The next week, Toph and Shouto catch the same train as Shinsou on the way to UA. Endeavor was a little tetchy about them not taking one of the cars, but who cares what he thinks? It just drew more attention from the other students, and not the kind that Toph really wanted.

"How's Kouta doing?" Shinsou asks, yawning hugely.

"He's getting big. And he's bratty," Toph admits, thinking back to her visit to the mountains. She'd been very close to having an actual conversation with the Wild Wild Pussycats, but Kouta took up all her time, dragging her around the hiking trails and insisting that they color pictures together. The six year old had no problem asking a blind girl to draw with crayons. But none of that's really a problem—the problem is the horrible tantrums Kouta throws when she tries to leave. Toph does her best not to dwell on why he's so clingy.

"Uh huh… Todoroki, you alright over there?"

Toph and Shinsou turn to their third friend, who was clutching the pole between them like his life depends on it. "Oh, he's never taken the train during rush hour," Toph explains, shaking her head.

"You have issues with crowds?" Shinsou wonders, surprised. Then he scoffs. "Maybe you should stick to private limos."

"No." Shouto denies slowly. "There's just a lot of people here…"

"That's called a crowd, Peppermint," Shinsou says flatly. "Did they not cover that in your homeschooling?"

Toph stays quiet. She already knows what kind of conversation this is going to be.

"...I don't have any issues with crowds," he refutes again. "But there's no space. And people keep getting on." Shouto doesn't seem particularly worried or nervous about this, just out of his depth. Toph doesn't care for public transportation that much either, but she's had time to get used to overcrowded trains.

"Well you see," Shinsou drawls, "There's a lot of people in Tokyo that don't have their own drivers."

"I see that…" Shouto looks around, thoughtful. "It's rather dangerous."

"That's what life is like for us lowly middle-classers. You could've used your driver."

"But I've never been on a train during rush hour."

"I… okay," Shinsou rubs his temple. "But you're rich. And you have a driver. You're just taking the train for the cultural experience."

"No, I'm taking it to class."

Shinsou tilts his head back and groans in exasperation. Toph loves it when Shinsou and Shouto try to be friendly, it's always such a trainwreck. Toph figured out pretty early on that the brainwashing teen has a tendency to turn idle conversations into verbal spars, something he has to win just for the hell of it. His idea of friendship includes constant heckling.

On the other hand, Shouto is so blasé that he won't notice anything but an outright insult. Even then, he doesn't get fired up. Shinsou could probably set him on fire and all Shouto would do is apologize for his accidental quirk usage. The closest they got to actually irritating each other is when Shouto first realized he was being called 'Snowflake', because he thought Shinsou was referring to Fuyumi and flirting with her. Toph nearly fell out of her chair laughing.

Despite this, Toph thinks they get along pretty well. Shinsou seems to have taken it as a challenge to provoke Shouto into an argument without actually offending him. And the dual-quirk student just likes Shinsou's company.

Toph pats Shinsou on the back in consolation. "Let it go, Snoozles. He's immune."

"Immune? I'm not a virus," he mutters rebelliously.

She grins. "Maybe you are, I'm getting sick of listening to you."

Shouto chuckles. Shinsou throws up his hands in defeat. "How does everything else go over your head except that?"

"Oh, were you trying to tell a joke earlier?"


Aizawa was going over his class's mock battles. Over the weekend, students were given video footage of their own fights and they were viewing the footage again in class with their homeroom teacher. Eraserhead invited a lot more analysis than All Might had during the actual exercise, and it was beginning to grate on every student that he found so many flaws.

Toph only had the audio to work with, but had declined Aizawa's offer of a descriptive video when they received their footage on Friday. She remembered her own fight well enough, and could vaguely sense what Bakugou had been up to against Midoriya too.

Eraserhead's personal harsh critiques aren't the only thing riling up the class. Ashido is sulking in her seat after her plan was trashed by Yaoyorozu's scrutiny of it. Tsuyu pulled no punches telling Aoyama his flashy quirk was unsuited for his battle.

Toph already knows she's going to pick a fight when they finally reach her fight with Midoriya and Iida. She's been stewing over it all weekend.

"Now, from the get-go it looks like Bakugou and Beifong had some difficulties cooperating with each other," Aizawa states in a lethargic drawl. He's really trying to get through all the footage in one afternoon, a taxing task for the underground hero. "You may have won your fight, but that can evolve into a serious issue in the workplace if you two can't cooperate on the fly."

Bakugou scoffs loudly. Beifong raises her hand but doesn't wait for Eraserhead to call on her. "I disagree. We worked fine together, Sensei."

Aizawa pauses. "We have the audio from your communicators here too, Beifong," he says, as if that's enough to refute her claim. It's not. "You're yelling at each other for most of your planning time."

"What's that got to do with anything, huh?!"

Toph crosses her arms tightly, biting the inside of her cheek so she doesn't automatically yell like Sweaty Hands. "So what if it was loud? Bakugou and I agreed on the plan." Her problem with her mock battle actually had nothing to do with her partner.

The teacher sighs. "Ideally, you two would have acknowledged that you picked the wrong targets. Bakugou was a better match for Iida's speed, and your combat style could have easily subdued Midoriya without injuring either party." Midoriya squawks in indignation and Toph grits her teeth. "Furthermore, Midoriya. Your plan—"

"What do you mean I'm not a match for Iida?" Toph interrupts again, unable to stop the demand from escaping her lips. "He's fast, and I caught him." It was no different than Shouto freezing over the building.

"But you were injured in the process, Toph-san!" Iida jumps into the discussion urgently. Last week he was voted co-class-president alongside Yaoyorozu and he's been oscillating between tolerable acquaintance and pain in the ass ever since. "If we consider the injuries you sustained against me, and the injuries Midoriya had after facing Bakugou, the better option would have been to target Midoriya before he could use his quirk."

"You think Earth Bitch coulda beaten Deku better than me, huh?!" Bakugou finally erupts, kicking his desk. His hands crackle with small explosions.

"I could've taken you down in one move, Engine Legs," Toph says heatedly, ignoring Bakugou and Aizawa's quick order for him to settle down. "I could've pulled out the whole floor you were on, and done the same to Midoriya." She must sound particularly ruthless when she says this, because Kaminari shivers in his seat.

"Wh—then why didn't you?" Midoriya yelps, sounding particularly awe-struck by the thought. "L-looking at y-your footage, Beifong-san, you spent a lot of time waiting for Iida-kun to attack rather than take the initiative yourself."

Toph opens her mouth to retort, but Bakugou is faster. "Because it woulda torn up the building, Shitty Deku," her explosive teammate growls out, making Midoriya jump in his seat. "That was part of the fucking test of doing an indoor battle."

"You're one to talk," Jirou snarks out of nowhere, a finger curled around her earlobe-thing. "You took out a whole wall trying to hit Midoriya."

Bakugou's hands slam down on his desk. "Oh, you think you'd do fuckin' better, Ear Bit—?"

"That wasn't a load-bearing wall," Toph interjects sharply, rolling her eyes. "And he actually aimed for his target. Unlike Midoriya, who destabilized the upper floors with his punch. And lost the match because he hit the damn bomb." Jirou bristles in her seat, as do a few others, but it's Midoriya that trembles with shame and frustration. Good. He should feel like an idiot, because he was one. "In a real fight, Midoriya would've killed us all with that plan."

"I-I-I am very sorry for that, Beifong-san, but I was playing the villain role?" Midoriya quietly points out. "So in a real fight, as a villain, I'd rather we all lose than let the other team win…"

The class pauses for a moment, considering this perspective. "Whoa, I guess that makes sense…" Tape Guy murmurs.

"That's deep, Midoriya," Ashido exclaims.

Makes sense? Deep?

Toph wants to throw something at that bone-breaking dunderhead.

"What kind of bullshit logic is that?" She says in the severest tone she can manage. "You and Iida—why would you start making up villain origin stories?! Yeah, the fight was centered around a villain-hero conflict, but the point of having a bomb in the building was to prevent all of us from wrecking too much shit—including yourself, Midoriya."

The more she thinks about that stupid fight, the more annoyed she is at how it went.

None of the other teams had as much trouble taking on their opponents in a straight fight, but Iida and Midoriya went all out in all the wrong ways. It shouldn't have been staged as a villains-versus-heroes battle, because clearly these idiots took 'villains' to mean 'anything goes'. If Midoriya had just looked at his task as a hero's job, he wouldn't have fucked up his arm for a villain's idea of a victory. He probably still would have fucked up his arm, but maybe he'd do it in a useful way.

It still irks her, the way Midoriya teetered into class the next day. Healed but still wearing bandages because a light breeze would be enough to knock him over. He kept clenching his hand over and over again. For a moment, during math class, Toph stopped paying attention to Cementoss to figure out what he was doing. Her senses focused on the other side of the classroom, and his injured arm trembled differently than the rest of him, healed but not really whole just yet.

All that effort. He hurt himself badly in that fight. And he didn't even win.

"I disagree!" Iida shouts. "The point of the bomb was to pressure the heroes into making quick, difficult choices, and the villains would respond as the consequences of those choices!"

"If that were the case, the exercise was useless to everyone playing the villains," She retorts snidely. "They all could've chosen to blow everything up to really 'play the part'," Toph shoots down Iida's fervor in an instant. She hears his jaw click shut, and the students around them murmur at the spectacle of this discussion.

Aizawa clears his throat. "All of you, stop talking. I'm leading the discussion, and we will do it civilly." He waits for a moment as the class settles. "Moving on, Iida's tactics in his fight with Beifong were flawed. His bursts of speed aren't meant for enclosed spaces, and he chose a poor location for defending the bomb in order to maximize the amount of glass he could scatter on every level…"

"That was a good tactic though! Beifong couldn't use her quirk as easily that way, right?" Kaminari calls out, and Toph thinks she can hear Aizawa's blood pressure rising… yeah, she can. Poor man. Toph raises her hand and doesn't hesitate to keep adding her own insights.


"How did your lesson go today, Aizawa?" Yagi asks politely, sipping on lukewarm tea in the teacher's lounge.

Aizawa doesn't answer, but the murderously exhausted look on the man's face makes the conversation wither and die before it even begins. Aizawa takes the longer couch in the room and promptly lays on it, face-down.

Somehow knowing that he's at fault for Eraserhead's current state, since his class was supposed to be reviewing their battle results, he finishes his tea quickly. "I'll just leave you to it," Yagi says agreeable, shuffling out of the lounge without a word.


"Toph," Shouto gets her attention as they pack up their belongings and head to the cafeteria. Sugar Queen isn't trailing after him today, but is currently caught in an avid discussion about tea leaves with Jirou. Earlobes does not know anything about tea, but Aoyama seems intrigued. Inasa and Shinsou weren't going to be at lunch either because they had a physics quiz to study for, and apparently they both sucked at that subject.

"Yup?" She gets a good estimate of what Shouto's problem is just by the way he says her name, but obliviously picks at her ear rather than acknowledge it. "We should sit outside, seems nice out."

"Are you mad?" He asks frankly, brushing off her casual comment. "The green-haired—um, Midoriya kept glancing at you, by the way." Toph arches an eyebrow. She was fully aware that Midoriya was more of a nervous wreck than usual after Aizawa ended his analysis on their battle, but obviously it was much harder for her to tell if someone was looking at her. "I don't think anyone expected you to get so heated about the battle," he adds pointedly.

Toph smoothly ignores that last part. "Huh," She says vaguely. "Why do you think I'm mad?"

"Do you ever listen to yourself?" Shouto asks dryly as they pick up lunch trays from the cafeteria line. Toph goes through the daily motion of repeating the same lunch items as Shouto to Lunch Rush, and letting the hero chef pick out anything else he thinks she ought to have. Unlike past cafeteria workers, Lunch Rush always advocates for high protein diets and doesn't shy away from giving her plenty to eat. "You're pissed off." He pauses as they pick an unoccupied table, and taps her knuckles lightly. "You're still pissed off."

Toph loosens her arms until her hands aren't curled into fists anymore. It takes a while longer to unstick her jaw and stop grinding her teeth. "Don't know what you mean."

"You're not fooling anyone," Shouto mutters. "And I thought Inasa was obvious."

Toph chooses not to answer that. She slides her foot along the ground and her mouth turns downward in annoyance at what she senses. "Is that Iida bringing Midoriya over here?"

Shouto looks around the lunchroom for what she's talking about and hums his agreement. "You never told me how you know Iida, by the way." Toph forgot about that. She told Shouto she'd gone to school with Engine Legs, but that's it...

"There isn't anything to tell," she admits quietly. Midoriya and Iida reach their table before Shouto can protest.

"Toph-san!" Iida greets her loudly. "I'd like to introduce you to—"

"I know who he is, co-prez," Toph huffs, setting down her chopsticks. She says 'co-prez' with as much sarcasm as humanly possible, but Iida, a pain in the ass today, still puffs up with pride. Toph pointedly turns to Midoriya. "What do you want."

"H-Hi! Beifong-san? It's...me. Um, c-can we talk?" He fidgets a ridiculous amount while asking this.

"We're already doing that," Toph points out. "But sure."

"Yes. Well. Can I ask you about homeroom?" Midoriya flinches out of nowhere for some reason. "O-or not, if you don't feel comfortable that's totally okay too! But it's just that I wanted to ask you about the things you said in homeroom, I guess, just because you seem kind of upset and I don't know why…" His voice is near a whisper as his sentence peters off.

Toph's eyebrows creep up her forehead before she realizes Shouto must be doing something stupid with his face that's making the bone-breaking kid more anxious, because Toph isn't even glaring. One of these days they're going to have a talk about this weird protectiveness thing other students keep mentioning. She whacks her friend in the arm and gets to her feet.

"Ow," Shouto complains, more out of habit than anything. Shouto gets sulky if she punches too hard. "I didn't do anything."

"Yeah, and I'm a badgermole," she says sardonically.

"What the hell is a badgermole?"

Toph has no idea, but she won't admit that. "Let's talk somewhere quieter."

"R-right. Okay. If you're sure. Thank you…" Midoriya hovers around the edge of the table.

"Lead the way," Toph prompts him. She figures letting him pick a spot might calm him down, though she's not sure this kid is capable of not trembling in social situations.

"Y-yes! Okay." He turns on his heel and marches towards the nearest exit. Cool, Toph had wanted to sit outside anyway. She doesn't hear him muttering for once as they approach a large tree on the campus grounds, but she gets the feeling he could work himself into a heart attack if left alone with his thoughts.

He turns to her when they reach the shade. "So. Beifong-san. You… had a lot to say in class. About… me. And I wanted to know if I've offended you, because I really don't want to get off on the w-wrong foot here. We're only in our first semester, and I want to get along with all my classmates—even Kacchan, maybe, some day—because everyone here has amazing quirks and there's so much to learn from everyone—"

"Midoriya," Toph says to stop him from rambling, frowning. The boy jolts hard at hearing his name from her, fiddling with the hem of his uniform with his healed arm. She zeroes in on his hand unconsciously, but still doesn't know what to say.

"Ah. Y-yes?" He quivers like a leaf, and Toph frowns harder. She doesn't sit very close to Midoriya in class, and while she could sense everyone from afar, her 'sight' is a lot sharper from this distance. "Is… is there a problem? With me?" He asks seriously. "To be honest, I understand the points you made about our fight. L-looking back on your footage, you were so careful with your quirk, it's amazing how much control you have, so I see why you might be annoyed with me for all the destruction I caused… "

Control. The epiphany hits Toph abruptly. "Shut up," she tells Midoriya. He flinches again, but there was no heat behind her words. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "How's your arm?"

"My… arm?" He sounds like he's about to have an aneurysm. Toph's actually a little concerned. How does he live like this? "Wh-what's wrong with my—? The arm I broke? This one? I'm pointing to my right arm."

He is indeed, pointing to his right arm. Which was broken in multiple places last week. Toph holds out her own hand, palm up.

"Uh?"

She wiggles her fingers. "Don't be weird."

Midoriya makes a strangled noise. Toph does her best not to snort as he hesitantly places his forearm in her grasp. His heart rate spikes again, the coward. It's such a strange contradiction for him to be so spineless and fearless at the same time.

"Wh-what exactly is this a-about? Recovery Girl healed me again, if that's what you're concerned about—"

Toph ignores him, concentrating on the limb. She doesn't have to make her own vibrations to see him properly, not with how close he is. Plus, the blood pumping through a body gives off its own unique rhythm for her to sense. The limb is intact, all the bones in place, but… "How many times have you broken this arm?"

"Eh? Twice? I don't really have a good handle on my quirk, like I said. I also, kind of, um, broke it pretty badly in the entrance exam last fall. And my legs. But it's fine, Recovery Girl was there to fix me."

"My quirk has broken my hands a few times," Toph explains casually, releasing his arm. She runs a finger over one of the thin scars that remain over her knuckles, though she's not sure if Midoriya's watching or not. His bone structure is similarly scarred, though her fractures are much smaller and more numerous. "At least four or five times when I was ten."

Looking back on it, the Quirk Rumble really did a number on her. No wonder Stendhal was so mad at her for competing, not to mention Endeavor.

"Oh." Something in Midoriya's tone shifts to realization, and he relaxes by a fraction. "I'm sorry to hear that, it must've been quite a strain to learn your quirk—"

"It wasn't like that. I already knew my quirk," she says, cutting him off before his words take a turn towards pity. "And it doesn't happen to me anymore because I have control." Toph pauses. "You haven't offended me, Midoriya, but it pisses me off that you're this powerful but so terrible at using your quirk."

"O-oh." He scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "My, um, quirk manifested pretty late, and my body still isn't strong enough to wield it. I'm working on it." He hesitates again, and then adds, "Aizawa-sensei told me, during his test, that if I can't use my quirk without it crippling me, I don't have any potential as a hero."

"He's right." That explains his finger injury in the ball toss. "The fractures in your hand are more serious than what I used to get," Toph tells him curtly. "It leaves marks. Your bones heal, but they don't heal evenly." Toph purses her lips. She's not the type to lecture anyone on their reckless behavior (who is she to judge people on that?) but Midoriya was very, very powerful. And his lack of control is frustrating to watch. "If you don't control that quirk, you really will cripple yourself."

She closes her mouth before she can yell 'Don't fucking do that' at him.

"I… I know. Thank you. Recovery Girl's warned me about it too," Midoriya answers. He's not annoyed with her pointing it out, though Toph would understand if he were, but she can't quite make sense of his tone either. He clears his throat. "I didn't think anyone would be paying that much attention to me, to be honest. Is this why you were so annoyed about the battle?"

"...Your plan sucked too. But yeah," she says tersely. It feels like she's admitted something wrong now, because Midoriya doesn't freeze up like a deer but sags like a melting ice cream cone, relieved. Toph turns on her heel and heads back to the cafeteria.

Midoriya yelps and quickly catches up to her side. "I'm sorry for worrying you," he squeaks. Toph doesn't say anything. "So, um. Your quirk allows you to see bones?"

That's a weird way to put it. Toph hasn't really thought of her seismic sense that way, and she clicks her tongue. "Kinda."

One word. She says one word. But it opens a floodgate.

"How does that work?" His usual fervor returns with a vengeance. "You were able to locate Iida in an instant during our fight, how exactly does that tie into geokinesis? I thought it was like Pixiebob's quirk, but I know she can't locate people like you can, that's what Ragdoll is for. I assumed you needed contact with the ground to fully use your quirk, hence the broken glass on the floor, but that was wrong too. Is it a supplementary power, because I don't really understand the connection—?"

"If you want me to answer you have to let me speak," Toph interrupts him, slowing down.

"Ah! R-Right! I'm. I'll be quiet. Please tell me." He actually slaps a hand over his mouth, which almost makes her grin.

Toph blows on the bangs on her face, parsing through his questions. She isn't crazy about giving a rival the inside scoop about her power, but if there's one thing she has discovered about her classmate, it's that Midoriya is a total quirk fanboy. He's been chatting up Infinity Girl and Engine Legs every day about their powers.

"My quirk connects me to the earth," she begins awkwardly. She hasn't had to explain herself so extensively in a while, not since Kano Izumi had her assessed properly for the Quirk Registry. "I don't just move rocks, I feel them, and the vibrations everything sends through the ground. It's like a sixth sense. Or a fifth that actually works."

"Wow," Midoriya breathes. "That's incredible, Beifong. That does explain how you found the bomb and Iida, and how you navigate in class—are you completely blind? I think most people assumed it was just a partial blindness."

"Yup. No light perception," she confirms plainly.

"Were… were you born blind?" He asks the question far too delicately for Toph's taste, and she slows to a stop before they reach the entrance to the mess hall. "I don't m-mean to be insensitive—"

"Don't pity me, Midoriya."

He flinches again at her curt words. "I… okay. I just like to know about quirks, th-that's why I'm asking all this."

Toph picks at her nails. "I'm aware. You mumble about quirks all fucking day." She thinks he's going to apologize again, so she quickly moves on. "Yes, I was born blind. My quirk manifested at birth too. I don't remember a time in my life where I couldn't use seismic sense."

He hums thoughtfully, tapping his lip. "That's rare, usually mutation-types manifest at birth…. But you're clearly an emitter." He rubs his hand over his healed forearm. "But anyway, this seismic sense, it extends to interior structures? Bones? Is it because of the density difference, or maybe because of the mineral components within the human body? Bones are made from both living cells and a matrix structure of calcium, so..."

Toph thinks about it, cocking her head to the side. She's never been questioned so thoroughly about her quirk. "Must be the mineral part. There has to be an amount of natural elements for me to earthbend," she explains, thinking of how she figured out metalbending. "So the same probably applies to the seismic sense."

"That's very useful! I wonder if you could assess an injury like an x-ray in the field?" He wonders eagerly as they enter the noisy cafeteria. "You'd be very valuable in rescue missions!"

"I'm not really a people person," Toph says doubtfully. "Plus, there's too many other injuries that I wouldn't be able to help with. I guess it wouldn't hurt to know how to set a broken bone, though." She helped Quillfish once when he dislocated his shoulder, but their medic had howled at her for doing that.

Midoriya is quiet for a long moment, and they finally reach Shouto, who is silent as Iida chatters at him about the Idaten Agency. Infinity Girl and Frog Girl are also sitting at the table.

"Toph," Shouto greets her. He has a naturally very monotone voice, but Toph can hear the hint of relief in his tone. "That took a while."

The nervous kid flinches again. "Oh. S-s-sorry, T-Todoroki, I guess we had a lot to talk a-about—"

"Sweet Kami, you need to calm down," Toph slides into her seat beside Shouto, exasperated. To her friend, she says, "You're going to give him a heart attack, Freezerburn."

"Ugh," Shouto sips more strawberry milk irritably. God bless Shinsou and his ever-growing collection of new nicknames.

Midoriya gives a nervous laugh that borderlines on hysteria. "I-I-I'm fine, Beifong-san, really! Sorry to bother you!"

"Whatever," she rolls her eyes, and then addresses the three others at the table. "Why are all of you here?"

"Todoroki-kun said we could sit here!" Gravity Girl puffs her cheeks out. Toph raises a skeptical eyebrow. "Or, well, he said he doesn't care either way." That makes more sense.

"You usually sit with a few other people, but Todoroki-chan looked lonely today," Frog Girl points out in the frank way she points out everything. Shouto makes an indignant sound from the back of his throat. Toph isn't sure if it's because Tsuyu used "-chan" or because she called him lonely. "Are they from the other hero course, perhaps?"

Toph is already shoveling rice into her mouth, knowing there isn't much time left before their afternoon training. "Yes. The dumbasses of 1-B," she confirms. "Twinkletoes and Snoozles."

"Toph-san! You shouldn't speak about your friends so rudely!" Iida's hand swipes through the air swiftly, narrowly missing Shouto's nose.

"No, she's right," Shouto leans back subtly in his seat. "They're dumbasses." There's a strange sliver of chagrin in the way he speaks that surprises Toph.

Uraraka giggles into her noodles. "Y'know, Toph, sometimes you act just like Bakugou, but then you go ahead and give your friends such cutesy nicknames!"

Toph's expression sours. The point was to emasculate them, but Uraraka isn't… wrong. Inasa definitely takes a weird amount of pride in what should be an embarrassing title. Shinsou actively tortures her with the mushiest pet names possible rather than argue over her own names for him.

Mm. Toph promptly picks up that train of thought, packs it tightly in a steel safe, and pushes it to the recesses of her mind. Cutesy? Toph doesn't know what that it.

"Well, Bakugou doesn't give nicknames," she replies smoothly. "He just doesn't fucking know anyone's names."

Uraraka snorts. "You think so?!" She cackles, clutching her sides. Midoriya, again, sounds moments away from cardiac arrest, and mutters his incredulity at people mocking Sweaty Hands. "Maybe! Earth Bitch, Ear Bitch—Glasses, Shitty Hair, Icy-Hot…" She devolves into more giggles.

"By the way, Toph-chan, I'm impressed with your fight. You were impolite about explaining it to Sensei, but you handled partnering with Bakugou-chan very well." Tsuyu speaks up, wiping her large hands deftly. "He has a terrible personality."

Uraraka wheezes with more laughter. "He does! He's nuts, I wish you could see the way he looks at Deku-kun!"

"K-Kacchan isn't that bad," Midoriya defends him softly. "He's, um, not a people person." Toph's mouth quirks into a brief smile. "But… There is a chance he doesn't know everyone's names yet." He admits, to everyone's amusement.


Hitoshi is looking forward to seeing everyone's quirks in action for their first rescue training lesson. They've done some combat training, but rescue work is much more complex than full frontal battles—it's a good opportunity to see who could think creatively, and who would apply their powers in clever ways.

"This is going to be great!" Yoarashi pumps his fist in the air. "I'm so excited, my heart's on fire!"

Hitoshi makes a show of patting down his jumpsuit. "Sorry, I don't carry antacids," he says with a yawn.

Yoarashi casts him an odd look, a small frown on his face despite the humor in his eyes. They're still somewhere in limbo in the friendship department, but at least Yoarashi could recognize a joke. "Shinsouuuu, why aren't you pumped?! Here's our chance to be hot-blooded heroes, and you're yawning!" The taller boy exclaims, cape fluttering behind him.

He can be eager and tired at the same time, it's called multitasking. "You're in a good mood," Hitoshi mutters, picking at the straps of his mask. He hasn't used it at all in training yet, instead following Vlad King's advice to focus on his hand-to-hand combat first, but he'll figure it out in time. It's tricky to work with right now.

His eyes slide over to Monoma, who's listening to Vlad's instructions about their lesson with a smooth smirk on his face. His quirk definitely isn't suited to rescue work, so Hitoshi wonders how he'll fair in their training. Not to mention his smug personality; there's no way Monoma knows anything about decent bedside manners. Hitoshi's eyes flicker over the rest of the class, before landing back on Yoarashi.

He already knew Yoarashi's quirk, and Hitoshi isn't so interested about how he would operate. He could use his quirk in short, powerful bursts, amplifying his speed and strength when in combat. He could also maintain a few wind currents of varying strength. It was a versatile quirk, but that's it. It might be more important to consider his demeanor when it comes to rescuing actual people, and in that department, Yoarashi's got almost everyone beat. Between him and Kendou, their personalities could outshine the sun itself on a good day.

And today, Yoarashi is especially fired up. Maybe Toph gave him a pep talk, though that sounds unlike her. The lesson starts up quickly in the Collapse Zone, and the students are split between tasks: half of them are on search and rescue, and the other half deal with an active earthquake simulation, preventing further destruction of property.

Guess which group Shinsou's in?

It's like the entrance exam, he reasons, teaming up with the mushroom girl to clear up the rubble around a collapsing building. He gives her the suggestion to fill the gaps in the crumbling structure with fungus to temporarily reinforce it, and pulls his mask on to prevent the spores from sticking to him instead. Still, it's frustrating that he can't help more. He's not supposed to do the actual rescuing, but there has to be a more effective way to call attention to the building besides just activating their communicators.

"These won't hold for long," Komori warns him. "If there's another tremor too soon, we'll have to move on."

Touching his mask, Hitoshi has an idea.

Komori eyes him curiously, never seeing him use the mask until now. Unfortunately it can't amplify his voice, he'll just have to fucking scream, but he fiddles with the dials until he comes up with something satisfactory.

He gives the mushroom girl a wink before taking a deep breath and channeling his inner fanboy to bellow, "HA HA HA! I AM HERE, YOUNG HEROES, TO ASSESS YOUR WORK! BUT WHERE'S THE RESCUE TEAM TO ASSIST YOUNG KOMORI?" He screams, in a near-perfect imitation of the golden boy himself, All Might. It's not hard to mimic someone when he's heard the hero talk on TV through his entire childhood.

"Oh my god, All Might's here?!"

"I'm so excited I'm gonna puke!"

"I got Komori's location, you guys stay here!"

"No! I'm coming too!"

The students flock to their location like moths to a lamp, and Komori cackles at the enthusiastic turnout. Hitoshi knew she had a sinister streak beneath those bangs. "That was slick, Shinsou!"

Hitoshi pulls off his mask to give her a lazily grin before innocently looking around at the students approaching them. "Oh great, you can start looking for the targets," he says lightly, totally ignoring the confused expressions and questions about All Might. "I saw two on the ground level, but be careful on the upper floors…"

Suddenly the breeze picks up. Ah, he's attracted a wild airbender too.

"I'M HERE! STAND BACK GUYS, I GOT THIS!" Yoarashi shouts over his own twister, flying onto the scene like a maniac. Hitoshi pulls up his mask and squints against the wind.

"Yoarashi, you don't need to—" Hitoshi holds out his hands to stop him

"I GOT THIS!" The airbender raises his arms in great sweeping motions, and whips up the beginnings of an actual tornado.

"Yoarashi!" Komori shrieks, but her voice is getting lost in the wind. Dust begins to fly into the air, and they're all losing visual on the building. Hitoshi pulls up his mask and grabs mushroom girl's arm. "Wait, the spores—!"

Hitoshi hears him bellow out some nonsensical hero move, and the area erupts into chaos of dust, rubble, and an alarming number of mushrooms.


Later in the week, Aizawa has a field trip scheduled for 1-A. Toph is pretty sure they're starting rescue training, since that's what Twinkletoes's class is focusing on. The airhead stirred up some funny rumors yesterday by sending half his class to the infirmary for dust inhalation. She'll have to ask Shinsou for his account, because Twinkletoes straight-up ran away from the conversation rather than admit responsibility. Toph was kind of envious they'd already gone to one of UA's satellite locations for training, but now it was 1-A's turn.

"It sounds like they were in USJ," Shouto mentions blithely, adjusting the collar of his hero suit.

"Oh, where we took the recommended students' exam?" Sugar Queen inquires, and suddenly the two of them are surrounded by classmates hounding the recommended students for information. They're waiting for Aizawa's bus to arrive and take them to a new location for hero training, and Iida cries out in dismay when his orderly queue is ruined.

Toph slides away from the mass of chattering teenagers, finding a pleasantly quiet spot between Tokoyami and Midoriya.

Today's the first day she actually has a hero costume with proper footwear to get a good read of all her surroundings. Toph doesn't know what it's made from, but it sure as hell works with her quirk.

(Tokoyami really does have the head of a bird, she realizes pensively. Mutation quirks are wild.)

"Hey, Beifong-san?" Midoriya gets her attention tentatively. "You remember how we talked about your quirk?"

About how she could be an x-ray machine? How could Toph forget? She's been looking into how well she can sense her own bone structure as practice ever since he brought it up. "Yeah, you gave me a lot to think about…" she trails off as Midoriya begins to flip through a small notebook. They hadn't been instructed to bring any writing supplies and almost everyone was in their hero suits now, so Toph's a little taken aback.

"So, I had a few other ideas I wanted to run by you," Midoriya begins unceremoniously. "Also, your costume! You look great! Could you explain what those coils are for? They did a good job on the color scheme, it's kind of like you match with Todoroki—"

"I do?" Toph asks blankly. Her costume was partially modeled after Yoroi Musha's samurai armour, and she knew Shouto was just wearing a lame jumpsuit with some temperature regulators. "Isn't it green?"

"It is, it's dark green and yellow, but the under-suit portion is blue and Todoroki's collar and shoulder straps are the same gold color as your headband but what I really want to know is what's in those metal devices on your belt—?"

"I'll show you in class," she promises flatly, picking at the collar digging into her skin. Toph doesn't care much for how her costume looks, especially not about the colors, but it's funny that Midoriya would compare her suit to Shouto's so readily.

Speaking of Midoriya, he scratches his pencil on his notebook, mumbling too quietly for her to make out more words.

Toph cocks her head to the side. "What could you possibly be writing right now? Class hasn't started."

He jolts. "Um. Well. I like to document the quirks of heroes and the people I meet, and yours is really fascinating, so I hope you don't mind me taking notes? I'll stop if you want! I know some people find it invasive. But I didn't have any reference for your costume until now, either, so I wanted to add that before we got to the training lesson."

"You're drawing me." Toph makes a face, unsure how to take that. "...I better look cool."

Midoriya exhales loudly, sagging again like she's taken a great weight off his shoulders. "O-Of course! I'm not the best artist but you're very cool!"

Ah, right. This is why she overlooks Midoriya's perpetual motor mouth. She can only stand him for short periods of time, but he's constantly in awe. "You're goddamn right I am," Toph smirks.

The bus finally approaches, and the class disperses from the huddle around the recommended students. The conversation drops away as Iida corralls them onto the bus, which isn't set up the way he expected. Toph sits between Tokoyami and Midoriya, with Uraraka on his other side. Shouto sits across from them, immediately sinking into his seat and into a light nap.

"Alright, what else did you write about my quirk?" Toph prompts Midoriya, adjusting the brace over her forearm idly.

Midoriya is quiet for a long moment, humming as he tapped his pencil on the page in his lap. "There's one theory that's really nagging me about your power. It was really surprising when you told me you could sense the fracture scars on my arm, because your seismic sense doesn't seem to totally rely on the composition of what you're looking at. I mean, you located the dummy bomb in our battle, but it's paper mache."

Toph shrugs. "So maybe it is more of a density thing for my seismic sense," she admits slowly. "Why is that a problem?"

"It's not… it's what you said about earthbending. That you need some amount of natural elements to earthbend. And bones are partly composed of organic minerals, which aren't interchangeable with inorganic minerals, but… you can sense bones so complexly… Beifong-san," he says with grave importance, voice lowered. "Can you control me by my bones?"

Uraraka, who's only been partially paying attention to their conversation, makes a strangled noise.

Toph's mouth falls open. "...Do you want me to try?"

"Beifong, no!" Uraraka gasps at the suggestion, while Midoriya replies, "Maybe?!"

"Deku!" Uraraka protests in an unduly horrified voice.

Toph approximates a glare at her. "What? I wouldn't hurt him or anything."

"You have very fine control over your quirk," Midoriya agrees fervently. "I think you can do it, if I understand your quirk correctly."

She nods along thoughtfully, flexing her own hand into a fist. "I can sense the refined minerals in metal," she reveals quietly. "And I can metalbend because of that, so…"

"If you can sense it well enough, there's a good chance you can bend it too!" Midoriya muses excitedly. Toph recalls Kirishima's quirk, and how her vision sharpened when he used Hardening. She hasn't explored extensions of her power since she figured out metalbending because of the toll it took on her body, but bones could work. Metal was a stubborn material against her earthbending, but bones just resonated differently.

"You might be onto something there," Toph realizes in quiet wonder. Midoriya's excitement seems to be infectious, because a smile worms its way onto her face. Bonebending could totally be a thing.

Uraraka splutters, killing the mood. "But that's crazy, Deku! You can't—that's so scary, how could you think of doing that, Beifong?"

"It was Midoriya's idea," Toph retorts defensively. She wasn't going to practice her quirk on someone that didn't ask for it. "If he's consenting I'm down for trying it."

"Y-yeah," he nods vigorously, "This is a valuable opportunity!" He opens up his notebook again. "Beifong-san, how do you spell your name? Do you mind if we document the process?"

"I don't mind," Toph scratches her cheek. "My name is Chinese, but half the characters are adopted into kanji, so it's a little confusing to read—"

"Beifong," Eraserhead calls from three seats over, eavesdropping like a creep and loud enough that the rest of the class pauses their conversations to listen in. "If you break Midoriya's bones outside of a class exercise I'll expel you, consensual or not."

"What?" Shouto jolts upright from where he was drifting off.

Toph feels her face heat up a little, but stubbornly rolls her eyes. "The only one that has actually broken Midoriya's bones is Midoriya himself," she crosses her arms but doesn't strictly protest his decision.

Someone chokes on their own tongue trying to laugh. The rest of the class explodes into questions.

"What's this about consensual bone breaking?!" Ashido screeches.

"Beifong just threatened Midoriya?!" Iida demands.

"I thought it was a proposition?" "Midoriya, are you a masochist?" "I totally guessed it!"

Toph grimaces as Midoriya melts into a nervous puddle in his seat. She pats his shoulder apologetically while he stammers through several denials.


The Unforeseen Simulation Joint, which is not Universal Studios Japan as Hagakure laments, is a huge facility with several different disaster areas, perfect for rescue training with the Space Hero, Thirteen. It really seems cool, and Toph is looking forward to their lesson plan for three whole minutes before someone points out a disturbance near the center platform and everything quickly hits the fan.

"What's that? Is it like the entrance exam…?" Kirishima wonders. More and more figures step into the plaza, and Toph can't see where they're coming from. There's no wind, no sound from the air but a strange, shifting static. The mood, which was bright and positive just a moment ago, drops away into dread.

Are they being teleported here? Toph takes a step towards the scene.

"Don't move." Eraserhead's tone is sharp enough that even she flinches. He pulls goggles over his eyes. "Those are villains."

Shame on Toph for thinking today could be normal.

"Thirteen and Eraserhead," one of the villains—Toph can't tell which one, it echoes through the air oddly—comments. "That's strange. The teacher's schedule…"

Toph doesn't hear the rest. She's too focused on the last figure that's stepped into the plaza, a hulking mass that stops beside a slim, young man. The larger person feels wrong in ways Toph has never felt before, not even from the most unusual mutation quirks. They're huge, and have a beak-like face, but their steps are muted, even on concrete. Unlike the other villains, this one stands stock-still, barely breathing, not even shifting their weight to look around. The closest thing it resembles is someone under Hitoshi's control, but even then, it doesn't explain why they're so difficult for Toph to get a read on.

"...The Symbol of Peace. I can't believe he's not here." The slim man muses, and Toph brings her attention back to him at the mention of All Might. "I wonder if he'll come if we kill some kids?"

Their teachers are ordering them to escape now, and everyone's voices are strained with panic and adrenaline. Toph is tugged along by Hagakure. She can't leave. They can't leave.

There are dozens and dozens of villains spreading themselves over the plaza. More, scattering into the disaster zones around the training facility. But the greatest threat, as far as Toph is concerned, is the young man with hands over his arms and the silent giant standing in the center of the plaza, waiting.

Eraserhead doesn't hesitate to run headlong towards them, muttering something about not being a one-trick pony. Toph feels horror creep up her throat as they move towards the exit, because there's no way this will end well.

The exit isn't far, but the air shifts. Toph hears static again, and Thirteen shouts out a warning for them to stop.

"Oh, I'm afraid you're not allowed to leave," that same voice from earlier is closer now, between them and the exit. A warp villain. He announces the name of their little posse like they're supposed to fucking recognize what the 'League of Villains' are.

How the hell do I fight something like this? Toph wonders in frustration. She hasn't even had time to get acquainted with her support gear—

One second, she's in a group of students behind Thirteen as the echoing voice of a villain demands answers about All Might's absence.

The next second, she's falling.

Static rushes over.

Toph lands a short distance to the ground and promptly shrieks, because her fucking arm is on fire. The air is filled with dry heat and smoke, and Toph pats out the flames on her sleeve before she gets seriously burned.

"Beifong!" Tail Guy stops at her side, coughing. It was just the two of them in the Fire Zone. Them and bunch of villains. "Are you okay?"

"I'm—" Toph stops to pull up a wall of earth at the stranger charging them. Tail Guy takes down another with a swift knock, assuming a fighting stance.

No one thought much of the security incident a few days ago, but that hand villain planned all this nonsense, didn't he? The warp villain had brought them here. That strange beaked giant was different, and Toph was in over her head. Everything was happening so quickly, she could barely keep up.

She hasn't felt this way since Cato.

The air is smoky, so Toph takes a careful, calming breath. Seven villains in front of her, three more on Ojiro's side, and five behind them. She isn't injured. This isn't the Quirk Rumble. Aizawa wants them to run, but that's not an option anymore. There's really only one thing to do, and there's clarity in having one, simple goal.

And here she'd been jealous of 1-B's rescue training.

"I'm fine," she answers Tail Guy belatedly. "And I'm going to kill the League of Villains."

Toph stomps on the ground, and the earth explodes.