Kirishima was sitting on a bench outside of the gates of UA. He was fiddling with his hands idly, waiting. The events of the past few days had been insane. He had trained harder than he had in ages for the Sports festival, trying to figure out what "Plus Ultra" really meant. Then the festival had come. Still surprised that the school was hosting the event after the USJ attack, Kirishima hadn't been nearly prepared enough for the roars and cheers from the crowd.

Kirishima had been one of the lucky few to make it to the final round of the competition; even nearly making it to the final tiers. Iida had almost made it as well, but apparently there had been a family emergency. Shoto and Katsuki had easily made it to the top. The dual quirked boy had gone as long as they had known him without using his fire; but there had been something about how Katsuki had been yelling (near screaming) at him that prompted a spark. It was by no means even coming close to the true reaches of his power, but it was fire nonetheless. Shoto had been so upset about it, he had gotten distracted and Katsuki had easily won.

The memory of Katsuki trembling with anger on stage, on the #1 pedestal, flashed in Kirishima's mind. He still couldn't figure out his blonde friend. One day he was trembling in fear, the other he was screaming in rage, the next angry that he had won one of the most important tournaments in his starting career.

It didn't make any sense.

So Kirishima sat on the bench and waited. And waited. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, but he figured that he would know eventually.

At last, after waiting nearly an hour, Kirishina heard footsteps approaching him. He leapt to his feet and rounded the corner of the wall.

"Bakugo!"

Katsuki stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, Kiri saw genuine surprise on Bakugo's face upon seeing him: but the moment passed and he went back to scowling. "What do you want, dumb hair?"

"We're walking to the train, right? Like everyday." It was a long shot. They had only walked together twice before he and Katsuki had fought, but Kiri was desperate to start it again. He really did want to be friends with Katsuki. He could tell the other boy needed a genuine friend, and he wanted to make up for his mistake earlier.

Staring at Kirishima for a long second with a neutral expression, Katsuki simply stood there, debating silently.

Eventually he sighed. "... whatever." Katsuki turned and headed to the train station. Kirishima jogged after him. Delightedly, the red head began rambling on from one subject to another like he had the last few times they had hung out like this. The same as the previous few times, Katsuki didn't say much.

Unlike last time, however, though it could have simply been that he had missed it, Kirishima never saw the ghostly form of that slight heat haze. He didn't know if he should have been relieved, or worried.

-- elsewhere, that evening --

Shoto was bolting out of bed, stumbling, and collapsing to his floor. The left side of his body was burning with an uncontrollable itch that burned and burned and BURNED. As he tried to soothe it with his ice, it did nothing but make the burn worse. Shoto, at a loss of what to do, tried to issue forth a small amount of flames.

His fire erupted from him. His room was instantly aflame. Fire extinguishers began to douse the room from the ceiling, dousing the boy on the floor as well. Shoto lay there, shuddering.

He was staring at his hand, still lit up with orange flames. The burning itch was gone now that his fire was covering his body.

... his fire? Since when did he view the abomination as his own? He doubted that Bakugo's violent words at the festival had been enough to change his mind. So what...

Shoto groaned and held his head as a swarm of flashes of his fever dream came like a storm in his mind. The dream had felt so realistic, but what had the dream been about? He remembered the flashes, but they were gone before he could process them. For the life of him, he couldn't figure it out.

As he clutched his head tighter, willing the pain to go away, one memory of his dream surfaced, ebbing the pain.

The child.

He couldn't remember the child's voice, face, or words, but he could never forget that child.

The pain slowly diminished as Shoto's thoughts mulled over the child in his dreams. At last, when the pain was tolerable, Shoto stood and surveyed the damage of his room. Scorch marks were everywhere, but no serious consequences had arisen of his freak-out, for which he was thankful: he could fix this damage himself, to have something to do besides train.

Shoto left his room. Heading to the kitchen to grab himself a glass of water, he thought back on the child. He wished he could remember the dream. It felt important.

"Sho? What are you doing up at this hour? You normally stay in your room all night."

Shoto turned around to face his older sister Fuyumi. Her hair was wet from her shower, and she was in her favorite pair of slacks and a t-shirt; loose fitting and comfortable. Her glasses were delicately sitting on the crown of her head.

Shoto swallowed: he had never been able to hide anything from his sister. "I..." he swallowed again, "it's nothing."

She lifted a delicate eyebrow. "Sure doesn't seem like it. Did you have a bad dream or something?" His silence was answer enough. Fuyumi sighed in sympathy and entered the kitchen with her brother. Starting light conversation, the two discussed thier plans for the next day to help take Shoto's mind off of his upsetting dream. He had no plans other than to go to school and attend his classes per normal. On the other hand, Fuyumi was planning to pay a visit to their mother in her hospital dorm.

Fidgeting slightly, Shoto tentatively asked, "could... could I accompany you? Perhaps it might do me good?"

Fuyumi's mouth fell open. Shoto hadn't asked to see mother since they were children. She didn't know, but another fragment of his dream had surfaced to mind: the child telling him to make for himself a happier life. "O- of course Sho! I can pick you up from school and we can go then, how does that sound? I could bring Natsuo, and we could eat out afterwards!"

Suddenly, Shoto was smiling. He never was the type to smile widely, but his smiles were precious. Fuyumi felt her heart lift as she saw the little smile. "Yeah. Yeah that sounds... fun."

-- elsewhere, still that night. --

He was running, panting, his too long legs carrying him at shocking speeds. He wasn't in his right body. This was the body of an adult, when he was supposed to be a child.He knew this scene. He could never forget these flames devouring his old school. Unlike how he remembered, instead of running away from the building, fleeing for his life, he found himself running into the inferno. He ran straight through the fire, not caring for the damage he could suffer. If he blinked, he seemed to simply pass through walls as well.Children were running and screaming past him, out of the building, but he pressed on further in.He found himself nearly frolicking in the fire. It's energy surrounded him and pulled him in further. The screams of the children died down as the last ones exited the building.But then another sound reached his ears. Crying; from inside the building. Curious, he stepped in further.It was another child, locked in a room. He was sobbing for help, over and over again. The bathroom door was locked. He couldn't get out.With a blink, he entered the room with the child. Said child, no older than ten years, gasped and looked up at him.He, being much taller, knelt down in front of the kid, opening his arms.The child, knowing no better, scared, and lonely, rushed into the embrace, crying for him to take the child away to safety.His vision went black.

Katsuki Bakugo woke up screaming.

A/N

I am so so so sorry for the long wait. As I said in the explanation post I deleted, I was having a lot of difficulty writing this chapter. I initially wanted to cover the tournament, but scrapped that: i also initially wanted to go over Todo's whole dream, and even wrote it out, but I decided it gave away and hinted at too much stuff, so I deleted it: I saved screen shots tho, incase I want to implement it later.

So this is the finished product. It is a little rough around the edges, but what with the wait, it'll have to do. I feel a little bad cuz I keep saying ill do certain things, and then not doing them cuz they don't work out; but for those of you who have followed me through my writing before, you probably expect that by now. I'm trying at least.

Next chapter may be entirely focusing on Stain, Iida, and Hosu. Hopefully. After that, we're jumping into the camp arc, and I hope I can actually spend some time in that before we get to the kidnapping and things get REALLY FUN FOR ME.

Anywho, that is about all, so here's to hoping I can pick this story back up and get it going again!

So long Lovies!