Monitoring Room - 07:12 a.m.

Life comes at you in an interesting way, Seiji pondered to himself.

One second, there he was, mourning over himself for the umpteenth time in the span of two days after since he had gotten his mock exam results, reminiscing upon the pathetic example of a high school student he was. And then, there he was, staring at his own self-made hero costume.

Once he stepped closer onto the gigantic mechanical wardrobe that had suddenly came out of nowhere, he could already tell his own self-designed costume. Almost like looking at his own baby.

He, as well as everyone else, had remembered the last time they were asked for a costume design. It was given as a formal lesson, where each children were given about an hour to come up with a design best suited for their Quirks. Seiji had recalled that it was months ago, he had almost forgotten about it by an hour ago.

He held it in his arms, the hanger end still protruding from the neck hole, the bright color of white decorates the chest area while the shoulders and sleeves were as bright as yellow with a mark of a crash test dummy printed on the side of its sleeves. The two different shades of color showed the simple yet deep design similar to that of a crash test dummy.

It was a plain black and yellow t-shirt, but he shall treat it like it was the most precious thing in the room. He glanced at the rest of his costume, sitting below the hanger line that used to hang his clothes, a sudden feeling of ecstasy overjoyed him.

He couldn't picture himself wearing all of this, not even the baggy cargo shorts completed with a utility belt and zipper boots. All his life spent in U.A had finally paid off when he realized the first simulated battle that he will partake in. This might be the time where he could finally show his worth; if not in academics, then, where else?

And it seemed like he wasn't the only one who had been looking forward to this battle trial. Everyone else were up in the seventh heaven, much to his surprise, as they began checking out their own professionally made costumes.

"This is amazing!" Mori cried aloud, her costume was displayed on a full mannequin due to the fact that it was more of a full armor rather than a costume. "I've been waiting for this for months!"

She couldn't actually look straight at the suit much to her own chagrin from squealing like an easily overjoyed high school girl. But the lights from atop the monitoring room bounced off the metallic silvery-purple hue from the twin bowl shaped gardbrace, and down toward the sabatons of its feet.

But, unlike regular armors, Mori's costume had a lot of openings which was filled with white cloth-wear, one of them were the bottom part of the torso right under the chestplate, her upper arms, and lastly, her lower legs. A good way for keeping her agility intact.

The feeling was bittersweet, Seiji thought as he could see the many others that also had a bright gleam in their eyes as they began to check out their costumes with high interest. Many of which had a better designer than he did.

A good example of this was none other than Kaori Tsukinose herself. Her own hero costume was being held by herself right in front of her own uniform, checking the precise size of her costume.

"That's pretty cool." Seiji remarked as he got up to her without a second thought. "Makes you look like a ninja assassin!"

He wasn't lying. In fact, he was pretty blunt about it, too. Kaori' s costume looked nothing like the average hero costume due to the fact that it lacked a wide variety of colors to stand out in public as it was wrapped in the dark of the night, and to make it more conspicuous, he couldn't see any obvious armor other than the paddings on both her ankles and elbows.

Kaori seemed to retract herself from his compliment, holding the costume just above her mouth. "… I-it's relatively nothing. My father designed it for me, as they would be, thinking nothing more than the right kind of costume I should need in case of any… er… circumstances…"

"What are you talking about?" Another voice came into hearing, right before a lipless face popped out from behind Kaori's shoulder. "At least your parents bother to make one for you. Look at mine!"

And at that moment, both Kaori and Seiji's eyes fell upon the sight of a black strapless bra being held by Miyu Yakushi. "Sucks being the one to have any bones to protrude from any part of your body, amiright? Well… it's mostly Pa's fault too for suggesting my costume to be a little bit exposed."

Seiji's face seemed to have flushed a bit, he never had the bravery to look straight ahead into what can be identified as lingerie. But he had to ponder on whether or not that perhaps Miyu' s Quirk did took a toll on her clothing several times before. Not that Seiji wanted to see it, of course.

Speaking of costumes, he hadn't realized how so many of his close friends still had their parents caring for them. The last time he remembered, he was in a reformation school for villainous children. From birth and otherwise.

Much to his curiosity, he had unknowingly stared too long at Miyu's strapless bra. Earning both a chuckle and a puzzled glare from both Miyu and Kaori.

"Is it really that much of a sightsee for you?" Miyu said with a playful snark.

"W-what?! N-no, of course, not!" Seiji said as he waved both his hands in front of him in a panic. "I was just surprised that the two of you had such caring parents! I don't mean to jump into conclusions, but, it sounded like the both of you had already been supported by your old man…"

The two girls exchanged glances, almost as if they knew otherwise.

Seiji suddenly reeled back, thinking that he had said something wrong. "Sorry, I… uh… I was just surprised, that's all. Are you really not born from a villain?"

Miyu was the one who responded to him first, and she did it with a laugh. "I never really was born from a villainous family, if I may look like it. Sure, I did some questionable things but I was just a juvie."

"I… my heritage is villainous in nature but my parents never really was single minded with the elders. Though, I'd like to think that my ancestry is the reason that I was recommended to be here." Kaori explained. "But… I understand if we might stand like the rest due to the fact that the larger number seemed to come from villains."

"Although, that's a pretty short-sighted way of putting it, Orimura." Miyu suddenly said, putting a hand on her hip. "Do we really look that much of a pair of bad guys to you? Didn't you came from a convenience store?"

"Yea.. N-no, I would never!" Seiji was quick to deny it, but the last words were caught in his throat. "I just thought… I mean… I would've thought that I was—"

"Fishing for attention, Yakushi?" Came a taunt that had bought them out of their original conversation.

Suki Takara has chose the best time to barge herself in as well as seemingly being busy examining her own costume. The other girl merely gave Miyu a look of disapproval when she glanced past her shoulder.

"I would've thought that you were the mature one." Suki commented, lifting her hanged costume off of the racks. It was unknown whether or not she really meant that, but Seiji knew Miyu would take it as the worst insult anyone could have ever given her.

"Back off, Takara." Miyu harshly remarked. "Why don't you find someplace else to shove your giant breasts in? God knows you've taken enough space already."

Suki said nothing, but her sharpened gaze penetrated any barrier of safe haven that had existed beforehand. Seiji wanted nothing at all to do with the both of them, not when they were already too deep in a homicidal soup brewed by an intense fiery flames of wrath.

He should, however, try to say something… was what he thought. But Kaori seemed to have beat him to it.

"Hey now…" She started with a smile, raising her hand to calm the situation down, "we shouldn't be fighting in a teamwork-based activity—"

"Quite so!" Suki responded with a sly grin, hiding behind a haughty glare, almost as if she was being overly sarcastic. "How did you put it? Hmm? 'Effective progressiveness'?"

Kaori's face flushed, she subconsciously tightened her hands to curled fist, whitening her knuckles in pure shock. She couldn't look beside her, not towards Seiji. Not when she had the slightest chance of betraying Seiji's expectations of her.

Suki made a harrumphing noise, before she reached down towards her hero boots and other seemingly costume-related accessories. She hastily picked up the rest of her costumes, even what seemed to be a top hat, only to stubbornly filled her arms to the edge of spilling all of her clothes.

Seiji instinctively tried to give a helping hand, reaching out towards her dangling clothes to keep it from falling. "Er… maybe you shouldn't carry all of that—"

"Don't touch me!" The girl snapped, shoving her arm towards Seiji's incoming grasp. She gave him a look full of hatred and fury, glowing a bright hue of purple, with eyebrows furrowing in great abhorrence.

Her costume spilled onto the floor, limply laying by the feet of their owner. She didn't bother to pick all of it up, though. He eyes were already dead set on the boy in front of her. The other occupants in the room, or at least, those who were near, paid a glance at the scowling girl in a fretting way.

The boy reeled back, unknowing of how to respond. Even in his greatest fears he wouldn't think of being loathed by someone he didn't know thoroughly.

"I don't need you to patronize me, Orimura." Suki barked lowly, raising her chin as in trying to gain superiority. Then, she suddenly gave Kaori a piece of her mind, as well. "Neither of you have any rights to control me! Especially you, Tsukinose! I don't need either of you, you got that?!"

She bent down, picking up her fallen costumes, before she stomped away towards the dressing room to wait for their next instructions. The monitoring room became silent for a moment, but immediately went back to the busy mess of students admiring their handiwork.

Seiji sighed before he bid both his female friends a farewell as he went to the changing room to try on his costume. He tried not to think much of what had just happened, considering how today's activity should be left well alone from any distractions.

He nodded to himself in agreement with his own self. This was a teamwork based activity, after all. He needed to give his best and try to help his teammates without any disregards.

Yes.

It was his big day after all.

Absolutely nothing shall ruin it.

Battle Simulation Field - 07:20 a.m.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M TEAMED UP WITH JUN HAMADA?!"

Kaori pinched the bridge of her nose in absolute stress, she seemed to be in much more of an irritable state.

"I don't know, okay?!" She did with a rather annoyed tone. "It was All Might's idea!"

The both of them stood under the early morning sun, still shining above their heads in an exceptionally bright day with less than several clouds around. The summer weather surely was a pain to the both of them considering how they stood in an opening right in the center of an artificially made city, in front of a giant simulation building.

While all of them are already in their own costume, the two of them were yards apart from the rest of their classmates. This is mainly because the Number 1 Pro Hero All Might had split the class by four, making each group consisting of three people.

And, by some luck, Seiji had to be grouped up with Kaori (which he was partly thankful) and Jun.

But the shorter boy was nowhere to be seen.

"Kirikagure," someone said from the distance, "I see that we'll be fighting together."

Yato came up to Oboro with a half-smile, his costume had a skintight armor to it, decorated with several holsters that strapped around his body including his waist and shoulders. But the center of the spotlight was actually shown from the patterns sewn symmetrically from his shoulder down as a single path towards the back of his hands; at first glance it would seem like silver-ish polkadots, but they were actually thin, built in circulating systems to easily let his powers flow out of his suit, or so Yato told. His pants were a different story, almost as if it was worlds apart from the body wear. They were simply black skinny jeans with loose ends, fitting in terms of style and color with his boots and gloves.

Oboro, only returned his gesture with a blow of smoke from the corner of his mouth. He rubbed the back of his head in boredom, almost as if he'd rather be anywhere than here.

"Aaah… I should've ordered something more suiting for my Quirk…" He moaned in an exasperated tone, lifting the hem of his oversized sleeves in a disappointed way.

"Ah, I see." Yato commented. "But, if I may, the designers sure gave a whole lot of thought into it."

It was true. Oboro's costume design looked way more like a wizard's robe rather than a heroic costume. The robe, white in color with grey embroideries sewn on each hem, was fitted with a hood and inside it, a high collared tunic—grey in color—before it was wrapped with together with a double leather belt right on top of the waist, acting as both a band and a holder for little metal cans. On his legs, he was wore something similar to Yato's, except that his was colored white with many tubular metallic objects protruding out of his thighs down to his shins, hollow in nature and a perfect way to circulate his gas. His boots were also fairly smaller than his companion's, almost like his was built for stealth.

But Oboro seemed less than pleased. He kept trying to shake his way out of his slim pants every few seconds.

"I don't like it." Oboro said with a click of a tongue. "I don't feel like I'm moving freely at all!"

Truth be told, however, most people would be impressed with the designer's work. If anyone were to add a gas mask, per se, he would look more like a post apocalyptic survivor, wandering around the dystopian world in a white gothic fashion.

Yato merely shrugged as his response. "If it works rather well, I wouldn't complain."

"It's easy for you to say." Oboro jeered. "Your Quirk doesn't involve running around in the smoke without being able to make a sound."

"… We have basically the same affinity."

"I ain't your brother."

"Oboro Kirikagure, Yato Shimura," Called a voice from beside them, it was none other than cybernetic girl Mika Tatsuya, "Mr. Hisaki Adachi has informed us all to gather promptly. I advise that we do not falter from our newer task. I, for one, do not wish to miss our first significant heroic activity, as well as testing Mr. Hisaki Adachi's patience."

She, for one, wore something entirely different from the rest of the class. Her hero suit was only a leotard, with only one out of each of her limbs concealed under the silvery-bluish rubber substance. Everyone could see clearly how her metallic side operated, gleaming beautifully with dozens of bright blue wires glowing and running around her right side, while the other—humane—side of her body was concealed by her suit. The costume was, frankly, skintight, as it showed her not yet matured 15 year old body. Whether it was due to her Quirk that she looked quite younger than the rest of her female friends, none of them here knew.

She was, by definition: youth. The purest form (or impurest) there was.

"Yeah, yeah," Oboro waved her off arrogantly, ignoring her chastise, "whatever you say, Tatsuya-sama."

"Please be quick about it." She said coldly.

To which, Yato gave a blank stare. "Is there something wrong, Mika?"

Both the boys knew that Mika was, frankly, too complex to understand a simple sarcastic remark. As it was better shown on the tilt of her head. But she would eventually came to not thinking about it too much, as t wasn't seemed to be programmed into her in the first place. But she seemed somewhat off, today.

Maybe it was because of her constant downwards gaze or her complete and utter coldness in her tone at every time she spoke.

"Whatever have you meant by that statement, Yato Shimura?" The cyborg girl tilted her head, her thin eyebrows seemed to be furrowing. "Isn't it our obligations to follow the teacher—"

"Yes, but…" Yato cut her off, before he eventually shook it off. "N-nothing… you're right. Let's get."

Mika couldn't be more confused, but she also couldn't find it in her own programming to care much. Eventually, she followed suit.

Meanwhile, back at Seiji's and Kaori's group, the two of them hadn't even noticed Jun Hamada anywhere.

Kaori and Seiji exchanges glances, looking at how the rest of the class had already assembled with Adachi and All Might, they sighed altogether.

"Alright, Seiji," the rave-haired girl started in a sort of a hissy whisper, "I'll try to talk to All Might and Mr. Adachi about it. Maybe… they'll have second thoughts and—"

"No." Seiji cut her off, his face paling. "We… don't have much of a choice, Kaori."

Seiji wouldn't say that he hated Jun, not in a way that everyone else did, at least. He always felt that the short boy was misunderstood, even more so when he showed such relationship between Mr. Adachi. Seiji wasn't oblivious, he knew that Adachi was the kind to dot over any student he has, but even so, when it came to Jun, Seiji just couldn't help but to notice something different.

However, it didn't take long for Seiji to feel quite… irritated.

Maybe it started about months ago. When he first slept under one roof with Jun Hamada. There was moments when he would disappear, only to be found later on to be discussing something with Mr. Adachi. And when Seiji tried to ask about it, he would always find himself verbally abused.

But then, months after, right when Seiji was starting to slowly succumb to the mutual feeling of distraught, ready to start the day fresh like he had been doing for months after meeting the boy, Jun Hamada came to light as a haunting thought that filled his head the night he saw eye to eye with the eldritch horror.

It was true. Seiji was worried to death. And when he recollected at the moment when he saw Jun Hamada's eyes filled to the brim with tears (whether that was just the afternoon sun playing tricks on him or the utter lack of nourishments in which he had skipped hours prior to the event, he didn't know), something terrified him even more.

He would know when was the last time he had saw the vexed boy in a state of emotion other than the enraged, irritated form that Jun had always been. And the information came as good as nothing.

But then again, he felt as if it was someplace that he shouldn't be meddling about… Considering how Adachi—based on how he had looked that day—and Jun had a relationship Seiji had no clue about nor ever wanted to care about. Because, frankly, he felt like stepping a foot out of bounds would've been a death flag.

Nonetheless, he didn't wanted to risk losing his teamwork score just for the sake of being nice. Furthermore, if keeping his head intact really meant not trying to establish equal ground with Jun, then he'd probably risk doing it.

Besides, beyond his boundaries or not, Jun was a problem to the class and its relationship. And he wanted to know why.

"Like it or not, we're stuck with him." Seiji told Kaori, and he meant that in the most sincere way. "Come on, we shouldn't keep Adachi waiting. And… well.. you won't know!"

Yet Kaori seemed displeased. "But, Seiji…"

The boy merely glanced past his shoulder, towards his other classmates. "Let's just go, okay? Come on, we don't got much time left."

His friend finally came to an agreement. Together, they grouped up with the rest of the class to await for their next instructions. Yet still, Jun Hamada was nowhere to be seen.

As they finally got alongside the rest of the class, cramping themselves into the crowd trying to get the best view of the two teachers up front. From the back, both Seiji and Kaori could make out the figure of a wild haired man, almost resembling something of a short mane of a male lion, whilst shimmered under the sun in a viridian-greenish light.

Mr. Adachi seemed twice more intimidating today, his stature and position made his figure appear twice more bigger than the artificial city behind him. He wore one of his best suits, fitted with a tie and Oxford shoes, but the sight was quite normal for the class to see. Regardless, something about his downwards forlorn glare made the atmosphere quite heavy and tense.

Beside him stood All Might, reaching more than half the size of Mr. Adachi, the number 1 Pro hero was evidently the biggest individual in the area. And, considering how tall and lean Mr. Adachi was, it was quite the shock to see someone quite larger than him.

As the class gathered around, waiting impatiently for whatever the two teachers had to say to them before their first activity starts. Some even had to bite their nails in anticipation.

Seiji, however, felt like something had made the hair on the back of his neck to rise in fear. He looked around the crowd, both in wary and in confusion. And then, by chance, he caught a glimpse of dark brunette hair between the many other students.

His eyes widened, he had finally caught the sight of Jun Hamada. In his heart, he had the looming thought of trying to shorten their distances, but his mind said otherwise.

Jun was there, already in his costume as well. And by the looks of it, he hadn't had his mood to be brightened by a long shot. Seiji had to stand by the tip of his toes to just peek a glance at his face, and not only had he caught a glimpse of Jun's own costume, he could see him twiddling his fingers— while clothed in something like a full metal glove— in an awkward way. Yet his face, still possessing that fixed scourging scowl, was hidden under his thick bangs as he gave a downwards gaze.

Something was wrong.

Seiji could feel it, yet… he was torn. Should he do what any good friend would do? Or just leave him be?

"That looks like all of them." Adachi said from up front, hands tying behind his back.

All Might glances from beside him, his smile ever so powerfully intimidating. With a quick puff of his chest, he placed both his curled up fists on his hips. "GOOD MORNING, CLASS!"

He cleared his throat, feeling himself rather anxious to be faced with as large group of kids; ones with troubled pasts, and questionable mental complexes at that, too.

But, he would be lying if he hadn't said that he was mildly interested. He couldn't remember the last time he tried to take down a juvenile villain, because he simply didn't wanted to… not again. Seeing this decision to be made by the school… it was quite a development in society, in a good way.

When he first heard about it, there wasn't anything that he could do but to accept to run the program; he felt like he was obliged to do it. As a number 1 Pro hero, shouldn't it be his responsibility to become a good example or children?

Frankly, he was afraid of this occasion, because he couldn't really think of any good things to say to these children. They were trying to reform, so he had thought that he might as well did it like he had taught the Hero Courses. Or maybe...

"As you all know… today is a special occasion for us all! I am really glad to see all of you becoming heroes in the future. And not only that! As today is your first step in reaching your dreams, I will be here to supervise you all!" He told them with a smile.

Adachi merely said nothing, yet his cold stare filled all the empty spaces that should've been filled with encouraging words.

All Might cleared his throat before he pointed his beefy hands towards the entrance of the artificial city. "Once you've entered that simulation zone, I expect teamwork! Integrity! The core essences of heroism! I expect none of you to fail me on your first day of being taught under me! Now before we start… I'd like to say a few things about the area that you're going to be fighting in. All of you know that the rocket that's going to be safeguarded by the villain is placed inside a building, there's absolutely no rule of it to be there at all! Yes! The whole city is your battlefield!"

The sudden change of plans should be just enough to match with their fighting styles: open field, no boundaries, and many, many destructive hazards.

He moved on towards his next subject, and he did it by pulling out a little smartphone from under his suit. He seemed to be smiling gleefully as he began tapping onto the screen. "I'm so glad I've bought this new smartphone! Kids these days have so many new features on their hands!" He giggled inside his head.

He went on to open an app, a lottery simulator at that, too. "Alright class! As you have all know which team you are on, it's time to spin the wheel and see who gets to fight who!"

Moments passed as the virtual wheel spun inside All Might's smartphone screen, before a light ding came from the underside of his phone. Everyone waited as All Might was seemingly taking his time joyfully tapping at his screen.

"ALRIGHT!" All Might suddenly shouted. "AS FOR OUR FIRST MATCH… TEAM B, ACTING AS VILLAINS, SHALL GO AGAINST TEAM C, WHO IN TURN WILL ACT AS HEROES!"

Amidst the crowd, Seiji turned to Kaori who had the same look of shock as him.

"We're Team C, aren't we?" Seiji asked her, who merely nodded in return.

"Guess this is as good as ever." Kaori told him. "If you want us to back out, then I'll just—"

"No." Seiji said sternly, only to backtrack right after. "I-I mean… I can handle it as long as you're alright with it…"

Seiji didn't want to say it, but he felt like there was something going on between her and Jun. Not that there wasn't something between Jun and everyone else, though he did feel something in the way Kaori looked at him in worry when they brought up Jun Hamada's name. The last thing he wanted was for their team to break apart, just because of one unstable boy.

He somehow felt responsible, in the least. He should be at least try to make the both of them cheered up for the activity. God knows he was until teacher's announced their teams.

Kaori pursed her lips. "But… well… I guess I'm alright with it."

"Good." Seiji nodded, while scratching the back of his head. "I-I'll go talk to him about our match…"

"… I'll do it."

His eyes widened. "A-are you sure?"

"Well… if he is what you say he is, I don't know why not." Kaori simply said, shrugging hesitantly.

The both of them exchanged glances before finally looking at the boy in question.

There he was, standing by himself; staring a forlorn gaze at Mr. Adachi.

Kaori then whispered into Seiji's ear. "I think we should leave him be for a while."

The boy merely sighed, before he started to look around. "Okay, so… who are we supposed to be fighting?"

Kaori immediately pointed behind him, at which he began to avert his eyes to another group of three. And then, a chill went down their spine.

A lumbering boy, standing higher than most of them, was one of their opponents: Date Takehiro. The other, while still holding onto his hunched back, was easily one of the most dangerous person around: Tarasu Kobayashi. And lastly, while she was the least of Seiji and Kaori's problem, her Quirk was the most dangerous by far: Suki Takara.

"We're doomed…" Seiji thought to himself, slouching on where he stood.

Battle Simulation Field - 07:30 a.m.

The first thing Seiji knew about teamwork based activities was that nobody actually really did the teamwork part. They were all too focused on getting to their believed vantage points to gain the upper hand all to themselves rather than actually helping their fellow teammates.

Maybe it was because of the fact that activities like this were supposed to be friendly and educational, with the gain to be received taken as a form of experience in what it actually felt like to be working with other people.

For one, Seiji's only knowledge about teamwork was carrying packages of beverage from the truck and onto the shelves back when he worked in the convenience store. But something like simulating a battle against villains were something else.

Sure, he got into fights often with lowly gangs from his old apartment street, but it's not like he was gaining the upper hand. He didn't even know how to strategize properly against an opponent.

But alas, what else could he do but to rely on—at least one of—his friends.

They stopped by the entrance of the building, shielded by a large concrete wall just under the level of the front door. The atmosphere of the artificial city sure was alien, as there was no signs of life that could be seen anywhere in the area, or at least for miles to come. The building itself was looking almost dead as visible rusting beams protruded from the tenth floor and rising, like an unfinished construction work.

Seiji could also see how he and his team's location had quite the distance between them, yet the sheer sight of the building from where they hid was no joke. Thank god they had earpieces to communicate with ease.

The sun was unnaturally hot, and it took a toll on one of their costumes due to the fact that it was pitch black in color and, to make matters warmer, wrapped around most part of the body. Luckily for Seiji, he only wore something that was adequate to the weather considering his thin layer of printed t-shirt and short baggy pants.

"Should we split up and attack from different vantage points?" Kaori asked from behind him, she was sweating profusely due to her outfit.

"I think we shouldn't be so hasty." Seiji warned her before he took a step closer to her.

He gulped, trying to think of a good strategy. "Alright… here's how it's going to go down: they might try to catch us off guard by attacking all at once, so I suggest that we take that chance as a way to try and get a path towards the rocket."

Kaori brought a finger up to her chin. "They wouldn't try to risk destroying the building, one of what we're dealing with is a human train, after all. And besides, I don't think the building can take that much damage."

"Then… maybe they would try to attack us in an open field?" Seiji thought out loud.

Kaori merely shook her head. "Even though Date might have a disadvantage in a tight space, Tarasu doesn't have any problems with it. I think they might try to break us off in their vantage points, we won't have much of a choice once that happens. The building's blueprint is also quite large, it would take some time before we could locate the bomb."

But before Seiji could respond, he saw something behind her. Jun Hamada, once was silent the whole trip to the building, stood up from where he crouched as he began eyeing the building. He was still silent, and Seiji could not look at his eyes due to the ever messy bangs that covered them.

"Jun, what are you doing?" Seiji tried to ask, looking at the direction the other male was.

Jun wore what was essentially the most fashionable out of the bunch with a scarlet red over coat long enough to reach the back of his ankles, black body armor with metallic outlines of his chest, and slim black pants that seemed to hug the shape of his legs, not to mention the spiked pads on his knees, shoulders, and elbows. Three buckled belts in a column, each wrapping June's upper, middle, and bottom torso. Two pairs of gauntlets, blunt on the knuckles yet lined with short fur at the edge of his arm guards. And lastly, a mask, hanging by his last belt, with the appearance of a gas mask with crimson red eyes and tubular holes protruding out of each cheek, gleaming in silver.

"Tch… what a fucking waste of time…" Jun muttered with a scowl, his eyes began to scan the building from every nook and cranny.

"Sit down!" Kaori suddenly snapped with an icy tone, it was unlikely for her to do so. "We don't want ourselves to be caught in the open!"

But Jun said nothing as he kept on scanning the buildings around him in a suspicious way.

Kaori's mouth was already half-opened, trying to scold him for the last time, before her eyes widened at the feeling of a tremor under her feet. "JUN WAIT—"

And before they knew it, Jun had leaped out of where they hid before landing at a certain building near their destination, the aftershocks of his Quirk could still be felt. The mark where he had last stood was now left with a small crater, just like how he was going leave one before leaping again.

It was already proven how Jun's ability in mastering the flow of transversal waves was strengthened to the point where it gave him kinetic energy, but both Kaori and Seiji could not believe how Jun's power could be so convenient.

He finally landed on a beam just several yards near the entrance of the mall, looking down on the view of from above. Kaori wasted no time to follow him.

The girl, dressed in skintight black body armor, gritted her teeth. She turned to her other companion with furrowed brows. "Come one! We can't risk being split apart!"

She immediately stood from where she hid, pulled out a single throwing knife from her utility belt, and threw it as far as she could towards Jun.

Just as the knife flew beside Jun's head who, by the time Seiji was forced to take Kaori's hand before the both of them teleported, was already crouching down on a metal beam. Seiji and Kaori landed wit a thud, the knife that had once been there before had now took the place of the two.

Seiji, however, hadn't took the whole trip disappearing and reappearing too well. "Ugh… I feel sick…"

"Sorry…" Kaori mumbled by his side, helping him get up to his feet. "That usually happens…"

The three of them now stood side by side on a single rusting beam, staring at the distance towards their designated building. But what shocked them the most was that, rather than any ordinary building, they were looking at an abandoned mall. Or at least that was the case considering nobody had ever seemed to own it as what it was.

The could make out the floors and the entrances to different rooms through the gigantic gap in the broken concrete ceiling from where they stood. The metallic beam that they stood on seemed to be one of the hundred more protruding beams that were once used as a foundation for the unfinished mall.

From this height, they could see everything, yet they couldn't spot their target rocket anywhere.

"This is a pretty good lookout point." Seiji tried to ease his nerves, holding his hips with both hands while he enjoyed the wind from their height. Then, he turned to Kaori, "There's no time limit is there?"

"We have a whole three periods of class used for this activity," She explained, "so I suppose we have about an hour or so before the next match."

"Well… we should try to think about what we want to do then—"

A scoff broke out, cutting him mid sentence. "Yeah… here's an idea: how about you two back off and let me do the work…"

The both of them stared at the boy in incredulity. But it was Kaori who spoke first. "What's wrong with you? We're supposed to act as a team and think before acting hastily."

"Oh… really?" Jun suddenly barked at her in a hurtful sarcastic way, he sneered at her before stomping a foot in front of her. "Aren't we supposed to be aiming for an 'effective progressiveness'? Oh! Oh! Or maybe… we should follow some sort of a stupid plan that comes out of your mouth?!"

"Jun, I—!" Kaori cannot fight back, whatever she was going to say was caught in her throat when the metal beam that they stood on suddenly shook violently for a whole second.

But Jun merely gave them a single blank gaze from his only visible eye. There was no horrid scowl to be found splattered on his face, but merely a pale unending pitiful look full of hopelessness and anger. Seiji could see a spark in his eye, the second their eyes met, almost as if Jun was abashed before turning his head away and crouched.

With another leap, one where he activated his Quirk once more to gain distance towards his designated floor level, Jun left the beam of metal to violently shake, making both of his companions to try and hang on to their lives.

Seiji had almost lost his balance and fall, only to be caught by the arm by Kaori; once more was he saved by someone else. The beam was still shaking, creating a vibrating noise at both of its conjunctive ends.

"T-Thanks…" The boy said in a shaky tone, but the girl next to him seemed to be in more of a troubled than he was.

Kaori immediately regained her footing, her eyes still watching Jun Hamada from the distance. Her gaze turned to be casted downwards, the same forlorn look that Jun had could be found on her face, yet Seiji could actually feel the danger radiating off of her.

She wasn't quite the same the moment she had been out in the same group as Jun.

"That idiot…" Kaori cursed under her breath, her hand reaching towards her knife pocket, ready for another chase for the other boy. "Come on! We can't lose him this time!"

Seiji stood up, trying to at least calm her nerves before she even tried to follow him. "Kaori… we shouldn't really try to—"

"Not now, Seiji!" Kaori snapped at him, already drawing her knife. "That… that walking disaster will be the death of us if we let him run around unchecked! The bomb could still be well hidden somewhere in the mall and the moment that boy runs into one of them, he'll destroy it!"

Seiji was awestruck. She had never shown this side of her to him before. "Kaori—"

"He'll ruin this!" She said with tears threatening to leave her eyes.

Just as Seiji was almost an inch away to grab her arm, Kaori had already threw her second knife with all her might. The both of them watched as the metal gleamed under the sunlight, flying across the horizon.

"Kaori, listen to me—" His desperate attempt to break through her was yet again cut off as Kaori unexpectedly yanked at his arm, sending them both to the place that the knife had last been.

With a quick flash of light, they were now three feet away from the floor, but the momentum of Kaori's knife was yet to disappear as the glided through the air in three and a half meters a second. Dust filled their nose and darkness seemed to have enveloped them as they finally reached what seemed to be the third level of the abandoned mall.

Seiji had only a split second to catch himself from falling, but his pathetic effort of a landing roll was deemed useless as he then kept rolling and rolling on his sides before finally coming to an abrupt stop while Kaori on the other hand did a perfect landing with just both her feet.

On the ground, Seiji tried to pick himself up, as the dust on the dirty concrete floor seemed to have build up inside his nose the moment he landed on it. But when he looked around him, he realized that the mall might as well be a giant building filled with extraordinarily spacious rooms full of gargantuan pillar reaching up towards about four meters in height. Behind him was that opened ceiling that he saw from his earlier point outside, there was no debris or any sign of destructions, only a giant hole as the only place where sunlight crept into, like a in-game building that had failed to render completely.

Getting himself back to his original problem, he tried to look around to catch Kaori or Jun only to find the former trying to catch up with the other in an irritated manner.

"Hey!" Kaori shouted to Jun, who merely ignore her in the distance.

"Hamada!" She tried once more, only to find herself yet again ignored.

But then, out of hopelessness, she drew her third knife before throwing it past Jun's shoulder. With a mildly loud flash of light, Kaori had suddenly appeared in front of him. She seemed cross, angrier than she was before. And the way she stomped closer to Jun's wide-eyed face definitely showed it.

"You… irritating… aggravating… selfish little boy!" She jabbed her fingers at his still torso in a violent way. Jun tried to take a few uneasy steps back but she only closed their distance exponentially. "Do you not realize what we've all been through to get here?! I've waited all my life to be finally given the chance to reform… yet you try to stomp at your own in front of my face?! Can't you be any more insulting?! God knows you needed it more than I do!"

For a moment, Jun's face was splattered with shock, only for it to finally show his true, beastly nature. "You don't know anything about me, Princess! You're so far up your own ass you couldn't even see the utter bullshit that you're saying at me! You think you've been given freedom?! You're all nothing but lost hopes! I might as well beat them and you considering how worthless this program really is!"

Kaori's face struck a crimson color. "You have no rights to say any of that—!"

"Face it!" Jun barked back. "By the end of the day they wouldn't consider you for a hero at all! You know what you are?! An experiment! Once failed you're going to be tossed in the garbage—!"

"How can you be so illogical?!" Kaori spat back, grabbing locks of her raven black hair in stress. "How can you act like none of this is worth your time?!"

"Because that's the fucking truth!" Jun shouted at her, jabbing his thumb at his chest. "Can't you fucking realize that yourself?! In the end you're all just little building blocks in Adachi's perfect little world! It ain't fucking matters once he has found a better piece! He's a faker! And you're all believing his lies!"

There was a hint of bitterness in Jun's tone when he reached this point, almost as if he was trying to water his words down; filtering all the painful thoughts that flooded out of his head and through his mouth.

Seiji was close to coming up to them, trying to break their fight, only to find Jun with his eyes shimmering under the sunlight that's crept down from the gap in the ceilings.

The other male stopped, thinking, disbelieved, worried.

"If you can't swallow the fact that you're all just throwable pawns on a chessboard, then don't even bother to stop and try to fucking talk to me!" Jun pushed her out of the way before proceeding towards his original destination. "There is no fucking hope for any of us! Get that rammed into your noggin'!"

"You…" Kaori seemed to be trembling, her anger had gotten her to the brink of tears. "HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT WHEN YOU'RE DYING, YOU HYPOCRITE!"

Seiji wanted to vomit out of shock.

Her voice echoed throughout the empty space of the floor, the sheer fury and confusion in her tone matched with her high-pitched shriek had finally been let out of her chest. Her hatred flooding all over the place.

She finally seemed to stop shaking, and words came out of her mouth. "If you would just look past your stupidity… MAYBE YOU'D FIND THE HELP YOU'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!"

Jun stared at her from past his shoulder, seeing her slowly gaining her composure made him equally mad.

"You…" He started with a low growl, his fangs baring in a terrifying way, "… self-centered bitch!"

Seiji knew this was the time to split the both of them apart. He quickly dashed towards them, not wasting any time to stop and think. Jun was going to kill her, and he couldn't bare to stand by and watch. All of this has to stop… now!

Yet… he couldn't bring himself to actually go up against Jun on a one on one battle. He merely pushed Kaori out of the way before trying to shield her with his hand. His heart hammering against his chest as Jun kept closing in on them.

"You think you're better than me?! You think just because you know how much of hindrance the people around you have makes you the fucking boss, is that it?! Maybe Adachi was wrong about you, maybe you were a villain all along!" Jun pointed his finger at her, trying all his might while fighting Seiji who was blocking his path; "You don't know anything about me! You can't possibly believe to have any fucking power over me! You think you can help me?! YOU'RE JUST A PEBBLE! A FUCKING PEBBLE! NONE OF YOU CAN EVER FUCKING HELP ME!"

Seiji had to back away from him, Jun was small but he had powers that nobody wanted to be tested on. In wariness, he tried to push Kaori back with his arm while his body faced Jun without even the slightest hint of flinching.

And then, with his other hand reached out, Seiji tried to talk, with the most sincerest tone he could make. "Back off, Jun… Come on… we don't need this…"

Jun's face seemed to have reddened from all of his outbursts, he was puffing air in and out of his chest as sweat began to drip down his chin. He kept looking from Seiji to Kaori, over and over again. There seemed to be a sudden spark inside his eyes that died down the moment he laid eyes on Seiji.

Silence overwhelmed the three of of them; Seiji was filled with confusion, Jun still filled with red hot anger, and Kaori frozen to her feet with nothing but a weight eating away at her heart.

Seiji could see it, the moment his eyes fell at the state Kaori was in. Jun's words seemed to have hurt her more than she could anticipate, and the worst thing about it was that Seiji didn't knew what to do about it. But the second he wanted to talk to Jun again, the other male was already on his way.

"Jun… come on, man!" Seiji called out to him, walking away from Kaori to catch up to the shorter boy. "Hey, we can talk about this!"

He could've sworn that Jun was in the brink of destroying everything around him, which was why Seiji needed to be extra careful when around him. He wanted to talk… he needed to talk… simply because he didn't understand what had was making him to be this difficult as a hero.

"Jun!" Seiji called again, only to find Jun gaining more and more distance as he walked. Seiji became even more desperate. "Come on… we can still do this together! You can't just push me away like this!"

And then, Seiji snapped.

"HEY!" He shouted at Jun. "FUCKING TALK TO ME, MAN!"

It made him flinch, a sudden abrupt stop came to him. The shorter male seemed dead, while standing straight up with a hanged head.

"I… I don't understand!" Seiji yelled, feeling his anger slowly dissipate. "Why are you doing this?!"

But Jun said not a thing. He wouldn't even look at Seiji in the face. This wasn't the boy they met months ago at the orientation, the boy who wouldn't think twice to angrily shout out all of his heart's contents, the boy who had no hesitation to strike at anyone who would think differently.

Seiji realized… his words could not reach him. And he didn't understood why. It drove him mad to see Jun abuse his best friend verbally with the words that would've hurt anyone, and in result, everything became conflicted. The last thing he wanted was for the three of them to split apart, just like how Adachi had seemed to be out of his mind with anger. Jun was no lesser of a pea in the pod along with his other classmates, but he was certainly trying to rot himself.

He just wanted to understand why… he was pushing away everyone who wanted to help him.

"First it was Adachi… then it's Kaori… It's not fair…" He thought to himself. "Why… why now… of all times? Please, god, not now!"

Just when he thought that all hope was lost, someone else came to view. When Jun stopped in his tracks abruptly, he could see a dark figure slowly walking out into the light.

A sudden sense of dread finally filled the air, and the room that held dozens of giant pillars suddenly felt so cramped the moment the other person walked in. Step… step… goes the footsteps of the mysterious individual. And then, just as a ray of light from above landed on his body, Seiji and Jun could finally see his dead, sunken face.

"Good grief!" A bored voice spoke, the sound of scratching hairs echoed throughout the silent halls. "Y'Already this energetic? What, did something good happen?"

Jun made a loud clicking noise with his tongue the second his eye fell upon the dreary sight of Tarasu Kobayashi, wearing nothing but his short, baggy cargo pants. His bare chest, completely decorated with well built muscles, glistened under the sunlight. His greasy hair hides the dead look that he had in his eyes.

Kobayashi always had that tired look in his face when he spoke, but there was no doubt to anyone else in the room that this person was not the one to be meddled with.

Seiji suddenly had everything that he wanted to talk about to disappear. His mind completely filled with wary thoughts as his feet were rooted to the ground. He couldn't see what Kaori had going on inside her head the moment she noticed Tarasu entering the room, but he noticed that Jun had not a single drop of care in him to be afraid.

"Well?" Tarasu said aloud again, smirking. "What's wrong? We're just getting to the good part! You can just talk like I'm not here, I wasn't going to pry on your dramas, you see."

"You're in the way." Jun spat at him, carelessly walking past him with his nose held up high.

But then, Tarasu suddenly drew out his arm to stop him. "Woah! Woah! You're not going somewhere are you? I mean, what happened to the whole 'villains versus heroes' thing?" He then began to chuckle maliciously.

"I said…" Jun growled lowly, taking a few steps back from Tarasu, "… YOU'RE IN THE WAY!"

Seiji had a split second moment to see what Jun had done, but he could've sworn that the Walking Disaster has roundhouse-kicked Tarasu straight in the face.

There was an obvious height difference between the both of them, but Jun had gained an advantage due to Tarasu's painfully bad stature. And the result: a powerful shockwave that rang through the halls like the impact force of a meteor.

The room exploded with a loud THOOOOOM!

Invisible forces of strength blew both Kaori and Seiji off of their feet. They couldn't take the force of Jun's Quirk that well, even if it wasn't aimed at them in the first place.

Transversal energy waves sure were a pain when inflicted… but that wasn't the case for Tarasu Kobayashi.

With ease, the greasy haired boy had seemingly… dispersed every waves of his Quirk.

As a result, an explosion of kinetic energy, in the form of a shockwave, destroyed the nearby pillars and turning them effectively into dusts. Both Kaori and Seiji could feel their heads ringing from the inside, tremors began to appear all across their skulls.

A second past, and everything seemed blurry from concrete dusts. Jun and Tarasu were both in a stand still. But only one of them had a look of dumbstruck on his face.

"My, my!" The greasy haired boy said with an impressed laugh. "You always do strike fast, don't you?"

Jun could feel his right leg still hovering above the ground, right where Tarasu's head should be. But amidst the dust and gleaming blue light, he couldn't make out what the hell was the thing that had blocked the full extent of his power.

And when the dust came to clear, a bright reflection of his face came to be as Tarasu had already grown half of his upper body and left arm with diamonds. Minerals of blue, sharp and dense, all protruded from right where Jun's kick had been blocked: with an arm, overgrown with a blue rocks, shielding Tarasu's face from the attack.

The diamond cladded boy merely smirked, but this time, as half of his face was already growing with little sharp rocks, there was something horrifying.

"Alas…" Tarasu said softly, enough for just Jun to hear, "… I am faster."

Jun's eyes widened, both in fear and shock.

And before he knew it, Tarasu had grabbed at his shin. The diamond knight made a quick 180 degree turn, before he slammed Jun's body straight to the concrete floor with a loud CRASH!

Tarasu took several steps backwards, waiting for the dust to clear. And then, he could feel a sudden emotion of joy when he saw Jun Hamada, once who had gone toe to toe against Mr. Adachi, dead-limp while laying on his back in a crater that Tarasu made.

The greasy haired male merely stared at Jun with an ever growing grin, the sheer ecstasy of watching him laying there helplessly without making any visible motions, building up, making Tarasu shiver in pure triumph. Seiji and Kaori could only watch in defeat as Jun's attack had struck them off of their guard, their heads still still ringing painfully.

"Ah… I think I overdid it…" Tarasu nonchalantly said, scratching at the back of his head once more. "Damn… Takara said not to mess up the plan, too… well… not my fault that he was weak. There's still two more to play with, I guess…"

Seiji was the first to get up, hesitantly slapping himself in the face twice, trying to get his consciousness together. This was nothing. Not when he had been bashed with a baseball bat far denser and more painful than Jun's Quirk.

But staying here and trying to boast about it meant a total loss for his team, and he couldn't afford that. His eyes averted from the Tarasu Kobayashi who had eyed him with a bloodlust homicidal look from afar, towards his other teammate Kaori Tsukinose who, by the time Seiji had laid his eyes on her, was laying curled up on the floor with her raven black hair covering her face. She was motionless.

"No…" Seiji breathed out, unsure of what had happened. But as he gritted his teeth, he had no doubt of what he needed to do: he immediately rushed into her aid. "KAORI WAKE UP!"

There was a light haughty laugh from the distance, and footsteps had followed it from behind. "You know… you could save me some time by just saying that you surrender. It's waaaaaay to early for me to fight!"

"Come on, Kaori…" Seiji said desperately as he shook her limp shoulder. "Need some of your help here!"

But the words that wanted to come out of his mouth was suddenly jammed in his throat from bewilderment. The moment Tarasu had already reached a mere few feet from them, the sunlight struck his figure; his unnaturally swollen figure.

A hundred more crystal clear minerals, shining a dim hue of blue when hit by the sunlight, exploded out of the left side of Tarasu Kobayashi's bare body like a mountain of minerals. The skin of left hand, now swollen and twice as large his other arm, was completely turned into a rocky surface with nothing but spikes and uneven grounds. The same went for his left shoulder, and up to his face. The hedonistic smile that crept from face to face was decorated elongated piece of rocks protruding out of his cheeks like a thick porcupine's needle.

"Ah! The thrill… finally... something to dominate…" Tarasu madly muttered to himself, his heartbeat fastening painfully from the impatience to kill. He then turned to Seiji, a mad smile had met a fearful frown. "You wouldn't mind if I… break a few piece of your bones, right?"

"Yeah, that's totally a villain candidate, right there…" Seiji sarcastically said under his breath, his body instinctively shielding the still unconscious Kaori from the oncoming attack.

Tarasu then started to scream at him, "LETS SEE WHAT YOU GOT AGAINST THIS!"

With a quick slam of his bulky left hand toward the concrete floor, an iceberg of minerals had begun to form from under his hand, before it exponentially bursted out of the floor in a straight line heading straight towards its opponents. It was coming Seiji's way quicker than he could block, and something told him that getting hit by it would be the same as being dead.

Seiji had a mere two seconds to grab Kaori with both arms before carrying her on his back, and jump out of harms way. A mere two seconds before getting pounced, speared, and ripped to a bloody mess by an oncoming rush of sharp rocks.

"UWOOOOH!" Seiji shouted instinctively, his legs unknowingly made him jump out of his original position while carrying the weight of his companion on his back.

The iceberg crashed into a pillar with a glassy sounding crack, until he realized that it was the pillar getting destroyed and not the protruding wave of diamonds coming out of the ground.

Tarasu was merciless. He showed this by continuously summoning more and more protrusions of icebergs out of the floor. Seiji had to jumped several times to dodge from his ground attacks, ultimately making his arms sore from carrying Kaori.

He couldn't let himself be captured by one of the crystals, he did all he could to jump over them, but it seemed like the crystals had surrounded him first.

"LIKE HELL THAT'LL STOP ME!" Seiji yelled into the sky as he pulled the unconscious Kaori higher onto his back before rushing towards on of the growing crystals on the ground.

With a quick leap, Seiji began to jump around on top of the rapidly growing minerals, not caring if the sharp edge that could penetrate his boots could eventually rip his feet apart, or worse, slip and fall head first tosses an inevitable death.

Suddenly, Tarasu stopped, hunching forward with a frown on his sweaty face. The protruding crystals under his feet had seemingly start to disintegrate into little white sands of salt.

"Ah… I'm parched…" He groaned to himself, seeing how the crystals that he summoned from the ground started to break off and filling the floor with more and more white salt.

When he realized that Seiji was still running amok with Kaori on his back, he reached down and grabbed a handful of salt from what had left of his earlier crystals. The white sand spilling unendingly from the gap of his fingers.

"Good… grief…" He said in a tiresome voice, before he eventually swallowed drown every drop of salt left on his hand. He gulped down the little minerals before he let his arms fall to his sides.

And, a second later, as his left hand began to form a circle with his fingers, a long transparent spear had suddenly grown out of it. The process was somewhat quick, giving him an advantage, as well as the ability to shape it into any size he wanted. And when he raised his newly made giant spear straight from his hand, aiming it at Seiji from afar, he let out another smile.

"Maybe you haven't got… the point…"

His arm was surely made for something as powerful as throwing a monstrous looking five foot crystalized spear over a long distance, and he wasn't going to waste any of that skill.

With a sudden movement, the spear flew, breaking through the air with a loud whistle. The wind and alike were never existed in an isolated space such as the mall, but the sheer force of his throw could very well create one of its own.

As the spear was gaining more and more distance, where it would eventually reach its target in a matter of seconds, Seiji had not the reflexes to dodge such object.

He eyed it from afar, catching the spear in action right when it was nearly there to rip his head open. He suddenly found himself praying to a nonexistent god.

But then, with a sudden flash of light, his vision changes completely.

Seiji was too taken aback to realize the distance of the floor below him, he only knew that he had somehow changed places again like the thing he once did with Kaori by his side and holding his hand. And when he fell into the floor with a painful thud, he realized that Kaori was still on his back and pressing down on his spine.

The raven haired girl slowly got up and off of his back, seeing him lying spread eagled on his chest while being crushed by her weight made her instinctively remove herself from her position.

"S-Seiji! A-are you Alright?" Kaori tried to say, her eyebrows furrowing in worry and her head still spinning and shaking.

"I'm fine…" The boy groaned when he lifted his body to a sitting position. He turned to her with the same worried look. "How about you?"

"I'm alright…" Kaori assured him, but her face suddenly fell into a deep frown. "I'm sorry… I couldn't have been more weak to suddenly fall unconscious…"

"That's… not something that we should be worrying about at the moment…" Seiji reassured her back before he looked around at his area. He was currently sitting in the middle of a mess of crystal icebergs.

He had managed to take a quick peek through the gaps, and eventually found himself staring at the giant spear that had once aimed at his face piercing though to the end of a single large piece of boulder made out of crystals. Kaori seemed to have switched their positions with it.

Seiji unknowingly gulped, both in fascination and in shivering fear, imagining his own head getting split in two by the sheer size of it, considering how it wouldn't fit when jammed inside his brain in the first place.

He tried to take another heart-maddening stare at the homicidal madman Tarasu Kobayashi, who had his upper body weighted even more so ever since he had swelled his left arm with heavy crystallization. Seiji couldn't see his face, his greasy bangs had hid Tarasu's eyes completely, but the pompous sneer that smeared his sunken face was lit by the sunlight.

"WELL?!" The greasy haired boy shouted in great anger, perhaps from the salt. "DON'T MAKE ME WAIT! SHOW ME YOUR PITIFUL FACES!"

There was absolutely no reason for Seiji to heed to Tarasu's calls, like how any sane person would. The ponytailed boy wiped the sweat off of his forehead, feeling his bangs slowly getting wetter and wetter. He should have a little bit of energy left inside of him for another dash out of here, even though his lungs were burning like hell. But then he remembered: Jun.

Should he still be alive, then Seiji couldn't just leave him to lay on the floor like a fallen porcelain doll. It was stupid, it was illogical, it was in every way to be perfectly justified to leave Jun out there by himself… or so his inner demon said. But… like the hero he was supposed to play, a hero he shall aim to be.

Seiji proceeded to hide back behind the giant thick mineral that circled around him and Kaori. "Do you wanna take this one?" He said to his only companion left, who had been dozing off with worry.

"W-what?" Kaori sputtered, cold sweats running down her stoic face. "I-I'm sorry… I wasn't listening…"

"What's wrong?" Seiji tried to ask, his voice almost whispering.

"It's just… I find the whole situation a tad bit off…" Kaori told him, her face scrunching up in full concentration. "Why only Kobayashi? And what was he and Takara planning?"

Before after even a second, she slammed her right fist at the palm of her of left hand with a look of realization splattered on her face. "They're trying to move the rocket! He's just here to keep us busy!"

"I'm pretty sure he is just planning to obliterate us right here, right now." Seiji scoffed before putting a hand up to his chin. "Regardless, we need to get to the rocket before the time runs out."

"But—" Kaori suddenly said aloud, "—what about Jun? H-he could've been really hurt after Tarasu knocked him out… a-and…"

She then began to pinch at the bridge of her nose, feeling a mountain of stress slowly building up inside of her.

"Gah! I'm so… so naïve…" Kaori pursed her lips, slamming her fist to her face. "All I wanted was to help him…"

The two of them stared at each other's glances. Kaori seemed to be reeling back from what she had unknowingly said earlier, but Seiji merely cleared his throat.

"We're not going to leave him here." Seiji said without a single trace of doubt in his tone. "That's why I wanted to ask you if you are willing to take on Tarasu head on, giving me some opening to dash it."

"I…" Kaori seemed torn, her pupils shaking madly. "I can't just… leave you a—"

"Jun needs it more than me." Seiji reassured her. "I also didn't wanted to leave him in the ditch just like that… you know why, don't you?"

"W-what?"

Seiji closed his eyes, unsure of what was there left to tell her. He didn't wanted to make her think that she was obliged to do so. In all honesty, Seiji didn't know what to think anymore. He was in too much of a pinch to actually come up with something that can make him think straight, as well as convincing Kaori that he wasn't going to let her feel weighted by her worry.

He sighed, trying not to let his laugh be heard by her. It almost felt… relatable.

"I'm not trying to guilt trip you, or anything." Seiji said. "But like you said: he's not in any health to fight with full power. It's probably the… least heroic thing we can do right now, no matter how stupid it is."

She gulped when she heard him say. "You… are you sure?"

"I may have bad grades, but I'm not stupid. I can manage on my own." He scratched his cheeks, letting out a small grin. "Well… I might be stupid enough to try and run headfirst towards the rocket. But I'm worried for Jun, too, you know."

"I understand." Kaori nodded before looking past the giant diamond rocks towards the distance. "So, what's the plan?"

Seiji looked around, until he found a single stray piece debris in the form of a palm-sized diamond. He clutched it with his hand, nodding to himself with assurance.

"The ol' 'throw and switch'." He suggested to her. "Once you've kept him busy, I can make my way to the rocket. Can you handle that."

Kaori glanced at the rock before back at Seiji again. "Not a problem."

She crouched down to a running position, saying nothing, she merely had the fire that burns in her eyes. Her resolve seemed to be running quite madly through her veins. Seiji couldn't complain, he liked someone to actually listen to him once in a while.

He casted a ghastly stare at the floor, suddenly thinking back to the fight that they had earlier. He wasn't angry, instead what loomed inside his heart was pity.

"Hey," He called again to Kaori, "there's something that's been bugging my mind for a while…"

Kaori looked up. "Y-yes?"

"Does… Jun hate me?" Seiji asked her, his shoulders slouching. "Maybe that's why he doesn't want to talk to me at all."

His teammate listened closely, her eyebrows furrowing.

"That's what I don't get, Kaori." Seiji told her, grabbing a handful of his locks with an uneasy expression. "I don't get why he keeps insisting on leaving, why he is acting like he does, it's sickening!"

He reached out a hand to her, before stroking her upper arm through her carbon-fiber body armor lining with the tip of his fingers. "After this… make sure that he tells me all of it…"

Kaori saw resolve in his eyes as well. Her eyes were suddenly filled with admiration. She was still worried for him, though, and what he was planning. But she knew she didn't have the right words to deny him. In fact, it was undeniable.

For she, too, wanted to know.

"On the count of three…" Seiji said as he lifted the diamond in his hand. "One… two… THREE!"

He jumped out of his hiding, stepped a good footing on the circling diamonds, pulled back his hand further than his shoulder, and the diamond on the palm of his hand clenched tightly with full determination. He had already knew where Tarasu Kobayashi had been standing, where his head was located in his hunchbacked body, and Seiji kept a burning picture of it in his mind.

Tarasu, out of the gaps of his bangs, saw the fast movements on the corner of his eye. He spun his head around until he was eye to eye with Seiji Orimura.

A grim smile split his face apart.

"FOUND YOU!" With a quick swing of his diamond cladded left hand, dozens of crystal spikes emerged out of it before firing at Seiji with a speed close to that of a home-run pitcher.

But Seiji threw the single piece of debris just in time before the rushing shrapnel got a good hit on several parts of his body. The ponytailed boy had no chance to dodge any of them and he had to pay the price for it by subconsciously activating his Quirk, but he couldn't care less… not when Kaori had already shifted place.

Seiji was thrown backwards as the sharp diamonds that shot at him had brought him down effectively, he landed with a sharp thud before sliding across the salt ridden floor and came crashing towards the many stray protruding boulders.

Tarasu had watched him fall, and it made him feel even more giddy, but a dreadful expression came over his face as he suddenly realized something.

"The girl!" He thought in sudden caution. "Where is Tsukinose?!"

And right before he knew it, a blinding flash of came over him, overwhelming him completely until he had lost all of his guard. He had merely a split second time to shield his head from any incoming attack, but it was too late.

With a loud yell, Kaori managed to land a swift kick to his cheek. Yet, she had merely missed the chance from knocking him out completely by hitting the side of his chin, which would only make Tarasu stumble in response.

Kaori landed another kick, while still flying in midair from the momentum of the diamond that she had switched with earlier. She needed to knock him out by chance or at lease drop his chance of fighting back, but she failed once she realized that Tarasu had immediately grabbed her shin the moment she threw her second kick.

With an ear splitting roar, Tarasu did the same thing he did to Jun. He swung the hand that held Kaori's leg before slamming her down to the floor.

But then, she disappeared in another flash of blinding light.

The second she emerged, she had switched places with piece of rock sitting conveniently on the floor near her. Luckily for her, there were hundreds of maybe thousands of similar mineral debris sitting all over the place.

Without a second thought, she leaped as high as she could towards the back of Tarasu's head while unseating another knife. The moment her opponent had laid eyes on her, her blade was already touching the base of his neck.

CLANG! Goes the sound of the blade of her knife breaking. The spot that had been Tarasu's naked neck was now ridden with diamonds.

"Impossible! How is he able to keep up!" Kaori shouted in her mind.

She clicked her tongue, watching the boy's homicidal grin slowly aimed at her. But before Tarasu could land his attack by swinging his arm at her, she had disappeared again in another flash of light. She planned to aim any part of the body that she can get. But every effort she took was met with failure due to his quick crystallization process.

She appeared under his arm and kicked him straight in the torso, failed.

She appeared behind him before stabbing him in the thighs, failed.

Blinding flash of lights after blinding flash of lights, every attack that she gave didn't matter. Tarasu was too quick and too strong compared to her. Moreover, his Quirk helped him way better than hers did, considering how there wasn't anymore objects that she can change with.

And then, Tarasu had finally noticed her shift, and kicked her straight in the guts.

She landed too far away from him before stopping herself from skidding in caution, holding her crouching tiger position with the hilt of her knife bit between her teeth. As she clenched her teeth trying to hold back the pain in her guts, she heard Tarasu laughing.

"What's the matter, Tsukinose?" He said with a lowly sneer, his topless body gleaming in a light blue hue. "No more rocks to switch with? AHAHAHAHA!"

Kaori said nothing as she watched him turn to her slowly, looking her straight in the eye with his misty dead ones. She shivered from the sudden coldness that overwhelmed her. She recognized this feeling: it was the fear of death.

She bit her tongue, begging inside her mind, "Jun, where are you!"

"Notice how I kicked every possible objects near me in the middle of our fight." Tarasu told her, opening his arms as if to behold his great work. "That's right… I have figured out that you can only change places with objects that you can perceive. Like how you didn't switch places with the many salt mounds under our feet, because they were simply to small for you to locate clearly!"

She knew not of how to react to this, not when she knew that it was futile to go against him once more. She needed another plan, fast! If she were to be defeated here, or if Tarasu had known about Seiji dashing away to locate the rocket, she won't have any choice but to keep him busy for as long as it took.

"So what now, Princess?" Tarasu taunted, still grinning. He took slow steps closer to her, approaching her with an unmistakable aura of a killer.

Kaori stayed silent, she decided to be on guard to keep him on striking first. She couldn't think about any good strategy right now but to keep him busy.

Her chest was tightening, she was in no doubt, going to die.

But if it was for a heroic cause, then she wouldn't mind at all.

Tarasu was now a mere six feet away from her, his body began to swole less and less as salt from his protruding crystals spilled all over the ground beneath him. But there was no telling how much more can he take before going into a state of exhaustion, which made him even more dangerous.

"There is no way for you to win against me!" Tarasu boasted. "I'm tired! Even I was practically skipping when I was told to suppress Hamada in here, I couldn't even care less after that knowing that you all are just a bunch of weaklings! This isn't a fight! Where's the challenge?! Can't you deadbeats get up one more time and try to—" THOOOOOOOM!

Kaori watched with her mouth agape as Tarasu basically flew out of her sight, she had basically lost every single working thoughts in her brain.

She saw Tarasu crashing into a pillar, and another one, and another one, and another one. Each crash made a loud sickening crunching noise.

The shockwave that blew Tarasu away earlier also made Kaori's hair fly, and when the dust that gathered in the wind began to scatter away, she could see a single beaten up figure in front of her.

It was Jun Hamada. Standing on the edge of his pain, with the same scowling look on his face.

"JUN!" She unknowingly shouted at him, only to be silenced once again with a spitting look that he shot her with.

Kaori suddenly felt a her shoulders lightening completely, until her heart suddenly became weighted in a flurry of emotions. She felt anger, guilt, and shock, but moreover, she felt sympathy. She had been wanting to ask Jun the same question Seiji wanted to ask him.

Meanwhile, back at Seiji, he was secretly watching from afar as he dashed towards any visible exits that Tarasu might have entered from. He felt a sudden overwhelming joy filling him as he saw Jun.

"Yes!" He shouted to his earpiece while punching the air above him, his white and yellow shirt stained with red from his own blood during Tarasu's attack. "How about that, Kaori? Jun's back!"

Kaori merely stared at the boy in question before replying to her own earpiece, "Yeah…"

Jun suddenly rested his hands at his knees, keeping his body from tilting forward. He clutched at his chest in great pain, biting at his bottom lip while shooting Kaori a similar blank stare. He huffed and puffed in exhaustion, and Kaori doubted if he could actually go on.

Both she and Jun suddenly heard another crunching sound in the distance, almost as if it was rocks grinding against rocks. And, much to their caution, they saw Tarasu jammed into the rebars of the pillars with his arms spread out like wings like the saint being crucified.

But the saint didn't have the maniacal laugh that Tarasu had. The greasy haired boy had something off about him like the way he was still able to move after crashing into two concrete pillars.

He looked up, his sunken face ridden with tiny concrete debris, giving Jun Hamada a look of pure excitement.

"FINALLY! YES! YES!" Tarasu yelled at him with joy. "FINALLY SOMEONE THAT CAN MATCH UP TO MY STRENGTH! OOOOOH HOW FUN IT IS GOING TO BE TO BREAK YOU OVER AND OVER AGAIN! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

Kaori had an unfathomable look of dread spread all over her face, and she tried to look at Jun with worry as if she wanted to know what he was planning to do.

"You get out." Came his gruff reply.

But Kaori couldn't catch that. "W-what?"

"I said LEAVE!" Jun suddenly shouted at her, veins popping at his neck before he back away from her in wary. "God, do you want me to fucking repeat that again?!"

"… What about you?" Kaori asked him.

"I'll keep this freak company…" He said, cracking his knuckles under the giant gauntlets that hid his hands as he waited for Tarasu to approach him.

"That's not what I'm talking about…" Kaori responded as she stood up and got closer to him with uneasy eyes almost bulging out of their sockets. "What about your—"

"GO! I'LL BUY THE TWO OF YOU SOME TIME!" Jun barked at her before he ran out of sight to battle once more against Tarasu.

The girl felt a tinge of regret in her chest as she ran the other direction, towards the path Seiji Orimura had took moments before. She didn't even tried to look back, not when she knew that Jun would keep Tarasu busy for a hundred more years to come.

Kaori saw Seiji waving at her from the distance, pointing at the doorway at the end of the giant pillar halls. She quickly sped up, not wasting any time to rest.

The second she falters and wastes precious time, less time it would take for Jun to fall… permanently.

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Two individuals walked through the never ending maze of beam pillars and other unfinished construction sites, the smell of drying cement on the air mixed with the scorching hot sun in the sky had brought both of them to sweat profusely. There wasn't any conditioning around here, only empty spaces and dead buildings that surrounded the giant mall.

Medium heeled boots clicked on the concrete, the girl who wore it had her sharp eyes set forward without falter. Her short skirt flapping in response of the stray mid morning wind, while the armored leggings on her legs hugged her form and completely circulates the wind perfectly in these humid air. As her red cape swished and her black short suit vest hugged the mature form of her body as well as keeping her style in check with her white top, her top hat gleamed under the sunlight. With ease, she bewitched anyone who simply looks at her.

Suki Takara had no interest in anything else other than winning, and winning is what she'll get.

She was passionate about today, and quite irritatingly angry as well. She couldn't put a finger on why she kept feeling that way, but she knew how.

People had been underestimating her for years, and today was going to change everything. Sure, she'll play along as a hero in every possible way including studying for Adachi's stupid exams or doing stupid Quirk Apprehension Tests with the least likable teacher in U.A. But being sorted to a team who acts as simulated villains? That was insulting.

At first she was fine with it, so long as she can do it alone and undisturbed while her pawns acts as the pawns they were. But the only problem was: she couldn't hope to win against the team that was made out of Jun Hamada, Seiji Orimura, and Kaori Tsukinose.

The two males weren't a problem, not when she had a rook and a bishop at her side. With just a snap of his finger she could order them to do whatever the hell she wanted, even going through her plans, as simple as that.

But Tsukinose? No, no! She too much of a problem to her!

She couldn't find the right way to kill her painfully and mercilessly.

Her…

Her!

She needed to be burned!

Then, a sudden loud thud behind her brought her out of her scheming. She looked past her shoulder and laid her eyes upon the bulky teenager Date Takehiro who was currently carrying a giant rocket above his head. It was a miracle that he had managed to carry it while sweating like a madman.

He wore black tactical pants, loose and baggy and tucked into his giant boots. Several armor platings silverfish in color on his knees that kept on layering towards both his waist and ankle. On his torso was a navy vest reaching all the way up to his cheeks as the collars were deemed high enough to be called a mountaineers' wear, yet the zipper that kept it together was pulled down to his bellybutton to reveal his swole gleaming chest from the gap.

While he carried that giant rocket, it would be sane for people to not wear black under the heat of the raging sun.

"What the hell's going on up there?" He muttered with a heated puff, pushing his sweaty hair back.

"It's Hamada." Suki told him, reminiscing over the giant familiar shockwave that she heard earlier. "They're fighting again."

"Izzat so?" Date sarcastically said as he started to wave his hand to cool himself down. "Daaamn! Why the hell are we waiting out here, man? Kobayashi's beating them all to pulp and I ain't getting a part of it!"

The whole building had been silent for almost six to seven minutes, anyone would've thought that perhaps Tarasu or the heroes had won. But that wasn't the case for her, she knew that eventually Jun Hamada would get to his feet, like he always did, and that was why she sent Tarasu to keep him busy.

"Because," Suki started with an icy tone, looking at him straight in the eye with sharp eyes like daggers, "you're just gonna collapse the building in on them, doofus! If you haven't noticed, your Quirk only lets you run in a straight line! So shut up and follow the plan!"

Date blinked. "Jeez, no need to be so feisty about it…"

Just when they were starting to approach to the parking, the explosions of shockwaves were heard again, and again, and again.

"Woah! They're really brawling over there!" Date said in awe, whistling while listening to the scene.

"So Jun Hamada is still not down after all…" Suki Takara thought to herself. "Tsukinose and Orimura knew better than to stick with him when he's angry, then that means… they are heading towards here right now!"

Date glanced back at his so-called leader. "We should be worried, right? I mean, it's just like what you said, once Kobayashi got Hamada pinned in a fight, the other two would dash here."

"Indeed." Suki replied.

Then, she giggled.

"Let them come." She said with the most heinous smirk she can make. "It's all going according to plan…"

"... The costume was, frankly, skintight, as it showed her not yet matured 15 year old body. Whether it was due to her Quirk that she looked quite younger than the rest of her female friends, none of them here knew.

She was, by definition: youth. The purest form (or impurest) there was."

FBI: AAAAAAAYYYY STOP!

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(Sorry I couldn't see Mika in the same way when i realized that robotic parts didn't really age)

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It's great to be back, folks. Thank you.

This chapter was a handful, let me tell ya. Because this is where I was planning to show some of the character's true nature in the heat of a simulated battle, which was completely different from their fight with Mr. Adachi as they all would be standing on equal ground. Wrote a lot of dialogues in the first draft, brought up to about 15k+ words, then decided that I am lacking enough sleep. I am going to split this into two parts again (because why the heck not) and post the latter chapter a bit later. I still have to proofread this one considering how I wrote this with autocorrect on.

Don't worry, though. Perhaps in a week or shorter. I've had fun writing this arc knowing how my main man Jun Hamada's character development actually shows.

Now, to the personal problems that I've ran into, I've had a lot of ideas lately considering a lot of future arcs, fillers, and downright comedy sketches for MHA:DC. But, as you all know that I suck at making jokes, I'll keep the sketches for a future reference. Idk, perhaps it'll be a short comic strip on DA or a legit 1k words chapter here in FF. Th point is, I am stressed out of my mind to keep the flow of the story going, knowing how I should keep all the character's spotlight on, and improve them bit by bit, or else this story isn't going anywhere. Regardless, my mind is blooming with trees filled with pollens of ideas, causing a massive blockage in my thinking cap due to my allergies.

I'll probably write short stories later, or what do you think?

In another note, this is just some random topic that I wanted to share with you guys: I've been thinking about making H.R.I into a legit reform school rather than just an experimental work by U.A. I'm not going to change the story or anything, probs just like giving the cast a bigger and better place to live without any of Monoma's nonsense running about in the second year.

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Now hold on a second guys...

What was that?

The pairing?

Oh... well you better find out who ends up with who, won't you? (Evil snicker)

Pl0x review btw, I appreciate any thoughts you have on your otps.

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WOAH! LOOKING COOL KAORI! She might need to catch up her opponent real quick... if he didn't run at 70mph!

Huh... so this is the power of Seiji's Ultra Pain Tolerance... He shall run headfirst towards danger in order to keep peace amongst his classmates, no matter what wound!

JUN! You're next line is... "DAMMIT MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Will Jun make his way out of this mess, or will Tarasu goink to kill him first before his illness does!"

Oh no... It's not looking pretty good, is it? Will the heroes win triumphantly or will the villains step over them? What will happen to Jun now?

Stay tuned!

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R&R