I'm so excited for you guys to read this chapter :))

Happy Halloween! ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ

They were going on a field trip. Well, it was more like they were heading to an off-campus building for a rescue exercise, but it was all the same to Ritsu.

All of them were filed onto the most expensive bus he had ever seen in his life and headed for the facility. It was actually quite nice being around his classmates. From the aptitude test to running for class president, they've always been competing, so it was somewhat relaxing to just be sitting down and talking.

"Midoriya-chan, I've always been the type to say what's on my mind—" Asui said, before being cut off by the boy in question.

"Ah! Oh, um hi Asui?"

"Call me Tsu," she instinctively replied. "I've just been thinking about your quirk. It reminds me of All Might's."

Her question seemed to make Midoriya sweat. "Is that s-s-so? Haha! But mine isn't like tha—"

"But Asui, All Might doesn't get hurt when he uses his quirk!" Kirishima exclaimed, cutting off Midoriya.

Ritsu agreed. Midoriya was close to All Might but his—borrowed—quirk didn't match up with the hero's. What kind of hero would All Might be if he couldn't save others without breaking his bones? He honestly had no idea where Asui—Tsu—was coming from with that theory.

"To be honest," Kirishima continued, "I'm kind of jealous of an enhancer quirk like yours, Midoriya. It's strong and flashy compared to my hardening quirk," he then outstretched his arms and flexed, turning the smooth skin into what looked like jagged rock. "It isn't bad for fist fights, I just hate that it's not flashy."

"But your quirk is super cool," Midoriya said, brandishing his notebook from thin air. "It'll definitely be useful to a pro!"

"'A pro hmm?" Sitting next to Midoriya was Aoyama. He had his chin resting on his hands and was side eyeing the freckled boy through long lashes. "When it comes to being a pro we all know that it's more of a popularity contest! My naval laser is both flashy and perfectly suited for a pro."

"Yeah but it would be a shame if your stomach collapsed!" It seemed that Ashido was just as blunt as Uraraka. Her comment wiped away the flair from the, quite literally, sparkling boy.

"If we're going off of popularity, we can't not mention Bakugou and Todoroki! Their quirks are powerful and flashy!" Kirishima's explanation gained silence from Todoroki and a soft grunt from the angry chihuahua.

"Nah," Tsu rebutted, "Bakugou-chan is too angry to be popular."

Bakugou's response this time was far from a grunt, "Fuck you bitch! I'll be popular too!"

"See?"

"No, no," Kaminari, who was sitting next to Ritsu, said. "If we're going off of popularity, we should be talking about the internet star who's already among us!"

Everyone in the bus quieted down at Kaminari's exclamation and slowly shifted their attention to Ritsu. Why were they looking at him? Was he the internet star? No, that would be impossible. He hardly went on the internet so how could he be a star?

"Oh yeah!" Uraraka clapped her hands to his left. Then broke out into laughter. "I can't believe I forgot about that!"

The rest of the class joined in on her laughter, leaving Ritsu even more confused and now embarrassed. Even he felt the same discomfort that most teenagers had when singled out by their peers.

Seemingly sensing his restlessness, Yaoyorozu tapped his shoulder and showed him her phone.

Looking at it, Ritsu immediately had two thoughts. One: This world had Twitter? And two:

"What the fork?"

On her screen was a single tweet.

—

Is it Friday yet? dancingking

Look. At. This. Dude.

(MP4)

The video was taken from a segment of the news. 3 seconds long, it was just Ritsu's back facing the camera as he asks: "What's an All Might?"

52.7k Retweets | 233.8k Likes

—

Yaoyorozu had the volume on high when she played the video, which only resulted in the laughter in the bus increasing tenfold. As their laughter rang throughout the bus, Ritsu sat there, still as stone. He had gone viral. Ritsu—who had been trying to stay low profile—had gone viral.

"I always kn— " Uraraka choked on her laughter as she slapped him on the back—"I always knew that you were funny but this is hilarious!"

Hilarious. That was definitely one way to put it.

"The best part is how angry the lady sounds after that!" Kaminari exclaimed into his right ear. "You made her so mad dude!"

Midoriya, who at least had the decency to stifle his laughter, added, "Think of this as a jumping off point for your popularity! You can get people invested in you and your hero journey!"

Ritsu would have smiled at the boy's honest efforts if he still wasn't trying to ignore him. He didn't want people following along with his hero journey. There was no hero journey to follow along with in the first place.

"Quiet down all of you," Aizawa called from the front of the bus. "We're almost there."

"YES SIR!"

An amusement park. The Unforeseen Simulation Joint (USJ) was a glorified amusement park. Yes, Ritsu was aware that a portion of the so-called amusement park was on fire but that still couldn't change his mind. Once again, he was reminded of UA's insane wealth.

The USJ was run by pro hero, No. 13. She stood in front of the class, quietly conversing with Aizawa while patiently waiting for them (read: Midoriya) to calm down. The class stood at the entrance that looked over the rest of the giant building. Ritsu watched as the two heroes spoke in hushed tones with each other before Aizawa sighed in what looked like expected annoyance.

No. 13 stepped away from him and addressed the class, "Okay! Before we start, I'd like to go over a few things. First off, as I'm sure you all already know, my quirk is called 'Black Hole'. Anything that gets caught in it turns into dust."

Uraraka nodded her head vigorously while Midoriya bounced from one foot to the other in excitement. "It's a perfect quirk for removing rubble from trapped citizens!"

"Yes it is," No. 13 said with a bob of her helmet, "but it can also kill. Just like the rest of the quirks in this room."

Since his discovery of quirks, Ritsu had always thought about how deadly they could be. But it was weird to hear a hero be so candid about it.

"Naturally, in this society of superhumans, the lawful use of quirks is carefully monitored. That being said, please be aware of the fact that your quirk could go awry and you could end up accidentally hurting someone.

"During Aizawa's quirk apprehension test, you learned the capabilities of your quirks. During All Might's trial of battle, you learned what it was actually like to use your quirks against others." Her tone then became a brighter, "Think of this as a fresh start! Let's get working on how to use our quirks for the sake of human life! Your quirks do not exist to harm others! Please, leave this exercise understanding that they exist to help!"

Her speech gained cheers and a round of applause from the students. It also invoked something in Ritsu. Helping others, that's what Shigeo did. It was also why he was here in the first place. He didn't really know much about heroes but No. 13 definitely fit the description.

"Alright," Aizawa said from the railing. "First things first, we nee—" something else grabbed his attention and looked down to the main area. His eyebrows narrowed and his eyes scrunched up before he flinched away from the railing. He faced them again, eyes wide, and shouted, "Everyone! Stay together and don't move! No. 13, keep the students safe!"

"Wait, what's going on?" Kirishima stood on his tippy toes to get a better look over the railing. Ritsu followed his line of sight and saw a group of mostly mutant quirk users coming out of a dark, swirling portal. "Who are they?" Kirishima asked. "Is this another surprise test?"

"Don't move!" Aizawa hollered, putting on his goggles. "Those are villains!"

Ritsu's mind stopped. Villains. Was the incident from yesterday related to this? Why were they here? Why now? And why were they attacking students, of all people?

"Eraserhead, No. 13..." A villain covered in what could best be described as purple smoke, the same color as the portal, looked up at them and then directly to Ritsu, "According to what we heard, All Might should've also been here."

"You're kidding," this villain, smaller, skinnier, and yet somehow scarier stood at the front of the pack. The hands that gripped onto his face, neck, and arms did nothing to ease Ritsu's mind. "We went through all this trouble gathering up these guys only for him not to even show up? You're kidding. There's no way that All Might, the symbol of peace, isn't here."

He scratched at the base of his neck with a hand that made Ritsu unreasonably triggered before relaxing. It was creepy, concerning, and chill-inducing.

Ritsu could hear the smile forming in his voice, "Maybe All Might will come out if we start killing kids?"

Of course this was about All Might. It was always about All Might.

"Shortcake, Peppermint P, Snickerdoodle, Twinkie, Sundae, Biscuit, Waffles, Pancake, Sprinkles, Strawberry, Honey, Mocha."

That was only 12.

"Shortcake, Peppermint P, Snickerdoodle, Twinkie, Sundae, Biscuit, Waffles, Pancake, Sprinkles, Strawberry, Honey, Mocha."

It was still only 12. He had counted correctly. Butterscotch was missing.

Teruki had been walking Ikeda's 13 cats out on the streets of Musutafu. Well, some of them were walking. The lazier cats (Peppermint P, Strawberry, Pancake, Twinkie, and Butterscotch) had to be carried in an Adirondack pack* that clashed horribly with his houndstooth and plaid bomber jacket.

He had stopped to go get some ice cream and put the pack down on the floor. That was when he noticed her absence. Somewhere along the three hour walk, Butterscotch, the most rambunctious of them all, jumped out of the bag. The only problem was, he didn't know when.

"Really Pepper P!" he said while looking down at the white cat. "I thought you were the responsible one!" Peppermint P looked up at him in return with red eyes before lackadaisically licking his paw.

Teruki then pointed his finger at the rest of the basket cats who were all lined up on the floor of the ice cream parlor. "And you three! Not even a single meow?" he put his head into his hands and sighed, "Ugh, forget the ice cream, let's go find Butterscotch."

Strawberry let out a hiss and started to angrily paw at his leg at that. "Oh boo-hoo, Strawberry. You'll get your strawberries, after we find your sister."

With all cats walking in front of him, he made his way out of the parlor and began to retrace his steps. He had almost finished walking past the local salon when he heard a soft mewl. His head flicked upward to see a familiar chubby mass of orange fur among the green leaves of an oak tree. A particularly tall oak tree.

"How did you, out of all of your siblings, manage to get your chubby self up a tree that tall, Butterscotch?" Teruki said, exasperated. Butterscotch just let out another scared mewl.

"Don't worry, I'll get you down," he eyed how far up the tree she was, "... somehow."

Telekinesis would've been really handy at that moment. Unfortunately, he was marked as having pyrokinesis and in a public area.

He looked around himself and gauged how many people were near. They were hardly paying attention but a camera could catch him at the exact wrong moment. There had to be another way around this, right?

Butterscotch let out another, louder, mewl. He had to get her out soon before she decided to just jump out herself. There was always the fire apartment but there was no way he was going to wait that long.

Then, an epiphany came onto him.

Maybe, he could still use telekinesis, just without anyone knowing that he was.

Butterscotch tightened up and took a jerky step toward the closest branch to her. All the while, her eyes were wide with confusion. She then made a small, less jerky but still unnatural, jump to the next branch, meowing in concerned protest.

Teruki was so focused on making Butterscotch's descent down the tree seem as feline as possible that he didn't notice how the 12 cats at his feet quickly jumped away from him. Nor did he notice the car that came hurtling toward him until the very last second.

His body immediately went on autopilot and put up a barrier. However, that barrier meant that he had to relinquish control of Butterscotch mid-step, making her drop from the tree at a height too tall for her to survive.

Time seemed to stop as the scent of exhaust invaded his nose and as he watched Butterscotch get closer and closer to the pavement.

Then, with the sound of crumpling metal, it started again.

A towering, muscular man, dressed in a striped yellow suit stood in front of Teruki. The crinkled metal hood of the car in one hand and Butterscotch in the other. He turned his head backwards to look down at Teruki and asked, "Are you okay?"

All Might.

He wasn't in his costume but those startlingly blue eyes and pointy blond bangs couldn't have belonged to anyone else. Teruki had always expected to meet the hero at the end of everything. Seeing him like this, and so closely too, was just so surreal.

A hand waved in front of his face. "He-llooo! Is anybody home?"

Teruki startled as the cats made their way back to him. All Might's megawatt smile became even bigger at the sight of them and he handed Butterscotch back to Teruki.

"Uh, yeah. I'm here," he looked to Butterscotch who nestled in his arms and back to All Might. "Thank you for saving her and me. I don't know what I would've done."

All Might let out a deep laugh at this and took a firm grip of his shoulder. "There's no use in troubling yourself with what could've happened young man! Rather, think of what you can learn from this experience!" He then turned to the driver of the now wrecked car, "This goes double for you! Don't try to beat lights like that! If I hadn't come when I had, this young man could have been in serious danger!"

The shaking driver let out an equally as shaky nod before reaching for his phone to probably call insurance. All Might gave him a small, satisfied nod back and turned back to Teruki.

"I'm off for now!" he jumped up into the air and waved to him and Ikeda's cats, "Stay safe young man, you never know what danger is lurking around the corner or even in plain sight!"

Water surrounded him from all angles. Ever blue, dark, and all-consuming. The water engulfed him.

They—he and his classmates—were trying to escape the building while Aizawa fought off the villains. They almost made it too, but they were stopped by the sudden appearance of the villain made of purple smoke. No. 13, along with Kirishima and Bakugou, had tried to fight back but his shadowy quirk hit them, and the rest of the class, first.

The moment the dark wisps hit him, Ritsu was spit out above what could best be described as a small lake. He was now just getting over the shock of it all and slowly swam toward the surface.

Just as he was about to break through, he was met by the shark-like face of a villain. He wore scuba gear and smiled at Ritsu with sharp teeth. Clearly, his quirk was water-based. How wonderful.

The shark-like man lunged for him, with the glee of a killer shining in his eyes. Not wanting that much crazy near him, Ritsu grabbed the villain with telekinesis and hurled him out of the water and over his shoulder. He broke through the water just in time to see the villain crash into a literal yacht and pass out.

Ritsu looked around him for any other people and found a whole gaggle of water-based villains. They didn't see him however because they were all clumped together at one spot of the lake. It seemed like they were all trying to attack something. Or someone. Someone who just so happened to be sending out explosions in rapid fire succession.

'Bakugou.'

Ritsu stayed where he was rather than head to shore, much to the annoyance of his survival instincts. As powerful as Bakugou might be, he couldn't take on that many enemies by himself.

Ritsu made quick work of the villains by throwing them in the same manner he had done with Shark Face. However, he only took them in groups of three so that no one would think too much about his 'quirk's' capabilities.

But the worst was yet to come.

It was strange that even after all the villains were cleared, Bakugou stayed under the water, setting off explosions. More than strange, it was concerning.

He quickly swam to the boy and found him frantically flailing his limbs. His eyes were wide but his small pupils looked past Ritsu. Definitely concerning.

Ritsu tried to grab Bakugou out of the water and earned a kick to the face. That would definitely bruise but he had other things to worry about. He tried again, this time with telekinesis, and took the panicked blond to the shore farthest from the plaza where Aizawa was fighting.

Bakugou still hadn't registered his presence. He was lying down, shivering yet sweaty, flailing yet still. He then began to grasp at his throat as though he couldn't breathe and that's when it clicked for Ritsu.

'He's having a panic attack.'

The first thing Ritsu wanted to do himself was panic. The only two adults in the building were busy fighting for their lives and he was alone with someone whose body wouldn't let him breathe. Could things have gone any worse?

Ritsu then slapped himself, hard. He had to focus. He had studied for situations like this! Although he had expected to use the information on Shigeo, he could still apply it to anybody! He looked to the boy whose eyes were furrowed in anger and filled with frustrated tears. Even explosive people like Bakugou.

First things first: Don't. Panic. He had to remain calm and establish communication with Bakugou.

"Bakugou, can you hear me?" No response. Again, "Bakugou, can you hear me?" Just the panicked struggle of someone who wouldn't—couldn't—breathe.

"Bakugou!" Ritsu shouted, beginning to panic despite himself. He knew that the boy hadn't inhaled any water so why wouldn't he breathe? "Bakugou come on! I need you to know that I'm here!" Still no response. He just wasn't reacting to his own name but maybe he would react to another.

With clear uncertainty, Ritsu said, "Kacchan?"

Like lightning, Bakugou's eyes snapped to his. He was still panicking but he was looking at Ritsu now. He looked confused and frightened, the complete opposite of what Ritsu understood Bakugou to be like.

"Can you hear me?" A nod. Good. Now it was time for Ritsu to be clipped and candid. "I'm moving closer to you. You're having a panic attack. It's clear that you can't talk so I'll be walking you through this."

Hearing that he was going to be receiving help only made Bakugou narrow his brows in agitation. Which meant that, in the smallest of senses, he was acting like himself again.

Ritsu went over to him and knelt down beside the blond. "If you need an anchor, you can grab my hand," Surprisingly, the hand that wasn't scratching at Bakugou's throat grabbed his own hand. It's grip was like a vice but Ritsu used that pain to center himself.

"I'm going to remove your other hand from your throat. You need to breathe," he said, taking in a deep breath himself as he moved Bakugou's other hand. "You're not underwater anymore."

Bakugou took one shaky breath. Just as Ritsu was about to relax a bit, that one shaky breath turned into multiple rapid and shallow ones. He was hyperventilating.

Ritsu tightened his own grip on Bakugou's hand and looked into his eyes. "I know that you're confused but I need you to know that this won't last forever. You'll get through it. First, we need to get your breathing in check. Do you think that you could take deep breaths?"

Red eyes looked to him as though he were crazy; as though the thought of being able to calm down at all was beyond reasoning. Then, he bit out through short gasps, "The...fuck do..you...th-think?"

"Point taken," Ritsu said as a wave of relief came over him. Bakugou could talk. That meant that he could try a different exercise with him.

"Look up to the waterslide—" this place even had that—"and focus on it." Bakugou flicked his eyes to the giant waterslide above them. "Can you tell me some things about it? What color is it?"

"Green," he bit out.

"Anything else?"

"It's," a single quick breath, "tall. And really curly."

"What does it feel like?"

Bakugou looked back to Ritsu in bewilderment. "How...the fuck...would I know?"

"How do you think it feels?"

Bakugou let out a grunt before refocusing his attention to the slide. The constant movement of his chest slowed as he talked. "Wet, obviously. Really uncomfortable too with all the big ass rocks they put inside of it."

He was breathing normally now. His grip had loosened and Ritsu let go of his hand. He stood up before asking, "Do you feel like getting up?"

Bakugou, with eyes that finally seemed to process his surroundings, looked to Ritsu's outstretched hand and then smacked it away. His eyes were cold as he slowly rose up on his own wobbly legs.

Hand stinging, Ritsu backed away from the boy. The storm was over but now he was stuck with the angry aftermath. Not that he had to actually deal with it. That was up to Bakugou, his parents, and some medical professionals.

Ritsu stepped away from Bakugou and began to ring out his costume. He pulled out all of the water with telekinesis and placed it back into the lake. But after all that time covered in water, he was freezing. His costume's jacket helped but pyrokinesis would have been really handy at that moment.

He looked through the facility to find where to go next. The best course of action would be to regroup with another group of students; maybe some were still near the entrance. They could all fight the villains together and then head toward the next group of students.

Ritsu looked back to Bakugou to tell him his plan, only to find that the boy hadn't moved an inch. He walked over to the boy until he was about an arm's length away. The blond was looking at his hands with his head down and hair dripping. He looked lost in his own world.

However, this was not the time to get lost. Ritsu removed the water from the other boy's costume and disposed of it in the lake like he had done with his own. The sudden dryness made Bakugou look up at Ritsu, almost as though he forgot that he wasn't alone. He then snarled at him.

Ritsu gave him a flat stare in return. "Stop glaring at me like that. We need to go and find the others, come on." As he started to make his way to the next closest zone of the USJ, he noticed that no angry stomps were following him. Ritsu turned around once again to see that the boy still hadn't moved.

His hands were clamped into shaky fists and he was looking down again. Maybe he was tired? Ritsu had read about how people were usually exhausted after a panic attack. If that was the case, then they could just wai—

"Why?" A single word came out of Bakugou's mouth. Yet, it seemed to carry so much weight. "Aren't you going to ask about what just happened?"

Bakugou was looking at him now and Ritsu gave him a concerned frown. "You don't really seem like the type who wants anybody to ask you about what just happened," he said slowly before adding, "Besides, I don't really need to know why you're afraid of swimmin—"

"I'm not scared of something as stupid as fucking swimming, you clown! I've done it all the time before!" Bakugou yelled.

Okay, now Ritsu was just a bit curious.

"I hit the water and I couldn't breathe anymore and then—" he took a deep breath—"Nothing like that, has ever happened before."

"You mean the panic attack?"

"What else would I mean, dumbass!?"

Ritsu put his hands up defensively. "Okay, I get it. You should probably see a therapist and find out what happened that made you so afrai—"

Bakugou glared at him.

"—avoidant towards holding your breath."

"I already know why you idiot! Everybody does!"

It was Ritsu's turn to glare at him, only his glare was in confusion. "Why would everyone know?"

"I—" Bakugou stopped himself and gave Ritsu a baffled stare. "Do you not know? That stupid sludge villain! It was all over the news at the time, remember!?"

Ritsu's eyebrows were scrunched up, trying to make sense of what Bakugou was saying. Bakugou, however, sucked his teeth, stomped over to Ritsu, and got really close to his face.

"You don't remember the seeing some pathetic kid being suffocated by some green sludge fuck, uselessly kicking his legs!? You don't remember looking at your tv and seeing Deku, of all people, stupidly running onto the scene to help!?"

The incident must have happened before he left home and the 'pathetic kid' must have been Bakugou. Ritsu didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say in the first place. He wanted to help the boy calm down but help seemed to be exactly what he didn't want.

Bakugou scoffed when he got no response. "You've obviously been living under a rock so there's no use wasting my breath on a dipshit like you." Ritsu could tell that he was about to walk past him but then he froze.

"I just want to know why. Why did you help me—" he spat out the words like venom—"back there?"

Ritsu's knee-jerk reaction was to respond with sarcasm. Silly him, he should have just left Bakugou there to suffocate, that was obviously what anybody else would do. Then, he thought of his brother. If Shigeo was here, he would say something like:

"Because it was the right thing to do."

Bakugou scoffed at him. "You're fucking weird Kageyama. But don't expect me to be grateful towards you and don't go thinking that we're going to be all buddy-buddy now. I don't need saving from anyone or anything, you hear?"

He had called him by his actual name rather than Porcupine. That was probably the closest thing to a thank you that Ritsu would ever get from him.

"Also," the blond said, almost like an afterthought, "if you tell anyone about what happened, I'll blow your head right off of your body."

Ah, he was back to his excessively violent self. That was somewhat good to see.

"Now let's go," Bakugou walked past Ritsu, "We're going to go find that dark smokey bastard so that I can personally kick his ass."

Ritsu laughed at the blond's proclamation and followed him. As they made their way to the plaza, Ritsu heard the distant crash of what sounded like a metal door being pushed off its hinges. And then a loud, booming voice called out:

"Have no fear, because I am here."

Startlingly blue eyes stared into his.

Somehow, during the fighting and bleeding and screaming and bullets and broken bones and being tossed like a ragdoll, Ritsu had found himself on the floor behind All Might. His head was pounding and he almost didn't register the warmth running down his forehead due to the pure adrenaline coursing through his veins.

The fight was like nothing he had ever seen before. The actual fighting was nothing too spectacular, it was really just a fist fight with really powerful punches. What made the fight so spectacular was the passion. Ritsu had never seen All Might so intense. He could practically feel the anger radiating off of the man but he stayed smiling. It was like he had turned his hero knob all the way up to 100. For the first time, Ritsu understood why he was number one.

His amazement didn't last long though. The fight was over and all of the previous glory the hero held after dealing the final blow to the beaked monster—the hand villain called it Nomu—was gone. The smoke cleared to reveal a skeleton of a man standing where All Might had before.

Startlingly blue eyes stared into his. Ritsu looked up at the tall lanky figure and they looked down at him. The man, with wide eyes, slightly opened his mouth to say something before coughing out blood.

Speaking of blood, the puddle of it forming around Ritsu's head was starting to look a bit too big.

As his head became light and his vision blurred, Ritsu heard one word through the pounding in his ears:

"Shit."

Omake #4

3 Months till entrance exam

"Hanazawa-san," Ritsu gave the other boy a deadpan stare, "why are we wearing these?"

When they had entered the apartment for the day's training, Ritsu hadn't expected to have a pair of fluffy unicorn socks to be thrown in his face. He definitely hadn't expected to have them forced into his feet by Hanazawa who was strangely really good at headlocks.

"Call me Hanazawa."

"Okay, Hanazawa," he replied through gritted teeth. "Answer my question, or I'll have to call an ambulance for you and your broken arm."

Hanazawa raised his eyebrows at him, "Sheesh, always so violent. But as your elder, it is my job to take the high road! So I'll answer your question.

"Today, you'll be learning pyrokinesis!" He pointed down to his own fluffy tiger socks with a large smile, "Just like striking a match or rubbing your feet against a carpet, pyrokinesis is all about friction!"

Ritsu could see where this was going. "I don't need to rub my feet against the floor to understand how friction and heat work."

"Yeah, but it's funner this way!"

"I can list a thousand other things that would be funner than this."

"Your idea of fun is probably sitting down and watching paint dry," Hanazawa shot back. "It's a good thing that I'm the one teaching you." Hanazawa then started to slide his feet back and forth across the carpet. "Now get moving!"

What if he just left? Ritsu eyeballed the unlocked door. It was close enough for him to make it out without getting caught. He just had to be quick about it. The moment he decided to go for it, the door locked itself. Or rather, Hanazawa did.

"You're not bailing on this Brother-kun," the other boy said, earning him Ritsu's most piercing glare. He stared right back.

"Ugh fine," Ritsu relented and began to mirror Hanazawa's movements. Like he expected, he could feel the heat building up between the bottom of the unicorn socks and the carpet. The funny thing about friction was that it didn't only build up heat. In certain conditions, it also built up electricity. Armed with that knowledge, Ritsu reached over and touched Hanazawa's exposed arm.

"Ow!" the boy shouted while rubbing small circles around his shocked bicep. He looked at Ritsu, who was wearing a face-splitting smile.

"That was one of the one thousand things."

"Oh hardy-har-har Brother-kun, you're hilarious."

"Okay but seriously," Ritsu said, switching his focus back to his unicorn socks, "why are we doing this?"

"Remember how I said that pyrokinesis is all about friction?" Hanazawa got a nod in response. "Well, you have to treat your aura like the socks and carpet."

His yellow aura flared out around him before almost shrinking back into his skin. He continued, "Look at my aura and how small it is. What happens next is a really quick process so you have to watch closely."

In the next instant, Hanazawa had a decently sized flame floating in the palm of his hand. It took a bit for his mind to catch up but Ritsu was able to get an idea of what happened. Right before the flame came to life, he saw the way that the blond's aura rubbed against itself. It was indeed quick, like a snap, but Ritsu grasped the essence of it.

He put up his own blue aura and shrunk it down to the same size as Hanazawa's. Then he tried to snap it. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. He tried again, this time faster. Something.

"Congrats, Brother-kun."

That something was bright and warm. That something was his very own flame. Smaller than he had expected, but his.

Author's random thoughts they had whilst writing the chapter

*An Adirondack pack is like those wicker baskets people put on their backs when plucking grain and stuff. You'll understand if you Google it. Interestingly enough, it's Adirondack and not adirondack

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I use ship names when talking about two characters in the same scene, platonic or not, because it's easier (exceptions being significant age gaps and when they're related).

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No Ritsu notes because he's unconscious, how would he take them?

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Remember my utensil puns in chapter one? They're incredibly corny but I like them.

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I hate fanfiction's formatting is terrible but that's neither here nor there.

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What is here is Bakugou's PTSD. Actually, I don't know if it classifies as that. We're learning about it in psychology so I'll have to check. But I don't think that it's a far stretch of the imagination to believe that Baku would have trauma from being suffocated and thus get a panic attack. I got the idea of him not liking water/being submerged from a Katsuyu (life's too short not to read crack ships and this one is surprisingly good) fic called One-Handed Swimming by Sif (Rosae) on AO3. I decided to turn it into a panic attack due to a Jjba fic I also read on AO3 called Chimera by 0plus2equals1

I mainly added that scene because I needed more BakuRit moments in this fic for...later events.

M*neta doesn't exist and Midoriya and Tsu were with Kiri in the Ruins Zone instead of the flood

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I keep on saying not to get used to me updating so quickly, yet here I am, less than 20 days later. Smh

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Nov 3rd is going to be hellfire. (•‿•)

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Next chapter! Not the sports festival! A lot of conversations need to be conversed and they mustn't be delayed!

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For my fiction press reviewers *cough*WatermelonCandy*cough*: Feel free to ask questions and I'll pm you the answers :)

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Favorite, follow, review and I'll teach you how to calm down panic attack victims with 54321