Ashido and Kaminari let out a big whoop as they chatted animatedly, and Shinsou let out a small smile as he watched the duo in front of him as they made their way back to their temporary rooms in Ketsubutsu.

He was really proud that Midoriya was standing up for himself, even if it was because he had been frustrated over something else, and he could tell that the subtle way his boyfriend just... dismissed his former classmates would forever be etched into their memory.

Shinsou felt someone tugging his arm lightly, and turned, just in time to see Midoriya slipping his hand into his grasp, looking at the taller boy.

"Hey Zuku." The smile on Shinsou's face widened, "How are you feeling after beating them up?"

"It's..." Midoriya paused, thinking, "It was... nice. I... don't know why, though."

"It was really satisfying, you know?" Shinsou grinned, "Knowing that all they've done was torment you... and then you just showed them how good you really are."

"That... does make sense..." Midoriya replied softly, before he paused.

"Zuku? You okay there?" Shinsou raised an eyebrow, as Midoriya looking around warily.

"I'm... fine... It just feels like... someone's watching us." The smaller boy replied softly.

Shinsou also looked around, but besides from the UA students who were all talking and walking back to the rooms, he couldn't see anything amiss.

Still, he trusted Midoriya's instincts, and if he felt that something was wrong... something was probably going to go wrong, "I don't see anything... but we'll tell Aizawa-sensei, alright? He'll probably rope some of the other heroes into patrolling the area."

Midoriya looked up at the taller boy and nodded.


"I'm thirsty." Kaminari sighed, sagging to the ground, pressing his head against his worksheet, "Mina, is there anything to drink?"

"Nope. Just water." Ashido replied, pulling the fridge open, before groaning, "I wish we were back in UA. We've got all our snacks stockpiled there."

"Well... we'll be going back to UA in like... two more days. Surely you can last until then." Shinsou muttered, scrolling through the news. Midoriya was just leaning against the taller boy, looking at whatever news happened to be on the taller boy's phone.

The League was still missing, people were getting suspicious of Hawks' behavior, crime was fluctuating, something about a Liberation Army or something... there were so many things going on, and Midoriya was really getting confused over what was really going to be a threat and what was a red herring.

"Last I checked, fam, there's a vending machine by the side of Ketsubutsu's main school building. Y'all might wanna check em out." Utsushimi replied, a towel around her neck, apparently having just finished her shower.

"Really?!" Ashido peeked out of the kitchen, "Alright! Let's grab something to drink!"

"You're going to get lost. You know that you guys don't know the way to the school building and back." Shinsou groaned, and Kaminari just pouted, "Come with us then, Shinsou! You know the way! I want something to drink!"

Shinsou just sighed. He was comfortable, and he didn't really want to get up. Midoriya pushed himself up, scratching his neck, before signing, "I can accompany them."

"You sure?" Shinsou turned to the smaller boy, but Midoriya just nodded, before standing up.

Shinsou sighed again, before pushing himself to his feet, "You know you had that uneasy feeling this afternoon... and I know you can't handle the both of them at the same time."

Midoriya just kicked Shinsou's leg lightly, huffing silently, as Kaminari and Ashido both ran to the door, cheering.


"I'm just going to text the others and see if they want anything! We have four people, surely we can carry back enough stuff for everyone!" Ashido grinned.

Suddenly, Midoriya stopped, before he lunged forward, grabbing both Ashido and Kaminari by the back of their collars and yanking them backwards, just as a row of knives were embedded in the ground, just where the acidic pinkette and the electric blonde were standing.

It was far too close for Midoriya's liking, and he felt another wave of nausea rise up.

"Not bad, kid." A feminine voice rang out, and Midoriya raised his head, noticing a woman standing on top of one of the lamp posts of the path they were taking.

"Hey! What was that for?" Ashido yelled at the woman, waving her arms about, "What did we do to you!? How did you even get into this school!?"

"Wait... isn't she the cafeteria lady?" Kaminari piped up, squinting as he gazed up at the smirking lady, who just held up several throwing knives.

"You would be correct, Chargebolt." The villain smiled, "My name is Yameru Toki, but I usually go by the name Time Stop. I really don't want to kill you kids... but I've got a job to do."

Midoriya couldn't figure out why the name "Time Stop" was so familiar, but before he could even think, Time Stop experimentally whizzed several knives directly at the green haired boy. Luckily, Ashido threw her hand up, hastily creating a small wave of acid that dissolved the knives upon contact.

"Back off!" Ashido growled, as Kaminari bumped Midoriya back gently, before reaching his hand into his pocket, where his phone was located. Shinsou reached out, pulling the small boy towards it, and it seemed that for some reason, Midoriya was deep in thought and was having a bit of trouble trying to figure out just what exactly was going on.

"We're not too far from the gymnasium. And I can see the main building." Ashido commented, "She's the only one here. We should be able to take her."

"Where are the teachers? Or even security?" Shinsou asked, but Kaminari just nodded, taking his hand out of his pocket, muttering just quiet enough for the group to hear, "I just contacted Aizawa-sensei. They should be here soon. We just have to stall."

"She said she goes by the name Time Stop, so taking that literally... her quirk allows her to stop time?" Ashido squinted slightly as she eyed Time Stop warily.

"Get out of the way." Time Stop raised her head, having taken out even more knives before either of the four had even noticed, "I'm only interested in Hakryuen."

"Oh shut up!" Ashido snapped, "You aren't touching him!"

Finally, it clicked. Midoriya blinked, and looked up at Time Stop. He had done research on this villain during his internship with Sasaki, so out of his classmates, he was the most familiar with this particular villain. "Name: Time Stop. Quirk: Time Stop. This quirk allows her to pause time for everyone except her for a set period of time, and needs time to recharge in between each usage."

Midoriya glanced up at Shinsou, "Leave her to me."

"Don't be -" Before Shinsou could even finish his sentence, a flurry of knives rained down on the students, forcing them to scatter to avoid being impaled. Ashido's acid was more than enough to dissolve any incoming blades coming her way, but her hasty attempt was barely enough to cover both herself and Kaminari.

Kaminari had managed to pull Shinsou under Ashido's acid cover as the lavender haired boy deflected any stray knives with his own knife that he had started keeping on his person at all times., and Midoriya had whipped out one of his own knives, deflecting several oncoming blades as he bounded to the side to avoid the rest of the blades.

Midoriya paused, noticing that Time Stop was now standing on another lamp post.

If she had the ability to stop time, logically, she would want to get as close as possible so that her opponents wouldn't be able to react once her quirk wore off, and if he was her main target, she should be aiming at him instead of just throwing a huge flurry of blades at them... unless she couldn't.

Perhaps she couldn't get too close to another living thing? It was just a wild guess... but why didn't she just use her quirk and just use that opportunity to stab him?

Midoriya blinked, and suddenly, he could see another barrage of knives flying directly at him. Letting out a small growl, the green haired boy dashed to the side, whipping out another knife to help him deflect the blades, before ducking behind a nearby tree so the tree could absorb the rest of the impact.

The greenette took a second to catch his breath, and to figure out just where Time Stop's new location was.

Maybe it had something to do with the relationship between space and time or quantum physics or something that Midoriya didn't really understand, but from what he could see, there seemed to be some space around each person where Time Stop couldn't place any knives, or at least, manipulate in some form.

"Jeez. Even after trying to weaken you, you're still pulling up this kind of a fight." Time Stop sighed, standing up on the branch of another tree, and that immediately got Midoriya's attention.

What did she mean by that? Trying to weaken him?

Time Stop dug around in her pocket, and held out a small vial filled with some kind of salt-ish looking powder, "Hey, kiddo, do you know what this is?"

Midoriya looked up at the small vial, and blinked, confused.

"I suppose you wouldn't. After all, you're a good boy after all, aren't you?" Time Stop laughed, "Back in the day, when the appeal of quirks was skyrocketing, there was still a decent amount of quirkless kids being born. Discrimination hadn't yet reached its peak, but quirks were quickly becoming prominent all over the world. Even having a weak, kind of useless quirk was much better than having none at all."

Midoriya had no idea why the villain had started a monologue, but another interesting fact about certain types of emitter quirks is that the period of time the quirk can be used decreases and the recharge time increases the longer a fight drags on.

Of course, it wouldn't matter in a short fight, and if the user was trained to use their quirk for a long period of time, but that would obviously mean that Time Stop wouldn't just be spamming her quirk, and would be trying to ration out her usage of her Time Stop quirk.

Now, it just seemed like she was just stalling for time, but whatever she was talking about seemed to be rather important, so he listened.

"Anyways, like I was saying... there were still many people with quirkless kids, and that wasn't exactly favorable. However, parents couldn't exactly just abandon their kids or give them up, or that would create a huge fuss." Time Stop shrugged, "Quirkless and quirked people are biologically different, so people made use of that to develop something to strategically kill off quirkless people."

Ashido was just gawking at Time Stop in horror, taking in the implications of the villain's words, as Midoriya stared blankly at Time Stop.

"I think you know what I'm getting at." The villain grinned, waving the vial, "This was specifically bio-engineered to only react to those few genes that differ between quirkless people and the quirked. In low doses, it just seems like a case of food poisoning, but large doses can kill an adult in mere minutes. Some people mix them into their children's meals, serving everyone the same food, with this mixing inside it, and only the quirkless would die."

Midoriya just tried to process everything he was being told, his head pounding as he did his best to focus.

"And it has absolutely no effect on those with quirks. Parents can just claim it's an illness and everyone would go on their merry way, none the wiser. The government doesn't care too much about quirkless people, and didn't even bother investigating why multitudes of quirkless people were dropping like flies." Time Stop casually continued, "Things like these were quickly swept under the rug, and as the quirkless population quickly declined, so did the need for these kinds of drugs, so they also faded into the background."

"Wait... if it doesn't affect quirked people..." Kaminari muttered, "Don't tell me... all those times that Midoriya said that the food tasted weird..."

"Of course he would be the only one to tell the difference." Time Stop replied, "I didn't mix too much into your food, since that would make it way too obvious, and death by poison would definitely not be what we want. Plus, since it was mixed into the food that pretty much everyone in this school ate, since I didn't know who was going to be eating what, whatever you did end up getting wouldn't be too much anyways."

Midoriya wasn't too sure why Time Stop was telling them all of this, though he was having a little trouble trying to figure out just what was going on.

"I'm going to admit, I underestimated you." Time Stop let out a small, genuine smile, "I know I can't beat you in an all-out fight, given the limitations of my quirk. The plan was to just weaken you so you would be easily finished off once we managed to isolate you... but somehow you're still not as incapacitated as I thought."

"So you kind of fucked up, right?" A weird voice rang out. It didn't sound like any particular person that Midoriya knew, but he wasn't sure if that was because his brain seemed to be slightly laggy or someone else had joined the fight and he just wasn't aware of it.

"I mean, I -"

Time Stop's eyes glazed over, and she stopped moving, staring into space.


Aizawa stared at one of the back entrances to Ketsubutsu, with Fukukado inspected the security cameras. When Shinsou had informed him that Midoriya felt uneasy, the Erasure Hero had done everything in his power to ensure that he would increase security, and that started with him talking with the Smile Hero about Ketsubutsu's security.

Fukukado had immediately started thinking about weak points in the school's security system, which included a back entrance that was locked off quite some time ago, but was accessible if someone was aware of it. There was a security camera facing that particular entrance, but it was faulty due to being relatively old, so Aizawa decided that the first thing to do would be to check out the back entrance.

They had been inspecting the area when Aizawa got a text message, and the teacher groaned, before fishing his phone out of his pocket.

He swore, if Yamada was sending him another link trying to Rick Roll him, he was going to murder the blonde cockatoo.

Much to his surprise, the message was actually from Kaminari, along with a GPS location, and Aizawa clicked open the message.

18:26 - Wii Music 24/7:

Sie, villain attacj between tge scgool and dorm rooms

Kaminari's message had pretty bad spelling, but Aizawa knew that Kaminari wouldn't message him unless something serious had cropped up, and even so, the message would be sent through either Yaoyorozu or Iida.

"Joke, let's go, something's cropped up."

"Ya sure?" Fukukado raised her eyebrow, but Aizawa didn't bother answering her, and turned around, making a beeline straight for Ketsubutsu's main building.


Shinsou let out a sigh of relief as his quirk took hold; despite being able to use his quirk on his friends after Midoriya found the root of the problem, and going through several counseling sessions with Inui, the lavender haired boy was originally scared that his quirk wouldn't work on villains.

"You got her?" Ashido asked, and Shinsou nodded, frowning slightly, "Go check on Izuku. I'll keep her in place until the teachers come."

Ashido and Kaminari nodded, and the pinkette immediately raced behind the tree that Midoriya had been ducking behind.

The girl paused, trying her best not to spook the boy, "Hey, Mido, you okay there?"

Midoriya blinked in confusion as he turned around, just noticing Ashido, and he nodded slowly, "Where's villain?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. Shinsou used his quirk on her, now we're just waiting for Aizawa-sensei... or some other teacher." Ashido let out a small laugh, reaching out slowly for the boy, "Come on, let's stay in a group."

Midoriya nodded slowly, as he tried to put all the pieces together, letting the pinkette grab him by the wrist and gently drag him over to Shinsou and Kaminari.

In the distance, they could see Fukukado and Aizawa running towards them, and Kaminari waved them over.

"Ok, what now? Where's the villain?" Aizawa looked around, and Kaminari pointed up at the tree where Time Stop was standing, "There. Cafeteria Lady. Shinsou is using Brainwashing on her to keep her in place. She said her name is Time Stop, and apparently, she can pause time for a short period... or something? She was also throwing a butt load of knives at us."

"I can see that." Fukukado gazed at the ground embedded with a multitude of knives glinting in the faint light, before squinting up at Time Stop, "Well... how long can you hold her in place? I think we'd need to get those quirk-canceling cuffs from the nearby police station before we even try to detain her, if her quirk allows her to stop time."

Aizawa was already on the phone with the nearest police station, as Shinsou replied, "If it's just one person, I can hold onto her for quite a bit of time."

"They'll be here in a few minutes. The nearest station is just down the street." Aizawa stated, looking up from his phone, "You guys have to give your statements later, but we can put that off until she's properly restrained."

"Now... what on earth are you kids doing out at this time?" Fukukado asked, and the Ashido piped up, "We wanted to go to the vending machine!"

Aizawa groaned, and facepalmed.


Luckily, it didn't take too long for a police officer and another hero to get into Ketsubutsu to arrest Time Stop, as Shinsou, Kaminari, and Ashido started explaining what had happened when they bumped into the villain. Aizawa had tried to question Midoriya, but the boy just shook his head, looking much more tired and out of it than usual, so the Erasure Hero just let him be to collect his thoughts.

"She also started talking about drugs for quirkless people... or something like that." Ashido sighed, and Kaminari nodded, "Yeah! Said she was trying to target Mido with poison! I started recording whatever she said, but I might have missed out the first sentence or two!"

"Send it to me. I'll hand it to the police." Aizawa stated, and Kaminari nodded, fishing out his phone and sending Aizawa the audio file as Fukukado conversed with the police officer after they had searched Time Stop for weapons, and found a small vial of some salt-ish powder after confiscating a bunch of blades. The other hero had already cuffed Time Stop, and had taken her to the covert police car just outside of Ketsubutsu Academy.

Midoriya lowered his head, and Shinsou gently patted him on the back, "You okay there, Zuku?"

"Sorry." Midoriya muttered miserably, and Kaminari frowned, "What are you apologizing for? It's not your fault there was a villain here."

Midoriya's figure drooped even more, "She was... targeting me... and I was kind of... useless the entire fight..."

"Hey! Don't be so down!" Ashido grinned, smacking Midoriya on the back, snapping him out of his miserable haze, "Stupid lady was already messing you up with poison! Plus, you're always keeping an eye out! Let us be badass for once!"

The smaller boy raised his head slowly, "I... suppose so..."

"Tch. I'm really going to have a good talk with the principal about this." Fukukado sighed, as the police officer left the scene, before turning to Aizawa, "They said that they'll be looking into the powder we found on Time Stop, and I overheard something about poison. I'll get the nurse to look over you kids, and then you can go back to your rooms. I'll order pizza for dinner tonight."

Aizawa nodded, "We've got an audio file to listen to. I'll also talk to Nezu about our next steps moving forward."