Mirko stalked into the USJ's control center, made a headcount, and locked the doors.

"Yo, Mirko! We're all good here. No heroes, no brats, got everything locked down. All smooth sailing." He was the one responsible for disabling the alarms and locking down the building. He radiated smug energy, lounging at one of the workstations. Insufferable.

She curled her lip. "You check for dead-man routines?"

"Dead whatnow?" He snorted, "no such thing."

Mirko stared for a long moment, "Do you live under a fucking rock?"

He recoiled a bit and pointed at himself in confusion. "I… what?"

"A rock, motherfucker! Do you live under one?" She snapped, invading his personal space.

"N-no, I- what?" he looked around nervously, but no one came to his aid.

"Don't look at them, they aren't asking you questions. Look at me! You didn't fucking check, did you?" She leaned in, baring sharp teeth, fury etched into her face

"W-w-wait, now just a second, Mirko- "

She grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled his chair around. She squeezed, digging her fingers into the soft flesh just under his collarbone.

"Hero Public Safety Commission standard procedure," She yelled, so everyone in the room could hear, "Is to include dead-man routines in relevant systems. If you deviate from standard procedure, the dead-man routine activates." She squeezed harder still, "and if the dead-man routine activates, then a little red flag pops up. Do you know what happens when that little red flag pops up?"

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his contorted face. He whimpered. Pathetic.

"When they see that little red flag, the H. P. S. C. brings down the wrath of God-Fucking-Almighty on all our heads!" The air was thick. Everyone in the room flinched back at her outburst. Mirko leaned in and hissed. "So I suggest you check, before I check for you, Four-eyes." Mirko released him with a shove.

"You and you!" She started singling out the others, "Check the server room for anything suspicious. You two check storage on the bottom floor, and you two, sweep the observation room up top." There was a pregnant pause. No one moved. "NOW, GODDAMNIT!" The six which received tasks scrambled out of the room. The other three quickly found ways to look busy. Four-eyes was hunched over the computer as she'd left him. He brought the total up to ten villains that needed to be dealt with. Then she could move on.

Mirko went over her slapdash plan one last time. The distance she'd made between herself and most of the others was as large as she could conveniently make it. Loose ends would ruin her cover in the long run, so she couldn't allow any of them to leave this building. If Shigaraki got wind that she was actually a Hero, then he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate her. Sadly enough, she doubted that Kurogiri would hesitate either. It was unfortunate, she'd developed a soft spot for the overly formal bartender.

Back to the matter at hand, she'd need to work fast to not get overwhelmed. Mirko was good, and she knew it, but she wasn't All Might, and couldn't just shrug off a ten-on-one fight. Crossing her arms, she started to tap her foot, filling the room with an ominous clack… clack… clack.

Soon enough: "Uh… M-Mirko?"

There it was. She imagined Four-eyes was having trouble finding the dead-man routine. She would have been surprised if he found anything, since she made the whole thing up on the spot. It made for a convenient excuse to take control of the room. Hawks would be so proud.

"What?" She ground out slowly. She moved forward and made a "get over here" Gesture at two of the three others in the room. They shuffled over awkwardly.

"I… I can't…"

"You can't what? Spit it the fuck out." She was right behind him now. He kept his head low. He was afraid. Good.

"I can't find anything."

"Fucking useless. You two, look here," she pointed at the screen in front of Four-eyes. Both leaned forward to peer at the screen, stealing timid glances at her on the side. "Allow me to educate you dumb motherfuckers."

Mirko got a solid grip on the back of Four-eyes' head and bashed his face into the keyboard. Once, twice, done. She pivoted at the waist, dropping henchman No. 2 with a right cross before vaulting over Four-eyes' back and smashing her foot into No. 3's face. She moved fast, bounding across the room and nailing No. 4 with a roundhouse kick that could fell a tree. They managed to get a half-strangled shout out before they hit the ground. Not ideal, but that was all four in the control room down. Neat and tidy, almost perfect.

Mirko bounced up towards the high ceiling, beginning her descent just as the server room door flew open.

"Hey, what's going on? Is it the heroes?!"

"Up here!" Mirko shouted. She dropped like a rock, crushing the one at the door under her boots. A flying knee to the temple knocked out the other. That was No. 5 and 6 taken care of. More than half down, and not one of them ever got the chance to use their quirk. Mirko wasn't taking the villains down in any particular order, instead acting primarily on convenience, incapacitating them in the fastest possible order she could.

A commotion at the stairs saw the last four goons returning to this floor at the same time. From the stairwell they saw her. "H-hey! Fucking traitor!" Two men, two women. One of the men, No. 7, made a break for the door. The last three attacked.

Mirko lunged for the runner, sailing up and over the other three. She snared No. 7's neck between her thighs. Crossing her ankles, Mirko threw her entire weight backwards, flipping the poor bastard into the air and blasting his body into the floor. She landed neatly on her feet. A wave of oily fire splattered onto the polished concrete, forcing Mirko to dive to the side or be cooked.

No. 9 snapped their mouth shut, cutting off the flow of sticky napalm. She'd moved herself right to the top of Mirko's list of priorities with that attack.

No. 8 and No. 10 charged Mirko at the same time. No. 8 swung high, knuckles buzzing with electricity. Mirko caught her by the wrist, braced her forearm against their tricep, and wrenched her body around. There was a wet crunch and a wail as No. 8's elbow ruptured. Turning the other way, she pulled the woman face first into her elbow.

No. 10 caught Mirko in a tackle, smashing her into the wall. He was easily the biggest of the lot, occupying a weight class that could give Fat Gum a run for his money. His massive hand closed around Mirko's waist. He whipped her around, throwing her into the far wall. No. 9 opened up, spraying down the area with liquid fire.

Mirko kept herself moving, not giving her body a chance to register that it was hurt and winded. Shooting to her feet, she ripped a fire extinguisher off its wall hook, hurling it at No. 10's face.

He lashed out at it with a massive fist. He struck true, and the extinguisher ruptured, coating the area in fine yellow powder. He pawed at his eyes, braying and trampling office furniture under foot.

She took the opportunity eliminate the fire breather. Using No. 10's shoulder as a springboard, Mirko lept across the room, landing in a roll and popping up to her feet at just the right moment to ram her shoulder into the other woman's gut.

The villain involuntarily belched a stream of fire as she buckled.

Mirko hissed as the fire brushed the back of her left ear. Three rapid jabs left No. 9 lying in a puddle of her own drool. With her taken care of, Mirko paused to snatch up her left ear, crushing the middle of it in her fist. There was a faint sizzle as the sticky accelerant was snuffed against her palm.

The only thing that saved her from the next attack was her excellent hearing. She ducked as an entire office desk soared overhead, splintering against the concrete wall. She rose, turning at the waist to throw a punch but aborted halfway through. She threw up a hasty guard instead.

No. 10 kicked hard and Mirko flew back. She skidded to an unsteady stop and fell to her knees. Mirko stayed down, waiting. Her forearms throbbed from the impact. Hopefully nothing was fractured. Impatient and enraged, No. 10 charged her blindly. If he were smart he would have done something different when Mirko abruptly changed up her tactics.

At the last instant she dove forward, between his legs, got her feet under her, and lept up onto his back. From a belt pouch she drew Eraser Head's capture ribbon. Looping it around his neck with one arm and pulling it tight, she bounced around on his back like a greenhorn rodeo rider.

"C'mon, you big bastard!" It was a struggle, but she got her feet planted firmly in the small of his back. She straightened her legs, inch by inch, barely overpowering his muscles to pull his torso backwards. He teetered, windmilling his arms for balance, and that's when Mirko hopped down. She planted her feet, turned, and pulled ribbon as hard as she could. "Oof! You're… heavy!"

Firmly pressed back to back, Mirko supported No 10's massive weight with her powerful legs. The muscle-bound henchman had no way to reach her or get any meaningful purchase on the capture ribbon. He simply wasn't flexible enough. The big muscle types rarely were.

"C'mon motherfucker. Give! Up!" Mirko roared, pulling the ribbon tighter. Eventually his struggles slowed, and then stopped all together. She held his gurgling dead-weight up for another thirty seconds, sweat streaming off her face, just to be sure that he was really out cold. With a gasp she dumped his unconscious bulk off of her, before flopping onto her own back.

"Holy fucking shit" she wheezed, allowing herself a moment to regroup while admiring the new friction burns on her hands. "Goddamn Eraser… How do you do it?" Laboriously, Mirko hauled herself to her feet. Plopping into a chair at one of the only computers that hadn't been burnt or crushed, she searched around. "Gotcha." Despite her fingers trembling from the exertion of the fight, it was easy enough to reconnect the USJ's local security system to UA's intranet. After that, the system took care of the rest. She watched, exhausted, as a wave of alerts and warnings popped up on screen.

Ignoring the popups, she opened the mass alert system interface from the desktop and typed in a brief message before sending it. In short order, all students, staff, and faculty at UA received the same alert on their phones, on their computers, even on the large screens spread across the UA campus.

Triumphant, Mirko clambered to her feet, wincing. She should never have sat down in the first place. It felt like that liquid napalm was somehow inside her knees and her elbows. Her back already ached from being fastball pitched into the wall by the big guy. Blood sluggishly oozed from the torn-up skin on her knuckles, and it looked like one of the joints caught the edge of someone's tooth. She grumbled, hoping that the gash wouldn't get infected. It probably would. Great.

She rummaged in a belt pouch and pulled out a slender auto-injector. She eyed the logo of the Shingen Bio-Medical Division, considering her options before shrugging. "Bottoms up, I guess." She stabbed it into her thigh. A cocktail of pseudoendotrizine, desoxyn, and norepinephrine was dumped into her bloodstream with a crisp plastic click. The effect was immediate. Mirko gasped and took a step back, shaking an imaginary fog from her head. "Whoo, god-damn!"

With a ferocious grin splitting her face, Mirko loped out of the control room – kicking the locked door off its hinges as she went – and raced through the service tunnels under the USJ. The fatigue, the pain, it all faded, leaving Mirko with the feeling that she could solo Nomu with one arm tied behind her back. She wasn't stupid, she knew she couldn't actually take down Nomu on her own, but damn, the confidence boost felt great.

It was a free period just before lunch. In one of the many little study nooks spread across campus, Nejire, Mirio, and Amajiki were being devoured by a single beanbag chair that could swallow Endeavor whole.

Amajiki had been quietly telling them about his latest escapades at the Fat Gum agency.

Mirio was a glowing ray of sunshine, as always.

It was good to be back. She'd been working through a lot of stuff over the past few months – with consistent support from her mentor and friends – and while she didn't yet feel one hundred percent, she was getting closer every day.

Amajiki was interrupted by a shrill whine.

Nejire's phone vibrated like it was going to explode. By the sound of things, Mirio and Amajiki's phones were also going off. And so was the TV on the wall above the bean bag. And the TV further down the hall. It could only be a mass alert. Hastily sitting up, the three of them pulled out their phones. Nejire's screen was blacked out, with bold white capital text filling the screen.

RED ALERT – VILLAINS AT U.S.J.

APPROX. 60.

ERASER, THIRTEEN, INCAP.

STUDENTS INJURED

SEND HELP A.S.A.P.

Amajiki, ever the voice of reason, was first to speak up. "We can't help. We're students… they'd never let us. Besides, we'd just get in the way… Someone could get hurt." A pessimistic voice of reason, but a voice all the same. He was fidgeting, which wasn't unusual, but Nejire had known Amajiki for some time. He had his tells, like everyone else. When he fidgeted in this specific way, it wasn't out of anxiety, no, it came from a need to move.

Nejire beamed at him and got an awkward smile for her efforts. "Mr. Togata, if you would be so kind?"

Mirio laughed brightly before using Permeation to fling Amajiki and herself out of the beanbag. The Big Three tore through the halls of UA at breakneck speeds, taking routes that helped them skirt around most faculty members.

Despite the awful stuff that sometimes happened in the world, it was good to be back.

The portal spit Jiro out a few meters up in the air, above what looked like a yacht. Jiro had always been somewhat afraid of heights, so naturally, she screamed all the way down. She crashed into the wooden deck hard. All the nerves in her right arm lit up with confusing signals, telling her that something was wrong, but not quite what. She rolled onto her back, writhing and gasping for breath as her diaphragm spasmed. It was a totally overwhelming experience.

Her lungs abruptly decided they wanted to work again, and she sucked in a massive breath. Sweet, sweet oxygen. She pushed herself up, struggling against the full-body jitters. Was this an adrenaline rush? Because boy, was it wild. She had the urge to go run a 5k or throw up. Maybe both.

She wasn't alone, thank god. Around her, in various states of confusion and alertness, were a handful of her classmates. The plain faced Tail-boy – Ojiro? – looked like he stuck the landing, using his large tail to absorb the impact of the fall. He was on guard, as though expecting an attack. That was probably a smart move. The guy with the tape quirk, Sero, looked like he landed about as well as she had. He was being helped up by Tenya Iida.

"Guys, where the hell are we?" Her legs were shaking so badly she didn't trust herself to stand.

"We appear to have been relocated to the Flood Zone by that dastardly Kurogiri, though to what end, I cannot say." Iida hurriedly moved over to her after Sero was on his feet. "We need to triage all of our injuries and come up with a plan to get to safety, it's standard practice in situations like these. Are you injured Jiro? Can you stand?" He offered a hand to help her.

"I-I think I'm fine, just got winded when I landed." She went to grab Iida's hand, but strangely, she missed. What the...? Well, she thought she was fine. Her wrist was bent at an unnatural angle. No, it wasn't her wrist, but the very end of her forearm. A second wave of adrenaline dragged her right back up to that peak she'd been coming down from. "Oh, fuck! Dude, my arm! Fuck, fuck, fuck!" She couldn't feel it, thank god, but just seeing it was enough to send her into a near panic.

Iida clicked his teeth. "Don't worry, you'll be okay. I know some first aid. We need to set the break and bind it. The sooner the better."

"Here, I… oh, man…" Sero rubbed at his head blearily. "I can give you some tape for the binding." He shuffled over to Jiro's other side and started tearing short strips of tape from the dispenser at his elbow. His helmet hung on his belt; visor shattered. He must have hit his head pretty hard when he landed.

"I'll see if I can find a first aid kit or something we can use as a splint!" She barely noticed Ojiro run off. Lucky him, being all uninjured.

"Aww shit, man, this is gonna hurt, isn't it?" Jiro winced as Iida probed around the break with his fingers. He nodded grimly. Maybe a bit too grimly. "It's just a broken arm, jeez! Lighten up. It's not like I'm dying or anything!" She halfheartedly punched Iida in the shoulder, and immediately regretted it when her knuckles bounced off his plastic armor. "Yeow, shit!"

"I'm afraid I cannot 'lighten up'". He actually bothered to make air quotes for that. What even was this guy? "Not until we are absolutely certain that there are no villains in the immediate vicinity."

"Alright, okay, fine! Just… just get it over with before the adrenaline wears off or something." Jiro thrust her broken arm at Iida, clutching at her forearm with a white-knuckle grip. She screwed her eyes shut when Iida grabbed her hand.

"This will hurt, Jiro, I'm sorry in adv-"

"Are you for real man? Just DO IT!"

A long, drawn out scream echoed through the USJ. Shigaraki heard it faintly from where he stood in the central plaza. It sounded like it came from the Flood Zone. He quirked an eyebrow. "Hmm? That was fast." He sighed and scuffed his soles against the concrete. The only 'person' around was Nomu, and it just stared blankly into the distance.

Kurogiri returned to his side through a wavering portal. "It is done, Tomura Shigaraki. The children have been scattered across the USJ, and Mirko has moved the crew onto the next phase of the plan."

"Whatever, I don't care about Mirko. Where the hell is All Might? I'm getting bored." He had already considered decaying Eraser Head's legs off to pass the time but decided that was just as boring as staring at a wall. It was no good if they weren't actually fighting back, and he seriously doubted Eraser would be getting up to fight any time soon. Mirko probably shattered his skull with that side kick.

For the first time, Shigaraki found himself somewhat envious of someone else's quirk. He'd always hated his own because it didn't have an off switch. It was useful. Strong even. But it was so infuriating to wake up in the middle of the night with a crumbling hole in the middle of your mattress. Sure, he'd always been able to see the merit of other quirks, but he'd never wanted any of them before.

The more he saw Mirko's quirk in action – the enhanced reflexes, strength, and hearing – the more versatile it seemed. Maybe he'd ask Teacher if he could have her quirk as a reward for killing All Might. Would he grow bunny ears? That would be… an acceptable trade-off, he supposed. As he thought about it, he realized her ears were strangely familiar. As of today, Shigaraki didn't think anything in the world was cute. It was more like he had a vague memory of thinking those ears were cute, a long, long time ago.

Like everything else under the sun, Shigaraki hated that feeling of familiarity.

The Conflagration Zone was aptly named. Shoto flew through a narrow service corridor, ducking under and around whistling jets of flame. He sucked in ragged breaths as he moved, spurred on by the constant advance of the thugs hounding him. Though they were large in number, individually they didn't amount to much. A legion of dime store punks easily immobilized with an unimpressed twitch of his right half.

He'd been confident in his victory until the insidious heat melted his ice enough for them to break out. So, he froze them again, and again, and a third time. After the fourth he decided to cut his losses and run. He could easily hold his own against them, but he couldn't manage to fight both the villains and the environment simultaneously.

Breathing was difficult and Shoto wanted more than anything to blame the oppressive heat and smoke from the fire features all around the mock city. The gouts of flame came from small nozzles welded to the sides of a myriad of pipes on every conceivable surface. Thick smoke hung around the ceiling, sucked upward by great ventilator fans built into the containment dome above. The fire was controlled by the architecture of the Zone, directed and purposeful.

Fire is a dangerous thing. Without control, injury is inevitable, a concept beaten into him by his father. Despite UA's legendary reputation as the foremost hero academy in the eastern hemisphere, not even they would play with unconstrained fires. UA was in the business of training heroes, not burning them to a crisp.

Not suffocating them.

"Why . . . is it so . . . damn hard . . .to breathe?" Shoto gasped as he crashed through a set of double doors. Behind him, the doors snapped shut with finality. Shoto had just leapt headfirst into hell.

Endeavor towered over him, so cold for someone broiling with hellish flames. "What is this senseless cowering, Shoto? You are adapted to the heat, to the flames. Fire is nothing more than a tool to be bent to your will! Now use it!" Waves of Hellflame poured from Endeavor, crowding Shoto further into a corner of the dojo.

He was ripped from his memories by the shriek of tearing steel – the doors! – the villains had caught up. Shoto whirled to face his opponents.

His retreat placed him at the mouth of a snaky catwalk, suspended at a vertigo inducing height above an abyssal pit of flames. They lapped upward hungrily, calling to Shoto. The updraft buffeted him in waves, throwing his hair around wildly. A sign warned that this was the hottest part of the Conflagration Zone.

"It's not real, he isn't here. Villains are here and they don't even compare to him"

Inhale. Count to four. Exhale. Repeat.

"I will survive this."

The knot of anxiety in his gut grew tighter and tighter. Ice would do no good in small measures, not in this room. He would have to throw everything he had into his attacks, and even then, he wasn't confident that they would be effective.

A villain ducked under the top jamb of the ruined double doors, his bulk deforming the frame as he shouldered his way through it. A barrel-chested giant, he wore a leather rain slicker made up of patches of crudely stitched hide, held together with coarse waxed twine. A thick bundle of harpoons and the end of a bamboo blowgun protruded over the tops of his burly shoulders. A hoary beard and unruly eyebrows sat on his sun beaten face. Shoto's confidence withered and died on the spot. He took one step back, and the villain took one step forward.

"Well! That was a surprisingly good chase lad, you nearly lost us back in there. Should'a pressed the advantage while you had it. Ah well, I guess I should be pleased you put up more of a fight than the girl did." His broad shoulders shook with mirth as a deep belly laugh ripped through the room.

Shoto's blood ran cold.

"Girl? Who are you talking about? Explain yourself!"

"Now, now, untwist your panties lad, you're not the one in charge here. Oh, fine!" He barked a laugh. "You convinced me, so I guess I'll humor you," Whaler reached over his shoulder.

Shoto tensed, expecting an attack, but the villain didn't draw a weapon, no, he pulled a person from behind his back.

"Yaoyorozu! Let her go!" Forgetting his fear, Shoto took a furious step forward. Hoarfrost spiderwebbed across his right cheek, a puff of steam came from his nose. The villain dangled Yaoyorozu by her thick hair. By the look of things, she was out cold. Blood from a broken nose was smeared across her face. Her hands and ankles were bound in sturdy leather cordage.

"Not to brag, but I always was a natural born hunter. Bit of a loaner too I suppose. So, you can imagine my delight when I flushed this pretty thing here from her hiding spot, all by my lonesome self. Well… when life puts a juicy opportunity on your plate, you can hardly resist, can you? What exquisite skin she has. She'll do nicely, yes, yes!"

"To… do… ro… ki?" He could scarcely make out Yaoyorozu's croaking over the rushing updraft.

Slurred speech, unfocused eyes, sluggish movement – she was sedated, or maybe concussed. The bamboo dart with a blue tuft embedded in her right thigh supported the first theory.

"Ah! You know each other then? Marvelous, marvelous, we're having a little family reunion then, lad! Though, you should be careful what you ask for, boy," He swung his arm out to the side, dangling Momo off the edge of the catwalk, "Be a shame if this pretty thing here were to be barbecued, yes, yes?"

Shoto carefully opened his hands placatingly. "Stop!"

The man bellowed with laughter, "That's about what the she said before I got her, oh you should'a heard her caterwaulin'! 'No! I don't want to die here, someone help!'" He crowed in a mocking falsetto. He gripped the railing on the catwalk to steady himself and the whole structure groaned. A dark idea formed in Shoto's mind. Ruthless whispers coaxed him.

Momo swayed back and forth in the villain's grip, each booming laugh swayed her body from side to side. Shoto stared at her, hoping to make eye contact. He wanted to console her but couldn't risk the best opportunity he had to save her. Shoto settled on trying to comfort her without words. What would Midoriya say?

'I'll save you, because I am here!', or something to that effect.

Shoto hoped he could convey that with just a look but doubted that his quirk had a hidden telepathic factor. Regardless, his confidence returned in spades; he had found a purpose in this rotten situation. The licking flames lost their hold and the abrasive cackling rang hollow in Shoto's ears, both stripped of their power. He carefully shifted his weight and slid his right leg back.

"Oh lordy, what a day," the villain straightened and wiped the tears from his eyes. He brought the arm holding Yaoyorozu in close to his body. She hovered just over the guard rail.

"Caught me a good pelt and terrorized some UA whelps, I feel like this is the beginning of a new era of good, old fashioned villainy! A proper crime wave!"

"No."

"Eh-?"

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm putting a stop to this. Now." Shoto stomped down with all his tumultuous fury. He threw open the flood gates, letting tons of ice surge forth in all directions. Up to the ceiling, down to the burning pit, out to the sides. It was a race against the incredible heat of the room, a struggle against the painfully dry air rushing around him. Todoroki strained his quirk in a way he had never done before.

Plus Ultra!

Two things happened simultaneously: First, a pillar of ice the size of a small car smashed into the villain's chest, pushing him back and down, grinding his body into the catwalk. Next, the ice on the catwalk spread outward and upward at an angle, fighting against the heat to catch Yaoyorozu. The crackling of his ice and the shrill screeching of the ruined catwalk blended into a rabid funeral dirge.

The villain plunged down, down into the waiting maw of Shoto's frigid hate. The flames that would have sucked the air from his lungs and granted him a fast death were snuffed. Snow fell in fat flakes from the billowing clouds of steam. Shoto felt grim satisfaction as Momo's body shot down the crude ice track he made to rescue her.

"I've got you!" He willed a slick ramp into existence behind him just in time for Momo to take his legs out from under him. He clung to her, shielding her head with his arms as her momentum launched them up and over the winding catwalk and towards the exit. He watched the villain fall to certain death and for a moment, it seemed as though Shoto had even frozen time with his ice. He saw the fear in those beady eyes just before the world caught up.

Shoto and Yaoyorozu crashed into the far wall of the room. Winded, Todoroki staggered to his feet and picked up Momo in a firefighter carry. He didn't stop running until they were outside the burning maze. He made his way to a control room – usually staffed by UA faculty – and set her down before he collapsed.

Tsuyu applied to UA knowing full well that she wasn't a fighter. She wanted to be a rescue hero. Someone that people could depend on in their time of need. She even had a name and a theme picked out by the beginning of middle school, and it hadn't changed since. Rainy Season Hero: Froppy. It was a good name. Her parents liked it. Her siblings thought it was cool. It made her happy.

Deep in the downpour zone, in what would have been the lobby of a real-world building, Tsuyu hid under the reception desk. She'd pulled the chair in after she crawled under, and then curled into a tight little ball, hoping nothing looked amiss from the outside of her hiding spot. If only she had more of an interest in fighting, maybe she'd have bothered to learn about self-defense before she got into UA. She'd scored a dozen or so villain points at the entrance exam, sure, but those villains were robots. They didn't think, they just acted out their programming, and there was a big red off-switch on all of them. She probably wouldn't have passed if it weren't for the hidden rescue point system.

"Man, what the hell is going on? Shigaraki promised us some action, so where is everyone?" Footsteps, heavy and slow, moved around the desk. Tsuyu curled in tighter, taking slow, shallow breaths through her nose.

"Ah, I dunno. I feel like this is a pretty good deal though. I mean, didn't the kid say they were after All Might? Doubt that's going to be pretty, and honestly, I'd rather be tucked away in here while all that shit goes down."

Tsuyu thought she was going to have a heart attack when the chair was yanked out of its place. Whoever had walked around the desk sat heavily in it. They looked frighteningly large from what Tsuyu could see. He leaned back and propped his feet up on the desk. His boots made a near deafening thump… thump. Tsuyu shivered.

"'sides, you saw how Mirko zeroed the guy that made the crack about her tits, yeah? Do you really wanna be running around out there with her on the loose? Plus that Nomu guy. Blech! I'm good here, man."

The seated villain laughed. "Stupid fucker had to run his mouth, but can you blame him? She's a Grade A cut of meat. God-damn."

"I mean… I guess? If that's your thing…" The other one sounded unconvinced.

"What, you don't think she's hot?"

For a moment, Tsuyu frowned in confusion. This was a really uncomfortable conversation to listen to. She didn't really want to know what a villain who referred to a woman as "Grade A meat" would do if he caught her either.

"Well… I'm gay? So… not really?"

"Oh. Oh! Shit dude, I'm sorry. I- I shouldn't have assumed."

"No, no, it's… uh, it's fine. Don't worry about it."

The seated villain dropped one of his feet to the floor and readjusted the chair. The sole of his boot clacked harshly on the floor.

Tsuyu accidently let a distressed croak slip out. She clamped down on her mouth with both hands. No!

"Shh, shh! …you hear that?"

She heard one of them whisper "desk". Tsuyu closed her eyes and though of her parents, and of her little brothers and sisters. I love you! She heard shuffling, then a horribly loud clatter as the chair was thrown back, smashing into the wall behind the desk.

"Gotcha brat! Hey- the fuck? There's nothing here!"

Tsuyu's eyes popped open in disbelief. She nearly screamed at the sight of the villain crouched scarcely a meter from her. Whoever they were, they wore some kind of gas mask with sharp metal protrusions riveted to it. He stared right through her. Confused and terrified, Tsuyu didn't move a muscle.

Another head peaked under the desk from above. Short red hair and a bland face. Much less bulky than the one in the gas mask. "Huh. Must have been the desk itself? Looks pretty old."

Gas-Mask reached under the desk, pawing around at the air. His stubby fingers came a hairs-breath from touching Tsuyu's knees.

With her heart hammering against her ribs so hard, she thought she might drop dead on the spot. Can't they see me?

"Fuckin trippy man." Gas-Mask stood, and the other villain disappeared from view. "Should probably move on, look for those brats or somethin'." He groused, stomping around front of the desk.

The redhead started ribbing the other about being afraid of ghosts on the way out. When Tsuyu couldn't hear them anymore, she pried her hands off her face. She accidentally smacked herself in the face, and at that moment she realized how she got so lucky. Her hands were transparent. No, not just her hands, but her whole body. Tsuyu carefully crawled out from under the desk, then turned her hands this way and that, looking at the room through them. It wasn't a perfect invisibility like Hagakure's, more of an active camouflage with some distortion, but she'd wager that in the dark or in the rain she'd blend right in with her surroundings.

How incredible. No one in her family could turn almost-invisible, and they all had frog related quirks. Did any frogs in nature have an ability remotely like this? As she thought, Tsuyu realized her fear had diminished – if only a little – now that she had a way to getting out of here. New plan:

1. Get out of the downpour zone in one piece.

2. Find Midoriya and the others.

3. Find a way to call for help.

4. Go home with all your friends and teachers happy and healthy

5. Learn to fight.

"Kero kero."