The next morning, the whole of 1-A had found themselves lining up outside at the crack of dawn with split ends, tired eyes and sore backs while Aizawa for once in his life looked more well rested than his class.

The only one who looked similarly awake was Izuku himself, although it certainly wasn't because he'd gotten any rest. In fact, he'd hardly slept at all, between his usual mental state, a potentially growing sense of paranoia (which he felt was justified when Demons were now sending messages to him and knew where he lived) and the fact he couldn't get what was told to him the night before out of his head.

Or rather, he couldn't get the image of it out of his head, with Kota's emotions crashing against him at the same time. He'd never even had a scare before thinking he might've lost his mom, he had no idea how painful such a loss would be even if he could guess….

Shaking his head, he tried to focus forward as he noticed all the way on the opposite side of where he was standing in the line was Bakugou. He'd heard a car arrive the night before and explosions throughout the night so he knew he'd be there, although he was still curious what was up with the blonde asshole, why he was separated from the rest of them.

"Alright." Aizawa's voice immediately commanded everyone's attention, even the more tired people standing straight at it as the man walked past. His mouth was hidden by his scarf and he met no one's eyes as he paced back and forth. "As you're all no doubt aware by now, the purpose of this training camp is to increase your strength and abilities. Everyday, it becomes clear more and more threats are appearing in our current world and the more heroes ready to help the better. To this end, the goal of this training camp is to hopefully prepare you all for the exams that will provide you with provisional hero licenses. After all, there is no class 2-A to take the exam this year, so you'll be taking their place and I expect you all to work extra hard for it. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" The entire class shouted as the man took a soft ball out of his coat. Izuku blinked. 'Does he just always carry one of those around?'

"Bakugou. Catch." The man shouted, throwing it to the blonde who caught it, looking equally confused. "At the start of school, you got a score of seven hundred and five point two meters on the ball throw. I want you to do the throw again to see how much further you can throw it now."

"Oh I get it." He practically growled in a delighted way (how that was even possible Izuku had no clue), walking over to the spot Aizawa had been standing at and winding up before his palm lit up and he took his throw, an explosion ripping from his hand just like last time. "GO TO HELL!"

'Original.' Izuku deadpanned in his head, more than a little unimpressed with the red-eyed teen's usual antics. Everyone looked on curiously, people taking bets on how much further it had gone. He'd heard someone say eight kilometers which he highly doubted, in fact…. Had Bakugou improved much in strength?

"Seven hundred and nine point six meters." Aizawa read out lazily, making most of the class shout in shock while Izuku's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at his mark. "Thanks to several incidents over this semester, your hero training and in some cases at home practice, I expect you've all gotten a good handle on technique and stamina, maybe some physical strength increases as well… but your quirks still haven't been truly pushed to their limits. Just like muscles, you need to really work them out for them to become stronger."

He turned to them all with that slightly manic grin that always unsettled them all, especially with the crazy look in his eyes. "Six hours of non-stop training, followed by an hour's break, then another three hours of training. Every. Single. Day. Welcome to hell."

'They're going to experience my life? Poor bastards.' That slightly bitter thought crept up inside, until Izuku shook it out of his head to focus on something else, which ended up being Aizawa's voice.

"Midoriya, I want you to come up and do it as well." Aizawa called and confused, Izuku joined the man and took the ball, as well as a… juice pouch? "Healing liquid. It's a rare resource, something the old school nurse used to make with her quirk until she died. We don't usually use it unless it's for emergencies because we have to preserve as much of it as possible. However, seeing as we can't fly Recovery Girl out here and gauging your personal progress is important, I got permission to take just enough for you to do what you did last time. This is the only time I'm going to say this but… go ahead and break a finger."

'Is… Is this him getting revenge for his back?' A small part of the marked teen wondered, almost accusingly. With a sigh, he did as he was told and went to the throwing point while Bakugou scoffed and walked back in line. He ignored the awkward feeling of everyone's stares, mixed with apprehension and curiosity as prepared himself before…. '100%!'

He manifested Far Reach and performed the exact same trick as last time, although this time the tentacle didn't explode, instead channeling the full energy into the ball and launching it.

BOOOM!

Okay so that wasn't a sonic boom like he'd thought the first time, it was just the sheer pressure of the throw creating a miniature explosion of sorts. Aizawa looked up and a short bemused sort of noise left his throat.

"One thousand thirty-two meters, about ten more than last time." He hummed, before surprising the class by pulling out several more. "That is, with that power"

'…Oh no.'

"There is no denying your power has improved since you started, with its many… additions." He threw another ball over. "But as much as diversity is a blessing in what it allows you to do, it's also a curse when you're training. Every physical power, you're going to show me your baseline with it now with a test while the others begin training, then after that… you're going to have to work six times as hard to improve them all."

'…Oh no.'

The first half an hour of training hadn't been anything special, just a continuation of the previous day's mental training, trying to block out more mental messages from Mandalay. He still felt the progress was frustratingly slow but at least with a fresh mind, by the time the half an hour was up the messages had become very much like static as they came through.

The second half of the hour they had decided to put focus on One For All (or as the Pussycats knew it, Superpower) pairing him with Tiger to do several basic workouts while using his quirk, in the hopes of improving how much of an output it had as well as allow his body to handle it easier.

In fact, all his exercises more or less were overseen by one of the cats. While they were overseeing the rest of the class generally, each cat would work with him one on one when they got the chance to help him do specific tests that had been set up for him.

This wasn't too different from everyone else, although everyone else had more wiggle room in discussing how they'd most effectively improve themselves ahead of time while Izuku got no such luxury due to having no time to pick out specific regimes for each power.

Still, the ones set up by the Pussycats would turn out to be fairly effective anyways, as the first one he did with Far Tendrils when the second hour struck proved. His task was to use his weakened version of Far Reach not to grab anything, but to pick a lockbox.

It was a weird experience, having Pixie-Bob, a pro heroine, teach him how to pick locks normally but he'd paid a great deal of attention knowing the skill would be invaluable to him especially then being given a box. Once he'd gotten picking it normally down, he'd been told to do it with Far Tendrils.

"I noticed your tendrils shook a lot when you used them on my earth monsters. They're not that stable. Seeing as they're supposed to be a weaker version of something stronger, I doubt improving their strength in this form is worth much, so instead we'll focus on increasing their stability and your control over them. Lock picking takes precision and a steady hand, so the better you do, the more control you'll have." Pixie-Bob had explained her reasoning, before keeping an eye on him while timing him.

That was the training with perhaps the most noticeable results, in part thanks to the fact his Far Tendrils were one of his less utilized powers. He could quickly see however just how much of a difference the training was making as he went from struggling to even penetrate the hole to being able to stuff his tendrils inside with ease by the time he had to move on to something bigger.

That being training the normal version of Far Reach which was… not a fun experience. Izuku had felt his heart sink when he'd seen Tiger asking Pixie-Bob for help with pulling out a box of weights of ridiculous… well, weight. It was enough to match some of the heaviest things he'd picked up on Dagobah and even went beyond that. He had a feeling the only reason the weights were even able to be the size they were was due to a shrinking quirk.

"The process for this one will be perhaps even more simple then the last, although that doesn't mean it will be fun, little man. I have heard the main issues regarding your Far Reach is you get fatigued when it stays out for long, and it's mainly used for transport so he's had no training put into the weight it can lift! I have been told however that weight is impressive, and we're going to make it even more so now!" Tiger had cheered, while keeping a bit of distance from Izuku. The pro would be more intimidating usually but since Izuku hadn't gotten annoyed during the first leg of training and had ended up snarling at the men for a moment he'd been keeping his distance while he worked with Izuku. "So what we're going to do is go to this safe section of the cliff where no one is going to get hit and I'm going to throw off the weights. I want you to hold them in the air for as long as you can."

It was a reasonable exercise plan, he had to admit. The danger of falling off the cliff face was massively diminished when he had several powers that made the fall trivial and no one was in risk of dying from blunt force trauma from a falling weight, so it worked for its purpose. That being to increase how long he could use Far Reach for with the smaller weights, just holding them for as long as possible until he got tired, while with the bigger ones he'd slowly but surely work up more tolerance to more weight, able to hold larger and larger ones. He didn't waste more than a minute on a weight either if he could hold one for a while, so they didn't take forever to get to the ones that made the time he'd lifted All Might off the ground feel painfully underwhelming and left his arm aching from where it had manifested Far Reach.

By the time of the last weight before they switched to another new exercise, his arm felt as if it was going to rip clean off which was not fun even slightly. Fortunately, they switched before it actually did.

Unfortunately, they had to pair him up with Shoji and… Tooru. That was awkward, but they did their best not to cause a fuss or upset each other, just keeping quiet and doing what they were told. Tooru couldn't exactly improve the strength of her quirk, so she had to improve her own effectiveness with it by training herself to be stealthier.

Meanwhile, Izuku and Shoji were training themselves to be more alert, Shoji using his quirk to find her while Izuku used Dark Vision. He couldn't properly articulate the ways Shoji was improving but for himself, his reaction time was improving, when he saw flashes of yellow in his vision he was getting faster and faster at reacting to them, as well as subtly creating blockages in the paths he knew she'd take what with her future movements being shown for him through the power.

By the second half of the hour he went on to training his weaker equivalent of the power, which he had no other name for. It was just Dark Vision without the laid out paths, focused solely on people that went over a farther distance. The training was simple, although aggravating as all he had to do was continually try to extend the range he could see. Which meant forcing it to go farther and it seemed Dark Vision didn't always like that, sometimes just shutting off on him.

Certainly the most frustrating power to train so far, leaving him somewhat sour, especially with the constant salt in the wound of having to work with Tooru yet having her barely acknowledge him at all. He'd almost thought he'd seen a bit of glistening as if a tear was rolling but that couldn't be right, could it?

Did she hate him so much now she cried just being near him? Was he that horrible?

...Needless to say, his thoughts were muddled and distracted as he went into the next phase of training, which was fortunately something simple that could help him at least hit out some of his frustrations.

"With the incredibly simple nature of Far Lance from what we've heard, I think it would be for the best if we didn't overcomplicate any training for it. It's basically a blade, the best way to improve a blade is to sharpen it and increase your striking power. You can't exactly go grinding it on a grindstone, so…" Mandalay had stepped aside during her explanation, showing he'd be working beside Mina, Kirishima and Kyoka. "Just keep stabbing as much as you can. Dig as deep as you can."

Kyoka had given him a tired nod, frowning when she'd seen his eyes and he'd did his best to give an energetic nod back before jumping into it. Half an hour later, a new emerald reserve had been discovered within the cave system inside. Mina had been suppressing giggles since he'd accidentally sent the first chunk of emerald he'd hit flying out to hit Monoma from 1-B in the head. He was fine, although he wouldn't shut up about revenge after it until his teacher had gotten him into trouble for neglecting training.

After that, he'd gone on to join Tokoyami in a cave in the most heart pumping training of the bunch. Using Shadow Brute to try and wrangle in Dark Shadow in the dark. Needless to say he didn't leave unbruised, although he did get a good indication of just how strong Shadow Brute was, being able to hold back Dark Shadows attacks for a while before he needed to bring Full Cowling into the mix.

He hadn't gotten an explanation like the other parts of training but he could guess pretty easily it was to increase his stamina in the form, strength and durability and see if lighting conditions would affect him.

After that, he'd gone on to training Shadewalking with Ragdoll, trying to hide from her similar to how Shoji and Tooru were training, hiding in the shadows for as long as possible. The difference was Izuku had two different changing objectives unlike Tooru who just had to hide. Izuku had to tag Ragdoll for one without being called out, and his other objective was grab a small rock she was defending and take it to a set point.

"Listen up Kitten! When you go into that super cool shadowy move thing that lets you hide, I can't follow you with my quirk! That's super rare and cool! It's like you stop existing! Even cooler, I can't read weaknesses in it, although everyone has some weaknesses!" She had gone on, as hyper as Mina usually was if not were. It would be endearing if Izuku wasn't even more tired than he usually was, mentally and physically. "So we'll do this little hide and seek, tag, capture the flag mixture! It will help you improve the speed you can jump in and out of shadows, let you try to get more technique in exiting from them and improve your stealth skills all in one! You'll even hopefully learn to adapt with how shadows move over time!"

While her upbeat explanation had gone through his head slightly (as in the noise, not the explanation itself), he couldn't deny she had set up one of the most well thought out training exercises for one of his powers. While he was caught many times, he did find it becoming faster and faster to slip into shadows, more instinctual to dive for one, knowing where it would be just hitting so he could blend in before Ragdoll spotted him.

It was actually the closest he'd come to having fun in a while now. He had to give her that much. It didn't last though as the next round of training was something much more intensive.

Fighting the pussycats one against four. Yeah, hardly the fairest fight, but he supposed there wasn't exactly a better way for him to train Domino and Premonition at the same time. The idea was simple.

"Domino I'm sure you can figure out quite simply. We don't have the resources to increase the amount of people you can affect, so instead we'll simply try to improve your speed and accuracy at applying it to people. Meanwhile, we'll try to either speed up your premonitions during a fight or let you gain more control over when they end. I've been told you just stand there during them which leaves you wide open, so we want to improve it so that using premonition in a fight won't leave you exposed to being attacked."

And so, that's how Izuku had found himself fighting off the four Pussycats on his own, with nothing but Domino and Premonition to help him. He got punched in the face more times by Tiger then he cared to admit, although he'd be a liar if he said it wasn't satisfying when in the final round he'd managed to throw a perfect hit of Domino, connecting Ragdoll to Pixie bob just in time so when the Green haired heroine tried to pounce Pixie had gone flying through the air right into Tiger, distracting him long enough for Izuku to duck, get a premonition on Mandalay's next move, trip her up and deliver a hard knee to Tiger that brought him to the ground leaving him the only one standing for once.

Then the final hour of training before they'd finally have a break had been dedicated to Semblance. He'd been trying to prolong the amount of time he could steal faces for with Semblance which was an incredibly irritating process seeing as he could only steal a person's face once within twenty-four hours and not many people were exactly lining up to let him try it.

Aside from that, the ten minutes had been some more mental training then finally with the rest of the two classes he'd gone back to the cabin to get lunch.

Of course, the students were now expected to make their own food, which ended up actually being a welcome distraction as everyone got focused on doing their best for it with Iida's rallying, letting him make three plates of food and place them all down before using Shadewalk to slip away without being seen, coming out behind a tree and hurrying into the forest.

And that was how he now found himself in front of a lake, hand outstretched and mark glowing blue as he focused on a floor. 'And… wilt!'

….Nothing.

'And… Wilt!'

Nothing.

'WILT!'

Nothing.

"Wilt dang it!" He hissed out, focusing as best he could on the mental image of the flower wilting and dying, trying to replicate the far more powerful feats he'd managed in the void. Instead, the best he could manage was the flower blowing back and forth slightly, probably more from the wind of his arm moving than anything else.

"Um… is wilting powers another part of your powerset?" A nervous feminine voice asked and Izuku blinked, before looking up to see Ibara Shiozaki of all people from 1-B walking in. A girl about the same height as him, though her skinny figure made her look lankier at a distance, with green vine-like hair and equally green eyes.

"Not exactly." He huffs, looking down before resting his head back and groaning. "It's just a stupid idea I got to work once and hasn't since."

"It… may be in part due to tiredness?" She suggested tentatively, seeming hesitant to come any closer. He tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?" He just cut to the heart of it, raising a brow. She winced and bit her lip, as if contemplating if she should just run.

"….You are the Satanist?"

"….Wha-" He coughed as he sucked in way to much air in surprise, before he went wide eyed and despite himself actually laughed. She blinked confused at him as he tried to get himself under control and when he finally did, he blinked owlishly at her. "Where on earth did you get that idea?"

"I have heard many claim you worship some kind of dark lord, you reference a hellish place quite often, the news has shown you have… violent tendencies and you were attacking a place of a different kind of worship, even if I do not agree with their teachings."

"Shiozaki, right?" He asked and she nodded hesitantly. He sighed. "No offense to you, I've heard you're quite passionate about your religion but there is not a single god or prophet or whatever I believe in."

It was true as well. He believed the Outsider existed (obviously) but believing in the deity? That was so not happening right now.

"You… don't?"

"No. I investigated the Abbey for personal reasons, discovered them to be doing highly illegal things and made some stupid decisions in the way I went about stopping it that has led to the getting away with lying about me in public. My 'violent' tendencies are just… just times I reached my mental limit with some people. The video of me shouting at Stain, that isn't me normally. That's me having nearly lost my friend to a murderer and stressed out my mind after having been met with god knows how many villains, including one that claims to have come back from the dead, which is where… certain comments came from. And as for the Void and Outsider comments… The Abbey are trying to ruin my life, it is the literal least I can do to spite them." He explained with a groan, standing up. "I'm not a Satanist and if you're here just to 'investigate' me or yell scriptures at me or something, please just… don't."

"…I apologize." She surprised him, making him look back to see her shyly holding a hand out. "I have learned from my classmates I can be… overbearing with my faith at times. I do not wish to cause others distress with it, however or judge others unfairly. I should not have made any presumptions."

He blinked, before taking what he could get with a sigh as he grabbed it and shook it. "You're forgiven. Why did you come find me anyways if you thought I was the kind of person I assume you would hate?"

"I try not to hate anyone, that would be against what I've been taught. I was taught to be kind to everyone, regardless of our differences and while I may have had a few choice words before… You are a person, and you're overworking yourself." She said, surprising him. He raised a brow and she blushed. "I know we are just acquaintances and I do not mean to sound bossy or pushy, I'm just concerned… your class was pushing themselves non-stop for hours before we even arrived, yourself especially, and I couldn't in good consciousness let you risk hurting yourself when you snuck off. I know you have no obligation to listen to me as a stranger and I feel weird, and perhaps out of line saying this but nevertheless, please do not jeopardize your health. Everyone needs a break sometimes, and it would be for the best if you took one."

A part of him wanted to tell her no, that he had to keep going. Wanted to be annoyed that a complete stranger was telling him what to do. She wasn't wrong though, he already had suffered once before from pushing himself too much and he really would just end up getting himself hurt or pushing himself back instead of forward at this rate.

"Alright… alright, I'll take a break. Maybe a walk to clear my head. The groupings are too noisy." He decided with a sigh. Ibara smiled a kind smile.

"I am glad to hear it. I will keep a plate set out for you if you wish."

"No, it's fine but thank you. I'll be back before break is over." He assured, nodding at her as she accepted his idea and walked off, leaving him to sigh and walk into the forest aimlessly.

For the first five minutes he wasn't really sure what he was doing, until he heard rustling not too far away and spotted something. Kota, running away from the cabin up to the mountainside.

Izuku blinked confused. It didn't look like he'd eaten at all, so why was he going away from the food? Where was he going anyways? Should he go after him?

'Why bother?' a part of him whispered quietly. 'What are you going to do, try to help? What's the point, want to make something else worse than it already is?'

He gritted his teeth and, although more than one part of him was telling him it would be best to just ignore it and go to bed, his goodwill just barely managed to claw to the surface and remind him Kota was going to regret it if he didn't get some food.

So he'd returned to camp stealthily, used Far Tendrils to snag a plate while no one was looking and hurried up to where Kota had been. It didn't take him long to find where he'd gone, scaling up the mountain side to a cliff face which looked over the area.

It was admittedly very pretty.

"What are you doing here?!" Kota had immediately growled as soon as he spotted the Marked teen. "Get out of my secret hideout."

'So that's what this is, huh?' "Yeah, sure, whatever kid." Izuku shrugged, putting the plate down. "I just saw you didn't take any food. You'll regret it if you don't eat."

"Trying to help?" Kota asked almost… mockingly? Izuku felt his eye twitch. 'He doesn't know, don't let him set you off-' "Just like the rest of the stupid idiot heroes, I don't want your help!"

"'Idiot?'" Izuku growled quietly, unable to help himself. Kota jumped slightly but didn't seem smart enough to yield his ground.

"All you do is get yourselves killed for no good reason! Only idiots want to be heroes!"

Izuku wasn't sure if the crack he heard was a branch beneath his feet or just simply the sound of his patience being snapped in two as he looked up at Kota with a glare that could kill.

"You know what?! Fucking maybe!" he snapped, making Kota jump as his eyes went wide. "Maybe I am an idiot! Maybe I don't help anyone! But at least I freakin' try instead of just abusing everyone who wants to try, you brat! Maybe I make everything worse, maybe I'm just wasting my time! You know what, I don't know and maybe you're right, but at least. I. Try. So get your stupid 'I'm better then you' attitude out of here before it ends up getting you in trouble with someone worse than me."

His rant ended as he resisted the urge to kick the food off the mountain, turning and storming off, steam practically emanating off him from his spike in anger. It was starting to feel like that was the only strong emotion he could rely on coming out nowadays.

And he ended up bumping into the last person he wanted to in this state. He saw the invisible clothes and paled as they both stopped.

"Uhh…" He gulped. "H-"

He didn't even get a word out before he saw her turn and actually run away. Waves upon waves of pain, and not the physical kind, crashed into him as the anger subsided into the only feeling it felt like he had left to feel, as he sunk to his knees with his eyes tearing up.

Defeat.