Hello earthlings! I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.

Apparently the ending of the Sports Festival had been a mess. Izuku wouldn't know, he'd slept through most of it.

Kacchan had apparently beat Todoroki, though he seemed really upset about it. For some reason. He'd refused to go up to get his award, so apparently he'd been drugged and then tied to a pole?. According to Shinso, Aizawa got really, really mad at Nezu about it. All of 1-A was pissed too, but they couldn't really do anything about it. The adults were in charge, and no amount of yelling from the stands had gotten them to untie the boy. After the "awards ceremony", Kacchan had not talked to anyone for an entire day.

Todoroki hadn't seemed remotely sad about losing. In fact, according to Kirishima, he'd seemed kind of happy about it. His father, the king, had been definitely not happy about it.

Iida, one of the two third-place finishers, hadn't even been at the awards ceremony. When Izuku asked Uraraka about it after they'd both been allowed to go back to the dorms, she hadn't known either. And even when he got back three days later, he didn't tell them, claiming that it was, "just a family thing, nothing too serious!" But he was very different.

And when Tokoyami had taken his award, people had freaked out. Apparently they weren't too happy about a demon getting third place in the Sports Festival, because obviously they should be excluded from things like that because they were way too violent. About half the audience had started booing loudly when he stepped onto the podium, but they'd shut up after Todoroki had sent a wall of ice in the direction of the loudest hecklers. Izuku wished he'd been there to see it. Apparently afterwards, Jiro had been able to track down a few of the assholes with her special hearing and "talk to them", along with a few of the others.

The boy hadn't seemed too bothered by it, but he also went into his room as soon as he was allowed to and didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the day.

Also, when Izuku had woken up inside the medical tent, his mom was there.

"Izuku!"

"Mom?"

He'd quickly been smothered in hugs. "How are you? How's everything here? Oh, you shouldn't scare me like that! I was really worried about you! You did so good in your match, sweetie!"

"How are you here?"

"All Might sent me an invitation, and I couldn't miss my baby's first ever Sports Festival!"

"But what about the village?"

"Oh, it'll be fine without me for a week."

"But-"

"Ah, you're awake," the older nurse, who was apparently called Recovery Girl by the staff, had said as she walked into the tent. She'd shooed Inko outside, telling her that she could visit with her son later.

The two of them had spent the next day, after Izuku was discharged, together, but Inko had to get back to the village. Izuku promised to write, she tried to visit with Kacchan but he wouldn't let her, and she left.

And with that, the Sports Festival was over.

"Midoriya."

Izuku looked up to see Shinso, standing awkwardly at the door to his room. "Kaminari says you want to talk to me?"

"Oh, yeah, sure!"

It was two days after the Sports Festival. Iida was still gone, Kacchan still refused to talk to anyone, Todoroki was still weirdly happy, and Uraraka was still in pain from her burns and bruises. Almost everyone in the dorms had asked her to go see Recovery Girl, but she still refused. Which was her choice, even if all of them hated it. And Midoriya had only just remembered saying that he'd talk to Shinso about what he said about All Might.

"If you don't want to, I'd be fine with that. Like, really, really, really ok with that."

"No, we have to talk!"

"Goddammit." The purple-hired boy walked over and sat on Midoriya's bed. "Well?"

"So… um… any particular reason why you hate All Might so much?"

"Why wouldn't I? He abandoned us so he could find out where a magic sword came from."

"Yeah, but he's our teacher now! He came back!"

"Doesn't make up for the fact that he abandoned all of us to be ruled by Endeavor.."

"I know, but-"

"But what? He abandoned his country for so long, and for nothing! He still doesn't know where the Sword came from. He's only here so he can find an heir and not have to deal with the crushing responsibility or whatever anymore!"

"He saved us, didn't he? At the USJ."

When Shinso didn't respond, Izuku nodded and continued. "He didn't have to. He could've stayed away when Iida got him, or gone and got another hero instead of blowing his cover to us. But he didn't. He came, and he saved all of us."

"It doesn't make up for it." The boy sighed. This was the longest non-life-or-death conversation Izuku had ever had with him. And, by the look on his face, this was one of the longest, most emotional conversations Shinso had ever had with anyone. "I- we, the non-humans- went through so much while he was gone. And while he was here, too. None of the kings have ever exactly cared all that much about helping non-humans. They basically just do enough so people like me don't starve to death because no one will hire them and their parents can't... It's just… worse, when he's not here, doing that stuff. Because Endeavor doesn't give a shit about us."

"I know," Izuku whispered, looking at the ground. "Trust me, I know. My village was always kinda… against my mom and me being there- both because we were elves and because my mom wasn't from Uyay. We were the only non-humans around, besides for the demons, so they kinda just lumped us all together. Things got even worse after All Might left, and the other villagers started hearing about how Endeavor was making more anti non-human laws, and… well, the only reason I think they kept us around was because my mom was the only one who knew how to make medicine. And Kacchan. Kacchan scared them."

"Kacchan?"

"Bakugo. The point is, I know that things sucked when All Might wasn't here. And I also know that things sucked when he was here. But, I mean, I think he wants to be better. And whoever he picks as an heir has to be better than Endeavor, right? Maybe it'll even be someone from this class, and they'll try to change the way non-humans are treated!"

It was kind of hard, trying to explain to Shinso why All Might wasn't a completely awful person without giving away his own identity, but Izuku felt like he had to try. And of course, it was true. Izuku was going to change the way non-humans were treated when he was king.

If he ever got to be king, and All Might didn't change his mind…

He'd been thinking about that since the Sports Festival. Izuku had lost. He'd done fairly well in the first few rounds, but he'd, ultimately, lost. He hadn't seen All Might since then, but he was scared to go looking for him. What would he say, knowing that Izuku had given away his chance at winning in order to help the son of his greatest rival get over some of his issues?

Yeah, Izuku was going to put that conversation off for as long as possible.

Shinso snorted, breaking Izuku out of his thoughts. "Really?"

"It's true! Maybe All Might'll even try to get the Sword to pick a non-human to be the next ruler! I don't know if it's possible, but-"

"Midoriya, there's no way All Might's going to pick a non-human as the next ruler. And even if he did, the rich people would all freak out and overthrow them within a day! No, most we can get is a ruler who's kinda sympathetic towards us so will make sure non-humans are treated like living things without pissing off the nobles with weird policies like 'non-humans should be given seats in my council!' or 'maybe we should stop destroying innocent demon families!'"

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, Midoriya, I think I do." Shinso stood up and smiled slightly at Izuku. "Thanks for the talk. Glad we had it."

"Maybe… well, maybe you should actually talk to All Might about all this. He's the type to just let you yell at him if you just need to get stuff out."

The purple-haired boy shrugged. "Maybe." And he walked out, closing Izuku's door behind him.

Izuku took a deep breath. Ah, hello anxious thoughts.

What if Shinso was right, and Izuku would never be accepted as the king because he was only half human? What if All Might decided to take the Sword back? Could he do it? It had chosen him, after all, but maybe All Might knew about some way to get around the magic?

The Sword was all Izuku had. He couldn't lose it. Without it, he'd go back to being a poor half-elf in a tiny village where no one took him seriously. He couldn't go back to that.

But he might not have a choice. If All Might decided that Izuku wasn't worthy of being the king, it was over.

Izuku hadn't thought about all of that since before what had happened at the USJ- probably because what had happened there had given him a whole different type of anxiety. But now it was back.

He was worthless. All Might should have chosen someone else, anyone else. They'd do a better job of being ruler than Izuku would. He couldn't even find the right words to convince Shinso to give All Might a chance.

Honestly, Izuku wasn't sure why what Shinso said bothered him so much. Maybe because he wasn't wrong…

But All Might was great! He was trying to make up for leaving Uyay, and, while he hadn't exactly picked Izuku, he hadn't been upset about the Sword picking him. He was a good person, and Shinso was just too stubborn to see it. There were bad people in the kingdom of Uyay, but most of them were basically good, even in the capitol and in the king's court.

That had to be right. It had to be. Just like Izuku had to be the right heir, and All Might had to not try to take the Sword away somehow, and everything had to be made right in the world.

Just like Izuku had to be perfect.

The boy groaned, rolled over, and buried his face in his pillow. Another night, another spiral of anxiety.

If there wasn't a chance of one of his shitty neighbors hearing him, Bakugo would have been screaming.

His head was a mess. It had been since the minute the Sports Festival ended. Well, possibly for longer than that, but it had pushed him over the edge.

That bastard Todoroki had just given up. Just given up! No reason, he'd been about to fight back and let Bakugo earn his victory, but then he'd just stopped. It didn't make any sense.

That was the same guy Deku had let himself get injured for? Really?

Deku, who'd brought a goddamn building down on himself and Bakugo just so he could win, had let Todoroki beat him. It didn't make sense. Why? Why would he do that?

Bakugo had nearly died trying to save that damn nerd during their first day of training. They'd gone on that stupid quest together. Hell, Bakugo liked Deku's mom more than he liked his own mom. Of course it'd make sense that Deku would fight a little harder to beat Bakugo (that was what they'd been doing since they were five and always competed for the highest grade on the five-word spelling tests, after all), but going from bringing down a damn building on the guy who was his only friend for fifteen years to trying to lose to some asshole with daddy issues?

It didn't make any damn sense.

Logically, Bakugo realized that he needed to talk to Deku. There were a lot of things he needed to say, and he felt… kinda guilty about screaming at the idiot and then not having a real conversation for a few weeks, but he just couldn't.

He'd always hated tight spaces. But it had only gotten worse after that building collapsed on him during a quest when he was thirteen, and then with that thief with the weird brown goop, it had gotten worse. So when Deku had collapsed the building he'd…

And then when Midnight had drugged him and muzzled him and tied him to a pole, all so he could get some shitty medal that he didn't really deserve and he'd been screaming and fighting but for some reason his sorcery wasn't working and-

God, he was grateful the hag wasn't there. She'd be all over him about this.

Bakugo missed Ei.

Yeah, he was a dragon, but he'd been a normal-ish human boy on the inside. They'd never actually had a conversation, and he'd been pretty annoying sometimes, with the way he always followed Bakugo around, but he was…

Well, a friend, in a way. Shitty friendship, but friendship.

And Ei had left. He'd just… left. Of course Bakugo wanted him to go home to his family. They were probably worried about him. But at the same time, Bakugo missed him. One day, he wanted to see him again. They wouldn't recognize each other, but maybe-

Someone knocked on his door.

"Bakugo?" someone called. "It's Kirishima and Kaminari. Can we come in?"

Those idiots. Ugh. But Kirishima wasn't… awful. He was decently strong, and might be good company if he ever learned to shut up. And there was no chance of Kaminari learning to shut up, but there was no chance of the two boys going away either. For some reason, they thought they were friends with Bakugo. The blond boy rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

The door opened and the two boys bounced in. Kaminari instantly made himself at home on Bakugo's bed while Kirishima stood a few feet away, grinning that dumbass grin. "Hey, Blasty! How's it going?"

"Fine. Why the hell are you here?"

"We just wanted to say hi! You know, come hang out! What bros do!"

"We are not bros!"

"Oh, why not?"

"Because I won't be bros with two people who probably don't know how to do basic math!"

"Ouch, Bakubro, that's low." Kaminari grinned, proving once and for all that he really was stupid because anyone with half a brain would have ran away at the look Bakugo was giving him. "Anyway, you've been sitting up in your room since the Sports Festival. You should come out with us and Ashido and Sero!"

"Why the hell would I do that?"

Kirishima laughed. "Because we're friends! Duh! Besides, you won the Sports Festival! We need to celebrate that!"

Rolling his eyes, Bakugo thought it over. He was not good at making friends. He could admit that. Usually they were scared of him, or only using him for his strength, or were just weak and would hold him back. But for whatever reason, that group of idiots weren't scared of him, and they weren't trying to use him or anything. They kinda seemed to just want to be friends with him. Which was weird.

Bakugo had to be the strongest. He had to beat all the others. He didn't have the shitty nerd as a… friend (or someone who Bakugo would beat people up for and who wouldn't use him) anymore, so he had nothing to hold him back. But…

As if he could feel Bakugo wavering, Kirishima leaned in closer. "We're going to the place that apparently has the spiciest food on campus. Bet I can eat more of it than you."

"Is that a challenge, shitty hair?" Bakugo snapped, but he was already getting to his feet and throwing on his cloak. "Bet I'll crush all of you!"

He did. They were not exactly the best competitors. But it was… fun.

Bakugo had fun. With a bunch of idiots who had maybe half a brain between all of them.

And he was able to forget the way it felt to be tied up, the way it felt to be suffocating, his mother, Deku, and the fact that the entirety of UA had seen him be weak, had seen him win because some loser had given up-

For a few hours, he forgot all of it.

"Why were you so mad about me marrying Shoto?"

Jiro looked at Yaoyorozu. The beautiful girl was standing next to the common room chair Jiro was in. She was always so concerned about others and their feelings. It drove Jiro crazy.

"Like I said. I don't like that your parents are forcing you to do something."

"But I want to marry Shoto. It'll be good for both of our kingdoms, and he is a very good friend-"

"Usually you marry someone because they're something besides a friend to you."

"There is little chance of me developing romantic feelings for anyone I can marry. Shoto is very kind-"

"Whatever," Jiro shook her head. She really just wanted to have a peaceful day. "Forget I said anything. I'm happy for you. You'll be a great queen."

"I don't really… think so."

"What?"

Yaoyorozu sighed heavily and sat down on the couch next to Jiro. No one else was in the common room. "It's just that… what if I'm not? What if I end up just a puppet, doing whatever the council wants me to do?"

"You won't."

"I don't want to…" The older girl just shook her head slowly. "All Might's back now. Maybe he'll find an heir, and I won't have to be the queen."

"I thought you wanted to be queen?"

"I… don't know. I don't know how to explain it in… this language." The girl shrugged, staring at her feet. "I don't really think that I'll be… good enough."

"Of course you'll be a great queen! You're kind and smart and you really want to help people and-"

"I just… I don't know."

Jiro wasn't sure what to do, but the taller girl looked so upset and she wanted to help. So she reached out one hand and grabbed Yaoyorozu's, rubbing it gently with her thumb. After a few seconds, she realized what she was doing and stopped, blushing. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I just-"

"No need to apologize, Jiro. I enjoyed it."

"Do you, um… want me to keep doing it?"

Then Yaoyorozu was the one blushing. "Yes."

And so the girls sat on the couch, holding hands, and sometimes talking, sometimes not. And Jiro had a small crisis.

Tensei would probably never walk again.

Even three days later, it was hard for Tenya to believe. His brother, one of the kindest people he'd ever met, who didn't deserve any of it, was lucky to even be alive. He'd never get to run or help people again.

Because of some person who was hunting Heroes. Not for any particular reason that anyone could figure out, just because they could. Tensei had been the first to survive their attack, and only because another Hero had shown up in time to take him to a healer. But no magic could heal him. It was a mystery that none of the doctors could figure out. Magic had healed wounds that were just as bad in the past. Of course, the age of the wounds had an impact, but Tensei's were only seconds old when he was found.

And maybe it would have stayed a mystery, if Tenya hadn't found a book in his parent's bedroom when he was eight.

It was about "banned sorcery"- types of magic that were deemed too dangerous to allow to be practiced. It was very interesting but disturbing. Tenya had had nightmares for weeks, but he still remembered some of the different types.

One was blood sorcery. It was essentially where a sorcerer could cast spells and control people using their blood. And, if they had some of their victim's blood, they could keep the victim from healing and, if they were really dedicated, even just order the poor person's heart to stop. And they were called vampires (even though all the real vampires had been killed a long time ago) because once they started drinking someone's blood- even if they just intended to use it for a spell- often they couldn't stop until the person was completely drained.

So whoever it was was most likely a blood sorcerer. Or a real vampire. One of the two.

Tenya decided to presume it was a blood sorcerer, because those would, hypothetically, be easy to find.

The day after the Sports Festival, Tenya had had a lot of time to wait around while his brother was in surgery. His mother had been with him, and she'd told Iida to explore Hosu City while they waited. So he had. He'd explored right into a directory that, supposedly, listed all the known sorcerers ever in Hosu- even the blood sorcerers.

Apparently, about thirty years ago, some guy had suddenly developed blood sorcery. Likely he'd had it before, he just hadn't used it. Someone had broken into his house, and he'd taken his blood and used it to control the thief into shooting herself. And then he'd, apparently, drunk the rest of her blood. His wife had come in and seen him, and apparently had run away and called the Heroes. They'd killed her husband.

None of this had been helpful until Tenya reached the end of the section about him. It had made a passing reference to the fact that this guy had had a son, who'd run off. And, apparently, blood sorcery was the kind of sorcery that could be passed on from parent to child.

Maybe he'd taught himself to control his power and used it to kill Heroes…

It hadn't been much. But it had been something. And Tenya had intended to track the kid down.

But then his mother had told him to go back to Uyay and "focus on his studies." He didn't need to study. He needed to track down whoever had hurt his brother and do… something. He wasn't sure what yet, but he didn't need to go back to school

But there he was.

Midoriya and Uraraka seemed to pick up that something was wrong fairly quickly. The Iida family were trying to keep Tensei's injury quiet, because they were worried that whoever had attacked him would come back if they knew he survived. So Tenya didn't tell his friends.

It was his fight, and his alone.

"I'm worried about you, Iida," Midoriya said one day after class. It was about a week after the Sports Festival. The small boy and Uraraka were both staring at Tenya with concern as they sat outside under a tree.

"Why?"

"You've seemed kinda weird. Ever since the Sports Festival ended."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know."

"You've just seemed kinda… distant," Uraraka chimed in gently. "And angry."

"Why would I be angry?"

Of course, Tenya never enjoyed lying to his best friends. They knew him better than anyone else, besides maybe Tensei, and they could tell that he wasn't telling the truth, but he couldn't tell them. They'd just be unnecessarily worried about him.

"Well… I mean, I know you left the Sports Festival early, and you were gone for three days. Did something happen with your family?" Uraraka knew that things with Tenya's family were tense sometimes, so she probably thought he'd had a fight with his parents or something. If only that was the only thing.

"No." Tenya stood up and started walking away. "Nothing's wrong."

He would do it on his own. Somehow, he would track down whoever had hurt his brother, and hurt them.

All it would take was getting to Hosu City

"Next week is the practical exam for the first semester," Aizawa droned from the front of the class. "Each of your teams will be randomly assigned a major city and a working Hero. There will be a simulated attack at some time, and you will be judged on how well you and your team handle said attack."

"Can't we just count the actual villain attack as our exam?"

"No we cannot, Kaminari."

"Besides, you just whined the whole time."

"Shut up, Jiro!"

It was strange to Izuku that his classmates had gotten to the point where they could joke about what had happened. They either were very good at mental health or very bad. Even though Aizawa still had a few bandages left from the incident, they were already fully ready to mock what was probably high on the list of most traumatic things to ever happen to them.

"Everyone must form teams of five and then they will be randomly assigned a city to go to. You have five minutes."

Instantly Izuku looked for Uraraka and Iida to team up with. They both nodded back at him, though Iida didn't look enthusiastic at all. Whatever had happened to him after the Sports Festival must have been bad. Uraraka drafted Tsuyu onto the team as the fourth member.

Izuku thought about inviting Shinso or Bakugo, but they'd already joined teams, Shinso drifting over to stand next to Koda and Bakugo grumpily joining Kirishima and the rest of the strange little group. And then he saw the perfect person.

"Todoroki!" he called, walking quickly across the classroom and stopping in front of the taller boy, who was still alone. "Want to join our team?"

The boy stared at him for a second before smiling faintly and nodding. "Yes."

Great. So that was taken care of.

They were assigned Hosu City as their testing location. For some reason, Iida looked somewhat excited about it. Izuku had no idea why.

Maybe it was just a really fun city.

This chapter didn't have an actual lot of plot, just me trying to set up future plotlines. And yes, I'm skipping around a whole lot of things because the end of season 2 was really boring so I'm combining the exam arc and the Stain arc. Somehow. We'll find out how later. Anyway, leave a review with plot suggestions, constructive criticism, and/or words of encouragement! Later, potaters!