Hello earthlings! I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.

"Alright!" the brown-haired Hero called out, standing in front of the group of teenagers with her arms crossed. "Listen up! This isn't going to be a vacation for any of you! You are going to have to work hard, pushing yourselves to your limits and learning how to compensate for any possible weaknesses! After this is done, you will be much more capable future Heroes, but during these two weeks, you will most likely start to hate all of us and your chosen career! Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

"Wow," Sero whispered to Kaminari, a few feet away from Koji. "She's kind of…"

"Way more intense than she was yesterday."

"Are you done talking?" the male Hero asked, putting one hand on his hip and glaring at the two boys, who instantly went quiet and looked forward. That was typical with that group. Koji had mostly learned to ignore it.

They were definitely not the most social being in the class. For that reason, they weren't really close to any of their classmates. Of course they liked Jiro, and the others they'd been in a group with for the exam were nice, so they counted them as friends. But they didn't communicate with anyone in the class besides the three or four they were comfortable with.

Basically, they hadn't really been looking forward to the training camp. Being around people all day was exhausting, and they'd wanted to spend their break at home with their animals, lying in the forest or in their cave. But Koji's mother had encouraged them to go, saying that she thought it'd help them make more friends and become better at talking to animals or something, so Koji was there. At least it was in the woods. There were a lot of animals around, and whenever they'd woken up in the middle of the night and had felt too pressed in by all the humans, they'd just focused on listening to the animals talk. UA had animals around it, yes, but most of them were shyer and didn't come too close to the dorms unless Koji told them to, which they usually tried not to because all animals deserved freedom and they didn't want to control them.

The brown-haired Hero (her name might have been Sosaki but Koji wasn't really the best at remembering names) kept talking as she broke the kids up into groups. "As you all probably know, you missed the midday deadline yesterday, and while 1-B missed it also, they missed it by a much smaller margin than all of you. You all need to work on your speed and your ability to adapt to new situations."

Koji had tried, they really had. There just hadn't been any animals that were super helpful in that situation around. They'd tried talking to the monster-things, but for some reason it hadn't worked. Some creatures were just like that, depending on both the level of sentience and whether or not something or someone else was already controlling them. So they'd been mostly useless. But they had helped Kaminari and Ashido take out one of them by actually fighting, which they were kind of proud of.

"Koji Koda?" The blond woman, Tsuchikawa maybe, smiled at them reassuringly. "Come join my group."

Her group was them, Jiro, Hagakure, and Aoyama. Which was a strange group, but at least one person Koji was at least somewhat comfortable with was in it. Jiro was probably their best friend in the class.

"Alright," Tsuchikawa said, hands behind her back. "I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. The four of you are the weakest fighters. While you all have useful skills of your own, in a real fight, they won't be very useful. I think you all know that. So during this camp, I'm going to teach you a variety of new moves so that, if you ever actually fight someone, you'll be prepared."

Koji looked at Jiro, who shrugged. They all knew that none of them were really good fighters. It wasn't a secret, but honestly, Koji had been hoping that they'd never actually have to learn to fight. Physical movement wasn't their strength, or any of the Druid's strength. They were all made of rock. Fighting depended largely on speed, which is hard when one is literally made out of rock. But Koji thought that Jiro would be good at fighting. She was fast, and she was good at striking people but not actually… fighting them. But clearly she'd done ok during the USJ incident.

Which had almost resulted in Koji being pulled out of school, on top of them nearly dying because there were no animals so they'd had to improvise and depend on people who, at that point, they didn't know at all to defend them, which was… awful. Really, really awful.

"Well!" Tsuchikawa smiled at all of them, and Koji started to relax. Maybe all of it wouldn't be as bad as Sosaki had made it seem. "Should we get started?"

Kaminari groaned, flopping down on the ground and lying there. "Is this hell?"

"No, dumbass, this is the camp you signed up for." But Sero was also lying on the ground, staring up at the sky.

It had been one day, and Fumikage was more exhausted than he'd been in years. Usually demons had more stamina than humans, but all of the drudgery and toil…

All of the students had been forced through hours of both individual and whole group training, fighting and using their abilities and increasing the strength of their minds and bodies. That part was relatively easy for Fumikage, but some of his classmates had struggled. For him, the hard part had been the endless releasing and pulling in of his Dark Shadow.

For one thing, it wasn't dark. The monster within was severely weakened during the day which, while it made controlling it much easier, made it harder to force it to manifest at all. Also, Fumikage hated letting the Shadow out. It tore at his mental barriers, trying to force its way fully into his mind, trying to make him a viscous, bloodthirsty demon just like most humans presumed him to be. Forcing it out over and over and over again had filled him with pain within his soul. All that he wanted was to lay down and try to sleep and forget about all of the madness within him, but that madness turned itself into dreams, which had the potential to make his time sharing a room with his classmates uncomfortable.

"No time for relaxing now!" Chatora bellowed, striding between the tables and the prone students. "Gotta get to work! You all will be making your own dinner tonight, so get a move on!"

"I don't know how to cook," Kirishima muttered. Somehow Fumikage had ended up surrounded by the loudest people in the class. He wasn't sure how or why that had happened.

"You don't know how to fucking cook? How? You're sixteen!"

"I never had to learn! Neither does Ashido!"

Bakugo groaned loudly. He had not collapsed with the rest of his… teammates. Fumikage was not sure how the argumentative boy viewed his relationship with the four. "Right. Guess you shits'll have to watch me work."

"Thanks!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Since you idiots always hang around me, it'll look bad if you don't know basic life skills. Just don't get in my way and try to force that rock you call a brain to learn something!"

"We won't!"

"Tokoyami," Shoji said, approaching Fumikage from the front. "Do you know how to cook?"

"No. Demons don't really… cook."

"Ah. Well, would you like to work with Koda and I?"

Fumikage nodded and followed the taller human to the table where the Druid was already waiting.

It had started as a friendship of convenience. The three of them, along with Ashido who already knew Kirishima when she started school, were the most non-human appearing among the students. They had been drawn to each other, a process that had sped up once Fumikage and Shoji had started using sign language. Eventually it had evolved into a true friendship. During the exam, Shinso and Jiro had joined their small group. While he was more human than the first three, the purple-haired boy still understood what it was like to be hated simply because of what you were. And even though she was completely (as far as anyone knew) human, she was a quiet girl and seemed to… it sounded strange, but it seemed as if she understood Fumikage's monsters, as if she had several of her own.

Before starting at the school, Fumikage had been nervous. He had been one of the first two demon students ever accepted, so he'd been certain that he would face injustices. For the first few months, he'd been forced to board in an entirely separate building from the rest of the students. Even Ashido, despite not having a Dark Shadow, had had to have her room well-barricaded and locked at night, both of which were facts most of their classmates did not know. However, no one really noticed if he spent the night in the common room with the rest of the class, and the principal had told him that Fumikage would be getting a room with the other students after the break, which was an intriguing prospect.

Students from the other classes were still cruel often, but the ones in his class had quickly gotten used to his presence. Some of them it'd taken longer, but overall they were fairly accepting by that stage of the year. Even Prince Todoroki had accepted the demons' presence though that could be because the young man had not spoken to anyone for the first half of the semester and, after that, he'd mostly kept to Midoriya's group and Yaoyorozu. And also possibly because he just did not really care about any of the other students in either a positive or negative way.

Things were not perfect. But Fumikage hadn't lost control of Dark Shadow in a long time. The school was beginning to open itself further up to him. And he was beginning to have true hope that he would be one of the first true demon Heroes.

"So," Shoji said, gesturing with one hand at the spread of ingredients on the table. "What should we be making?"

"Yaoyorozu told me to help make the drinks," Koda signed. Most of the items on the table did look like they would be used for preparing fruit juices. The issue arose with the fact that Fumikage had no idea how they were supposed to do that. Demons did not typically drink juices. In fact, normally they did not consume anything besides raw meat and whatever edible plants they stumbled upon in the woods. There was no preparation or cooking of food. However, Shoji was a fairly good cook, so he would trust his friend's judgement on how to carry out their task.

As it turned out, Fumikage was not exceptional at cutting and squeezing the fruits into their respective glasses. It required more skill than he'd initially assumed. Eventually, though, he finished, poured what Koda told him was a respectable amount of sugar into the glasses, and brought it all to the main table. A few minutes later the others finished the curry dish and flatbread they'd been assigned to make.

Fumikage did not like most human food, and the curry was no exception. It tasted like it had been made by a group of teenagers, most of whom had never cooked before. But it was passable, he supposed.

As they cleaned up, Fumikage ended up working next to Todoroki. The young prince was working just as hard as the other students, picking up trash that had been scattered around during the meal making. Fumikage was somewhat impressed. Not behavior he'd expected from a prince.

Despite the years of abuse that his father had heaped onto the demons, Fumikage had found himself somewhat liking Todoroki. Yes, he was not friendly, but he had become less intense since the start of the year. And he did not talk that much, which automatically elevated him above many of Fumikage's classmates.

"How was your training?" Todoroki said after a few minutes of silence.

"It was pure darkness. Yours?"

"Yeah, that." They were quiet for a few more minutes.

And then they had finished. No one went to the hot springs that night. Instead, essentially everyone simply crashed into their sleeping mats. Fumikage lay awake for several hours, despite the exhaustion creeping through him. His mind was alight with thoughts of darkness, thoughts that had been brought to him by his Shadow. He had never released and pulled back in his Shadow as much as he had done that day, and the darkness in his mind was proof of the price.

It had been growing stronger. That was normal. As the demon host got stronger, typically the Shadow did as well, growing and shifting. But it was worrisome in many ways.

Sometimes, Fumikage wondered if he was losing control of his Shadow. If one day it would take over him, destroying all that he was completely and forcing him to hurt the things he cared about, forcing him to hunt and kill humans. He would fight that dark fate, but he might be too weak to succeed. He'd tried to tell the adult Heroes about his fears, but they simply told him to push through, to be stronger than his demon, but they did not understand. They were humans. They had never seen good people, their friends, be taken over by a demon inside them-

He would not let that happen to him. He could not let his darkness take over him.

But just in case, he resolved that night to speak to his parents about the topic, which he had avoided so far, as soon as the camp was over. For the remaining two weeks, he would be able to force back the darkness within, and even if it did take him over, it would happen in daylight training, so the monster would be weak and the other Heroes could easily handle it.

After all, it wasn't as if he would be forced to release his Shadow at night.

"Ooh, are you a girl?" Toga chirped, instantly running over to bother the newest arrival to the bar.

The red-haired woman stared at the girl, looking confused. "Yes…?"

"Cool! There are no other girls here, it's so boring! I'm Toga, and I'm a vampire!"

"I'm Magne."

Tomura was kind of amused by how the woman interacted with the girll. He knew how hard it was to not react to Toga when one was first meeting her. She was a bit… much, but she was useful. She'd only joined about a week ago, but she had already proved that. Dabi, though… Dabi hadn't really done anything. To be honest, Tomura really didn't like him, but Master had approved of him, so Tomura wouldn't kill him. Yet

A few other new members had been allowed to join since then too. There was Spinner, who was an animal spirit with a sword. At first he'd seemed to have morals, which had given Tomura some doubts about him, but he was also intensely dedicated to the League. There was something about him that made it so Tomura had no doubts about his loyalty. His skill… that wasn't really clear, but he seemed good enough. He didn't talk like he thought he was the best swordman ever, but he also didn't downplay what he could do, which was a good sign. He also wasn't… bad company. Tomura had found himself kind of enjoying some of their conversations about old stories and myths. He hadn't met anyone yet who cared as much about the Heroes and epic battles from legends.

Twice, though… the young man constantly wore a mask. Most of the people there used code names, yeah, but none of them wore masks. What was the point? However, Twice always had on some black and gray mask, and Tomura had no idea what he looked like. He also was a little strange, mentally. It seemed like there were multiple people living in his body, and sometimes he would start talking and then contradict himself and then contradict that over and over again. To be honest, Tomura had been concerned that he would just be a liability, but Master had said that the guy was capable. And he did have an interesting skill. Apparently a long time ago he'd been cursed so that he'd split into a bunch of different people, each with the same personality and appearance. Then all those different versions of themselves had killed each other, and somehow he'd gotten convinced that he wasn't the original guy. Which was a little weird but whatever. After that, for some reason he'd been able to make different versions of himself whenever he wanted, and, if he really tried, he could make clones of other people too. So yeah, he would definitely be useful. As long as he didn't snap and screw up a mission so Tomura would have to kill him.

Then there was Mr. Compress, which was a stupid name. He was older, probably around Kurogiri's age (whatever that was) and he'd somehow found some magical tiny globes that trapped whoever he wanted in them. It was really interesting, and there was a small part of Tomura that wanted to ask him exactly how it worked, but he'd decided not to. That might mess up his authority as a leader. Anyways, the man wasn't very remarkable. Mostly kept to himself, but seemed dependable.

Those were the main new people, the ones who were actually allowed into the bar. There were others- some guy named Muscular, for one- who Tomura would just meet them in random places. The League was pretty popular, which was still very strange, so people were still looking to join. Master had approved some of them to be part of the League, but he hadn't approved them to help with planning or be really important to whatever the mission was.

Which was a good thing, because even though Toga and the rest of them didn't stay in the bar, the fact that they were there at all was annoying as hell. None of them had any idea what "peace and quiet" meant, and all they did was make noise and take up space, but Master wanted them there for planning things. So they would stay there. But more people… that would drive Tomura insane. If he wasn't already.

The only other person allowed into the bar was some old guy named Giran. Apparently he had a lot of contacts and actually had been the one to recommend a few of the new League members to Master. And Master trusted him. For some reason. He wasn't there most of the time, but Tomura was sure he'd pop back up and then there'd be another person annoying him.

He looked closely at the new recruit- some villain with earth sorcery who could manipulate metal. Magne. She'd seemed decent enough, when she'd come into the bar to meet Master the day before. And by decent, not too annoying. Other than that, he knew nothing about her. She looked like the kind of person who'd be good in a fight, though, and that along with Master's trust was all Tomura needed to know about her. Toga seemed to like her. Which was irrelevent.

None of them were anything close to being friends. They were all villains. They all knew that the others would stab them in the back if needed and that they could never, under any circumstances, trust anyone. But everyone at least tolerated Toga, looking at her like some kind of weird little sister or some shit. And Spinner… he seemed trustworthy. Too much of a fanatic to ever betray Tomura or the cause. For some reason, Tomura kind of actually liked the guy. That was an odd feeling..

"So, Shigaraki," the lizard person called from where he sat next to Twice. "What's our first mission?"

"I can't talk about it until Dabi gets here. Always late, the little shit."

"He's not any younger than you, sir," Kurogiri said from behind the bar, sounding slightly amused. Having that many new people around was not having a good effect on the bartender. Apparently even weird shadow things could be sarcastic. Who knew?

"Dabi's always late," Twice said. "He probably just has a lot of stuff going on… or he's betraying us to the Heroes! Kill him! He might just be busy…"

"Dabi doesn't seem like the type to have anything to do with the Heroes." Compress cocked his head at Tomura. "In fact, he seems like the top who would want nothing to do with any group. I'm honestly surprised he agreed to join the League at all."

"I just thought to myself, 'why not?'"

Dabi waltzed into the bar, looking around like he wasn't fifteen minutes late. Gods, did Tomura dislike that guy. More than he disliked most people. The teenager (young man? Old man? Whatever) sat down on a stool next to Twice, who nodded at him like he hadn't just brought u[ murdering the guy.

"Right," Tomura said before anyone else could get any ideas about talking or leaving. "We have a new mission. How many of you heard about the assault on UA?"

"The one where you failed to beat an old man and a couple kids?"

Master would be angry with Tomura if he turned the other League members to dust. "Sure. Whatever. The old man was King All Might, but whatever. Well, the little kiddies are in a special training camp in the mountains, run by the Pussycats."

"The Pussycats?"

"Weak group of Heroes. Only one there with real power can just see things. Nothing special. We're going to be invading the training camp."

"Why the hell would we do that?"

Tomura should not turn Dabi to dust. He should not turn Dabi to dust. There'd probably be some consequences for that… but it'd be worth it. "Because Master told us to, that's why!"

"Yeah, no." Magne said, standing up and crossing her arms. "Your master's impressive and all, but I don't do things just because someone tells me to. Especially since there's no point to it. Why are you targeting these schoolkids again? Makes zero sense."

"Well, you're going to do what Master says."

"Or what?"

"Or I kill you."

"I'd like to see you try, creepy little shrimp."

Tomura reached out one hand and turned an empty bottle of beer lying on the floor near him to dust.

The others jumped back, a few of them cursing under their breath as they tried to put even more distance between them and Tomura. Toga was the only one who didn't move, grinning and clapping her hands. "Ooh, Shiggy, that was sooo cool! Do it again!"

"No."

"Aw, pretty please?"

Magne nodded at him, still looking kind of scared. "So… can you do that to humans?"

"Yeah, anything I want."

"Right, so, what's the goal of the mission?"

Tomura grinned beneath his hand. "Ever heard of the Dragon King?"

Izuku was exhausted.

It was the sixth day of training camp. They'd been working non-stop for all three days, fighting each other and working on their special skills or magical talents or whatever they had. While Izuku hadn't told them that he had the real Ruling Sword, they did know that he had a "replica" that enhanced his strength and speed "slightly", so they'd been spending time building on that. Yes, Izuku was aware that he still didn't have access to all of the strength and speed he was supposed to have, but he still wasn't really sure how to fix that problem without All Might's help and also it wasn't like the Pussycats could help him with that problem. At least he was getting physically stronger so that, even if he had to fight without the Sword, he probably wouldn't die immediately.

However, all of that training meant that by the end of every day, Izuku was sore, hungry, and exhausted. All he wanted to do was collapse down onto one of the mats and sleep for a year.

But nooo.

"We'll be doing something slightly different tonight," Sosaki said as the class worked to make their dinner. "After you eat, meet us in the center of the camp. We're doing a night time exercise."

As soon as she'd walked away, everyone groaned loudly.

Izuku had already had to run back and forth from the camp to the cliff about a mile away at his top speed for three hours nonstop that day. He didn't know what nighttime training meant, but it'd probably be miserable.

But it could be worse. He was training to become a Hero and, eventually, a better king. If the camp could really make him better, then he'd do whatever he had to.

"Be strong," Iida urged everyone, looking like he was absolutely exhausted but trying his best to fake it. Izuku admired that about him. "We are the future Heroes of Uyay, and we will prevail over anything this camp throws at us!"

"I'm not too sure about that, dude," Kaminari muttered.

As the kids started walking towards the clearing, Izuku saw Kota out of the corner of his eye. The boy was lurking in the cover of the trees, glaring at the teenagers and the Heroes and… well, pretty much everything.

Going over to him was probably a dumb decision. Last time he'd tried to talk to the kid, it had not ended well and he'd been even more sore then he would've been otherwise for the next two days. Besides, the boy had lost his parents recently. He probably just needed space.

So obviously Izuku started walking over to talk to him.

"Hey!" he called. Kota jumped, swiveling around and looking scared until he saw Izuku. Then he just looked mad.

"What do you want."

"I'm Izuku Midoriya! You're Kota, right?"

"You already told me your name."

"Oh, right, I did!" Izuku laughed. "Well, do you wanna come meet my friends?"

"Why would I wanna do that?"

"Are you sure? They're really nice."

"They're lame! You're lame!"

"Um…" Izuku hadn't been insulted by an eight-year-old since he was eight years old. "I'm… I'm sorry?"

"No you're not! You're a Hero, and Heroes are never sorry!" It looked like Kota was about to start crying. He suddenly turned around and sprinted off into the forest. As the sun set. Alone. Izuku tried to follow him but someone grabbed his shoulder.

"Let him go," Sosaki said, sighing. "He'll come back eventually."

"Is it safe?"

"He never leaves the area protected by the monsters. Usually he just goes up the mountain. Has a little cave on one of the cliffs. And he's a pretty smart kid, so I don't worry about him falling off or anything. It was nice of you to try and reach out to him, even after what happened last time."

Izuku nodded. "I wish… I wish I could help him."

"Really?"

"Yeah, of course!" Izuku wanted to help everyone who was hurting, especially little kids. Not many people really deserved to suffer, and he'd never met or heard about a little kid that deserved it. But Sosaki was looking at him like he'd said something weird.

"Wow."

"What?"

"Haven't met a lot of teenagers who'd go out of their way to help someone who kicked them between the legs the first time they'd met. Especially if they were basically strangers."

"We're Heroes. Isn't that what we're supposed to do?"

Sosaki didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Let's go back to the group."

Still a little confused, Izuku followed her back to the main group of students and teachers, standing between Iida and Uraraka.

"Alright," Aizawa said, sounding bored. As usual. "Instead of doing this, the kids who failed the knowledge exam'll be coming with me and Vlad King."

"Dammit," Kaminari whispered as he, Ashido, and Kirishima walked past Izuku. "I was hoping he'd forget tonight."

"It's Aizawa, he forgets nothing."

Uraraka made a face. Izuku knew that she'd come close to failing the knowledge exams but had passed, by a very small amount. No matter how torturous what they were about to do was, it had to be better than all of the extra late-night study sessions with Aizawa. And Monoma. Somehow Monoma was the only one from Class 1-B who hadn't passed the knowledge exam, which was weird because Izuku was pretty sure that he was really smart. He was insufferable, despite having a really, really interesting type of magic. If he was a nicer guy, Izuku would have already asked him three billion questions about how it worked.

"Alright, everyone else will be doing a Courage Exercise!" Tsuchikawa announced, stepping to the front of the group. "Everyone will be put into pairs. As soon as the sun has fully gone down, you will begin the exercise. The only rule is following that path around in a circle and then getting back to camp. It's not a race, you must walk the whole time, no matter what you think you hear or see. Teams will go in at one-minute intervals, and if you see another team you will hang back until they're out of sight and then continue, but slower. Clear?"

"Clear!"

"Group one will be Jiro and Hagakure, group two will be Tokoyami and Shoji-" A bunch of other groups, most of which seemed to have been assigned randomly. Izuku was paired with Komori, a Class 1-B student who might have been a mushroom spirit. Which was a little bit strange but she seemed nice and Izuku really wanted to quiz her on how her powers worked. He probably wouldn't have time to do that during the exercise, though, since he still didn't really know what was going to happen.

Izuku was set to go close to the end of the thing. About half the groups had already started on the trail. The boy was standing in the clearing talking to a few other Class 1-B students when the ground shook. A moment later Tsuchikawa cried out, grabbing her head.

"Something… something just attacked my snakes!"

The kids looked at each other, confused. "Um…" one of the 1-B students, Honenuki, said slowly. "Is this… is this part of the exercise?"

The adults didn't answer, all of them crowding around Tsuchikawa and asking a bunch of quick, urgent questions that no one else could hear. But they all knew, or at least all the 1-A kids knew.

It wasn't part of the exercise.

They were under attack.

"Listen up, everyone," Sosaki said finally, turning back to the kids. "All of you need to get back to-"

"What about the other kids?" someone asked.

"If there are villains in the forest, they're in a lot of danger!"

"We'll go look for them. All of you need to get to safety. Besides, your classmates are Hero students. They can take care of themselves."

Kota wasn't.

The eight-year-old was wandering around, alone on the mountainside while villains were attacking.

Without really thinking about it, Izuku sprinted off into the woods, pulling the Sword out to try and give himself extra strength as he ran through the dark towards the mountain. Iida and Sosaki yelled after him, but he couldn't think about that right then. Yeah, Aizawa would probably kill him later, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was the lost, angry little boy, alone as villains attacked.

And Izuku might have anxiety and a fear of confrontation with authority figures, but above all he was the future king.

More important than even that, he was a future Hero.

"Remember the goal," Tomura said as the Vanguard Action Squad- the core members and a few nobodies he'd found- dispersed over the mountainside, some looking for kids to torture, some looking for Heroes to kill, and a few looking for two specific boys to capture.

Despite the fact that Master had drilled it into his head over and over again that the mission was vitally important and he couldn't mess up again, Tomura couldn't help grinning. The ground shook below him, hopefully a sign that Spinner and whoever he had with him had killed the last snake-thing.

He was about to have so much fun.

Kota sniffed, wiping his eyes angrily as he looked out over the cliff. Aunt Shino didn't like him being that close to the edge, but he didn't care. He could do whatever he wanted.

That stupid Hero boy. It was all his fault! Kota hated him, hated every Hero!

They couldn't save the important people, so why would anyone else matter?

Aunt Shino promised Kota that one day he'd like the Heroes again, the way he'd done when he was a baby, but he wouldn't. He'd hate them forever. His parents were Heroes, but the other Heroes still hadn't been able to save them. Aunt Shino said that one day he'd understand why Heroes were important, but he wouldn't. All they did was ruin things and die.

Die, like Mama and Dad had died.

The boy flinched thinking about his parents. He tried not to think about them. Ever. It made him cry, and even though Aunt Shino said it wasn't, he knew crying was for babies. He looked back out over the mountainside and angrily wiped at another tear.

"Hey, kid."

Kota whipped around. A muscular blond man- a stranger, too old to be a student, too young to be a teacher, dangerous- had appeared behind him at some point. He smiled, but it wasn't a good smile. The kind of smile that was scary.

"What're you doing all alone up here?"

So excited for this arc! Also I don't remember who Midoriya was originally paired with but I like Komori so now he's paired with her because it doesn't really matter! Leave a review with questions, constructive criticism, and/or words of encouragement! Later, potaters!