AN: James Birdsong - Thanks!

Himiko was sitting at her desk, trying to catch up on her reading, when she heard the familiar thud of an abused tablet being dropped on her desk.

"You didn't get anything done last night, did you?" Emily asked, without the usual tone of judgment in her voice.

Himiko sighed and looked up into her bright blue eyes. "Of course not."

Her friend pulled out a chair and spun it around, sitting down at Himiko's desk. "Luckily for you, it's still mostly review. It could have been much worse."

"That's assuming I remember it from last year." Himiko grumbled. Stupid Emily and her stupid brain.

"Come on, don't put yourself down like that! We've held enough study sessions together, you should know better by now that I'll help." She unlocked her tablet and brought up her notes. "Now let's see what you have so far."

Last year, their first group study session ended in disaster, with the two girls yelling at each other. It ended up where Habiki and Atsuko were both needed to mediate, before the two finally calmed down. After that Himiko was able to sit down and show both Emily and Sakura the study methods that actually helped her retain information. Once she knew how to help Himiko, Emily had been a surprisingly good study partner. She had almost an incessant drive to make sure their circle of friends did the best they could.

While Himiko never was able to break out of the bottom 25% of the scores between the two hero classes, she also wasn't worried about actually failing her exams. She was pretty sure Emily would take that as a personal insult if it ever happened, and she would never hear the end of it.

Emily had managed to help Himiko through about half of their homework before Yamada-sensei entered the room and walked to his desk.

"Good Morning little listeners! Today I have exciting news - the Sports Festival is still on!"

Most of the students in the class began talking simultaneously, trying to express their opinion of the news. Yamada held up his hand to call for silence.

"Now I know what you're all thinking! 'But Mic, what about the attack on the first years yesterday?' It was decided that proceeding as normal was the best way to show that we aren't going to be cowed by lowly villains! After all, we are heroes! We will of course be adding security and additional precautions, but we still plan on having the best event possible!"

That seemed to cause the mood to shift to excitement among the students, and Himiko thought about her situation. She was definitely faster and had been working on her combat skills since last year, but unlike everyone else her quirk was fairly static - one of the drawbacks of having a shapeshifting quirk, it's not like she can perform a more perfect transformation. She just hoped that some of the underground heroes from last year would remember her and give her offers again.

At the end of the homeroom period, Yamada left and Emily came back over to her desk while they were waiting for the next teacher to arrive.

"I hope Izuku is ready, because he owes me."

Himiko snickered. "You are ruthless. You're not giving him a free pass on account of being attacked by villains yesterday?"

"Nope! If anything, the villain attack just meant more opportunities to learn about his classmate's quirks!"

Himiko grinned at Emily. "You're not wrong. I guess that means we're sitting with him and his friends for lunch today. Be sure to ask him about the crazy plan he came up with during the attack."

That caused Emily's face to light up.

After getting her lunch, Himiko met up with Emily and gave her a grin. The two then proceeded to walk over to the table where Izuku and his friends were sitting.

"Izuku! Your notes are mine!" Emily announced as she plopped down next to Izuku, causing the whole table to jump.

"H-hey Emily." Izuku said. "I never actually took notes last night?"

"He actually didn't!" Himiko offered helpfully as she sat down across from Tsuyu and Ochako. She noticed the latter was staring at Emily with more than a little jealousy, and couldn't help but snicker at that. While Himiko hadn't figured out who Emily liked yet, she knew it wasn't Izuku.

"Why are you like this?" Tsuyu turned towards her and asked her.

Himiko felt her blush deepen as she looked at Izuku. "To be honest, I never got to tease Izuku properly in school before, although today is all Emily."

"What do you mean?" Ochako asked, confused. "Didn't you two grow up together? Didn't you go to the same schools?"

"Nope! This is the first time we both are going to the same school!" She announced proudly.

"Your mom sent you to different schools when you were growing up?"

"Oh." Himiko finally realized the problem. "I'm actually adopted. I have only been with Izu and mom for a couple of years."

"What? He never told us that!" Ochako exclaimed.

Himiko felt her blush deepen further as she began playing with a loose strand of hair, admiring its shade of green.

"That's just like Izu." She responded warmly. "From the moment I started to live with them, they treated me like I was part of their family. As far as Izu is concerned, I am his sister, even if we have different biological parents."

"Kero."

"I'm sorry, you all just looked so natural together I would never have guessed!"

"And that's why I love them."

Himiko looked over at her brother fondly. For the moment, Izuku appeared to have given up and was trying to eat his lunch, while Tenya was busy trying to scold Emily, despite the fact that she was completely ignoring him. Instead, her face was buried in Izuku's notebook, furiously taking notes on her own tablet.

Turning back to the two girls, Himiko continued. "So this is my only chance to act like his big sister and embarrass him! I had to take it!"

Tsuyu seemed to ponder those words. "While I can't say I would use the same methods, I can see where you're coming from, kero." Tsuyu finally offered. "My siblings are both too young for us to ever attend the same school, so I never had the chance either."

"That's a shame, it's fun!"

"Kero."

"I'll probably ease up though." Himiko admitted. "Especially now you know my secret."

"So, what's up with Deku and Emily?" Ochako asked, doing a very bad job of pretending the scene didn't bother her.

Himiko couldn't help but laugh. She saw that despite Izuku's best efforts, Emily had fully dragged him into analysis mode, and he had taken his notebook back, as the two were speaking rapidly.

"I know Izu told you that they both do quirk analysis. If you can keep up with them when they're like this, you will learn a lot. Actually even if you can't keep up with them, you probably still will learn a lot later, whether you like it or not." Himiko faked a gag.

"Are they often like this?" Tenya had finally given up on trying to scold Emily and turned to Himiko for answers instead.

"Only when they run into a particularly exciting quirk to talk about. Today's special though. They're talking all about your quirks."

"What?" The three first-years all asked in unison.

"You have a quirk enthusiast in your class and you didn't expect him to be excited about sharing a room with 19 future heroes and their quirks?" Himiko deadpanned.

"I-I've heard him a bit, and I've seen him writing in a notebook, but isn't that kind of personal?"

"Is it?"

"The elder Midoriya is correct." To Himiko's surprise, Tenya actually agreed with her. "As professional heroes, we will often seek out help from our support departments to come up with new techniques and equipment to assist in our duties and to improve ourselves! Although this is the first time I have encountered an aspiring hero who does this level of analysis themselves, let alone two of them!"

"Welcome to UA!" Himiko declared. "Where we all seek to go above and beyond."

This seemed to fire up Ochako. "It just means we have to find our own ways to stand out!"

"Indeed!"

"Kero."

Himiko enjoyed watching as the three tried to keep up with Izuku and Emily. Tenya seemed to put in good effort, before he eventually gave up and returned to his meal, while Tsuyu just watched with a finger pressed against her mouth. She couldn't help but smile when she saw that despite struggling with it, poor Ochako was trying her hardest to keep up.

She couldn't help but respect the effort the girl was putting in.

When they returned to their classroom for the afternoon's heroics lesson, they were surprised to see Yamada-sensei standing in the front of class.

"Attention listeners! Due to yesterday's events, we have canceled your regularly scheduled programming. Instead, today will be a simple day of sparring!"

Himiko felt relieved by the news. She could definitely use some quality time stabbing something.

"We have graciously been offered Training Ground Beta for the afternoon, where we will do some intense one-on-one combat! This is the first time I will see many of you in action, so be sure to bring your A-game."

Himiko stood up and looked at Kenji with a questioning look. He understood her gesture and responded with a simple nod, and she responded with a smile - perfect. Joining her classmates, she retrieved her costume and went off to change.

Once all twenty students had gathered at the training ground, Yamada addressed the students again. "All right, who wants to go first?"

Himiko's hand shot up. "I am facing Ryo."

The enthusiasm seemed to catch Yamada off guard. "Ryo, are you ok facing Midoriya?"

"Of course!" Kenji responded confidently.

"Well then, Midoriya vs Ryo it is!"

The two found their starting positions, and Kenji dropped into his combat stance while Himiko drew two of her knives and casually twirled them around before dropping into her own fighting stance. They didn't have to wait long until Yamada called for the match to begin, and they rushed towards each other.

Their fight lasted seconds, until Himiko dodged inside Kenji's swing and drove a knife into his side, which caused Yamada-sensei to cut them off.

"Time out listeners! Isn't this a little extreme?"

Both Kenji and Himiko paused and looked at their teacher with confusion.

"Didn't Kan-sensei explain our arrangement to you?"

"No! He never told me anything about your class's sparring! That's the whole idea! So I teach your class with a fresh new take!"

Himiko and Kenji looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh, and Kenji raised his arm to let Himiko pull the knife out, letting Yamada see the wound mend itself almost instantly. "Ryo and I are actually perfect sparring partners, so Kan-sensei always allowed the two of us to go all out against each other. He is the only person in class I can safely practice my knife fighting with - after all, if I screw up and hit the wrong vein when sparring with any other classmate, we'd have to rush them down to Recovery Girl immediately. Ryo doesn't have that problem!"

"And Midoriya helps me build up my pain tolerance." Kenji picked up the explanation. "While my quirk lets me recover from anything short of massive head trauma, I still feel the pain from any injury I take. It may sound strange, but by letting her practice against me I have learned to fight through a lot more pain than I was able to before I started last year. As a side benefit, while I know I'm going to mostly be facing proper villains, if I ever have to fight common street criminals, knives are the most common weapon they are armed with. Even in the era of quirks, it is still the most popular weapon among people whose quirks aren't useful in a fight."

Himiko nodded furiously.

From where the other students were gathered, Emily stepped forward. "This actually started as my idea! When I saw that Himiko had to hold back against the rest of us, and was starting to fall behind because of it, I proposed that she spent more time against Ryo. Kan-sensei agreed and the two of them have been improving ever since."

Yamada looked shocked as he processed that information. "That sounds shockingly grim! But Sekijiro must have his reasoning to let you two train this way! You may restart! But! If I think you two are getting out of hand, I won't hesitate to stop you!"

The two students walked back to their starting positions, and began again. Himiko twirled her knives and dashed towards her classmate. Himiko knew that in a straight fight, she wasn't going to be able to take down Kenji without resorting to extreme measures. His super-regeneration negated her knives, and his raw strength, a side-effect of him being able to train beyond the limits of an ordinary person, meant that trying to grapple him was also out of the question. But that was never the point of their sparring.

Himiko darted in again, this time leaving a long gash on his arm - often the attack would be enough to disable someone. She admired her work as the wound closed, and Kenji responded by swinging with his other fist, forcing her to duck. Using her lower profile she darted behind him, wedging a knife into his shoulder blade - another move aiming to disable her opponent. It wasn't long before they descended into a familiar rhythm. Himiko tried to dodge his attacks and land a disabling strike, while Kenji fought through the pain and attempted to punch or grab her. Unfortunately for Himiko, he was good enough that he could regularly catch her with an attack of his own, and whenever he does, it hurts.

Still, it felt good to be sparring with him again, and after yesterday she was enjoying seeing her opponent slowly become coated in his own blood. Indulging herself, she embraced the excitement of seeing her classmate bleeding, a manic grin spreading across her face. She knew Kenji didn't deserve the increased ferocity of her attacks whenever she did this, but she appreciated that he never complained about it. She would have to thank him later.

After a solid ten minutes of Himiko repeatedly attacking Kenji, only to end up face down on the ground before she scrambled back to her feet and launched herself at him again, Yamada finally called time on the match. As the two stood there, Himiko turned away from Kenji and began to control her breathing, calming herself down with practiced ease, before Yamada-sensei walked out to them.

"And how are our listeners feeling?"

"The sparring felt good!" Himiko told him. "I'll probably be sore in the morning though. Ryo was mean, throwing me around like that!"

Kenji scoffed at her teasing, before holding his arm up and wiping away some of the blood, showing that there weren't even scars left behind. "It'll take more than Midoriya's pokes to slow me down." He shot her a huge grin and Himiko responded by sticking out her tongue at him.

"Unorthodox, but I guess the training actually works!" Yamada turned to Himiko. "Just remember to be less enthusiastic with the other listeners in the class!"

This made Himiko laugh. "Kan-sensei said the same thing last year. I promise I'm not that reckless against everyone else."

"That's good enough for me!" Yamada turned to the rest of the class as he spoke. "Remember! All of your fellow listeners are on the same side! I know I told everyone to bring your A-Game, but be sure to save something for the bad guys!"

After her match, Himiko watched from the sidelines as the rest of her class paired off and sparred, with more conclusive results than her own match had. Eventually, Emily was paired off against Hayato Riki.

The tall, lanky boy walked to his starting position, his black irises looking around and analyzing the debris that had already been created from previous fights, while Emily just casually strolled to her own starting position. Despite the difference in their quirks, their attacks were similar enough in function that they would be forced to get creative if they wanted to win.

"Just so you know, I've upgraded my support gauntlet over break!"

"That's fine, I've upgraded my projectiles as well." Hayato casually reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a series of metal cubes. "I took your advice and swapped to high-density materials. If it hurts you only have yourself to blame."

"Guess I won't get hit then!"

"If you two are able to banter, then you are ready to fight! Begin!"

Hayato's quirk lets him infuse anything he touches with a magnetic polarity, which he could then manipulate to push or pull those objects directly towards or away from him. Activating his quirk on the cubes he had in his hand, he launched them at Emily.

Emily brought up her right hand and began firing orbs of light at the cubes, hitting them with impressive precision and destroying them. She followed up with several lower-strength blasts in an attempt to catch Hayato, but he was able to dodge out of the way. Not wanting to be a target herself, she also broke out into a run.

Hayato had begun to run around and magnetize choice debris he had picked out earlier, some of it he attached to himself to act as makeshift armor, while other pieces he left behind, hoping to catch Emily unaware. But the majority of the debris he launched at his opponent, hoping to overwhelm her.

Emily, meanwhile, had settled into her own rhythm. She was staying on the move, alternating between firing her orbs of light at her opponent and dodging his attacks in return. When Hayato began to throw larger pieces of debris at her, she had to rely on her support gauntlet for defense - it diffused the orb she generated so that it would cover a much larger area, but it was much weaker than the orbs she could generate with her free hand. Still, it proved to be strong enough to stop most of his attacks.

This continued until Emily missed one of Hayato's cubes. Not only has Hayato been magnetizing debris, but he had also been mixing his metal cubes into the debris. This let him mix up his attacks in the hope that Emily couldn't hit them all. Eventually, his gamble paid off, when one cube slammed into Emily's leg with a sickening thud, causing her to go down. Managing to partially break her fall, she tried to scramble back up and keep moving.

However, Hayato wasn't going to give her any time to recover. As soon as he saw his classmate go down he pressed his advantage. Using his magnetism, he pulled a large cement block towards him, and after a quick adjustment, he launched it at Emily. She raised her arms to try and stop it, but was too slow - everyone saw it slam into her, and the block didn't stop moving until it stopped close to a wall - with only a distressingly narrow gap left between the block and the wall.

Himiko felt her heart hammering in her chest as a weight settled into her stomach.

Present Mic began to speak before Hayato held up his hand to silence him. "Song is a formidable opponent, don't count her out yet."

He pulled out another metal cube and cautiously approached the cement block. This proved to be a fatal mistake as a blinding light began spilling out of the gap where Emily was, before the cement block exploded into a cloud of dust and debris. Hayato was thrown back and pelted with the debris, and his opponent was obscured by the dust.

Himiko was very proud of herself. One of her greatest accomplishments over the past two years was to learn when her quirk was trying to influence her emotions, and separate that out. Sure, she occasionally indulged and let herself get excited by the sight of blood in the heat of combat, but even that felt like proof of her control - she was doing it by choice, not the other way around. It made her feel really good about herself.

Normally, when she sees certain classmates beat up after a fight, she feels a different type of excitement towards them. She couldn't help it - it was a side-effect of her quirk! But the moment always passed quickly, and she was back to her usual self.

As Emily limped out of the dust, Himiko began to feel her heart racing. The American girl was battered and bruised, with blood trailing down one side of her face. But despite all of that, she was proudly smirking, acting as if she was always going to win. Stopping several feet from Hayato, she raised her gauntlet, a bright light already swirling around it.

"D- Do you- Do you want to test if you can pull something fas- fast enough?"

Despite her injuries and heavy breathing, Hayato recognized the threat and frantically looked around. He had some cubes scattered around, but nothing that was large enough to absorb Emily's attacks at close range, and there was nothing he could use in a sneak attack against his opponent, either. With a sigh, he raised his hands. "I yield!"

"Great!" Emily managed to force out, before extinguishing the light and collapsing onto the ground herself.

With her hearing, Tomoe couldn't help but hear Himiko's heart threatening to pound itself out of her chest. She turned to her friend with a curious expression.

"Are you ok?"

Himiko swallowed, her throat suddenly very dry. "Y-yeah. Just worried about Emmy, that attack looked brutal!"

It was a lie, but one Tomoe seemed to accept as she turned her attention back to their wounded friend.

As much as Himiko enjoyed the thrill of seeing her classmates' determination against all odds, she normally recognized the feeling for what it was and it passed quickly. Which is why, as she was staring at Emily, she didn't understand why her heart wouldn't stop racing.

AN: Let's be honest, there's no more fitting way for Himiko to notice someone. So now she can join everyone else in trying to figure out her feelings.

I have this idea of Himiko having a blind spot to traditional attempts at flirting - short of someone coming up to Himiko and saying "I like you, let's go out" she just would completely miss the attempt. Meanwhile, she has obviously retained her ability to fall for someone based on their actions and behavior. It just seems fitting for her character.

Also, this story finally broke 100k words! I appreciate all of the support from everyone so far - since this is the first story that I actually decided to publish, rather than just leave as a partially-finished series of thoughts in a google doc, I wasn't sure what to expect.

And there will be only one update next week - my buffer is low again and I need some time to build it back up. I'll see you all next Sunday.