39

Chapter 39

After the meeting with the principal, every one of them — their friends who stayed around included — were escorted home for safety purposes. Aizawa had seen a few of his classmates home, the detective the rest of them, and Ectoplasm had accompanied the third-year students with Mirio.

Izuku and his mother, on the other hand, got to ride with the Americans to their apartment they called home.

"Thank you so much for looking after Izuku," his mother bowed to the hero as they made it outside their apartment. She turned to the younger girl next. "It was nice to finally meet you, too, Miss Shield. Please, let me treat you to some tea for your troubles."

"We'd love some," Star answered for them both, following the green-haired family inside. "It's nice to finally meet you too, Misses Midoriya. I've been wanting to see the people responsible for raising your little champ. He put on one hell of a show at the Sports Festival; I can't wait to see how it goes next year."

Izuku's mother matched the flushed expression he grew as he tried to hide around the couch. "Izuku takes after his father, really, but I fear All-Might inspired a lot of his ingenuity. I'd rather he not take such bold actions when it can be helped."

Sparking something inside of the younger blonde, Melissa parted from the adults and joined the green-haired teen by the couch. "I keep forgetting to ask you about that; the minefield at the end of the first event. How did you manage to propel yourself forward like that?"

He remembered the drop-kick he got right after that and tried to hide his wince through his prior embarrassment. "They were harmless explosives, as far as I could tell, so I thought I'd try to be at an angle so I could catch up in the right direction." He could see his mother's shoulders slump, and remembered just how aghast she was when he chose to explain it to her too.

"That first explosion was pretty big, though. You made them look a lot more dangerous than they were."

"Well" — he swallowed the rock in his throat and looked away — "I…threw a mine on top of another mine to do that."

The American hero's booming laugh shook the tension in his shoulders. "No wonder you remind me so much of Master; I remember him doing something similar back in Texas," she reminisced. "Given, that was a gasoline truck and he at least braced himself with another car first. You were right; your son has learned much from him."

"Yes," his mother nodded. "Please don't teach him any of your own reckless ideas. I don't doubt you inspire him too." The hero just laughed again while his mother turned to the two teens. "Izuku, why don't you show her your room? She's a fan of heroes too, right? I'm sure Shield would be interested in posters and merchandise you've collected." The last thing Izuku wanted to do was exactly that. He had moved around most of his hero memorabilia to begin with, so there wasn't much he could show without opening some boxes and opening himself to that conversation.

To his simultaneous saving grace and dismay, Star turned to his mother with a playful smile. "I don't know; Melissa is a big fan of your son, too. We shouldn't permit two teenagers to go to a room together." Thus he was now sharing his embarrassment with the red-faced blonde by his side.

"Don't just say stuff like that, Star!" the teenage girl shrieked across the room. "It's embarrassing! Izuku and I wouldn't do stuff like that, we're just friends! How would you feel if I said that stuff about you and All-Might?"

The hero's face turned deathly serious. "Don't you dare. That is highly unprofessional."

"Then stop it!"

"I'm an adult!" the blonde woman defended herself. "I have an obligation to give youngsters a hard time! It's completely different!"

Through their argument and the steaming teapot, Izuku's mother looked across the room to him. "You two seem really close. Izuku told me you weren't family, but I don't think I would have known otherwise."

"They're still not," Izuku reinforced.

His mother hummed. "It must be a shared character trait of being an All-Might fan." She turned back to the stove before he could even speak to defend himself. What did he even do?

"Backing up a bit" — Star interrupted her argument with Melissa — "I would like to see your All-Might collection, if you don't mind. Back home, I don't even get to go undercover at Comic Cons and mingle with the fellow fans of our planet's number one. The little one's been a fresh air of shared interest, but I could always use another partner in crime. What's the rarest item you have?"

Instinctively and off the top of his head, Izuku answered, "The Golden Age Power figurine number two from the JumpShow Medal collection, unopened."

The hero looked at him awestruck. "Take me to your room and show me."

His mother set a steaming teacup just on the counter beside the hero, nursing another in her own hands. "Now now, I thought letting my son take a girl to his room was unwise? Do you think you are exempt?"

Izuku could hear his brain shut down, feel Melissa beside him cough on air and hold onto his shoulder for support, and watch the composed American hero lose her cool and jump out of her seat, face as red as he felt. "Where the heck did that come from?! I thought we were in this together!"

"As his mother, teasing him is my job and my job alone. That law is not up for interpretation."

Thankfully all parties agreed to drop the conversation and sit down for the tea together. Talk bounced around casually instead; from Melissa's life on I-island; Star and Stripe's work as a hero in America; what All-Might movies Izuku had seen; and his mother's own work life. He and his mother agreed to meet again the next day with the American duo, after the desire for his mother to learn more about Melissa was declared. Izuku was happy they got along so well so quickly, even if his mother made another joke about them despite their peace treaty. After a few cups, the Midoriyas were saying goodnight to their guests to go their separate ways for dinner, promising to see them tomorrow before Izuku closed the door behind them.

"They are quite nice people," his mother mused, and he walked back to the kitchen to join her at the table. "To think All-Might knows two kids without a quirk and didn't trade their numbers sooner."

He could only resign a sigh through his heating face. "Melissa's a good friend, but I don't see her like that, mom."

She hummed back. "I wasn't insinuating anything. I'm happy you're continuing to make new friends." Her smile carried true, and he managed to return one in thanks. Then her eye trailed down his body, and he could feel the open hole in his school's shirt brush against his exposed skin. She set down her cup and stood, reaching out to fiddle with the cut edges. "I'll have to see if I can sew this back together," she commented meekly. The smile from her face faded.

"I have more shirts," he noted softly. "More than enough every week. You don't need to do that." She only hummed again.

"Izuku." She spoke his name gently. "Do you feel safe at Yuei?"

He placed his hands over hers. "I do."

"Because of your friends?" she inquired further. "Do you trust your teachers are capable of protecting you too?"

"They're heroes, mom. They've been doing their best to keep my friends and I safe—"

"You've done your best to keep each other safe," she interrupted him, and before he could initiate it she had already wrapped him up in another hug. "Your nurse is the only teacher I've seen do anything to bring you back to me. Do you really trust the rest of them with your life?"

His hands fell on her back as he returned the hug, and rested his cheek atop her hair. "This wasn't their fault, mom. No one had any way of knowing who she was."

"They handed you over to Bang willingly. They let you and Bakugou fight each other twice. They don't stop people from saying all these mean things about you. They didn't stop you from fighting villains when it's their job first." His mother shuddered and tightened her hold. "Misses Ojiro was right to question what they're doing about this. Your teachers have permitted and allowed you to suffer too much. You shouldn't be having to do any of these things. I don't know how you can still have faith in them, Izuku."

They can't control everything, he argued but kept internal. He fought because he felt he needed to, and they could not predict the villains' invasion, this recent break-in or Bang's true intentions; though his fights with Bakugou weren't as controlled as they probably should have been for teachers who knew there was something between them. And the talk about him online wasn't something they were in charge of; accepting that people should know that much about him was a decision the principal put on his lap, but he accepted it of his own will. He knew his mother wouldn't agree to placing the blame on his shoulders, but he didn't want to throw all the responsibility on his teachers' shoulders; he had to bear some responsibility to keep himself safe for her sake.

"They're the first teachers I've liked having," Izuku admitted against the top of her head, another squeeze assuring him she heard. "And this is the first school where I feel I belong. Eraserhead came to see us at the hospital the morning after Hosu. Recovery Girl's done a great job cleaning me up on our rougher days. All-Might tells me I can be a hero. They haven't been there every time to protect me, but I know they'll still be there for me when I have to fall back on someone, as they have been already. They will keep me safe, mom; I promise."

"I'll make sure they do," she decided against his arm, and he huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. He trusted her, too.

The school cafeteria was much calmer than Izuku was expecting it to be on Monday. Not in the sense of it being loud and hectic, but that he assumed it would be as packed as he remembered it from the start of the year. Compared to then, there looked to be a whole chunk of extra space around the room; not because it changed size, but because he couldn't find a single member of the third-year students he could recognize anywhere in sight. Shiozaki failed to mention that.

"I am happy you could join us for lunch again, Midoriya," the vine-haired girl greeted him, setting herself and her lunch just across from him at the table. "Our class president's absence has been a noticeable missing light in this period, I believe Tokoyami put it." Izuku looked back to the line for food, passing over his friends helping Melissa choose something more than Star prepared for her, and found their bird-headed classmate chatting along with Shoji further down the line.

"Thanks for the warm welcome," he greeted back, before joking, "Can't you make your own light source?" He remembered it briefly in her match with Kirishima at the Sports Festival, when one of the light fixtures focused on her just at the start of their fight.

Shiozaki looked at him with an eyebrow raised in genuine confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You know, the—at the—when you—never mind." He waved a hand to end it. "Do you know where everyone is, by the way? You didn't tell me people went missing."

"I do not," the vine-haired girl answered with a shake of her head. "Our upperclassmen have not been absent to this extent before. I don't imagine every class is on their own field trip courses overlapping our lunch hour?"

Izuku didn't think that made sense either. Star had shared that the student the Hero Killer's supporter impersonated had been found — alive, luckily — and her parents were fine, but unsettled having housed the imposter without ever knowing when their daughter could have been attacked; he wondered if the whole year was taken aside regarding that matter, or something related to security protections the principal was implementing. Maybe they were being educated about the dormitories the principal mentioned, and the school had already rushed an example for them to judge and tell their parents about? Izuku would have to look around the school to notice any new buildings constructed on the premises.

The idea made some sense, as he looked around the cafeteria for a head-count once more. Some of the students he recognized from the second-year Sports Festival his mother recorded for him; his fellow first-years from the other hero class, business, support, design and development courses were mostly present, bar people probably eating where they wanted like he and his friends did; and…

Bakugou's eyes met his from across the cafeteria. The blond sat himself in the furthest corner of the room, with the only student closely seated to him being the purple-haired kid from General Studies Izuku remembered after the USJ; and even then there was a good meter or two of distance between them. Bakugou made no sudden movements when he noticed Izuku, nor any gestures towards him. After several seconds of a shared silence between them, the blond tore his eyes away and focused on his meal. Izuku did the same.

"I am perplexed that Yuei permits him to stay," Shiozaki commented, and Izuku found her looking back over her shoulder to their once-classmate. "His attitude matches his quirk too closely; it is unfit for a prospecting hero. I would be blind to call the 'relationship' between you two a rivalry, after all he's done." She looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

"In a sense," Izuku admitted. "No one else at Aldera wanted to go to Yuei other than us, so I was the only person who was ever 'competition' to him. No one even called it a rivalry; Bakugou was the only one who cared about it."

"Sounds more like jealousy than a rivalry."

Izuku snorted humorlessly. "More of an insult to his 'perfect backstory.' He had to be the only one growing up striving for something greater than anyone else, so if anyone did look up to the same goal as him, it was a threat." Term used loosely, of course, because when was he ever a threat to Bakugou? "He admires All-Might, last I remember — wanted to be a hero like him. Maybe the principal thinks that side of him can be helped and the rest of him treated."

Izuku wasn't sure there was another explanation for it; after two fights that nearly killed him under their eye, why wouldn't Yuei expel Bakugou? It was the only chink in the school's promise for his protection and treatment that always caught his eye upon review. What admiration he had for the blond boy — striving to be great and pushing himself to excel in everything being as admirable an attitude as it could be viewed in isolation — Izuku lost on live television.

"Do you believe it is possible?" Shiozaki asked him. "To believe he is capable of change; understanding right from wrong and the consequences of his actions?"

"He's not my responsibility. If he can isn't up to me; it's up to him and the teachers."

"I'm not asking you if he can, as his teacher; I'm asking if you believe he can, as his victim."

His cup stopped before it reached his lips, and he looked at the girl across the table with his shoulders squared. "I'm not a victim."

"Growing up without a quirk and faced with someone as violent as Bakugou has treated you, Midoriya, I can't say I believe there was ever a fair fight between you two before."

Most of what they did before barely qualified as a fight, he quipped, but could also imagine the double-down Shiozaki would put into her dead stare. "Can we drop it?" he asked instead. "If it will help you not worry or think about him again, I'll tell you now; I don't care about his opinion anymore. There's nothing he could do now other than make it worse for himself to affect me. I've moved on."

The vine-haired girl stared silently at him for a few more seconds before falling back with a soft breath. "If you are being truthful with yourself, then I will believe it too. Please remember, I care for the well-being of our classmates, and that includes the feelings of our class president. My shoulder is open if ever a time comes for it."

"I've got a lot of those," he noted absentmindedly, "but thanks. I'll do the same, if there's ever something you want to ask, too." The girl accepted his offer with a nod and returned to her lunch, and Izuku did the same by the time his friends joined them at the table.

He still stole glances across the room to the blond-haired boy he grew up with for years, stealing glances at him in return, and he wondered if Bakugou did care, or had he finally moved on?

Despite his quirk coating his outer self in a layer of malleable steel, Tetsutetsu could move fast. Izuku backed up as the iron juggernaut charged, bracing his bat to stop a fist to his chest and sliding back from the force of the blow. When the 1-B student charged in again, the green-haired teen swung back, parrying the other boy's arm to the side and leaving him open for a bat to catch him in the stomach. He succeeded in shoving the boy back a few feet with a resounding clang through the air.

Stomping feet pulled Izuku's attention away from the boy to side-step a rock-hardened punch to his arm, and Kirishima followed him with a flurry of fists that collided more with the bat than his body. The quirkless teen spun the tool in his hands and bashed the tip of it into the other teen's chest to split them apart, and distance was put between him and his opponents once more.

"How the hell are you so slippery?" Tetsutetsu complained. "You're sliding around on dirt like Pinky! I thought shoes were supposed to have some grip on them."

"To be fair, I think mine are a bit worn," the green-haired teen offered in explanation. "And what do you expect me to do when I'm being punched by two freight trains — just stand there and take it? I'm strong, not invincible."

While the silver-skinned boy grumbled about how damage seemed to make Izuku stronger before, Kirishima interjected, "You could use more of your strength on us just fine, Midoriya. I get you're all skin, but Tetsu and I have hardened bodies that can take a beating. You don't need to hold yourself back for our sake."

He wasn't; Garou's voice in his head felt like a cold grip on his shoulders, so he knew he wasn't putting in his all in return to the challenge before him. With half a week to go before the final exams, and freedom given to both courses in a conjoined exercise class, Izuku requested Kirishima to join his spar with Tetsutetsu as a partner to the Class B boy. Neither were thrilled in having to fight someone two-on-one — much less each other with the strange rivalry they had — and Melissa had her own complaints from the sideline refereeing their matches of Izuku giving himself too much work. His goal was to grow, though, and he couldn't do that if he kept his training to the same standard every time; he was able to make them all concede that Monday to his terms, and sparring could be underway for them to learn teamwork and him to learn better control of his power.

"My body is made out of tougher material than your bat!" the silver-haired boy insisted with a challenging finger. "That it's held its shape this long in our fight is because you're holding back! I want you to hit me with your strongest swing and I'll prove to you just how much tougher I am than Red Hair!"

"I have a name; I'm not a One Piece character!"

Izuku held up and pointed at his bat. "This is some solid metal that weighs like two-hundred pounds. That's why it hasn't bent yet."

Both skin-shifters blinked at the simplistic weapon. "And you can carry it with one hand?" Kirishima asked, perturbed. "How heavy does it feel?"

"Not that much heavier than the bat I had last time. I can tell it weighs more; I'm pretty sure the principal swapped it out the other day, he just hasn't said anything about it." He turned to the side of the field where Melissa sat, fiddling through stacks of paper. "Just checking again; you're sure he didn't tell you, either?"

After almost three weeks helping him in his endeavors, the blonde American girl finally had frizzled hair and bags under her eyes when she stared blankly at him. "I wish he did. You hero students make everything harder than it needs to be."

"You could try getting some sleep yourself; that'll make it less unbearable."

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," the inventor declared. Maybe introducing her to Hatsume wasn't a good idea, if the pink-haired girl's tendencies were going to rub off on her.

"I don't care how heavy your bat is!" Tetsutetsu decided, punching his fists together and stepping up once more. "If you're not going to hit me with it then it doesn't matter! You need to hit back if you're going to fight anyone!" A pair of feet landed on the silver boy's shoulders, and a thick tail bashed him in the chest that barely stumbled him back, as Ojiro jumped away and landed by Izuku's side. "What was that for?"

When he stood up straight, the tailed teen gave the Class B teen a raised eyebrow. "If he can hit a baseball to the ocean from here," he noted, "he could probably shoot you to Tokyo Tower."

Izuku looked at him, unhappy. "I'm trying not to do that, thank you for noticing. Weren't you sparring with Shishida?"

"We were racing," Ojiro clarified. "Was watching you guys for a minute and noticed you're not doing anything. Still got…" The tailed teen tapped against his own skull, and Izuku could hear Garou's voice reacting in his subconscious.

"Yeah I do," he sighed.

"Alright," the tailed teen nodded. He gazed at Kirishima and Tetsutetsu for a second before rolling up the sleeves of his uniform. "Why don't I join you then? Two versus two. I could do with some practice against guys my fists struggle with."

I can handle myself, Izuku felt tempted to say, but bit back his thoughts as their red-haired classmate nodded along. "An even fight is manlier than teaming up against one guy." You agreed to be here and you haven't even tried fighting me yet; Izuku held back that retort too.

"Great," Ojiro agreed, and turned around to the blonde girl on the sideline. "It's not gonna mess with your experiments if I help Izuku out, is it? Won't fudge any data to give him some help?"

Melissa looked at him dryly. "He's accepting help for once?" The green-haired boy ruffled his brow in concern, but the girl just shook a hand in the air. "Just don't let him get run over by Thomas the tank engine and you're free to do whatever. I'm doing something else anyways." She returned to her papers again, unceremoniously falling to the ground and shoving pages around without tact.

The tailed teen shared a similar look of worried confusion with his friend. "Trouble in paradise?"

Izuku pointed his bat towards him. "If you want to get hit by this, you can join their side."

"No!" Tetsutetsu shouted, shaking the dirt from his clothes as he picked himself up. "It's a two on two now. Maybe with backup, you can start taking this fight seriously!" Without waiting for all parties he charged again, beelining for the quirkless teen. Izuku fixed his hold on his bat once again and swung at the approaching teen, trading a blow into his iron shoulder for a steeled fist into his own shoulder of flesh.

His arm tensed where the new bruise formed, but the green-haired teen pushed himself to block a following strike, and another after that. When Tetsutetsu reared a fist back again, Izuku twisted his bat and jabbed the head against the boy's chest with all his might, and pushed the silver teen back before his fist could reach the green teen's face. Ojiro came in swinging his tail for the 1-B boy's legs, tripping him to the dirt once more, and while the blond teen dealt with him Izuku busied himself with the encroaching Kirishima knocking fists with his bat.

"You're not fighting like you were at the Sports Festival," the stone-skinned teen commented as he traded blows with Izuku's blocks. The red-haired boy punched faster than his steel counterpart, Izuku noted, and dodged faster around his returning swings too. "Or like you did in the battle trial with Bakugou. Didn't you train with a martial arts hero?"

"Sorta," Izuku confirmed, rolling back to dodge the other boy's kick for his abdomen. "He was good at dodging." More than just his attacks, he added dryly. "I didn't really have control sparring with him, though. I need to learn how to hold it back if I am going to use it against people, hard skinned or not."

"Didn't train enough with it?" Kirishima guessed, and Izuku shook his hand.

"More still figuring out how to translate it to a fight like I did in the Sports Festival. One thing to do it with my hands, another with a double-hundred-pound bat. Don't know the middle point in output."

Another punch whiffed just past Izuku's nose. "You need to come up with an answer for that! I can take one hit! Just give it a try—"

In truth he just wanted their insistence to end, so the green-haired teen stepped aside another thrown fist, swung his bat back and hurled it at the other boy's chest. He stopped maybe an inch shy of actually connecting with the stone-hardened bare skin, but his momentum alone kicked up wind between the two boys, and the red-haired teen stepped back with a flinch before he actually ran into the solid object.

Izuku framed his eyebrows in an 'I told you so' position. "I think I need to test how much I hold back against objects, first. I'll train that tomorrow, if you don't mind." He remembered Hatsume mentioning their exam was supposed to be against robots, but the only reason he chose to keep fighting the Class B student was to practice his real-world skills; not every villain he was going to fight would come at him with their own robot army. He needed to practice his strength against real people so he could learn to reign in his strength until it was just where it needed to be in practice.

Kirishima laughed nervously, his skin returning to normal. "I see your point," he agreed hesitantly. "I thought you held back pretty well against Bakugou…"

"Unintentionally," Izuku reminded him. "Didn't know what I was doing then, now I do. This was me trying to remember what I was doing then." He sighed, dejected. "I need more time."

The red-haired teen nudged the quirkless teen's shoulder with the back of his hand. "We've got three years here, and that's probably more than enough time. You'll get the hang of it, man."

"Thanks." Izuku turned his head away to the other two boys, grappling one another and struggling on the ground to break from the other's hold. "Should we stop them?"

"It's not manly to keep a fight going when it's ended."

"We can keep going" — he pointed the end of his bat at the other two — "I just mean stopping whatever this is."

It was agreed upon that they would break it up once the steel-skinned boy tried to bite into the tail of the other teen.

Katsuki didn't try to behave in his classes — that would imply an effort had to be made. He showed up to class as was expected of him; he did his homework like he was asked; he kept his distance from the extras he shared a classroom with; and he attended the biweekly meetings with Hound Dog as the principal had ordered him to. Just because he lost his seat in the hero course didn't mean he was going to flunk his schoolwork, drop out and become a junkie. He would not give up his chance to be a hero because of a single misstep.

But that purple-haired prick of a classmate hated Katuski just as much as the blond hated him back.

Ignoring him took the effort Katsuki was saving for the day he was welcomed back into the hero course, turning his head away and biting back his own tongue to the other boy's verbal jabs and comments. "You're accumulating to the reject class well," the boy would whisper in class, or mutter, "Those five seconds of fame must have felt nice," during lunch. The blond boy wouldn't humor a single word, because what did the words of a nobody mean to him, if not fuck all?

After almost a month of not seeing Deku's face in person, the green-haired teen showed his face again in the lunch halls of Yuei. Suddenly, the purple-haired bastard had a comment that didn't involve Katsuki.

"I thought it took a hero's quirk to get in that class," the extra had commented under his breath, eyes just as focused on Deku as Katsuki's were. "I guess all you really need is to not act like a villain."

His fingers twitched as the line replayed in his head, the cushions he sat on like stiff stones, and his palms like burning flint blowing smoke into his nose. That no name didn't matter. His opinions didn't matter. Deku didn't matter. Such a nothing, meaningless comment shouldn't have mattered. Yet it stayed in his head for days, and instinct told him to turn on the other boy and smack him in the head for his accusation, and he didn't because it felt like a million eyes were on him already, just as they were—

"You've been quiet today." Hound Dog's plainly delivered comment plucked the teen sitting across the room from him out of his own head. "Kayama told me you failed to answer her when she called your name in class, and you were late to the cafeteria for lunch."

Katsuki didn't respond to him, eyes glancing past the burly counselor to the wall of photos behind him. It was a wall filled to the brim with heroes he knew well, all past students of the same school, mixed in with faces he did remember so clearly. All-Might stuck out like a sore thumb in a black suit, framed close to the ceiling just above the hero's head, shaking hands with the previous principal of Yuei; it was just as easy to notice the faces of Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, and several other alumni seemingly on the day of their graduation. The Hall of Yuei's Fame, the blond dubbed in his head, but then who were all the others standing with the headmaster? Where were these heroes?

And behind himself was a wall of faces he didn't recognize in the slightest. Not of heroes or sidekicks in uniform, but other students all posed with the hound hero himself. Not a single person he recognized outside of a costume, or could imagine fitting in one. There was much more open space between the photos behind him, too; nowhere near as packed or decorated as the wall behind the hero. Fans of his own, Katsuki assumed with a scoff, disgusted with the ego.

Hound Dog's snout twitched, fangs snarling under his mask. "You forgot to wash your hands after training," the hero chastised.

"I washed my hands!" Katsuki barked back. He grumbled and clasped his palms together. "They go off sometimes. I'm not an untrained animal; I know my hygiene."

The mutant man growled under his breath, tilting his head aside to look at a photo over his shoulder. "That's Kitakane Kitto," he explained, pointing a claw at the purple-haired woman shaking hands with the current principal propped up on a stool. "You've been staring. Do you know her?"

"Should I? What hero is she?"

"She's not. She graduated from the Support course; she works for Detnerat Incorporated as designer for civilian equipment for disabilities. Did you think everyone on this wall was a hero?"

That's what Yuei was known for, wasn't it? The school didn't celebrate shaping the best businessmen or the best costume designers; Yuei made the best heroes. Everything else in this school played second fiddle to the job that mattered.

"These are all Yuei students from across every course," the hero continued, "even those who graduated in General Studies and took their knowledge into universities or out into the world. We do not just celebrate our heroes." Then what was the difference with the photos behind him, Katsuki wondered. "Why were you ignoring your teachers today?"

The blond teen scoffed. "I was thinking about other shit. Anyone else could have answered those questions."

"You were asked to," Hound Dog reminded him. "What's bothering you?"

"The hell did I say that anything was?"

"Your attendance. Your track record. You're better behaved in classes than this, and smart enough to answer the problems on your own." The teenager sneered and twisted his head away, glaring at the copies of the hero in his pictures instead of the man himself. "Something of importance has to distract you this much. Has something occurred at home?"

"My parents are fucking fantastic," he grumbled as a warning. "Couldn't hurt a fly for shit."

The hero must have caught his stare. "They are past students too. Like you."

Katsuki huffed a dry laugh. "Yuei doesn't enroll villains," he murmured without a thought, and only clued in on his amateurish mistake when the burly mutant hero growled viciously.

"Who called you a villain?" Hound Dog's voice deepened, the hairs of his fur bristling upwards.

The teen caught his burning gaze with a grimace. "I didn't say anyone did."

The hero snarled, snout straining against his muzzle. "You haven't brought it up for weeks. If another student said it, you report it to one of us. Give me a name."

Katsuki wasn't a snitch — some baby who went crying to mommy because someone said some mean words. "They're a fucking nobody," he growled back. "What does it matter?"

Hound Dog rolled his head with a grunt, fur settling down once again. "With your vocabulary, that could mean any citizen in Japan." He puffed through the straps of his mask, eyes glazing over as he scanned the wall of photos behind the teenager. "These are past students I counseled, same as you. The one above you was my first student seven years ago; Vomi." Katsuki didn't turn his head around to look for it.

"You're not a villain," the hero grumbled. "You're a child. You are dumb and uneducated like the rest of them; everyone is at your age. Some are gifted with strong quirks and an aptitude for learning, like you. Some have a strong conviction and drive for their goals and dreams. Sometimes, those same kids don't understand their actions or how to act around people. Sometimes, they are cruel to others."

Katsuki nearly crushed his own fingers within his grasp, remembering the sight of Midoriya's skull peeking out between his scar.

"Adults are villains; they understand the world and know it far better with age and time, yet still choose to act to harm and inconvenience others. When you're old, mistakes lose excuses. You're young, and stupid, and mistakes are bound to happen — and they already have." The hero's blood moon eyes gazed down at Katsuki, not a hint of malice to be found in them. "What makes you different is the chance to learn from them and still have a future ahead of you. It is my job — as a hero, an adult, and your teacher — to give you that chance and help yourself from being consumed down that road of mistakes. I'm confident you wouldn't let yourself walk down that road either."

The blond teen spat air. "As if."

"Is your dream to be a hero, still?"

Katsuki's eyes flickered past the hero's head, to the young, beaming smile of the number one hero of Japan on his own road to success.

"Then you have a chance, if you are up to the task."

It was the ghosts' insistence to tell his friends the truth about One For All, when they persisted in understanding what had happened when he stepped in to save Midoriya. Maybe it was because it was Shimura who suggested it, and him telling All-Might it was her idea first, that his mentor relented on his earlier plea to keep it a secret. On their day off from class, Mirio invited Amajiki and Hado to his home and told them the truth in his room, while the hero himself explained the situation to his parents. Where his parents had more vocal reactions the three teens could hear from the floor below them, his friends were quicker in accepting the truth and the responsibility of the secret.

After making sure his mother didn't gut the number one hero in their kitchen, life carried on like normal for the next half of the week following; as normal as it could be when one's parents and friends worried even more for the health and safety of the same person. Classes resumed, training for the final exam resumed, and taking a stroll through the promised dormitories for a day flipped the script but ultimately changed nothing by the day following. His parents now questioned if he used his new quirk in school that day, and his friends pushed themselves harder in exercises than normal, as if they had to fill in a gap he was barred from participating in anymore.

At least their dynamic remained whole, as on another day in costume for training, Hado still pestered and bothered Amajiki.

"This is a training day!" she grilled him, floating around his cloaked self and jabbing her fingers into every inch of his form she could reach. "We're supposed to be training for our physical exams! Your grades are good enough; you don't need to practice for the written one right now!"

The black-haired student did his worst to shy away from her hovering self, hiding the notebook and pencil that drew her ire against his chest. "I am getting ready for it," he insisted meekly. "I need to plan ahead on what I eat before it, and what I can take in when we start. You know that…"

"You should be perfecting that super move I saw in your notes today! That combination of animals sounds like a cool idea and I wanna see it! And so does Mirio! Show it, show it, show it, show it!"

The blond teen mentioned came to his childhood friend's rescue, grabbing the blue-haired girl's leg and pulling her away like a balloon. "He probably doesn't have all those ingredients on hand, Nejire," he informed the girl. "We can't just demand to see the Chimera Ant like he has control of it. You know how his stomach feels after a big meal; it's probably best we save something like that for the big day, right Tamaki?" The other boy's blush was visible even under his mask and hair.

"Huh," the ghostly specter of the fifth user shifted into his sight, walking around and analyzing Amajiki without the boy knowing it. "He's like a bashful version of Shinomori. They'd probably get along if the old hermit wasn't a stick."

"I don't think Lemillion likes the idea of his friend being compared to the man," Shimura quipped, appearing over his head and floating around the blue-haired girl hopping out of Mirio's hold. "Two generations of reserved users and I drew the larger straw; En was never that cold to someone else."

Banjo grunted at the seventh user. "You didn't grow up in the first age of heroes, kid. Shino lived in the wilderness to hide and train One For All after his master passed it on. The man wiped his identity from the planet to be secluded and untraceable. Sorry for doing the same, kiddo," he offered an apology to the blond teen. "But back when All For One was in his prime, any info he could get on you was to his benefit. Being a nobody outside of the job was my only way to keep the people around me safe."

"Thanks," Mirio stressed unhappily. "Really fills me with confidence."

While the ghost grumbled out something akin to an apology, Hado floated herself back down to the blond's shoulder. "Are the ghosts talking to you? What are they saying? How many are there? Is the woman as pretty as me?"

Over his other shoulder, the ghost of Shimura hummed. "I didn't realize your girlfriend was competitive over her looks."

"No she isn't" — Hado cheered at his answer to her first, and then he turned to the ghost — "and no she isn't, on both claims." He waved a warning finger as he stepped away to make space between him and his friends.

"Are they still being rude?" Amajiki questioned, ignorant to the indignant shout from the bald ghost beside him.

Mirio pinched his thumb and index finger together. "A teeny bit. The tall one isn't here, so it's the nicer two I told you about. They say hello, by the way." Hado waved at him, despite the ghostly woman flying behind the teenage girl. "Be right back." Without another warning, his Permeation activated and, costume thankfully on, he fell through the ground. Stone and steel piping flew through his vision as he dropped through it until enough seconds had passed. His quirk triggered again and he was sent shooting back upwards, propelled by the Earth's rejection of his body and skyrocketing into the air once he broke through the surface, free to inhale oxygen once more.

Up to the fourth floor, he noted the main Yuei building not too far off from their training grounds. There wasn't much training his quirk still needed to be at its best, but improvement was an ever-increasing ceiling. He could still learn to hold his breath longer, position his body better, time his maneuvers faster; growing himself was always on the schedule. Even if he had to lower his standards and expectations after months of training and practicing with the enhanced arsenal of One For All…

Nearly three weeks in and he still could not get over the embargo. The only time he had meaningfully used any of the quirks was spent saving someone's life again, and the sensation that ran through his body doing hero work left a gap when he didn't spark One For All to life again.

Yellow spirals cushioned his fall towards the ground, and Hado controlled her quirk to plop him back on his feet. "Do the ghosts follow you under the ground when you do that, or fly into the sky when you come back? Do either of them wear capes?"

"Still here after all that," Shimura vocalized for Mirio's ears only, grabbing and flapping the white fabric that hung from her shoulders. "And I do; I'd be doing my Float a disservice by not wearing a cape. That American woman doesn't even fly properly."

"Didn't you get rid of the cape from your old costume?" Mirio asked his blue-haired friend. "I thought you said they were tacky and ugly."

"I did," the girl confirmed, oblivious to the betrayed ghost beside her. "It got in the way of my arms and my quirk. Yuyu says this is prettier. The cape didn't even help me fly."

Amajiki sweat-dropped towards their girl friend. "Capes don't work like Batman's wings, Nejire…"

"They should! You upgraded your cloak to fit over your wings just so you can glide like him! You can't fool me!" Mirio held back his snickers as the blue-haired girl assaulted their friend with a series of pokes and prods, and signaled to their teacher Makima that he would break them apart when she looked their way.

"Capes are nice."

A voice Mirio didn't recognize blew past his ear with a chill. His neck craned as he looked just behind him to a thin man with white hair attempting to play with the edge of his red cape, only for his fingers to pass through the fabric like air. Still his hand swayed back and forth, a small smile on his face as his failure to make contact; it dropped slightly when Mirio turned to face the ghost properly.

"No one wore capes," the ghost continued. He walked slowly over the dirt, failing to leave an imprint beneath his naked feet. "The first man to ever dress like a comic book character wore armor like a soldier. Everyone else followed that train. I never got to see a cape for real." His eyes glazed over the rest of Mirio's classmates around the field, all practicing with their quirks or sparring friendly with one another. "They look nice, today. I imagine" — a faint chuckle broke his lips — "the first hero tripped over their own cape a few times."

Mirio walked towards him. "Which one are you?" he asked tentatively. He looked back towards his friends and the ghosts who followed them, but found only the two living humans still around.

"I asked them to go back for a moment," the ghost answered his unspoken question over his own shoulder. "I wanted to say hello." He turned his head to form a tiny grin at the blond boy. "Do you remember me, Ninth?"

"Not really. Should I?"

"From the dirt at the Sports Festival," the ghost reminded him, and the memory flooded Mirio's brain. "I am sorry for costing you your match. The doors just opened for us then, and I wanted to say hello. But I was kind of embarrassed for making you disqualify, and didn't know what to say." He rubbed his neck, but facially showed no real embarrassment to match his words. "Eighth already told you the story of me and my brother, so we've been introduced indirectly."

"You're the First," Mirio addressed, and the ghost nodded.

"You may call me Yoichi. I won't mind. I will stick to Ninth, no worries. Fourth makes a good point, in keeping ourselves out of your time; we should be interfering with it as little as possible."

The blond teen huffed a small pout. "I'm pretty sure he said not to be involved at all."

The first holder of One For All shrugged. "We are tied to you by a choice that was yours and Eighth's to make; being uninvolved is impossible, if you are to awaken the rest of their quirks."

"I'm not supposed to," he reminded the ghost. "Using One For All is dangerous now, in case the rest didn't tell you. I can't use it—"

"There's a difference between can't and won't," the ghost interrupted. The smile on his face never fell. "You won't use it because you're afraid it will kill you in retaliation, because the Fourth believes his fate is repeating itself in you. You won't use it because of your self-preservation. I'm not judging, just stating. Nothing is wrong with wanting to live."

A weight fell atop Mirio's head, as Hado rested her chin in his hair and pointed her face the same direction as his. "You're talking a lot with one of them," she noted. "What's it about? Are they trauma dumping their history as a hero? Did any of them have children? Do you think they have statues of them erected somewhere else in Japan?"

Gently, the blond boy picked his friend up by the face and guided her off of his temple. "Nejire, you should be focusing on your training, not asking about them in public. You promised. I'll tell you all about it after school, okay?"

Hado puffed her cheeks. "Fine, but I wanna hear all about it!" Golden swirls jettisoned around her legs before shooting her into the sky with an explosive blast, kicking dust and wind in Mirio's eyes he was left to sputter.

The ghost of the first hummed something happily. "You could do that, if you wanted," he commented airily.

Still coughing, the teenager looked at him disapprovingly. "Kicking off the air like All-Might and holding herself in the air like that are two different things, you know."

"You could use Seventh's quirk," Yoichi amended. "You've seen her use it passively already, the ability to Float. It mirrors her character, so aloof and calm in the face of this conundrum we've brought about. Like a cloud, she rains down her wisdom in a shower or her grief in a downpour, yet what follows her is the sunlight that shines brighter after it all. She told you her theories about the offering of our hearts carried on by this power, yes? Have you given it more thought, of your heart's voice in this matter?"

"My heart?" Mirio frowned at the ghost; he hadn't thought it over more since that one talk Shimura gave him. Given the foreign territory, and that in the end it was not like he could use the stockpiling quirk or what it held safely, he left it at her word and persevered onwards as he had been since. "Of what it thinks I want, right?"

It was the first time the smile from the ghost's face fell, replaced with an unhappy hum and the sulking of his shoulders. "Her wording may be off slightly; again, it's a difference in the words. I would not call it your want. Wanting is conscious and controlled, and it is ultimately your choice. But it differs ever-so-slightly from a need. Needing drives you instead of the other way around. This is not all happening because you wanted to; you need it to."

"I'm not sure there's as big of a difference as you think there is…"

"You used One For All to save Midoriya." Yoichi did not say it as a suggestion or a question, but as a matter of fact. "You let Danger Sense guide you through the buildings, the enhanced speed to chase after them, and Blackwhip to apprehend the girl. Quirks you had been avoiding for the preservation of your life, you did not hesitate to call upon when another life was threatened. Not because you wanted to, but because you needed to. You didn't hesitate by choice, but by inconvenience. The hero in you needed to act, and this power responded to that need."

He had done that, Mirio acknowledged. Doing so drew the concern of All-Might that night and the panic of his friends once he told them the truth, but while the pain he could remember, the guilt for using them was absent. What was there to feel guilty about, using the powers he had to step in and save someone's life if he had the chance? No party shamed him for it other than the repeated mantra of the fourth user, but hearing him had grown so tiresome it barely registered.

"Are you telling me I should use your quirks?" the teen asked the ghost. The spirit only twitched his smile.

"That is your choice. The quirk is not mine. It is not Shinomori's. It is not All-Might's, or your teachers', or your friends'. One For All, and our quirks within, are your choice to use. This is the matter of your want; do you want to use every power you have? Even if it hurts you, if there is a chance it may be what kills you in the end" — Yoichi reached a hand forward, and pressed a finger into the chest of Mirio's costume — "do you want to use them to save those one million lives?"

Lemillion; that was the name Mirio chose as his hero identity, presented by the number displayed proudly on his chest. He immortalized his desire to save at least one million people so long as he was a hero, as the hero who saved him from a river as a child inspired him to. It was that dedication and dream that drew him into All-Might's consideration, at Sir Nighteye's recommendation. One For All became his because of his promise to save lives, as a quirk atop his own that was intended for exactly that.

"I do." He answered the ghost with confidence in his lungs.

The ghost nodded, a muted pride on his face. "I understand his worry, but Fourth may be wrong about your fate. One For All is a powerful quirk, and I would hazard a guess the strength we've accumulated for you is much to handle, and learning the quirks atop it is more than your body anticipated. But I think you're stronger than that; stronger than his fear is over his judgement. My brother is still out there, and through you or the Eighth he will be stopped. I have faith you are both strong enough for the task. Shall we make you stronger?" His head turned aside slightly. "Float is your quirk, Seventh," he addressed Shimura as her spirit formed in the corner of Mirio's vision. "As our friend here has already learned to permeate through friction" — the corner of his lips twitched, reciting the explanation the teen and Sir had come up with for his classmates and Makima-sensei after One For All settled in his body — "shall we teach him how to permeate through the laws of gravity?"

Shimura matched a grin, pointed at the blond-haired boy. "If he's up for it," she challenged.

Mirio's chest puffed with an inhale, and he met her challenge with a nod.

On the day before their exams, Izuku decided not to spend their training course doing any real training. Instead, he joined Melissa on the sidelines on the last day she would be at the school, helping her sort through the stacks of papers she, Yaoyorozu and Hatsume had compiled about his power and training. The pile wasn't too enormous, but the girls had written down more than they said to his face and the blonde was obviously trying to piece something together in her mind as she bounced from her words to theirs, so he decided to offer a hand in helping her sort out the mess.

Some of the papers stayed in his hands, however. "I told Mei I don't need a helmet," he murmured, eyes glazing over a draft of a headpiece more akin to a motorcycle helmet than something made for baseball.

"That one was my idea," Melissa informed him with a lower grumble, snatching it from his hands and shoving it under a pile of papers she had tossed aside already. "You're too lax with the safety of your body, and your gear isn't protective in any manner. You can't keep treating it like a pin cushion."

"The knives aren't my idea. And most heroes don't wear armor anyways; we're not knights or soldiers. Not all of us." His eyes trailed to Iida running laps in his costume. "And I think the weighted clothing is enough for me. Now that I can run around in it like normal, the costume feels natural again."

The blonde girl only grumbled more. "No wonder Hatsume calls you the bane of every inventor; it's impossible to design something so simplistic for someone so unwanting."

"I do want your help! I never said otherwise! I just don't want to overdo it and redesign everything so I don't look like a hodgepodge of material. A hero's image being concise is important, and I like how mine has turned out in the end."

Melissa sighed, looking over another sketch that remade his costume's look. "Yeah, a high school ruffian. I'm lucky you at least chose to wear a shirt with it." Izuku shied away from the image in his own mind, unhappy with the mental picture. "I have been trying to design boots, belts or utility bags, or magnetic gloves related to a specific material we could put into the handle, but Hatsume works with explosive materials. I don't know how anything she makes keeps its form."

"Prayers," Izuku guessed. "I'm not religious, but it's the one thing I can do for her." The laugh that got out of Melissa was torn between sarcastic and genuine.

"Can I really not make you a different weapon? Does it have to be a baseball bat?"

He shrugged slightly. "It fits the look. A sword is too dangerous to learn now, and I'd rather not do a mace; not to mention guns aren't really allowed in Japan, so we only get a few heroes allowed to use them. I'd rather not, myself — super strength and all that. I've almost got a handle on it." He nodded to his own words. "I like the magnetic handle idea. Can you make magnets for specific elements?"

"I can," she confirmed. "Dad's helped to make a few back home. I can work that into a glove and put an uncommon alloy in the handle that won't attract other materials in the field. Don't tell Hatsume; in return, I won't adjust the materials on her compact bats." She added with a murmur, "Even though she could add another millimeter of layered metal."

"I'll do my best," he promised. He sorted around the papers again. "What is it you're trying to find in all this, anyways?"

"Same thing I told you at the start: the answer to keeping you safe. If we can't equip you with a large enough arsenal or suit you in armor, the only thing you'll rely on is your bat, and we need it to be enough. Whatever material your principal commissioned for the new model is strong but it isn't perfect; your fight with the boy in 1-B is already scraping it bad, and stronger opponents than him exist and can still break it. Any better material we could use for a strong enough density is either too dangerous or too uncommon naturally or inorganically to pull together. If there was enough osmium back home then maybe I could, but I know there's not and buying enough of it worldwide is a hassle my dad can't even pull off."

Izuku jabbed a thumb towards his raven-haired classmate fiddling in her own notebook while various hand-to-hand weapons formed from her stomach over in the corner of the training field. "Yaoyorozu could maybe make it if she can learn the molecular structure of it," he reasoned. "I don't know if she'll agree to it — she kinda shies away from making anything of rarer material…"

Melissa shook her head. "I wasn't going to ask her anyways. We have natural materials in our world that I or Hatsume can be the one to make something with. I don't want to rely on her as a source of product, working back and forth overseas, but I especially do not want to use her for her quirk." The girl wiped her hands down her face in a long sigh. "I have to keep working on this when I get home. I can connect with a group on the island who can deliver my designs through the school's partner program so they're paired with your costume and other supplies. I just need to figure out something that can be ready before your next work study in the cities. Which is under two months. Which still isn't enough time."

"I have three years here," he reminded her, parroting that which his friends loved to reinforce. "And a good chunk of people who will kick my ass if I put myself in more danger, in their best effort to keep me out of it." The blonde girl snorted. "You have time. I'll do my best to make sure that clock stays ticking."

"Yeah, well, I'm still missing an answer," she soured. "I need…" Her voice trailed off and her lip curled under her teeth. Her eyes squinted and darted about, and she muttered something under her breath that he couldn't make out, even when her mouth returned to normal and she wordlessly repeated the words while her fingers typed it into her phone. "I need to go home."

"Found something?"

"An answer that only works if I can convince the right people," Melissa answered cryptically. "It's theoretical even where their project is at right now, and not something I can explain in detail for security's sake; but if they can make it and I can get just enough of it to mold, I might be able to make just the thing we need." She soured at the screen. "Star and I leave in two days, and I won't have an answer of their approval or not by then. I'm sorry."

Izuku put his hands up reassuringly. "I will trust you with it, whatever it is. You've been patient with me and believe my story; I have faith in you." He extended his hand to her, and she grasped it in return. "Good luck."

"You too," she offered, and her eyes darted across the field. "A big birdie told me you guys are going against the teachers tomorrow, in pairs."

"So" — the green-haired teen stuttered a moment, following her gaze to his unaware teacher spotting Shoji in his deadlifts — "not against robots like Hatsume said."

"Maybe it was bad news to catch you off guard. Would she sabotage you willingly?" Izuku didn't spend long considering an answer to that, hearing the pink-haired girl in his head about her 'prized customer' moving him to signal a 'no' with the shake of his head.

That wasn't what he was preparing himself for, he would admit. Sparring with Tetsutetsu and Kirishima specifically was to imitate what he'd have to think against robot combatants defensively, and prepare himself mentally for the offensive side of things. Most of his teachers were squishier than the skin-transforming boys, so he'd had to restrict himself even more depending on who he was up against. He hoped the pairings would be something sensible too, if not cynical in his judgement of both possibilities; there wasn't much he could do against Thirteen's quirk, or — if Melissa's use of 'pairs' was to be taken directly — if they'd put him alone in their odd-numbered assembly.

He wasn't training to give up, though. His friends helped him with every avenue in understanding his power and finding control of it — even if under the mantra of a man's voice he didn't want to hear. His mother hoped for the best for him. Melissa and Hatsume were determined to design for him that which would help him go even further beyond. His teachers promised the best for him and his friends.

Whatever Izuku was to face, he would do so with the confidence everyone was giving him.

On the final day of the week, their teacher greeted them in the homeroom with, "Today will be your final exams for the semester. Your scores on these will impact your involvement with the summer program when we return to school after the break. Failing or passing will not affect your placement in this class, unless your behavior reflects otherwise, but either route will indicate for us where and what we are to teach you next. You will take your written exam in half an hour, with an hour break before your practical exam, and you will be going home after lunch period and after your scores are presented. This is what you spent the past three weeks training for. Do not disappoint yourselves."

Izuku did not plan to, nor did he feel such after finishing the written exam. Hesitance and worry poked at the back of his brain as he got dressed in costume, but he did not give them time to settle before they were squashed in the presence of his class. He had no plans to disappoint them either, after the weeks they spent by his side helping him figure out his power as they trained their own.

With everyone dressed and assembled, all in various shades of exhaustion from the written exam already, Izuku led them behind their homeroom teacher into the bus taking them to the physical exam's testing site. His class filled the dual-seat rows all the way to the vehicle's back, while he took stock in the lone seat behind Aizawa in the driver's position, and the bus churned along through the school grounds.

Ashido made a gurgling noise as though she were physically melting in her seat. "I don't know if I have the energy for this after that first test," she groaned groggily. "Can someone carry me?"

Seated beside her, the taller Shoji looked down with an apologetic gaze in his eyes. "No." His blunt answer elicited another whine.

Yaoyorozu tried not to look at the pink-skinned girl with judgement, but Izuku could see disappointment twinkle in her eyes. "I offered you a chance to study together with us," she reminded the other girl, and Kirishima interjected behind her with a thumb jabbing at his own face.

"I took care of her," he informed, reaching across the aisle to pat his horned friend's shoulder. "You did fine, I'm sure of it."

"Don't burn out now!" Kaminari chastised her, raising an encouraging finger into the air. "We need all our energy to take on our teachers! We can definitely manage that if we're together," he insisted, though the girl barely managed to raise her own fist in a joint cheer.

Feeling eyes on the back of his head, Izuku turned away from his class to find his teacher's gaze in the rearview mirror. "You heard," the dark-haired man acknowledged bluntly.

"I was told," the quirkless teen admitted. "I thought it was unfair if only I knew."

The teacher scoffed. "Of course the big lug couldn't keep his mouth shut," he groaned, already knowing the source without Izuku having to tell him, the teen noticed. "You did the logical play, given the exercise. Seems the greatest hero is terrible at keeping secrets from his daughter."

"God-daughter," the teen corrected.

"There is no distinction to a parent," the older man countered.

They arrived at one of the faux cities on the school grounds not a minute later, parking to the side and deboarding to find a slew of teachers waiting at the front gate. Izuku counted eight heads already present, and his teacher joining their ranks and the appearance of the principal crawling out of Power Loader's armor accumulated their numbers to a full ten. Pairs, Izuku remembered Melissa's wording, which likely meant teams of two against one teacher each, bar a one-on-one if the principal was to fight; the green-haired boy hoped that wouldn't be him.

"Your practical exam will be taking place here, in Testing City E," their homeroom teacher announced, drawing any and all small talk to an end so attention was on him. "Remember; there is such a thing as failure in this test, but it will not affect your standing in this class and the summer program. Your performance here will be informative of your future studies; do not intentionally fail this and impede us both. I expect you all to do your best."

"Message clear, sir!" Tsunotori saluted for the rest of the class, and in English continued, "We'll do our best to kick your butts, sir!"

The vampiric hero Vlad King blinked at the American girl and eyed Aizawa beside him. "They already know?" he questioned the other man accusingly.

The underground hero met the man with his own tired eyes. "Courtesy of the big man, they've been told," he confirmed. He looked back towards the students, and his gaze caught Izuku's before a smile could be seen over the ridge of his scarf. "The old plan."

The sound of whistling air caught Izuku's ears, and before he could turn around to spot it, it came crashing into the ground behind his class. He blocked his eyes from the kick-up of dirt with his arm, catching Kendo from tripping backwards from the shockwave. As the dust settled he peered over his arm to find a silhouette under the sunlight; a shadow casted over the class by his large body; his cape flapping in the wind; and his smile shining glistening at the corner of his teeth. A sight that made his stomach drop.

"If you hatchlings thought we would go easy on you," All-Might announced loudly, "think again!"

Standing up beside him, a shorter but just as broad figure matched his pose and his smile with her own, and Izuku felt his stomach rise just so it could drop again.

"Instead of fighting one of us," Star and Stripe amended, "you'll be fighting all of us together!"