a moment; there had been far too many instances of drama 3-E were involved in. 

"What's up with the name 'Korosensei'? It's a weird name, is it his villain name?" Ochaco asked, trying to act as though she wasn't nervous despite clearly being so. 

"I came up with it because he didn't have a name. 'Korosenai' and 'sensei' 'unkillable teacher'. It's a perfect name for our teacher who the government couldn't kill." Kaede shrugged as a UA bus pulled up, opening to reveal that there was nobody sitting in the driving seat. 

"Eh. Korosensei?" Isogai was at the front of the line of 3-E students, all in their old PE kits, though they were messily put on. 

There was a repetition of the scene inside where Korosensei knelt in front of his students as they berated him for leaving them under the belief they had killed him. There were still tears, though Akari had calmed down, and nobody tried to kill the octopus this time. 

"But seriously, how did you escape? We were all holding you down and you were gone at the same time the barrier went down. Even you aren't that fast." Sugino rubbed the back of his head, all of them calming down a lot more now they knew nobody was in imminent danger. 

"To say I escaped would be the wrong term for it. I was captured by the leader of the group who attacked today. They had access to Shiro's research and took advantage of that to stabilise me and use my cells to create the nomu." Korosensei's eyes seemed to turn downwards despite his constant smile. "Though I have to say none of you were holding me quite tight enough. If you were it would have been worse for you though." 

"What's a nomu?" Okuda tilted her head to the side slightly at the unfamiliar term. 

"Was that the one with the exposed brain?" Karma gestured to his own head. 

"Ew." Rio pulled a face at the idea. 

"Yes, that is why I had to borrow Nagisa's knife. They are manufactured to lose their own sense of reason and have multiple quirks." Korosensei explained, getting to his feet as the class seemed to have finished chastising him. 

"Wait, but Korosensei, that doesn't make any sense. Itona and I lost most of the use of our quirks after getting tentacles, why would they use your cells if they're making weapons with multiple quirks?" Kaede raised her hand, the only one there in the UA uniform. 

"What!?" Hagakure, who had apparently been standing the closest to 3-E exclaimed at Akari's question. 

"Long story." Nagisa offered in place of an explanation, shaking his head. 

"I apologise, Kaede, as I have never had a quirk I cannot know how they can interact with the tentacles." 

"Step away from the students, villain." Mic's voice didn't hold any of his usual humour as he made the demand. 

3-E glanced at the door to the USJ before responding, checking to see if anyone else had left the building. 

"It's okay, he's our teacher." Isogai offered a smile that didn't seem to be doing much to calm the heroes. "He's not going to hurt us." 

"I can't speak to his safety, but he did help capture the ones attacking." Aizawa spoke up for the Tentacle, not that he had any kind of trust for the villain, but he couldn't deny what he saw. 

Besides, it was the most engaged he'd seen Karma and Nagisa since the start of the year, their faces lighting up in the same fashion the rest of the class's did when seeing All Might. The number 1 hero not seeming worth a second glance for their quirkless students. 

As the heroes spoke a car pulled up, clearly having been speeding, as a blonde woman with waist long hair, a figure hugging jumper, and a pair of suit trousers not seeming to match the overly flashy sunglasses she was adjusting got out. She looked like she had just shown up at a red carpet event rather than the scene of a villain attack. 

"Bitch-sensei!" Yada cheered as the woman paused upon seeing the familiar octopus. 

Behind them Aoyama choked at the girl's words despite her cheery tone. 

"You seem to choke a lot, you should probably get that checked out." Karma rolled his eyes as Irina pulled out her small gun, aiming it at their teacher's head. 

"You're supposed to be dead." Irina raised a perfectly managed eyebrow at Korosensei as he dodged without difficulty. "If you'd managed to survive you shouldn't have been so cruel as to make the kids think they'd succeeded." 

"I assure you I returned to them as soon as I could." Korosensei's face turned pink as they missed whatever Minetta had said to make Tsuyuu slap him with her tongue. 

----- 

"I can't believe the rumours were actually true." Mic's chair creaked as he leaned back from the computer in front of him, a report on the villain attack, those they'd managed to capture, those who had escaped, and those who were given slaps on the wrist due to changing sides. 

Korosensei was noticeably kept absent from the report, though. A message having reached their inboxes before they'd even managed to process that his identity was still considered an international secret, though as of now no government knew of his continued survival. Aizawa and All Might would be the ones getting the credit in the reports, the other hero having been held up by Nezu. Of course, the students would be celebrated for their own achievements too, CCTV footage from when the police were showing up already starting to go viral online. 

"Can't you? It seems entirely in character for them as far as I'm concerned." Aizawa only spared his husband a glance, the students of that class's files open in front of him, all of them more fleshed out than they were before. 

Ritsu had agreed to show him, but these were all still secrets until the students themselves chose to share. 

"But a group of quirkless students? They were only in middle school and their lives were almost ended more times than some UA hero course graduates! Did they not even try another solution?" Mic was gesturing wildly, though his arms were the only part of him that showed any energy. 

"That guy's quirkless too, they brought me in to check. Really it's on us for not thinking about why they'd request backup to a mountain attached to a middle school campus." Aizawa knew they hadn't been told what they were backup for - something he was still angry about - but once they arrived the same woman who had appeared earlier had told them they were no longer needed when they arrived. 

"Careful Shota, you're coming dangerously close to saying you agree with them." 

"If I agreed with them there would be a lot more incompetent heroes out there. I'm just saying don't discount these kids based on not having quirks. They managed to keep pace with me after only a year of training. They're far from perfect, but they didn't waste their time on aesthetics over substance." Aizawa sighed as he looked at the time, closing his laptop as he saw Ritsu deleting the extra information. "Nagisa's staying with his classmates today, right?" 

"Yeah, they all left hours ago." 

----- 

"Um!" Nagisa flinched when his voice came out so much louder than he had intended. "You all - well, everyone but Korosensei - know about the trial coming up, right?" 

"You have a date set?" Meg asked, it was certainly fast, but being in the hero course had to be good for something. 

"Not for the trial, but... Shiota Hiromi isn't my biological mother. The woman who gave birth to me and my sister will arrive here next week and-" Nagisa's voice died in his throat as he clutched his hands tight to stop their shaking. He wasn't worried about everyone's reactions, but every step towards accepting what Karasuma had told him over a week ago now felt like his world was shattering more. He knew it was only through the complete destruction of the lies he'd accepted as truth that he could finally build a world built on honesty, but it was still terrifying. "Well... I was hoping you could come with me to meet them." 

"Do you know what they look like?" Hinata pulled her legs up to her chest as she watched Nagisa. 

"My sister looks... Very like me, her- my- our mother looks similar, but she has brown hair. I didn't really look closely at their pictures." Nagisa stumbled over his words, none of them sounding quite right. 

"This is going to be like Korosensei and Itona all over again!" Fuwa's eyes were alight with excitement that made Nagisa feel a bit better. 

At least someone could find humour in it. 

----- 

"Now that we're all back," Aizawa sounded more tired than usual as he stood in front of the class at the end of the lesson after they returned from the unplanned break. "We have something else coming up soon." 

Around the room most of the students tensed up, clearly ready for some kind of absurd, gruelling training the likes of which they had yet to see. The kind of thing Nagisa and Karma were desperate for, even with the exercises they'd done like last year over the short break. 

"The sports festival is coming up." 

Cheers erupted from the other students, along with people celebrating a "normal school event", Nagisa, though, looked deflated. 

"At least we're not the glory round this year." Karma shrugged, though he didn't look that excited either. 

They were assassins, not exactly performance players. 

They had, of course, enjoyed breaking the expectations set on them being terrible, but that didn't mean it didn't get old. This year they'd be competing from the beginning, and likely couldn't expect as much underestimation. 

"The UA sports festival is broadcast live around the country! We're going to be on TV, and not just in a group shot!" Mina sounded thrilled about Nagisa's idea of a personal hell. 

"Yeah, I saw the reporting on the villain attack and I didn't stand out at all." Hagakure complained, seemingly having forgotten that she's 1) invisible and 2) her hero costume was boots and gloves. 

It's hard to stand out when you're barely noticeable. 

"This will be an excellent opportunity for us to advertise ourselves." Iida looked as excited as everyone else. 

Nagisa just groaned, hiding his face in his arms as he lay down on the desk, ignoring how Midoriya was shaking in his seat. 

"None of you were in any of the news coverage, were you?" Ochaco asked from beside Midoriya. 

"That was deliberate." Nagisa didn't bother looking up as he answered. "We didn't go through last year to be famous, sounds annoying." 

"Then why are you trying to be a hero? Optics and being noticed are vital for heroes." Nagisa didn't need to see Iida to know he was continuing with his typical air chopping motions. 

"I applied for the hero course because Karma asked me to. I want to be a teacher like Korosensei." Nagisa knew better than some how much it mattered to be seen, that's what he wanted to do for his future students too. 

"I just thought the hero course would be the least boring. Going from last year to a normal classroom would have been shitty-" 

"Language." 

"I don't care. Anyway, we were all told to try for UA, so I thought the hero course might be fun. Besides, I want to be a politician, having a background as a hero has to help with that." Karma shrugged, tapping Nagisa on the arm. "We have to submit some paperwork if we want to use equipment, let's go do that." 

----- 

Trying to find the principle's office was taking up a lot of their lunch break, all the rooms looking the same as Karma abandoned knocking. 

"Man we really are alike-" 

A scream from a very familiar voice cut off the other as Karma opened the door to reveal Midoriya. For a moment they saw a very scrawny man who looked half dead sitting across from him, before in a puff of smoke All Might was there instead. 

No, not instead. 

Of course All Might had a different form, else his identity wouldn't have been secret. 

"What the fuck?" Karma demanded, arms crossed as Nagisa looked at him with concern. 

There was an innocent explanation, but it wasn't the most likely, not with how out of character people like Aizawa were being and the special treatment Midoriya was getting. 

"Young Akabane-" 

"Don't call me that. Explain. This doesn't look like a normal student teacher meeting and it clearly isn't about using support equipment in the sports festival. Don't lie to me." Karma's voice was cold, a deadly calm usually caused by Nagisa filling the air around them. 

Midoriya looked terrified, his eyes darting between Karma and All Might, clearly stressed at being caught. 

"Young Midoriya just needed a little more support-" 

"More than me and Nagisa, the quirkless hero students you're supposed to look after? Last I checked Midoriya has a quirk. Explain better or I will assume the worst." It wasn't often Karma was in a position to look down on All Might, but it was clear the giant of a man was feeling small under Karma's scrutiny, the smoke billowing off him again. 

"It's not-" 

"I don't care what it isn't. What is it?" Karma cut off Midoriya's denial of whatever his assumption of the worst was. 

"Karma." Nagisa reached out to the other boy, but Karma pulled his arms away, still crossed, the veins in his temple very visible as Nagisa noticed Karma's arms shake. 

All Might sighed as his large form disappeared again, replaced with the deathly sick man they had seen before. 

"Alright, you can both keep a secret, just close the door." All Might, or whatever his civilian identity was looked tired to the bone as the two did as they were told, though they didn't move any further into the room. "Young Midoriya has inherited my quirk, the power to accumulate and pass on quirks." 

"Are you shitting me?" Karma's expression didn't change, but the hand closest to his body twitched at All Might's words. "All this fucking time there wasn't just some evil scientist able to create monsters with multiple quirks and the number 1 fucking hero could have given anyone his powers. Which was yours originally? Shapeshifting? Super strength? Bullshittery?" 

"I used to be quirkless." All Might admitted, much to Midoriya's shock. 

"What?" Karma's voice was barely audible, his eyes no longer visible under the shadow cast by his hair. 

It was just the quiet before the storm, though, the explosion already brewing. 

"You were fucking quirkless? Are you sick in the head? Why the fuck are you acting like you're some natural born perfect hero who can do no wrong despite the people you fail and destruction that follows everywhere you go? How can you justify staying silent, or hell, contributing to the conversations about how those of us who are quirkless aren't worth shit when you were one of us?" Karma's face was turning red as his voice rose. "Us quirkless folks have our lives over before they even start and you're part of the reason why. Did it not cross your mind how much good you could have done if you even tried?" 

"It's important for the world to have a natural born hero who always smiles." All Might tried to argue, but Karma wasn't having it. 

"Important for who? For the kings of society with quirks, who have a million and one smiling heroes to look up to? Or for those of us like 3-E, who have been shunned forever because we can't regurgitate our stomachs or some shit like that? Who are told of everything we cannot be everywhere we look. It's not just heroes, you know? We're told we're not worth hiring in almost every job in case there's some kind of emergency! Is pandering to those people more important than the lives you could change simply for being their advocate?" Nagisa stayed silent beside Karma, knowing all too well where this was coming from. 

Karma didn't want a quirk, at least not enough to find a way to get or mimic one, rather he saw not having one as the perfect way to cut worthless people out of his life. But that didn't mean it hadn't burnt him. 

Nobody but them could ever know the reason Karma's parents left him, but the timing was too perfect for Karma to not have internalised the idea it was because he was quirkless. The last time he'd seen them was the day they'd got the results, after all. 

"The symbol of peace needs to be the number 1 hero. I couldn't be the number 1 hero if I spent all of my time talking about what quirkless people face." 

"Oh, so it's money? You get a nice fucking cheque for being the number 1 hero, and that money and the title mean more to you than actual impact. Face it, you abandoned the group you are from because it didn't suit the image you wanted. Trod us all down like we weren't what made you. Good to know the hero world is the exact fucking same as Kunugigaoka." 

And with that Karma was slamming the door behind him as he stormed off. 

"Karma!" Nagisa followed the other 3-E student. 

They still hadn't filed the paperwork, but they were trying to get it done early anyway. 

He hadn't even made it to the end of the corridor before Midoriya grabbed his arm. 

"Could you convince Karma that he's wrong? All Might isn't like that, he-" 

"I'm not going to try to persuade Karma of something I don't believe. If you want me to argue your case, prove it. Name one time All Might put helping the quirkless population over his reputation." Nagisa eyed Midoriya coldly, if he'd gained All Might's quirk it was likely Bakugo was right and he'd been quirkless before. 

"He- he really meant a lot to me before. He said anyone could be a hero and it made me want to push myself to become like him." Midoriya still looked panicked. 

"And why did he give you his quirk?" 

"Well- because.. Because I wanted to be a hero and-" 

"And quirkless people can't be heroes?" Nagisa knew he'd guessed right from the look on Midoriya's face. "Face it, Midoriya, he cares about his image before he cares about any of us." 

----- 

"I'm not going to apologise." Karma didn't look as Nagisa jumped up to the roof beside him, continuing to pick at his teeth. 

Students clearly weren't supposed to be on the roof; the two boys had been forced to climb up through an open window on the top floor. With the heights of everything at UA it was certainly a precarious place to put yourself in. 

"Why would I ask you to apologise when you're right?" Nagisa took a seat beside the red head, both sets of legs dangling dangerously over the unprotected drop. 

"Then why did you follow me?" Karma sounded more tired than annoyed. 

"Last time I saw you this on edge, you jumped off a cliff." Nagisa pressed their shoulders together, enjoying the wind in his short hair as he watched the clouds float by. "Forgive me for not wanting you to do that again." 

"I'm sorry." Karma couldn't think of anything else he could say. At the time he felt like his only purpose was killing Korosensei, it's not like he'd had much else going for him. 

"I don't need an apology, just don't do it again." Nagisa pressed a carton of strawberry milk to Karma's cheek. "I stopped by the canteen, thought this might make you feel a little better." 

Karma finally drew his hand away from his mouth, his eyes wide as he took Nagisa in. He looked the same as he always did now, a sense of confidence he'd always lacked now pouring from him. It made him just a little less likely to fade into the background. 

"Nagisa," Karma accepted the gift without thinking. "I love you." 

"I know." Nagisa turned from the sky to Karma, a smile brighter than he had seen before on the teen's face. "I love you too." 

"I mean I'm in-" 

Before Karma could try to explain himself, that this wasn't a kind of thanks or the same affection he felt for the rest of 3-E, his lips had been stolen. It wasn't like the kind Bitch-sensei had taught them; Nagisa wasn't going for a high point count, it was more... Honest. 

When Nagisa pulled his lips away he continued to rest his forehead against Karma's. 

"I know." 

Chapter Text

"It happened, didn't it?" Fuwa's eyes sparkled as she clung to Karma's arm at the end of lunch.

Nagisa had brought Karma back down for the last 10 minutes, Kaede having bought them both small pots full of rice so they could eat something more significant than milk before they had to get back to classes. Karma had been too distracted to eat though, somewhere near cloud 9 before Fuwa brought him back down to Earth.

"What happened?" Karma whispered, unsure if she had really just announced something had happened or if he had just not been paying close enough attention.

"You and Nagisa are a couple now!" Fuwa's tone was more akin to a stage whisper than Karma as she shook him violently, his face turning red.

"We- we haven't exactly agreed to that yet." Karma turned away, though her grip was tighter than he had expected. "He does like me back though, and we kissed."

From Karma's new perspective he saw Kaede turn away, hair covering her face as she tossed what was left of her food. Even the pudding she'd usually savour as they walked back to class. It was unlike her, but Rinka and Chiba were more likely to be able to talk to her about it.

"Okay, so explain how mutual confession and a kiss doesn't mean dating." Fuwa kept her grip on Karma's arm, though her other hand was on her hip. "That's like... The easiest way for a relationship to start."

"I-" Karma sighed. "Look, it's not that I don't want to or anything like that, just... I don't want to say we are before we talk about it."

"Fine, fine." Fuwa let him go, raising both hands in a mock surrender. "Just don't act offended when you get laughed at for clarifying the obvious."

"I wouldn't be going to you anyway." Karma waved over his shoulder as he ran to catch up to Nagisa, most of 3-E headed in the opposite direction.

"How about the arcade after school today?" Nagisa held a hand out for Karma to take as the red head slowed back down to match his pace.

"We have training at the mountain every day this week though." Karma looked down at Nagisa, who was laughing affectionately while rolling his eyes.

"Never thought I'd live to see the day you were the studious one." Nagisa pinned Karma to the wall in one smooth motion that was somehow both incredibly attractive and intimidating despite Karma having damn near every advantage. "But I think we can skip some training for our first date, don't you?"

-----

"Oh, and I forgot to say earlier. Minetta, you're expelled." Aizawa brought the final lesson to a close as he closed the door behind him, paying the noise his statement caused no mind.

"Fucking finally." Karma muttered, taking a seat on Nagisa's desk.

"That- that's not fair!" Minetta stood on his chair as he tried to argue for his right to stay in the class, but Karma wasn't the only one glad to hear he was gone. "I get kicked out just before the sports festival without even having a reason!"

"Our teacher is Aizawa." Nagisa leaned back in his seat as Karma looked through his bag for some sweets. "He's expelled entire classes before without giving a reason. It's honestly impressive you got it this far."

"You spent the entire villain attack scream crying, making sexual comments about me, and saying we should just wait to be saved, kero. It doesn't even sound like you want to be a hero. Kero." Tsuyuu croaked, tongue poking out of her mouth the whole time.

"I do want to be a hero!" Minetta pointed at her aggressively. "How else am I supposed to get chicks to like me!?"

"And that's why you're getting expelled." Karma rolled his eyes, hopping to his feet again as he tossed a mint to Nagisa. "It's not like I have honest motivations to be a hero, but I'm better than you. You want a girlfriend? Fix yourself."

"What do you know? You don't have a girlfriend!" Minetta turned his grubby finger towards Karma.

"No, but I also don't want one." Karma shrugged. "Probably still had more confessions from girls than you."

"When did that happen?" Nagisa raised an eyebrow.

"Before I got sent to the end class." Karma shrugged. "Apparently I gave off 'charming bad boy' energy until I just became quirkless scum."

"Too bad for them." Nagisa laughed.

"Love women, wouldn't date one." It was probably why Karma found it so easy to get on with the girls in his previous classes too.

He knew full well he'd been a few women's shields before, apparently some men found it hard to treat them like women. Of course, he'd had a rather significant identity crisis before Nagisa told him he was a guy.

"That's sad." Mina flung herself at Karma, though he dodged, the girls seeming to have decided it was best to ignore Minetta now.

"No, it's called being gay." Karma replied brightly as Uraraka opened the door, freezing as she was met by a swarm of students from other classes.

"Wh- wh- what's going on!?" Uraraka's voice shook as she exclaimed about the overwhelming number of people at their door.

"What business do you have with Class A?" Iida demanded as if the other students were under interrogation.

"We can't get out!" Minetta complained, as though he wasn't just acting like he'd stay in his seat until Aizawa un-expelled him.

"Rio!" Karma wrapped his arm around the blonde's neck, seemingly summoning her to the front of the crowd. "We've got a vacancy in 1-A now, join the hero class with me?"

"Hell no." Rio snorted, twisting Karma's hand off her. "Why would I join the class for the goodie two shoes of the world?"

"Come on, please? It's so boring." Karma whined, though he stopped trying to stop us. "I knew it wouldn't be as interesting as last year, but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad."

"You literally got attacked by villains less than a month ago." Someone Karma didn't recognise with white hair and oddly dramatic eyelashes raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know, only once so far this term. It's disappointing." Karma shook his head, hands raised in a frozen shrug.

"You weren't even off suspension this time last year, how would you know what it was like?" Rio rolled her eyes, poking him in the side as back in the classroom Nagisa pulled out his phone.

"With sensei as your teacher there's no way it was this boring. We got one pathetic villain attack, otherwise the only excitement is the Pomeranian screaming at people." Karma gestured over his shoulder to where Bakugo was already yelling.

"Oh, poor you." Kaede joined the two most chaotic members of the old class, hands on her hips. "Meanwhile those of us in 1-B have to put up with a worse version of Karma."

"Fuck." Nagisa dropped his phone to his desk, ignoring Iida's reprimand as he ran his hands up his face and into his hand, freezing the playful squabble at the door.

"What's up?" Rio asked, her and Akari crossing the invisible threshold of 1-A's classroom none of the rest of the rest of the crowd seemed willing to break.

"Shit." Karma's tone was flat as he looked at Nagisa's phone.

"What?" Akari looked between the two.

"Takaoka escaped." Nagisa lay his head on the desk, groaning.

"The fuck are they even doing!?" Rio grabbed Nagisa's phone this time, hands shaking.

"I'm going to regret asking, but who's Takaoka?" Jiro sighed, asking the question on the tips of everyone's tongues.

"Oh, just the ex PE teacher who holds a grudge against Nagisa and tried to poison most of the class." Kaede rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of, please be careful about what you eat and drink. We survived because the assassins he hired didn't want to kill kids. They will not all have such moral issues with killing you, especially being in the hero course." Nagisa picked his head up to address the rest of the class. "We can't be sure which class he'll go after, but he's definitely going to come after me again."

"Of course the class A student won't think about the rest of the school. Is it alright if we all die?" The blond boy at the door's words made Akari roll her eyes as Nagisa just stared at him.

"Nagisa isn't in your class. He's never been in your class." Karma spelled out for him. "Sure, be careful about what you eat, but you're not really at risk."

Before the blond could reply, the wall near the back of the classroom exploded, Itona visible in the dust of the rubble.

"I couldn't get through." Itona's monotonous explanation didn't reduce the shock of the members of 1-A as he walked through the hole he had just created.

"I'm not fixing that." Karma raised his hands.

"You didn't even help last time." Kaede pointed out.

"Rude!" Karma pretended to gasp, laying a hand over his heart, a few other 3-E students entering through the broken wall. "I was directing."

"Not really." Maehara shrugged as he walked over. "Nagisa and Isogai were more useful at that than you were. You were just sitting on the roof messing with your phone."

"Meeting in the classroom below!" Ritsu's voice came from their phones.

"Well, it's been a pleasure to ignore you. Until next time." Karma offered a salute to the crowd as they each jumped from the window to the room below.

-----

"So much for going on a date." Nagisa dropped his bag on Karma's sofa after they were finally allowed back.

Karasuma had instructed them to go nowhere alone, and they'd all been assigned at least 2 guards he trusted. For today Nagisa and Karma were allowed to stay at Karma's to do their best to have a first date knowing they were being watched. They were allowed to stay together, but as they both effectively didn't have families they were going to use a decoy in Karma's place and he'd have to stay with Karasuma. Nagisa had the choice of staying with Aizawa or Karasuma.

"We can always rewatch the first Sonic Ninja film." Karma suggested. "I probably have some snacks."

"You get the snacks and I'll get us drinks?" Nagisa suggested, taking what of a date they could.

They had met because of the series after all. It would be nicer if they could go to a cinema, but there was too much risk of a poisoning if they did that. A date at Karma's was better than none.

"Sure." Karma shrugged, the two boys heading to the kitchen.

"You're out of milk." Nagisa commented as he pulled open the fridge, scanning to see what Karma had.

"Nagisa, you're lactose intolerant." Karma snorted as he raided his cupboards. "Besides, I doubt I'm going to be allowed back within the week. It would have gone bad anyway."

"Then we should probably eat these." Nagisa pulled out a plate of brownies, putting them on the side as he closed the fridge again, finding nothing to drink in there so deciding to make them tea. "You should probably buy healthier food though."

"Oh, I made those, I think they're pretty good. I put some spices and fruit in them." Karma had made them one evening when he couldn't sleep. He hadn't really had a plan when he was making them, but he enjoyed them. "And I know, but I can't always be bothered."

"Well there's no way Karasuma will let you off leaving your vegetables. At least we'll still be able to spend plenty of time together." Nagisa pressed a kiss on Karma's cheek as he passed.

"Hey," Karma grabbed Nagisa's wrist as the other moved away. "Are we like... Official now? Or is this something more casual?"

"Well I'd like to be official. I don't see this," Nagisa gestured between them, "as casual. Not sure I can view someone as casually dateable."

"Good." Karma let out a sigh as he pressed a kiss to the back of Nagisa's hand before letting go. "Because I don't see us as casual either."

-----

"So Business Studies don't really participate in the festival?" Kanzaki's soft voice could be heard from the ground floor of Karasuma's house the day before the festival.

Karasuma was taking part in a meeting through an online call, Irina helping to act as guard, though she was pretending to cook. In reality, she was just heating through a meal Karasuma had prepared earlier for the kids' meal.

"We're in the stands selling whatever we choose and have to come back with a plan to advertise at least one student as a hero." Muramatsu explained, trying to catch a grape in his mouth after he threw it in the air.

"That helps us do that then. Thanks for making it Sugaya." Rio smirked, nudging the artist with her shoulder.

"It wasn't difficult. I just hope it gets enough attention."