Today is quickly becoming one of the worst days of Hitoshi's life. Right up there with that day, when he was nine, and his stupid cult-follower mother died at the hands of heroes. One minute, he's arguing with Yoarashi over slumber parties that will never happen, and the next minute…

"Stop, Shouto, you have to stop! Calm down!" Yoarashi yells desperately, shoving Hitoshi backwards and away from the torrent of flames that Todoroki releases. Ice flashes over the hallway at the same time, spiraling up the walls. He's never even seen Todoroki use both sides at once. There aren't many people close by at this point, just him and Yoarashi and Todoroki. There's a flashing light overhead, the alarm system triggered, but Hitoshi can barely hear the siren over the sound of his own heart.

Yoarashi gets up, still blocking Hitoshi. "Oi, you're on fire—!" Hitoshi yelps, swatting at the embers on Yoarashi's shoulder. The airbender is still shouting at the out-of-control student.

"Arson is BAD!" Yoarashi yelps. He reaches out with his quirk and pulls on the ice scattered from the water fountain, quickly forming a makeshift wall on the far side of the hallway to stop Todoroki's fire from spreading further. He gestures emphatically to the burning hallway. "We've talked about this!"

Hitoshi slaps Yoarashi's bicep. "Why would he care?! His dad commits arson all the time!" His hand hurts. Stupid airbender with stupidly large muscles. What in the world were the Yoarashis feeding him?

Yoarashi glares back at Hitoshi. "WELL I DON'T SEE YOU CALMING HIM DOWN EITHER!"

"SHOUTING WON'T CALM ANYONE DOWN, YOU—!" Hitoshi is cut off by an explosive blast of ice, jagged and dangerous, narrowly missing his head. "Shit, sorry Todoroki, I wasn't yelling at you!" He isn't listening, but Hitoshi apologizes anyway because he knows that Todoroki hates it when his friends fight.

"Buddy, it's us! We're your friends, stop attacking!" Yoarashi says desperately, his voice thin and strained with worry. He shoves Hitoshi back again, trying to keep him away from Shouto without leaving the boy totally alone to suffer through whatever this is. Todoroki falls to his knees, his left side still burning unevenly over his arm and leg. He says something, garbled and unintelligible but clearly distressed.

"Did he get hit with a quirk?" Hitoshi breathes, unable to look away as Todoroki writhes on the ground. He looks lucid, sort of, blinking and gasping and jerking away—but he looks just as shocked by his use of ice as they do. "He can't control it, he can't stop his quirk!"

It's like Trigger, Hitoshi thinks to himself wildly. But Todoroki would never use a quirk enhancer. Not willingly, at least.

"Then—then you stop him!" Yoarashi barks, grabbing the collar of Hitoshi's shirt. Brainwashing Todoroki is the last thing Hitoshi wants to do right now. "Just try, Shinsou, he needs help!"

Deeply doubtful of this plan, Hitoshi focuses on Todoroki. "HEY SNOWFLAKE, ARE YOU HURT? GONNA GO CRYING BACK TO MAMA?"

Inasa immediately slaps Hitoshi in the face, so he has no idea if Todoroki responded. "You jerk!" He says angrily. "Don't bring up his mom!"

"Ow!" Hitoshi places a hand on his stinging cheek, stunned. "You told me to brainwash him!" Hitoshi kicks him in the shin vindictively. "I don't actually mean it—ah!"

Hitoshi and Inasa duck out of the way. Another torrent of flames blasts against the far wall, and suddenly the hallways rattles ominously. His heart leaps. Is it Cementoss? Toph?

Thick metal barriers groan to life from the tiled floor, crushing through the ice wall Yoarashi had made. Layers of metal clamp together, cutting off both ends of the corridor. The stadium entrance bolts itself shut. Sprinkler heads pop out of the ceiling to mist them with water. It's the school's security system trying to contain and smother the fires.

UA's security just locked them in a hallway with Todoroki.

Hitoshi and Inasa share a look. "Shit," the boys mutter.

Enji has just concluded the meeting with All Might and the rat principal when alarms go off down the hallway. The PA system calls for any staff in the northern wing of the stadium to report to entrance 7-B. A level-one emergency, a fire hazard.

"REMAIN CALM," a medical bot whizzes by. "PLEASE EVACUATE SECTOR 07, THE HALLWAY WILL BE QUARANTINED SHORTLY…"

Enji ducks past some students filing out of the hallway, his frown deepening. Nedzu was probably sifting through the security footage already to see the problem, he could turn back around and check with the principal if he wanted to. If it were an intruder, the system would have announced it as a level-three security breach. If Enji went running after the alarms, the civilians and students in the stadium might think there was real cause for panic. UA didn't need that, not in the middle of their most-watched event. That little rat made it clear where his priorities laid in regards to threats to his school.

Still, something about it, especially right after that meeting with Nighteye, doesn't sit right with him…

"Endeavor!" A crisp voice calls for him. "I knew I'd find you skulking around here! Gonna go give your little boy a pep talk?"

Enji skids to a stop, dread filling his chest. The universe clearly hates him. Punishment for his wrongdoings, probably. But was it not enough to curse him with Toph Beifong, the most problematic teenage girl in Japan? Now the spirits saw fit to burden him with the company of this insufferable woman too?

"Aren't you supposed to be in Hiroshima?" Enji is already scowling as he turns to face the devil woman herself. "Rabbit Hero."

The sprinklers aren't doing much besides getting water in Hitoshi's eyes; there's not enough to smother the fires that Todoroki started. Inasa melts a spire of ice so it washes over the flames, but that gives them the additional problem of producing hot steam fogging up the enclosed hallway. Todoroki blasts the hallway again with ice, and this time it erupts with enough force to throw Shouto off his feet—Inasa cries out and dives for him before Todoroki can smash his head against the metal barrier.

"Shouto, snap out of it," he begs, patting at his face. His eyes are still open, sort of, but they're glazed-over and unseeing. Hitoshi approaches too, watching the fire and ice user warily. "C'mon, Shouto—Shinsou, ask him somethi—"

Todoroki's arm twitches again, and Hitoshi seizes him by the foot. Inasa shouts his protest just as Hitoshi violently drags Todoroki off the airbender, and another jet of flames bursts from Todoroki's hand, filling the room with heat and light.

Hitoshi flinches away from the heat, covering his face. "Inasa?!" He shouts, eyes closed, unsure if the airbender got caught in the fire or not.

A whoosh of air buffets around him, and Hitoshi gasps for breath as a singed Inasa shoves him towards the opposite barrier, away from the heat.

"We need a teacher," Inasa announces, bizarrely smacking Hitoshi's arm. Ah. He'd been on fire. "I can't stop him without hurting him."

"You think?!" Hitoshi braces himself against the wall. "They must be alerted by now, this place is crawling with heroes."

"Then where are they?" Inasa demands. Shouto's body convulses wildly, and a shock of ice erupts from his leg. "CRAP!"

Then Inasa does something very new, taking a low and sturdy stance like Toph and earthbending a series of blocky columns to contend with the barbs of lethal ice. He'd seen little moments of earth manipulation from Inasa in the Cavalry Battle, but this went well beyond that.

"So you CAN earthbend?!" Hitoshi scrambles backwards with Inasa, into a relatively untouched corner of the hall. He'd begun to suspect it, but seeing Inasa move like Toph was unnerving.

"Yes!" Inasa hollers, taking a different stance and drawing his arms up in a fluid motion. The ice closest to them melts, gushing into water over the remaining fire and then evaporating into heavy steam. "I'll explain it later!"

"Why didn't you say anything?!" Hitoshi shouts anyway.

"HITOSHI WE ARE IN MORTAL PERIL! NOT NOW!"

A rumbling groan interrupts Midoriya mid-rant about the fluctuation of tensile strength Best Jeanist can achieve with denim fibers. An alarm echoes faintly down the hallway, and a ripple of confused murmurs between students follows it.

Midoriya's voice peters off, hesitant, and they both come to a momentary stop. "What's…?" He shakes his head, thinking of a smarter question. "Toph, can you sense what's going on?"

She presses a hand to the ground to find out. Overhead, the mechanical voice of the PA system instructs students and visitors away from the northern sector of the stadium. Midoriya and Toph are in the eastern wing, but most of their classmates are on the western side of the stadium for their lunch break.

"It's just a fire alarm, a level-one hazard," Toph answers, perplexed. "But there's a new barrier up. And… people are fighting in the hall—?"

Her stomach lurches. Toph would know those fluttering footsteps anywhere.

She takes off. "Wha—Toph! Wait up!" Midoriya is just a few steps behind.

For someone called the Rabbit Hero, Mirko's grin is positively wolfish. He hates it. Enji would go as far to say that Mirko is the reason Enji is willing to work with All Might—because the Hero Public Safety Commission had suggested the Rabbit Hero for collaboration on the AV case, but not even All Might is as infuriating as this furry bitch. Enji is a full 36 centimeters taller than this rodent woman, and yet she always looks at him like he's an insect under her weird animal toes.

She's not even in uniform, so what business does she have sneering at Enji like he's not lightyears ahead of her in the hero business?

"You seem crankier than usual," Mirko comments, ignoring his question and flicking back her braided white hair. Enji frowns. If it weren't for her obnoxiously familiar voice, he wouldn't have recognized the hero.

First of all, she's practically a nun with the lack of skin she's showing, a clear deviation from her brand. Mirko looks unnervingly average, wearing neutral brown capris and a UA sweatshirt that isn't two sizes too small. Secondly, she isn't being hounded by loving fans or a news crew like most of the visiting pro heroes were. He had assumed she was in Hiroshima today, her usual stomping grounds.

Thirdly, Mirko had voluntarily started a conversation with the Flame Hero. They've never held a conversation that didn't end with one of them stomping off, and lately, Enji has (unsuccessfully) tried to avoid heroes he can't get along with.

"What do you want?" Enji asks suspiciously. "I didn't think you were in town."

"Officially, I'm not," Mirko states plainly, still smirking. Her hands are casually jammed into the front pocket of her sweatshirt. "But I hitched a ride to take a look at the firsties. Won't be here long."

He knows she's close with Hawks, so he can assume that's who she hitched a ride with. No one else could carry someone across the country that quickly, and no one else would bother to do a favor for the off-duty Rabbit Hero. She obviously wasn't one of the heroes assigned to UA's security detail, not dressed the way she was. Enji turns away, recalling the suspicious alert from the northern wing. It was still going off, faintly, but few students remained in the area. It hadn't taken long for them to clear out as the PA system instructed, and most students were already in the food court.

Quirk accidents occurred all the time in this school, but the staff was supposedly being extra careful since the villain attack. He ought to find out what went wrong. If it wasn't sorted out quickly, they'd end up evacuating the stadium and he's sure that would defeat the purpose of Nedzu taking the time and effort to keep the Sports Festival running smoothly despite the last attack.

"I don't have time to chat, Mirko," he dismisses her, setting off for sector 07.

Mirko hops around him in a flash, sliding to a stop in front of him. "Oh no, Flameo, I'm not here for small talk," she declares, her ears twitching. Her smile fades for a moment.

Heightened hearing, Enji remembers. "Tell me what's going on in sector seven," he requests suddenly.

She hops from foot to foot, listening. "Ah. Not much I can hear from here, but it sounds like kiddies in a schoolyard fight," Mirko explains after a moment, tutting. "They're lucky Eraserhead's still mummified. I hear he's been expelling students to teach 'em a lesson!" She throws her head back and barks with laughter. "Man, I woulda loved to have a crazy guy like him to teach me the ropes!"

Enji grits his teeth. He doesn't find anything funny about schoolyard fights or expelling students for poor behavior. Hadn't they relegated one of Shouto's classmates to 1-E for inappropriate conduct recently? Shouto still refuses to explain that…

"Is there something you want from me?" Enji asks again, hoping to cut this conversation short.

"Hm, there's a lot I might want from you," Mirko says flippantly. Her big red eyes flicker up and down his form suggestively. He thinks he's imagining it at first, but no, her tongue pokes out between her teeth and glides along her lower lip.

Enji stares. Perhaps for a little too long. She arches a single eyebrow.

"...Ew," he says at last, thoroughly horrified to be propositioned by someone the same age as his daughter. Fuyumi has the same sweatshirt. He points a stern finger down at her. "Stop it. The fuck is wrong with you?"

"BAHAHAHA!" Mirko practically doubles over with laughter, her face flushed darkly. "I'm joking! I'm joking, I swear! Spirits above, you shoulda seen yer FACE!" She slaps her cheeks and wipes at the tears forming in her eyes. "Sorry, oh my god, I should've filmed that for Hawks!" She cackles like a witch.

Enji pinches the bridge of his nose, wishing he were anywhere else. He's so done with the top ten heroes. All Might, Hawks, Mirko… they were all horrible. If it were up to him, Edgeshot would be number one, because he kept his fucking mouth shut around Endeavor.

"Go harass someone else, Mirko," Enji says at last, trying to think of anything that would distract him from the pros and cons list in his head of burning Mirko alive. Beifong, right. He still needs to find the brat. He won't tell Beifong about the Yakuza predicament until later, but he just… feels like she's doing something stupid right now. He's developing a sixth sense for it.

"Nah, wait up," Mirko deflates, following at his elbow when he brushes past her again. He pays her no mind, seeing as she clearly wasn't here on business if she had time to act out a Ms. Joke skit at his expense. "Seriously, Endeavor! I—I wanna ask ya 'bout that earth girl!"

"What?" Enji halts mid-step, and Mirko deftly moves out of the way before he ends up elbowing her in the face. Spirits, she's tiny. Such a small package for the amount of hell she wrought upon him. "What about the earth girl?"

Mirko hums. "I'd like to offer her an internship."

It occurs to Enji that there's a fourth reason as to why he didn't recognize Mirko in the stadium. She always works alone.

He crosses his arms. "You've never recruited from UA before."

"Exactly," Mirko admits, mimicking his crossed arms. Enji is unsurprised that they're both acting defensive. "But that girl... she's different."

Enji blinks. "That's high praise from someone who refuses to work with anyone," he says, almost pleasantly surprised. "You haven't even seen her fight one-on-one yet." If it were any other hero asking, he'd be offended on Shouto's behalf, but the Rabbit Hero? He absolutely doesn't mind if Mirko is only interested in hiring Beifong. Shouto doesn't deserve to suffer through Mirko's company.

"I've got a good nose for sniffing out talent," Mirko's face splits into another smirk. "That girl won't lose. Put in a good word for me, will ya? That's all I wanted to say."

Finally, Mirko skips backwards, as if she's deigned to let Enji pass. She slips her hands back into her sweatshirt pocket, slouching without a care in the world.

"Fine. I'll tell her," Enji promises Mirko, already thinking of ways he can conveniently forget to tell Beifong about this until after she's officially recruited by Nighteye.

"Hop to it, Endeavor," Mirko winks. He scowls. Her large ears twitch again, and the Rabbit Hero glances down the hallway, looking startled. "Oi, oi, oi. Sounds like Midnight's getting fussy, now. How hard can it be to stop a couple of students?" She wonders, her nose wrinkling into a sneer.

Enji's head snaps towards the hallway again. He can't hear anything, and no one's returned from the northern wing for a few minutes now, but… "Do you smell smoke?" He asks Mirko, who's already meandering towards the food court.

"Well yeah," Mirko arches an eyebrow. "You're the Flame Hero, I just followed my nose to find you."

But Enji was sure he could smell smoke from the hallway. If the alarms were really about a level-one fire hazard, it should've been dealt with by now.

"I have to go," Enji grunts at Mirko, setting off down the hallway again. She shouts a question at his back, but he ignores it. If students were the cause of the alarm, then one of the idiots fighting had started a fire… What are the odds that it's one of my idiots?

On the other side of the barrier, Toph is screaming. "Stop! Stop fighting! Twinkletoes, you idiot! What's happening?!"

She punches and punches and—and she is nothing compared to UA's defense systems. The barrier is solid, a refined metal alloy she's never felt before, nothing like the robots UA uses for training events. "No!" Toph screeches, running out of ideas. Her hands aren't denting the barrier. It will not yield. She can barely focus on the structure she's trying to penetrate, too horrified by what she can vaguely sense happening just beyond it.

"Toph! Toph, you have to stop—!" Midoriya is there, first just touching her shoulder, then dragging her with a ferocity she hadn't known he was capable of. "Please, Beifong, what's going on?"

"I don't know, I don't know, Shouto's hurt—" Toph is aware, on some level, that she's babbling now. "He's on the ground, he's shaking like—it's like a seizure," Toph narrates, her throat raw and pained. "Yo–Yoarashi and Shinsou are trapped in there. There's fire, Shouto's fire side could burn them." She could feel it through the barrier, heating the metal dangerously.

She lunges again for the barrier, and arms anchor around her torso like iron shackles. "Let me go!" Toph shouts at Midoriya, twisting this way and that. Why is he stopping her? Doesn't he believe her?

"I can't, Toph, you can't just break a UA barrier, they're infamous—"

"I can! I WILL!"

"Okay I believe you but the teachers will be here, they're probably on the other side already, let them help!" Midoriya says, all in one breath.

The sound she makes doesn't even feel like it's coming from her mouth, doesn't feel human. He doesn't understand, he can't see it—the ground trembles from beyond the barrier, another tower of ice thrown at her friends, her best friends, and Toph forces the concrete to yield, yield, bend to her command enough to block Shinsou from the tower of jagged icicles.

"Stay back!" A rough, growling voice interrupts, and there's a clawed hand swooping over both her and Midoriya, dragging them away. For a moment Toph desists, heart in her throat, as Hound Dog approaches the wall. But then he asks, "What's going on? Why's the barrier up?!"

He doesn't know what's happening either.

Toph summarily stomps on the ground beneath them, pummeling a hole in the concrete and shoving her whole body backwards. Hound Dog's grip on her loosens. Midoriya yelps, falling into the trap, and she rips herself forward to punch at the metal wall again.

"—won't listen to me, I can't control him!" Shinsou's voice sounds so far away, so faint behind the wall that Toph doubts anyone but she can hear it.

"—don't want to hurt him! He doesn't know what he's doing!" Inasa's pleasing, pained shout follows.

Toph punches harder, making the barricade rattle. She puts up another wall beyond it, blocking Shouto from Inasa, and feels dusty bits of concrete sprinkle onto the floor. Every time she earthbends it travels through the whole corridor, shaking the stadium's structure.

"Hey, stop that!" Hound Dog snaps at her, but then he's preoccupied with his phone—no, a communicator—as he barks questions towards other heroes on his comm channel. "Who authorized this barrier? Is there another way in? The stadium exit, Mic, Midnight—"

He dashes towards the stadium stairs, seeking a way around the UA barricade. If he'd stayed, Toph would have told him there was no entrance, that her friends were caged in on all sides.

Her friends are in a cage. Shouto is attacking them.

My friends. Mine, they're mine, they're hurting, and I can't stop it—!

Toph drives another fist at the barricade.

The barrier rattles. Hitoshi looks at it, bewildered. There's no sign of damage, and he can't hear anything behind it, but—

"Toph!" Inasa takes his eyes off of Shouto, looking hopefully towards the wall of steel. "That's Toph!"

The ground rumbles, and a thick slab of concrete bursts from beneath Hitoshi and Inasa, sectioning them off from Shouto. The barrier rattles again, and does not budge. Hitoshi staggers to the wall, slapping his hand against it.

"Can you hear us?" He shouts at the metal. "Take this thing down, Shouto needs help!"

Inasa draws up his hands again, taking more of the water away from the walls and ceiling. It swirls around into a whirlpool, solidifying once more around Shouto. As soon as the ice hardens enough to stop Shouto from moving, he runs to the unconscious boy.

"No!" Hitoshi shouts after him instinctively. "Inasa, get away, it's not sa—!"

The ice shatters, blasting them backwards.

Hitoshi lands on his back, smacking his head twice before he stops tumbling over the ground. He stares at the ceiling for a while, his vision going in and out of focus. Then Inasa's at his shoulder, hauling him into a sitting position.

"You're bleeding," the airbender says worriedly. He pushes Hitoshi's head back, and it occurs to Hitoshi that he'd begun to pitch forward onto the ground. "What do we do? You're the better strategist, Shinsou."

"Yoarashi," Hitoshi says sluggishly, wiping his face with the back of his hand. They're in a corner of the hallway, blocked from Todoroki's ice behind a thick wall of earthbending. But the air is too warm, and the concrete is already crumbling under the heat. They can't just wait here until the heroes find them.

"I can't stop him if he's unconscious. You're stronger, your quirk can overpower his."

He already knows why Yoarashi hasn't done this, though. With the barriers up, blocking Todoroki's ice and fire would protect the two of them, but it did nothing to protect Todoroki. He could only take so much before he started to get frostbite or heatstroke. Not to mention getting burned or bruised up by being restrained to such a small area. Without Eraserhead to negate his quirk, their best bet was overworking Todoroki to the point of total exhaustion. Fighting him into submission, or until the heroes took down the barriers.

Inasa ducks his head, his eyes squeezed shut as he runs a hand over his head. "I don't know how. I can't hurt him, Shinsou. I can't make myself do it, I—" His eyes open, locking onto Hitoshi. "Shinsou. I can't make myself do it," Inasa says solemnly. "So you have to make me do it."

His tongue feels like lead in his mouth. "Are you sure?"

Hitoshi doesn't think he'll ever forget the look of terror on Inasa's face. "Please, Shinsou," he answers.

"Stop! Toph, let me out!" Midoriya shouts from behind her, his voice laced with fear and confusion as he tries to dig himself out of the ground where he's half-buried. "Your hands, Toph, you need to stop!"

"What's going on?!" Another voice, another student, asks him. She vaguely hears Midoriya's rapid-fire explanation, hears him beg, hears him tell others to pull her away—

Toph digs her feet into the cement, and digs further, drawing up the foundations around the barricade until it groans and creaks under her fingers. But the ground shifts, destabilized—loose rocks pepper her shoulders from the ceiling. Dust clings to her skin, to her cheeks, to her wet knuckles. Her hands burn and shake and split at the seams. The barrier puckers and creases under her fists, but it's grown almost too hot for her to touch.

Something latches around her torso again, more forceful this time, and she doesn't hear even a word of warning before she's yanked off her feet entirely. Toph bellows with anger, but she can't fight back with her arms pinned to her chest. She kicks backwards, catching a leg—"Ow! Grab her legs, Shitty Hair!" Bakugou snaps, swearing loudly in her ear. "Earth Bitch's gone feral."

"No!" Toph screeches as Kirishima clamps himself over her knees. Inasa is shouting at Hitoshi, but she can't make out the words or if either of them are hurt. "Stop it! Stop it, I can open it—just open the doors, just open the doors!"

"Just calm down, it's gonna be okay," Kirishima's voice is low and certain and absolutely a lie. "C'mon Beifong, it's fine, it's just the fire alarm system—"

"It's NOT!" She thrashes, and her shout turns into a sob unexpectedly.

"Oh, Toph," Kirishima sounds pained. "It's gonna be okay—!" Kirishima's arms loosen enough for her to jam her knee into his stomach. "Ack! D-Damn, girl, you never skip leg day, do you?" He wheezes.

"Where's Endeavor?" Toph growls, ignoring the sliver of guilt she feels for Kirishima. "Where's All Might?"

"Th-they're on the other side now, I could hear Hound Dog talking to the teachers," Midoriya answers quickly. She can hear the shuffle of a few other students around, digging Midoriya out of the floor. "There must be something wrong with the barrier, you're right, Toph, you're right, the teachers are trying to disable them, but you have to wait, okay?"

"Chill the fuck out!" Bakugou adds unhelpfully, holding onto her tightly enough that she was having trouble breathing easily. "Breaking it down will destabilize the building, you dunderhead!"

She seethes, but stops trying to knee Kirishima in the crotch. Calm down, calm down, she repeats it like a mantra in her head until she's still and lax in Bakugou's grip. She feels like a fussy toddler with the way her classmates have to grapple with her, and she's sure Bakugou looks like an idiot too.

"Let me go," she says gently, her heart thudding loudly in her ears. Or maybe it's Bakugou's, she can't tell anymore. "I'm fine. Bakugou. Please."

There's a beat of silence as he seems to consider this. She can't see the flat look Bakugou shares with Kirishima and Midoriya. Deku has a bruise developing on his cheek, and Kirishima was kneed in the gut just thirty seconds ago. She can't see that he's barely holding onto her properly because her arms are slick with blood.

"Hell fucking no, you crazy bitch."

Toph screeches. "YOU SHIT-FACED HOG MONKEY I'LL KILL YOU—!"

"Who's in there?!" Enji barks at Cementoss. Midnight, Present Mic, and Cementoss are standing in front of one of UA's infamous barricades. Midnight is shouting into her communicator. Present Mic is tearing apart some kind of console embedded in the wall, sparks flying everywhere. Cementoss is building up the cement to stop the ceiling from collapsing.

"Unclear," the teacher answers curtly. "Endeavor, melt down this barrier! I can't get a hold of All Might, I'll keep the walls from caving in!"

Enji stares at the barricade, unease curling in his gut. He can't hear much of anything from the other side of it, except for the occasional rumble. He flexes his fingers. "Roger that."

He places both palms in front of the wall and activates his quirk. Flames ripple along the metal carefully, never reaching the floor or ceiling.

"We can't access the cameras, but we think there's students trapped," Midnight explains.

The flames grow, flickering from red to orange to white-gold. Slowly, so slowly, the slate gray barrier begins to glow with heat. It should be melting faster than this. Is there water on the other side? Ice?

"Hound Dog is at the stadium entrance," Midnight announces, her hand pressed firmly against her earpiece. "There are three students inside, I think he can smell them. Nedzu is trying to override the security measures."

"You were hacked?" Enji hisses, whipping around to face Present Mic. He must be trying to deactivate the barrier manually. He gets no reply, but he doesn't need one. "How long have they been in there?"

"Five minutes."

That's too long.

The barrier turns cherry red, then bright gold. The heat radiating off it is enough to make even Endeavor grimace, and the other heroes are forced to step back. Cementoss remains at his side, driving up pillars to hold the ceiling in place.

Enji leans back, inspecting the barrier quickly. Cementoss grunts. "Oi, Endeavor, why'd you stop? Don't hit—"

Thank goodness for Recovery Girl, Enji thinks idly, before curling his hand into a fist and punching through the softened metal. The pain isn't immediate, nor is it a concern.

The metal gives way with a high-pitched screech, and the hallway is suddenly bathed in shockingly white light. Enji swears, ducking his head to the side, eye squeezed shut to avoid burning his retinas. But there isn't just light—there's screaming, there's heat, there's wind and rain and—

He rears back and punches again, and this time Enji can feel his gauntlet crack under the pressure when he breaks through the wall.

"Endeavor!" A student shouts in relief. Enji does not feel relief. It's Hitoshi Shinsou that's shouting at him, confirming his worst fears. The wind dies down just as Endeavor makes a hole large enough to step through, and the light disappears so suddenly his eyes have a hard time adjusting to the darkness.

Shouto and Inasa lay in a heap, earth and ice rippling outwards from their spot on the ground like they were at the epicenter of it all.

They're so still.

Enji rushes to their side, closely followed by Present Mic. "Shouto? Inasa?" Enji rolls the airbending boy onto his back, eyes the scorched remains of Shouto's uniform. They're both burned, both unconscious, both covered in cuts and bruises. "What happened? What the fuck happened?!"

They're both breathing.

Shouto's eyes aren't dilating properly.

Inasa has deep gash on his left arm—

Endeavor is effervescent, overflowing, overwhelmingly filled with rage. It took him less than a minute to open that fucking barrier, and yet—and yet—

"Endeavor, Endeavor I'm sorry," someone is yelling at him. No, they're crying. It's Hitoshi, babbling in shock. "I didn't mean to, he told me to, I didn't think he would—I don't know what he'd do, but he wouldn't listen…"

Present Mic reaches for Shouto, and Enji almost doesn't let him. But Inasa is much larger, more difficult to carry, so Enji picks him up instead.

He's so much bigger than the last time Endeavor had to carry him.

Ten years later, they're still dealing with all this.

"Recovery Girl's office is in the eastern wing," Present Mic grimaces, looking at the barricade on the opposite wall. Enji can't feel his right hand right now. It's partially locked into a fist by his melted gauntlet. If he has to force through another UA barrier—

Seemingly out of nowhere, the ground rumbles again. Endeavor yanks the Shinsou boy down, covering his head and Inasa's as the barrier to the eastern wing groans to life, metal platelets sliding down and away to clear the hallway. Water floods the ground, and Enji notices for the first time that the sprinkler system has been activated in the enclosed hallway. His boots are soaked. The boys are all but drenched.

"Apologies for the wait," Nedzu's strained voice filters through the crackly PA system. "Students and visitors are to remain out of sector 07 at this time. Make way for UA personnel…"

But the announcement fizzles into static in Enji's ears. He breathes in smoky air, feeling it burn in his throat. The sprinkles dribble to a stop, but the air is still muggy and suffocating. Shards of ice skitter across the floor as several medbots reach the scene.

He deposits Inasa on the nearest stretcher. Present Mic does the same with Shouto. Toph Beifong appears, bloody-knuckled and screaming, and Midnight is quick to hold her back. She must've been on the other side of the hallway while this was happening, trying to break the security wall too. Idiot girl, Enji thinks blankly. You broke your hands again, didn't you?

Endeavor looks down, feeling a tug on his arm. Violet eyes stare back, alert and desperate.

"Shinsou," he says hoarsely. "You're bleeding."

The kid is babbling something to Enji, and Enji does not hear a single word of it. He pushes on the boy's back and then lifts him onto another stretcher.

"I don't need the nurse, aren't you listening? Endeavor, Endeavor, i-i-it's all my f-fault—"

"Shut the fuck up," Enji orders. Shinsou's mouth clamps shut. He taps on a medbot impatiently. It's getting harder to ignore the state of his right hand. "What're you waiting for? Take this one to the nurse too."

"No!" Shinsou blurts out, trying to lift himself up. "No, you have to listen—!" Enji places his left hand on the boy's shoulder and shoves him back onto the stretcher. "—I think he was drugged, and Inasa told me to stop him but he wasn't responding, so I—!" The medbots take off, wheeling Shinsou down the hallway alongside the other boys.

Enji stands still for a few seconds, looking at the absolute destruction around him, all contained in a neat little cube by UA's security. Cementoss is still busy reinforcing the surrounding walls, repairing the damage done by Shouto's fire and ice. There's a half-frozen, shattered water fountain on his right, leaking onto the tiled floor. Scorch marks showing several bursts of fire around the hallway, in practically every direction. It didn't look like a fight, it looked like… like a total loss of control. A chill runs up his spine.

Like the dojo in his home, after Touya had…

"Beifong!" Midnight snaps. "If you can't calm down, I'll have to put you to sleep!"

"I'm perfectly calm! Just tell me what happened!" Toph seethes. She is a little calmer now, panting heavily. "Who the fuck locked them in?! What happened to Shouto?"

Enji turns to the girl. She looks about as frantic as Shinsou did. "I'll… I'll handle her," Endeavor nods to Midnight, reaching for the earthbending girl—but the teacher just shoots him a sharp glare.

"You're injured," the R-Rated Hero proclaims. "Both of you hand-crushing heroes better go straight to Recovery Girl too."

"My hands are fine!" Toph screeches. Enji gives Midnight a flat look, and gestures with his uninjured arm. Midnight tears off a piece of her suit, and lets the sleeping gas take effect. Beifong sobs. There's been far too many sobbing kids today. "No! You fucking shit heroes, you can't even save a couple of kids, you… you…"

She slumps in Midnight's arms. Enji catches the look of contrition on the woman's face before it smooths over, and she lifts Beifong over one shoulder. He walks just a few steps behind the teacher, silently grinding his jaw as they make their way to the nurse's office within the stadium. He acknowledges another staff member as they explain All Might's absence—he'd been tasked with tracking down an intruder by Nedzu, and had a young man in custody outside the stadium with Kamui Woods. Toph is set down on a cot and moved into a corner of the room to rest.

Enji sets his arm on a table and bites down on something rubbery while one of the medical personnel cuts the gauntlet off of his wrist. He texts Natsuo unsteadily with his left, and then has his right hand partially healed so he can go find All Might.

Before he can leave the wing, he's confronted with the R-Rated Hero again, tiny and stern in the doorway.

Midnight levels her gaze on Endeavor, hands on her hips. "Todoroki-san," she says quietly. He frowns at being addressed as such, but she continues on, unruffled and certain. "It's gonna be okay."

…She's trying to put his mind at ease. Him, the Number Two Hero.

Enji exhales a breath he didn't realize he was holding, feeling his whole body slump. He puts a hand over his face, dropping the flame-mask in the same instance, and squeezes his eyes shut as he kneads at his temples. I can't be in shock, he thinks to himself. I didn't even fight anyone.

"Todoroki-san?" Midnight says tentatively. "Do you need a minute?"

He shakes his head, feeling the briefest flash of mirth cross his face before it falls away. "You sound like Miyuki," he sighs. "Thank you for your comforting words," he adds dryly.

She scoffs, hearing the sarcasm in his tone. "No problem, I've had practice."

"Practice with what?"

"Consoling the parents of hero students."

Enji focuses on his breath, his fire pulsing with each exhale, so he doesn't scream in her face. "Of course."

"You can sit down, you know," Midnight adds calmly. "All Might has a suspect in custody, he isn't going anywhere. And I think the kids are gonna need you."

"Is the final event still on?" He asks blithely. "Nedzu chose to only evacuate one sector of the stadium, and Cementoss contained the damage to that hall." He checks the time. This whole fiasco only took about ten minutes out of his day, somehow.

She doesn't answer for a while. "...There's still another fifteen minutes left of the lunch break," Midnight says frankly, and he's grateful for the honesty. "Shinsou and Beifong will be healed by then, but Recovery Girl isn't sure what happened to your son and Yoarashi."

"Beifong has my permission to continue, if she wants," Enji says, dropping his hands away. "If Shinsou can give an official report before his fight begins, he should be allowed to participate too." Enji isn't sure he has any say over Shinsou's involvement, but wasn't he listed as a tertiary emergency contact for the boy? Or maybe it was Fuyumi. It's been a while since he spoke to Motoshi Shinsou, the kid's father.

"I'll pass it along," Midnight agrees lightly. She pauses to look at him again. "Are you sure you don't want to sit? I think you're in shock."

Enji stares. Heroes are so nosy. Or is it just female heroes? Miyuki Izumi was like this too.

"...Get out of the way." He says flatly.

She steps aside reluctantly. "You're not denying it."

"I melted the skin off my knuckles," he grumbles. "Of course I'm in shock, it still fucking hurts. Tell All Might I'm meeting him out front."

Midnight rolls her eyes, tapping her earpiece to do as he requested. "Parents," she mutters.

He ignores her.

The final event is still on.

Nedzu makes a vague announcement confirming this. There's a simple edit to the match-ups, pitting Yaoyorozu against a boy named Sato, and Honenuki against Aoyama. Todoroki and Yoarashi are declared unable to participate. Toph and the other 1-B student, Shinsou, are still in the event.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Izuku mumbles to himself, taking his place in the 1-A section of the stadium. He's sitting next to Uraraka, a few rows in front of Kirishima and Kacchan. They had seen the state Beifong was in too, and none of them had the chance to speak to her once Midnight knocked her out. Since she was fighting in the second match, she was already in the waiting room. Midoriya had texted her about twelve questions before remembering she was blind and replied only when necessary, if at all. She probably left her phone in the locker room anyway.

"Is Todoroki-kun going to be okay?" Uraraka asks as Midnight appears in the center of the stadium, waving her cat o' nine tails with a broad smile. Izuku marvels at her ability to put on such a confident front. He shrugs in response to Uraraka, unable to say more.

Izuku can't stop thinking about the distraught look on Shinsou's face. He'd seen something pretty serious, but Izuku doesn't know what.

"I saw Endeavor leaving the stadium," Sero adds quietly. "I've never seen him look so freaked out."

"I thought it was just a fight?" Jirou wonders. "The fire alarms went off because Todoroki used his quirk."

"Sorta," Kirishima says in a clipped tone. Jirou frowns, but senses he won't say anything more on the subject.

"I figured he and that Yoarashi kid had a disagreement," Hagakure muses, her gloved hands waving dramatically. "Todoroki was getting kinda testy near the end of the Cavalry Battle, don'tcha think?" Uraraka mumbles her agreement.

"Fighting over what?" Ashido scoffs, sipping on a fountain drink. "That buzzcut guy is a big softy, according to Yaomomo. He hugs Todoroki at lunch at least twice a week."

"I also see him hug Beifong a lot," Hagakure points out in a sing-song voice. "So if there's anything to fight over, it's probably her!"

Izuku tilts his head back and stares up at the clear blue sky.

Out here, everything feels exceedingly normal. Whatever happened in the hallway, it had been contained and dealt with so quickly—the majority of visitors in the stadium seemed to have no idea about it. His classmates had all been eating lunch in the western wing except for Kacchan, Kirishima, and a couple of 1-B students that had seen Beifong freak out.

There hadn't been any words exchanged between him and Kirishima or Kacchan. And it didn't feel right to spread their side of the story to anyone else, not until their teachers gave an explanation or until Todoroki was back. So Izuku is stuck in limbo, trying to rationalize what he saw and not panic about it. It felt like they were all in on this weird quasi-secret, bound to silence until the tournament concluded.

"...And Todoroki definitely has a thing for Toph, Mina you've seen it, this is totally some kind of love triangle—!"

"Would you fucking shut up?!" Bakugou cuts through the girls' conversation like a sharp blade in butter. Hagakure squeaks in fear. "The fight's about to start!"

Kacchan had cleaned himself up in the bathroom once Toph had been hauled away to the nurse, and his gym uniform was still a little damp. He'd had to clean up, because Toph had bled all over him.

This is a little messed up, Izuku admits to himself. What happened to those guys behind the barricade?

"The first match of the first round had finally arrived! From the hero course, it's Momo Yaoyorozu!" Present Mic's voice is chipper as usual, amplified over the roaring crowd. Yaoyorozu's face appears on the jumbo screen, a serene smile gracing the audience. "VERSUS! From the hero course, Rikido Sato!"

Sato is tall and broad-chested, with big lips and spiky brown hair. Midoriya has no idea what his quirk could be, but judging by his physique, he would outmatch Yaoyorozu in brute strength. This would devolve into a test of Yaoyorozu's personal strategies under pressure...

"Hey…" Kirishima murmurs from behind Izuku. "He was in the east wing too, wasn't he?"

Izuku blinks, looking at Sato as he's broadcasted on the monitors. Sato's face is a mask of determination, but he's stiff. His face is shining under the midday sun, gleaming with sweat.

"The rules are simple! Force your opponent out of bounds, or immobilize them! You can also win by getting your opponent to say 'I give up!'"

"Yeah, he was," Izuku confirms, looking at Sato curiously. He'd been one of the students demanding answers from the staff once they took Todoroki and Yoarashi away. While the 1-A students hadn't spoken about the incident yet, Izuku didn't know if that was true for the 1-B students.

"READY?" Present Mic screeches enthusiastically.

"He doesn't look too good," Kirishima comments.

"START!"

Izuku holds his breath. Yaoyorozu begins to pull a bo-staff out of her arm, her skin glimmering with energy.

Rikido Sato swiftly raises a hand and turns to Midnight. "Sensei! I GIVE UP!"

Midnight's eyes widen comically. She whips up her flag. "S-Sato-kun has forfeited the match!"

Sato bows deeply to the teacher, and then to Yaoyorozu, who looks appalled. The crowd roars in shock. Izuku's heart drops into his stomach.

"UHHH….MOMO YAOYOROZU WINS?!"

A/N: So, uh, the Sports Festival isn't going too well. I'd love to hear your theories about what happens next!

Why did Sato forfeit his match? Who's at fault for the hallway incident, and who does All Might have in custody? Who's gonna win the festival—and is it really that important anymore?

(Also do you like how I wrote Mirko's character? I'm still figuring out how to write her personality)