Chapter 68:

The next week for the UA students, the hero course specifically, was completely boring and held no substance for them. They had come back from their internships, with the star of class 1-A being Momo Yaoyorozu, the class president of the class in question, who had taken down a Yakuza-related Trigger supplying ring. With a close runner-up being Tsuyu Asui who had shared her story of taking down a thief at sea.

Melissa wasn't the center of attention with her Hosu buddies as they were ordered to not talk about it, and nobody bothered them with wanting the details after Momo convinced the class that the trio was under an NDA. She was exhausted and was resting her sore upper body against the desk. The injuries weren't from the numerous nomu, they were from Gran Torino. The old man just loved targeting her diaphragm, she assumed it was him giving her a taste of her own medicine for what she did to Toga during the sports festival.

Their exciting tales helped cover up the depression that they both felt when they had to fill in all the extensive paperwork for their escapades. While others regaled the class of their internships and tried their best to hype up their own experiences to match the two girls, which ended up falling short apart from Mina and Toga's who carried their respective stories with their unmatched energy when telling it.

The main character who the entire class thought did nothing for the entire week, Sakuya, was matching Melissa with resting her head on the desk, trying to get some sleep. Some assumed that she was up all night causing terror on an unknown timeline, but they were wrong. She hadn't slept well for the past week because of her memories coming back to her of a time when she was, to put it bluntly, a horrendous bitch.

Thoughts of how to make amends with Victoria were a constant that plagued Sakuya's mind. She couldn't just apologize, could she? Nope, any sane person wouldn't care about an apology after all she did and she knew that. So, she tried to think of a way to help Victoria without raising suspicion towards herself. She had zero ideas for now but wanted them quickly.

- - - - - - - -

(Sakuya POV)

'Why couldn't I have just not given the power of love to the OAA, couldn't I have at least kept some? How can someone with omniscient capabilities not know how bad of an idea it is to remove all the love from themselves? It truly baffles me...'

I let my mind wander idly after that thought as I gazed lovingly at Momo. I knew she wanted answers, or for me to just rely on her more, but I would only allow her one of those. I'm far too ashamed of what I did to reveal to Momo in depth.

It was a delicate situation that I truly never wanted to ever be in, but I was so I have to stomach it for now. She gave me a smile in response when she noticed my gaze on her, before turning back to the conversation she was having with Toga.

I understood what the past version of me longed for now, she wanted completeness, and I had that completeness- or rather -I was as close to feeling complete as I currently could. My son was still out there with the part of me that created him, but other than that I was whole. Momo was the key to that, and because of my past actions of terror, I could currently be with Momo. It was a tiny, minuscule, silver lining regarding my past actions, but It was a silver lining nonetheless.

"How did it feel beating up the yakuza, did you become their boss after you beat them? Did you? I always thought you had yakuza princess energy, Yaomomo!" I overheard Toga say.

'Yakuza Momo, huh? Damn, she'd be hot as hell tatted up in a kimono...' I fantasized.

"No, I'm not, nor ever will be a yakuza member, or leader, or princess, Toga."

"Eh?! Why not~? Saku-tan seems to like the idea."

"Huh?"

Without missing a beat as Momo turned to me, I stared her right in the eyes and said with a blush and slight drool running down my lips,

"Mhm! You'd be hot as hell, babe!"

"Hm~? Am I not hot enough for you already?" She asked with a raised brow.

Without answering, I reached over to touch her before messing around with my newfound powers, specifically the reality-warping aspect, and made it seem as if my finger was smoking and mimicking a hissing noise.

"That answer your question? Or~, should I get physical to show you how much I appreciate your smoking body?" I purred.

"Ewww~! Keep your fucking in the bedroom!" Toga said jokingly with a mock cringe.

Before the now cherry red Momo could reply, the door to the classroom had opened. Instead of the usual Homeless-san that entered the door, it was the Insomniac Eggplant aka Shinso Hitoshi. He had obviously overslept despite never looking as if he ever slept at all, it was quite the mystery.

"Shinso, why are you late?" Momo questioned, taking on a serious tone.

'I guess she cares about her position as class president, huh?' I pondered.

Shinso gave a half-assed wave and said,

"I was up all night, and slept late."

"You sleep?!" Was the overwhelming response from the students.

He connected the dots between the class' outburst and my nickname of insomniac for him, so he glared at me as best as his dead fish eyes could. It was a pathetic glare, but it got the point across. To combat this, I smirked and gave him a thumbs up.

"Huh? Of course, I sleep! I would be hospitalized or dead if I didn't. You all need to stop believing everything Sakuya says."

"Are you calling me untrustworthy?"

"Yes."

"Fair enough," I said with a shrug.

As he made his way to his seat in front of me, something weird happened. Homeless-sensei entered the room. Now, this isn't inherently weird normally, but he chose to do it in the weirdest way so far. He propelled himself up to the window from outside and entered through the window.

"Morning, brats."

"Good morning, Aizawa-sensei!"

"Nothing is good about this morning, especially for you. Today your typical homeroom stuff has been replaced due to the better facilities in place, we will be going on a tour and then awakening your quirks. If you wish to not have your quirk awakened, that's fine too, the process isn't mandatory and not something for the faint of heart. Now, pack up and come with me as I give you the mandatory tour otherwise my pay gets docked."

"Damn… what a terrible teacher, only cares about the money… However will I be able to succeed academically with such a person guiding me… woe is me!"

"Shut up, you've already completed all of your tests, there are no more academics for you to succeed in here. I am eagerly counting down the days until you can no longer bother me... as much."

Naturally, the reveal that I had completed all of my academic tests was a shock to all outside of my friend group. Confused murmurs escaped my classmates as they tried to understand why I still attended class. Homeless-san decided to enlighten them all as to my situation.

"She's only attending until she can take the licensing exam, when she completes that she will be a fully-fledged hero as it will allow her to upgrade her existing medical hero license into a hybrid one that gives the benefits of both. Until then, she's stuck attending class."

"She gets to have a head start on the hero rankings?!"

I was wondering where Bakugo was. I guess him being quiet and peaceful made him invisible, almost like it's the opposite of his entire personality and it made him too unnoticeable.

"You seriously think that the HPSC would let Sakuya, the person who has been the biggest opposition to their company and hero society as a whole as of recent years, get high on the rankings that they control? Just think about it, bro." Kirishima said, sounding weirdly smart for once.

"Woah, bro, this is the longest I think I've heard you speak without saying 'manly'," Sero added.

"Big brain time." Kaminari chimed in with a goofy smile.

I saw Homeless-san activate his quirk and glared at the trio of boys who were in their own world. They quickly quieted down and got to packing their bags once again. He cleared his throat and addressed Bakugo, to make sure that he wouldn't blow a fuse or something.

"Kirishima's right, Bakugo. Sakuya is on the rankings currently too, but they have probably shadow-banned her from climbing higher on it as she hasn't moved from her initial position. So, you don't have to worry about the 'headstart' as you call it."

'Hmm, that's true… I should probably create my own hero ranking system free from HPSC influence. I will contact Manami about that later on, as she's too busy with creating the interface for the teleportation company.'

Momo noticed my absentmindedness and quickly brought me back to reality with a squeeze of my hand. I squeezed back, and leaned on her shoulder, before portalling our bags back to our dorm room. I had no idea why he wanted us to pack up for a tour, but I did know that I wasn't going to bother carrying my bag with me throughout the entire thing.

"Alright, follow me as we need to meet up with Vlad King's class."

"Dad's coming on the tour too?! Ugh..." Toga whined half-heartedly.

Momo obviously missed the half-hearted tone Toga used when whining and gently scolded the girl,

"Toga, your father is an admirable hero and hero course teacher in the school, it was only natural he would be touring with us. Also, you shouldn't be embarrassed about your father's… caring personality, it's endearing in a way."

Not even me, being blinded by my love for this woman next to me, believed her words at all. Instead of caring, it should be more like overbearing. That's not to say that Kan didn't care for Toga deeply, because he truly does. Toga and Alluka are all he ever talks about whenever he's given the chance to, so it's obvious he cares deeply about his daughters, both adopted and genetic, the same huge amount.

"You don't get it, Yaomomo, your dad's all cool and doesn't hug you out of nowhe-"

"Pfft! Toga, Mitaka dotes on Momo just as much as Kan does for you. The only difference is that Mitaka isn't always around Momo like Kan is for you because of the dorms." I enlightened her.

"Tch. Alright, but she has your dad as an in-law, and he's cool! Huh? What about that?!"

I had no idea why she was acting this smug. Sure, my father in this world is Dio, which was pretty cool until he turned into a person who tries to make every dad joke he can while speaking to me to catch up for all the years he missed.

"I'll take this one, dear. Toga, while Dio is indeed cool, to begin with, because of his title and quirk, etc. However! He wears crocs, which instantly demotes him on the cool scale for committing that unforgivable sin." Momo said wisely.

"Yeah… I guess. But, can't you just ignore his crocs? Because, if you do, then he's cool!"

"Toga, one can never ignore crocs, they are simply too powerful. It would also go against everything I believe in if I ever saw a person wearing crocs and tried to ignore that crime against fashion as if nothing wrong happened. It is my duty as a hero to prevent such crimes from taking place, and educate the youth about these matters to prevent future crime!" I lectured.

"Laying it on a bit thick there, dear. I think she understands your opinion on crocs now."

Before our brilliant conversation about crocs and my crusade against them could go on any longer, Kan and 1-B had met up with us outside on the field where I assumed the tour was going to start. Yui upon spotting me instantly departed from her group and made her way over to me and Momo.

I pretended that I didn't notice her doing so, because if I looked at her when she was walking over she would have frozen up on the spot and waited for me to come to her. Yui was an anomaly, but she was a cute robot-like one that I didn't mind. She eventually reached me and tugged on the sleeve of my free hand.

"Hm? Oh, Yui, what's wrong?"

"Hand, please."

Now I was confused, but I decided to ask what she meant instead of trying to figure it out for myself,

"Your hand? Did you hurt yourself earlier?"

She shook her head in negative, before holding onto my free hand with her own. I now understood what she wanted, but it was a pointless revelation as she had taken what she wanted for herself. I felt Momo squeeze my hand gently when Yui held my other one before I reassured Momo with a squeeze of my own. I knew she wasn't jealous of Yui, as I described the stoic girl as my child to her most of the time, but she was a little possessive regardless.

"I see, you want to hold hands, huh?"

I only received a nod this time instead of her usual affirmative hum, but I didn't press the matter further. The tour started soon after, with us visiting all of the places I had to upgrade during my week off, which was as boring as I thought it would be, but the presence of so many people and Shinso pissing off Monoma and vice versa was a nice thing that helped me through my boredom.

Near the end of the tour, we reached what I could only describe as a fancy torture ground. It was the quirk awakening facility. Homeless-san and Kan led us into the building and sat us down in a room. It was similar to a typical classroom, just that there were no windows. Kan took the stand as soon as we were all seated and started speaking.

"This is, as you've read on the sign outside, the quirk awakening facility. I'm sure some of you have some questions about what a quirk awakening is, and I will do my best to answer them with the knowledge provided to me."

He pulled out a clipboard from the drawer in the pillar and continued,

"After initial Quirk manifestation, it is possible for the user to undergo an "Awakening" later in life. The right emotional catalyst can cause Quirks to evolve, with the catalyst usually being extreme amounts of stress like one would experience in a life-or-death scenario. This results in one's Quirk gaining a new level of strength and/or new aspects to its nature that were previously not possible as a last-ditch effort for your body to survive. It is a rare occurrence to happen naturally, and we have now got the equipment to do so with 100% reliability."

He let the information soak in, and I heard some worried murmurs. I couldn't blame them, Kan did just drop a bomb on them that their quirks could evolve and that they may have to experience a life-or-death scenario to make it happen.

Naturally, they wouldn't be in a situation like that, and the smarter ones knew that, but it would still be immensely painful nonetheless. Granted, I couldn't make the pain last long, because Fluffy-chan requested me to make it quick. Naturally, I still made it last at least a minute, because it should hurt.

"I will be completely honest with you all, the process is as painful as you can possibly imagine. You will cry, scream, shout, and probably much more but we have managed to improve the process so it only takes under a minute instead of the typical 10-15 that it did before.

This process isn't mandatory, you CAN opt-out and we won't judge you for it. For those of you that wish to go through the process, follow Eraserhead. For those of you that don't, you can stay here with me, while we watch those who do to give you an idea of what they go through."

Kirishima, who I've confirmed to have awakened his quirk by himself after the sports festival, myself, Momo, Toga, Mina, Yui, Shoto, Reiko, and Melissa didn't move. We already had awakened quirks- or in Melissa's case, a quirk that can't be awakened. It would be a changing point in their lives, while it would be boring for us.

"You're not coming. Yaomomo?" Jiro asked as she got up to leave.

"I already have gone through my awakening, so the procedure is useless for me."

"Ah, I see. Was it in this building or naturally? How did it feel?"

"Neither, Sakuya had done it for me a few years ago. As for how it felt? I'm confident in saying it's going to be the most painful experience you will ever go through."

'She left out how she moaned constantly throughout it...'

"Yikes, that bad, huh? Still gonna go through with it, though, my quirk needs as much of a boost as it can get. See ya when I get back, Yaomomo."

As they all left the room and our group alone, with Kendo deeply regretting not having me awaken her quirk years before even more now on her way out, Kan started speaking again.

"Now that they have left, I have to say I'm surprised. I would have thought that at least one of the more squeamish students would have hung back, this is better, though."

"Huh? Is it really that bad, sensei?" Melissa asked, blissfully unaware of the suffering that was about to be thrown upon her schoolmates.

However, before Kan could answer the room erupted into a cacophony, with everybody but myself trying to tell tales of their 'suffering' at my gracious hands to Melissa to enlighten her.

"I nearly died!"

"It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and that's saying something."

"Hn!"

"My bones felt like they were melting my flesh off of my body. I had always wondered what it was like being a sacrifice in a dark ritual, and I think I had it worse than those people."

"I did melt!"

"I threw myself out of my dorm room window to awaken it, which was super manly! Well…apart from when I landed on the fence, I nearly lost my manly parts..."

"Kiri... isn't the fence spiked?!"

Their tales went on for a few minutes, to which I got enlightened to some information I didn't know. One such tidbit was Kirishima's awakening process which involved him throwing himself out of his window.

'I guess the adrenaline combined with the fear of having his penis impaled on the fence awakened it.' I theorized briefly before Kan's voice brought me out of my thoughts.

"Melissa, the only footage we have of an awakening taking place is of Sakuya's own one. I'm sure I can ask the principal for access to the recording if you want. I feel like that should give you an idea of what it's like."

"No, that's fine, I don't want to both-"

"Screw that! I want to see Saku-tan on the other end for once!" Toga interjected.

There was a short chorus of agreements, with everybody eager to see me in pain. It was touching to see. Kan, always eager to give Toga whatever she wanted, got on the phone with Fluffy-chan. Momo squeezed my hand to catch my attention before asking,

"Why do they have footage of your awakening?"

"..."

"You put on a 'show', didn't you?" She was disappointed, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough.

"Of course, I did! It would have been criminal not to, so as a hero, I had to do it."

She let out a sigh as she leaned against my shoulder,

"How bad is it?"

"Not that bad, however, I'm thankful that Ibara isn't here right now.'

"Did you crucify yourself?"

"No, it was a bit satanic and cult-like though," I admitted.

She didn't bother speaking anymore, opting to make some headphones and an eye mask. She probably didn't want to watch me in pain, which was touching if I was right. As soon as the scene of my awakening came up on the screen, I toned it out. I didn't want to hear my own muffled screaming, it was weird.

When it was over, I was too busy watching over the awakening room in my astral body to hear the reactions to the scene. The other group's muffled screaming was something that I could get enjoyment from, so I naturally decided it was more important than the usual outrage and/or disbelief I heard regarding my actions.

Going through some people's newly gained quirks I noticed that they were all interesting. Sero could now fire tape from all of his joints which now have greater adhesive power. Kaminari could now store electricity inside of his body, allowing him to have safe discharges without frying his brain. Jiro seemed to have gained some ports on her neck for her jacks, allowing her to have an attack similar to Present Mic's quirk.

The most interesting, however, was Shoji who now had Body Manipulation, a power with a lot of potential despite the fact it only worked on his own body.

I watched on as everybody recovered from their minute in hell, before returning to my own body in the other part of the building. I was being given worried looks, which I answered with my own confused look.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Are you okay?" Toga asked in return.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Nevermind..."

It was a bit weird of an interaction, but I put it down to them asking my body questions while I wasn't in it. I should probably make sure to put a copy of my consciousness into my body in the future, it would certainly prevent a scenario like this from happening again.

The next 10 or so minutes were spent with the new additions to the awakened quirk club. They were all excited to test their quirks out, and they were given that opportunity. The rest of the day was spent in Gym Gamma, commonly known as the Training Kitchen Land. I had no idea why it was called that over the easier-to-say Gym Gamma, but I didn't care enough to change everyone's minds.

I spent the entire time with Momo instead of training, I didn't need to train at all, it was pointless. Momo didn't either, the only training she needed was for her imagination which the training session couldn't provide. She did, however, bring up the point of Toru's quirk and how the invisible girl wanted to see herself again.

So, I spent an hour trying to teach her how her quirk, which was originally a form of light manipulation and now upgraded into a light-based illusion quirk, worked. It worked oddly similar to the Overactive Imagination semblance from RWBY, just with some tweaks here and there. She managed to get the hang of things pretty quickly, but didn't reveal herself. She wanted that moment to be with her family, which was a sentiment I could understand.

Which brings me to now, where I was back in class and waiting for the perpetually grumpy homeless man to decide to open his mouth and speak. He has been at the stand just looking at all of us, I think he was trying to build suspense, but he didn't realize there needs to be a buildup for that. What he was actually doing was staring at a bunch of school children, which I'm sure was what he didn't intend for it to come off like.

"Aizawa-sen-"

Before Iida could even finish his sentence, Homeless-san interrupted him,

"Shut up, brats. I have some important news for you, your final exams are in a week. Now, I know that you all just got improvements to your quirks and need to make modifications to your costumes, etc., etc. Which is why I am giving you a week.

Now, this may not seem like long, but it is. You have full access to the time chambers to train, and a week to run your costumes through the support course. So, in actuality, it's more than enough time. That is it from me, you still have your mock English test with Mic next period, good luck."

'Did he wait for us to speak before telling us to shut up? Was that a power play? Did he just assert his dominance on Iida?' I had so many questions, but no answers to them as he had already vanished.