"I can't believe it-" Midoriya said softly under his breath, grouped together with Iida, Todoroki, and Bakugo as they studied both matches carefully.

"Everyone on Japan's team had fought heroically, it's unfortunate that they lost the way they had." Iida commented right after.

"If things go the way they have been, it won't be easy for us either." Affirmed Todoroki.

"Why not just give'em the win if you're going to talk like that!" Fumed Bakugo.

"That's not what he's implying," insisted Midoriya, "we just need to think carefully about how we're going to approach this."

"Think about what? There's nothing to think about, we're going to out there and burying them under the stadium, dead or alive!"

"Bakugo, that's not what this tournament is about!" Chided Iida.

"You're right, that's not what it's about, it's about making us looking like losers! Think about it: why would they bring out everyone we know and look up to? Why the hell were these challenges so asinine? Why is it those bastards had the upper hand every single time and came out on top? I'll tell you why, to embarrass us- to show that we're still weak! Well, I'll be dammed if I let these freaks make a fool out of me, no more trying to hold back! They're dead!" With a final huff, Bakugo stormed off.

There was somber silence between the three boys, then Midoriya finally spoke, "I think I should go find him."

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Todoroki inquired.

"We haven't seen either Shelby, Keali'i, Yemi, or Arjan in awhile, I'm worried what he'll do if he finds them before our match starts."

"You have a point, but if you're leaving, please return in a timely manner, and be careful." Iida advised.

With an affirming nod, Midoriya began walking through the empty winding hallways, looking around each corner and over troublesome barricades but after minutes of searching vacant corridors he couldn't find him- or anyone, anywhere. He was sure he'd at least hear Bakugo, but all he could hear was the commotion that was happening outside. A sinking feeling started fermenting in the pit of his stomach, the silence was discouraging as he continued on without any clues.

He knew where Bakugo was coming from, the international students of their class were aloof and taciturnly haughty towards them and only them, but why? There had to be some kind of reason; Midoriya stood true to himself, he never thought or expressed negatively of them, but he'd gone through every scenario in his head and couldn't assimilate what possible reason there could be. He tried reaching out multiple times, just like everyone else, and although they didn't respond it didn't appear out of explicit antipathy but rather an inability, especially towards the upcoming weeks of the U.A. Battle Royale. He was going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

After inattentively turning the next corner sharply he wound up bumping into another body, but their taller, sturdy frame was unmoved.

"Oh excuse me, I'm sorry, I didn't- Shelby?" Midoriya blurted out in a fluster, then sighed in relief, "I'm so glad it's you, n-not that I expecting to run into anyone else, it's just that I uh-"

Shelby didn't respond verbally, but she was looking at him, or at least, in his direction, with her head cocked to one side in unsubtle confusion.

"You know what, I think I've embarrassed myself one too many times already today, but before I go, I will say you four are strongest when you're together, there's no doubt about that, but we're going to give everything we got out there so don't go easy on us now, we want a real fight. Good luck."

Just as Midoriya turned to reroute himself back to his friends, he could hear a voice sing out his name, resonating from their chest and produced in a mezzo soprano dynamic; their dulce tone soften the blow as Midoriya felt as though he'd been struck in the neck, falling face first on the floor upon impact. Only, it wasn't the same floor. The moment he made contact the ground plumes of feathers flew up and over his body, feeling the silky texture against his palms while tightly clutching together fistfuls. The atmosphere was burdensome with melancholy and remorse as Midoriya felt the same depression overwhelming him; his surroundings were opaque with somber blue hues and blackened, unfathomable edges, unable to recognize where he was immediately. Suddenly, the sound of delicate chirping piqued his interest, prompting him to pick his head up to see two small birds in front of him, looking at him curiously as the fluffed up their feathers.

"Wait, are these . . . ? Shel-!" Before he could call out her name she was already there, sitting with her back to him concurrently tying her hair up in the front and letting the length lay against her back.

"-by?" He attempted to recollect himself as best as he could in this situation, but the apprehension of this state exhausted his body making sitting up right difficult, "Is this- . . . your quirk . . . ?"

Once more, Shelby didn't respond despite going to the trouble of using her quirk and evidently getting them alone together; was this merely part of a ploy to catch their team off guard before their match or was there something else to this needless charade?

As he was about to ask more questions, the answers became clear:

"This wasn't how it was suppose to go,
I think it's time for you to know
the truth is odd about our facade but listen well because there's a lot for me to tell
you see we thought we had it all planned out even when we had our own doubts
that everything would be okay if we kept ourselves out of the way
but then the plan shattered and nothing else mattered because we were the ones who were bad
everyone had been welcoming and kind and we completely over-stepped the line
we needed to fix this but had the window been missed we had no idea what to do
the angst and guilt has been eating us away though this is just karma's way of making us pay
how could we be heroes after reducing ourselves to zeroes
we only let ourselves fall when this isn't even who we are at all!"

Midoriya was completely dumbfounded by the turn of events. A confession? In song? This was a first, and insinuating, in character for Shelby. As she divulged further, however, the air around them became tighter and the blackness had begun slowly enclosing around them, and though he could not differentiate who was producing the effect, he could hear quiet, pernicious whispers that were spiteful in nature; they were difficult to infer but sounded discriminatory identity-wise and characteristically. Despite this strange occurrence, her words embedded themselves deep within his core and knew that she was telling the truth; whether this was due to her quirk or the genuine timbre of her voice didn't matter to him.

When she finally mustered up the courage to face him, there wasn't any malice in her eyes. Her long eyelashes padded down her tears as they rolled continuously down her cheeks, wiping them away with her hands when they began dripping off her face; even through tears her singing remained impeccable.

"It's difficult for me to explain of how our little group was obtained
we grew up without friends but harsh words and bruises
kept us company until we met each other, unexpectedly finding one another
we have our own stories to tell but you'd be better off telling us to go to hell
trauma's the reason but never an excuse we wound up as weapons of abuse
even after all those years we treated you badly out of our own fears
we don't expect forgiveness and sympathies that'd be insult to injury
but we're going to make this up to you when this ends,
that'll be the start of our amends
we're not asking for friendship or trust everything we've done was unjust
we have no excuses we know what we did was wrong yet here I am singing this damn song
we brought this on ourselves there's no going back now this shouldn't have been-!"

That was enough. No more. Midoroya couldn't handle these feelings anymore- they were just too painful for him; he couldn't stop himself from crying as he'd been crying the entire time, her tears had become his tears. At least now he knew how she felt, how they all felt. As he tightly hugged her he could swear the atmosphere suddenly changed the moment he touched her, that all the darkness had vanished instantly and replaced with a flash of heartfelt, soft red hues.

All this time Shelby, Yemi, Keali'i, and Arjan were afraid of being ostracized by their peers because of who they were, who they really were. When they realized that their classmates were more than willing to put forth the effort into welcoming them with open arms, their original plan built on anxiety made them see that they had made an immature decision to disguise themselves and act untargetable, but there was another problem, they didn't know how to properly fix things- they assumed they were too late on changing so they allowed their feelings to fester until they couldn't put up with the guilt anymore.

The other international students would've had to of known of their secret or else their friendship would be implausible; Mickey and Keali'i both go to U.A. Oceania and Fatima and Arjan to U.A. Western Europe, how would they not?

"Please, stop! I-I understand what it likes, to have someone be cruel to you and hurt you, to feel like you'll never be good enough and no one believes in you, but I don't care if everyone else ends up hating you after today because no one can look past what you've done! I'll always be on your side no matter what because you're my friends and I care about you!"

Shelby didn't know what to say, she wasn't expecting anything like that to come from Midoriya, but she was happy. She hesitantly wrapped her arms around him in reciprocation, and when he picked his head up from her shoulder, the harrowing aura from before dissipated into mellow orange hues, lifting the mortification and distress from his body and replacing those feelings with serenity and relief. They remained in close proximity once they separated;

"Thank you, Deku. We were hoping we could count on you."

"On me? Why?"

"It's silly but, you're probably the only one who hasn't said a bad thing about us."

"That's it?"

"I know it's not much, but after all the trouble we caused it means a lot. I'm sorry for using my quirk on you, we'll explain everything later if we need to."

In exchange for his compliance and gratitude, she pecked him lightly on the cheek as another form of apology, but his yammering and fidgeting from receiving a simple, platonic gesture left her confused and a little concerned.

"B-By the way Shelby uhhh-how do we get out of this?"

"Oh, um, about that-"

"Huh . . ?"

Midoriya was suddenly struck with a painful sensation in his chest that snapped him back into conjectural reality; Shelby had her hand over his mouth and was trying to shush him while they sat in a different, secluded location.

"Shelby, that hurt!" He muffled loudly behind her hand.

"I know, I know, shhh-" She strained through a hush voiced.

"You dug your nails into my nipple!"

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-!"

"Listeners, are you ready?! The final match of the first ever U.A. Battle Royale will begin in just a few minutes!"

Shelby gasped at the sound of Present Mic's voice, hastily darting out the previously-closed door and leaving Midoriya in split second confusion. He realized this was not the place he needed to be right now, he even agreed that he wouldn't take long- the whole point of venturing out in the first place was to find Bakugo. When he exited the dark storage room he knew exactly where he was; somehow, he had been moved adjacent to the corner where he found Shelby. Was being able to move someone else's body while they're entranced part of her quirk? There was no time to dwell on what just happened, he needed to get back to his team and fast.

"Midoriya!" Iida shouted as he caught a glimpse of him running towards them.

"Well look who decided to show up." Condemned Bakugo.

"W-Wait, but I was-"

"Hey, are you okay? Your face is red and puffy." Todoroki commented offhandedly.

"Huh?" Movement wasn't the only thing Shelby could influence, it seems, "Is my face red? I hadn't noticed!"

"Nevertheless, are we ready now? We need to be physically and mentally prepared to go out; I highly doubt they'll be breaking the pattern the others had set, we must expect them to use their quirks at full strength." Informed Iida.

"Yeah yeah, let's get out there already!" Bakugo, who wasn't in the mood to hear necessities, interjected quickly.

Iida, Todoroki, and Bakugo led the group towards their destination while Midoriya staggered behind them, lost in thought:

"This is bad. If I tell them what happened they won't believe me, and even if they did they'd think they were trying to divide our team, but if I don't tell them they might end up seriously hurting them- what if they're so humiliated they refuse to show themselves? If I do tell them, though, what difference would it make? Todoroki might see things my way and Iida too, but there's no way Bakugo would let them get away with what they've done. Also, Shelby didn't tell me if they planned anything for our match. Are they going to use the same force as always or are they going to be lenient because of the occasion- what degree is even considered lenient to them? Either way, I can't protect the four of them while holding back three other people, they'll notice something is off eventually, and if we end up losing because of me, everyone will have seen so for themselves-"

Midoriya began mumbling to himself quietly as he trailed deeper in-thought, piling on concepts that led to more questions. Iida and Todoroki were putting up his ramblings and trying their best to ignore them, but Bakugo couldn't listen any further.

"Shut up, you damn nerd! We're about to leave!"

"Ah! O-Oh right, uh s-sorry!"

In pure, complete panic, "What am I supposed to do?!"