Much like Shouta, Hitoshi had the sometimes uncanny ability to pretend to be asleep. Also like Shouta, he used said ability to listen in on conversations around him. Was it a morally questionable thing to do? Yes. Did they do it anyway? Also yes. Which was exactly why he heard the horrifically disgusting things Mineta said to Yaoyorozu as she helped direct the last few students into their seats. It made Hitoshi feel sick and they weren't even aimed at him.

Hitoshi opened his eyes and straightened up from his slumped position, firmly set on putting the rotten grape in his place.

"Hey Mineta," Hitoshi said, leaning across the aisle towards him as Yaoyorozu sat down, face red with embarrassment.

"What?" Mineta replied. Suddenly his eyes got a gleam that made Hitoshi want to gag. "You're the one with the Brainwashing Quirk, right?"

Hitoshi nodded. "Yes."

The girls all grew pale, realizing how much danger they could be in if Hitoshi and Mineta teamed up.

The gleam in Mineta's eyes brightened, but Hitoshi cut him off before he could say anything.

"Do you know what drinking bleach feels like?" Hitoshi asked, not blinking as he stared down at Mineta, head tilted slightly. "It's horribly painful. It burns on the way down, and it burns even worse on the way back up when you vomit. It's truly an indescribable agony, but I would say it feels like a burning knife being taken to your stomach, throat, and mouth over, and over, and over again. I bet it would be even worse if someone forced you to drink it."

Mineta shrank away from Hitoshi, who leaned a bit closer, still not blinking.

"Shinsou, you shouldn't threaten our classmates!" Iida scolded, standing up and doing his odd hand chop motion.

"I wasn't threatening him, just sharing a fact," Hitoshi replied, still staring down Mineta.

"How do you even know that?" Uraraka asked, looking very disturbed. Hitoshi broke eye contact with Mineta and met hers.

"I know a lot of strange things," he said before returning to his slumped, pretending to be asleep position, and ignoring his classmates.

o~0~o~0~o

Shouta smirked to himself under his scarf as he listened to Hitoshi.

"Mineta," he called. "Get off the bus and go to the Principal's office. You'll wait there for me to get back from this class. UA has a zero tolerance policy for harassment, which means you are expelled."

"What?!" Mineta shrieked.

"I know you heard me. Do not make me repeat myself. Do as I said, now."

Mineta cowered under Shouta's glare and scurried off the bus. Shouta turned to Yaoyorozu. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, still red. "I'll be fine."

"Good. If something like that happens again, to any of you," he directed that part to the whole class, "tell me. I'll take care of it."

After getting many nods of confirmation, Shouta told the bus driver they were ready to go. As the bus started moving he started thinking.

Shouta knew where Hitoshi's knowledge of what drinking bleach felt like came from. He would always remember holding his newly adopted son as Hizashi called an ambulance. Bloody bile had dripped down Hitoshi's chin as he gagged, his whole body shaking. The memory showed up in Shouta's nightmares sometimes, and always left him with tears on his cheeks when he woke up.

Hizashi and he had known Hitoshi wasn't in a good place when they adopted him, but they hadn't realized just how bad it was. They were careful, locking up anything that could be dangerous. They hadn't expected Hitoshi to steal money out of their wallets and buy bleach with it. In retrospect Shouta had felt beyond stupid. That was exactly the kind of thing he would have done as a teenager if he was in Hitoshi's shoes.

Shouta forced himself out of the memories. That was three years ago. Hitoshi was doing so much better now. Yes, there were bad days and times he hurt himself, but they were growing fewer and further between.

o~0~o~0~o

After the Mineta incident Hitoshi decided to take advantage of his pretending to be asleep pose to try and actually fall asleep. He was just about to doze off when his phone buzzed in his pocket, making him jump a bit. He pulled it out to see a message from the Truble Trio chat.

Strawberry: We had a free period and decided to see how much Izuku can deadlift.

Attached was a video file, so Hitoshi clicked on it. Izuku was laying on a bench in the gym with one of his classmates, a burly guy with white and brown hair, as his spotter. Izuku had changed into a tank top, which showed off the way the muscles in his scar and freckle covered arms flexed and strained as he lifted the barbell. He held it with his arms fully straightened for a few seconds before lowering it. He almost dropped it, but managed to put it back on the rack safely with the help of his spotter.

Mei cheered from out of frame and Izuku sat up with a wide grin, looking very proud of himself.

Hitoshi's face was burning. Because Izuku used his upper body and arms for everything, including a whole lot of moving very heavy pieces of metal, he was very muscular everywhere above the waist. The sweat from his workout was making the tank top stick to his skin, outlining more of his muscles, and he had a deep flush to his grinning face.

"Ooo, someone's face is red!" Ashido called, drawing attention to Hitoshi. He put his phone back in his pocket and hid his face in his scarf, groaning as Ashido continued to tease him, asking who the lucky lady was.

"You need to stop teasing him!" Iida reprimanded Ashido. "He's clearly uncomfortable!"

Hitoshi opted to put on his noise cancelling headphones for the rest of the ride.

o~0~o~0~o

When they got to the USJ Thirteen was there to greet them. She told the class about it, clearly excited and passionate about the building she had designed. It made Hitoshi smile.

When she was done, Thirteen led them all down the stairs and to the water area. By the time they got to the bottom Hitoshi was a bit out of breath. He dreaded the walk back up.

"Can anyone here not swim?" Thirteen asked the class. No one raised their hand. "Good! So today we're going to be starting off nice and simple with a few bridge rescue exercises. You'll be working in randomly assigned trios based off of your seat numbers and a random draw. One of you will be the victim pretending to drown and the other two will be the heroes saving them."

Thirteen used a number generator on her phone to assign the teams. Hitoshi ended up with Kirishima and Sero. Kirishima was enthusiastic, but Sero seemed a little nervous around Hitoshi.

"You three go first!" Thirteen called, pointing at the group that consisted of Iida, Asui, and Koda. "Iida, you'll be the victim. Everyone watch, you can learn from them to improve your own run."

Hitoshi watched as his classmates did their run. Tsu was easily able to grab Iida and pull him up with her tongue, and Koda took off Iida's water filled helmet. The class praised them, Thirteen gave them a few tips, and then the next group got to go.

Hitoshi's group was third. He was the victim.

He climbed up onto the railing and just as he was about to let himself fall he had a thought. "My support gear is waterproof, right? Because I have multiple weapons with an electric charge."

"I don't know," Shouta admitted. "You should probably call and ask. Next group, you go while he does that."

Hitoshi got off the railing and walked a little ways away, Kirishima and Sero trailing after him. Hitoshi clicked Izuku's contact and lifted his phone to his ear.

"Hey Toshi!" Izuku greeted cheerfully, picking up on the second ring. Hitoshi could vaguely hear the banging of metal and whirring of various power tools in the background.

"Sorry to interrupt your class, but I need to know if my gear is waterproof. I really don't want to have it go off while I'm in the water."

"Oh, did I forget to mention the water safety feature? Sorry about that. You don't have to worry, all of your electric gear is designed to shut off completely when it makes contact with water."

"Wonderful. Is there anything else I should know?"

"What fun is there if I tell you every little feature of your gear?" Hitoshi could practically hear Izuku's grin.

"You're insufferable. I love you."

"Love you too Toshi!"

With that Hitoshi hung up and tucked his phone away, making sure to seal the pocket so he wouldn't lose it. Kirishima and Sero were watching him with open curiosity, but didn't say anything.

"Good news, I won't turn this lake into a death pool," Hitoshi said as he walked back over to the teachers. Uraraka, Todoroki, and Tokoyami had just finished their run.

"That is good news," Thirteen replied. "How about you three go next?"

Hitoshi gave her a thumbs up and climbed up onto the railing again, letting himself fall and going completely limp in the water as he started to sink. A moment later Kirishima dove after him, swimming down to Hitoshi and grabbing his shirt to pull him back up.

Hitoshi struggled a bit, but Kirishima easily pulled him to the surface, where Sero pulled them up with his tape.

Sero and Kirishima quickly became focused on their classmates, smiling widely as they accepted the praise. Just like a real hero with the media, Hitoshi thought, standing up. Well, this is training, so I can show them their mistake easily enough.

Hitoshi met Shouta's eyes, winked, and collapsed, going ragdoll limp and closing his eyes. A few of his classmates cried out, and a moment later someone was shaking his shoulder. Hitoshi didn't react, holding his breath.

"He's not waking up!" Kirishima said, panicked. "Sensei, what do we do?"

"AH!" Hitoshi sat up with a yell, causing Kirishima to fall back with a scream of shock. Hitoshi lay back down and started laughing, grinning widely.

"What the hell man?!" Sero demanded.

"You don't just leave a drowning victim," Hitoshi said through his laughter. "If this was real I could have died."

"He's right, even if this wasn't the best way to teach you that," Shouta sighed deeply. "Get up, Problem Child."

"The floor is so comfortable though," Hitoshi shot back, grinning.

Shouta grabbed Hitoshi by the scruff of his suit and hauled him to his feet. "Go stand with the rest of the class, you're wasting time."

Hitoshi walked back over to the class, standing towards the back of the herd. His classmates were not so subtly staring at him, probably wondering how he wasn't terrified of Shouta.

o~0~o~0~o

Hitoshi decided to change outside of a stall when they got back to UA. That turned out to be a mistake. A moment after he pulled his shirt off he heard a sharp intake of breath.

"What happened to your back?" Kirishima asked, stunned.

Hitoshi stiffened and quickly put on his uniform shirt, hiding his many scars. "None of your business."

"But there are so many," Kirishima said. When Hitoshi looked at him his face was full of worry. "Did someone do that to you? Are you in danger?"

Logically, Hitoshi knew Kirishima was just worried, but his scars were a sore spot and he didn't like talking about them. His eyes flitted over his classmates. They were all watching. They all had looks of horror, worry, and disgust.

"I said it's none of your business." His tone was sharper this time.

"If someone's hurting you, you need to tell a teacher," Kirishima insisted, stepping forward. "Those scars are bad."

"I said it's none of your business!" Hitoshi snapped, glaring. "I'm fine."

He grabbed his costume case and clothes and retreated to a stall, regretting his decision to ever leave its protection.

o~0~o~0~o

Eijirou was scared. The amount of scars Shinsou had was beyond worrying and Eijirou thought he was probably being abused. He planned to talk to Aizawa, but the stoic man was nowhere to be seen. Eijirou did, however, run into Midnight, almost literally. She caught him by the shoulders, helping steady him.

"Watch where you're going!" She joked, smiling at him and letting go of his shoulders. Well, she wasn't his first choice but she was a teacher and a hero.

"Can I talk to you, alone?" He asked her.

"Of course. There's an empty classroom right over here."

She led him to the classroom and sat on the teacher's desk, legs crossed. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I think Shinsou is being abused," Eijirou told her, wringing his hands nervously.

"Why is that?" Midnight asked, leaning on her knees.

"We were changing out of our hero costumes and he was covered in scars. There were so many and whatever caused them must have been really, really bad."

Midnight nodded. "You did the right thing by telling me. You don't have to worry, Shinsou is safe."

Eijirou nodded, shoulders slumping with relief. "I'm glad."

"Please make sure to always come to me or another teacher if you ever think someone is in danger, alright? You might be wrong, but being wrong and telling is better than being right and staying quiet," Midnight told him.

Eijirou nodded. "I understand."