"What's that sound? Is that your whole body creaking?" the villain yelled. "Are you losing it?

I can only maintain this form for about 30 or 40 seconds, no longer. But during that time no one can beat me! "TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT ME!" I yelled at him. "I'll just blow you away!" he screamed back, and threw the daggers at me in a super concentrated stab straight into me.

The people behind me haven't run away yet. And there're probably still people in some of these shops. Gotta get him to focus those blades on me. I am the hardening man. No parlor tricks. Just a bulldozer. I can overwhelm him! "ULTIMATE MOVE! RED GUN TURRETT!" I shouted as I punched him at unbreakable across the alleyway.

"So young yet so ferocious," I heard a civilian cry out.

"TAKE THAT!" I said that out loud, by inside I was thinking I'm right at my limit. That was close.

And I couldn't believe it but that guy was crying!

He's back to being a crybaby like before he injected himself. Does the effect wear off?

"All I wanted to do was get stronger!" he yelled at me. "Please just lemme go! I'm just a pathetic guy who wanted to taste power!"

"No can do. You shot my senpai. I get how you feel, though. a while back I -"

"I DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR SOB STORY, MORON!" he screamed at me, and using his knives - blew past me.

"I'm an idiot!" I cried.

"What a chump! Just gullible enough to save my bacon! I'm gonna get away, you'll never catch me!" he yelled as he sped towards the alleyway - too - too fast for me to catch -

And Fatgum arrived in time to stop him!

"Fatgum!" I cried.

"Sorry I'm late!" he called back. "During villain encounters, the enemy wins if he kills you, gets away, beats you, etc! We have only one route to victory! Capture the villain before he causes harm! Remember this lesson red riot When fighting villains, quickly making them lose the will to fight is everything!"

I had to give it my all just to struggle against this guy, but Fat took him down in a second! "Thanks for the help!"

The civilians appeared then. "Thank you, young man! Really great work! You're amazing!"

"The way yo moved to keep the blades away from us?! Like watching a veteran hero. If I didn't know better! Most would've been scared out of their minds by a blade man like him! You have my utmost gratitude!"

"Pretty splashy debut," said Fatgum. "A far cry from my own."

Another civilian added, "And you're the one who helped me out. I just know you'll be a great hero. No Doubt!"

I found myself, with all this support, smiling. "Gee thanks!"

So me and Tamaki senpai and Fatgum met up to talk over what had happened.

"A quirk booster..." said Fat. "Drugs like that're illegal here in Japan. Must be some cheap Asian-made knockoff, judging by how long it lasted. The American variety keeps working for an hour or two."

"You know your stuff!" I cried. "Cool."

"I used to work with the cops," Fat explained. "And we seized plenty of this stuff back in the day."

"Fat! About hte perp's gun!" said the officer. "HIs quirk shredded it to scraps, and there're no bullets. We can tell it's no ordinary piece, though. We'll get back to you with a report!"

"Interesting," said Fat. "Thanks for looking into it."

"You ok?" I asked Amajiki. He had pulled his hood o ver his face.

"This is the worst..."

"Stopping a hero from using his quirk, what a thing to do to a guy," I tried to support him.

"Not just that. Also, the way you protected me. It's just like Mirio. ONe big, bright ball of sunlight."

"Yeah, well, you're like sunlight to me. Guding me through this work study and all," I told him. "That's exactly what I mean. You would say that," he sighed.

"We'd better get you checked out at the hospital. And I've got something to look into as well. We'll stop by the agency first," said Fat.

"Ok." "Got it"

"And that was it," Eiji finished, looking pretty serious. I patted his shoulder. "Sounds like you did good! Took down the villain for as long as you could!"

"Wish I could've done more. How bout you?"

"Oh, right. Well, where I was. I'd got Envy dangling from a roof, and Gluttony was coming back!

I had prepared my Acid Veil, a big enough guard to stop that Gluttony creep from touching me.

"MM!" Gluttony hummed out. "Goop."

"Watch it, Gluttony!" shouted Envy. "It's potent!"

You bet your stupid jealous butt it is! My acid's good enough that you want it, don't cha! "Good luck trying to beat me, creep!" I shouted, preparing an acid attack.

"ACID DINNER!" said Gluttony, that goop finally hitting my acid. They sizzled against each other, like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Yeah. Time to finish you, yah creepy blob of goop. No more wrecking shit and hurting people. Try and get through this acid veil! More of it - enough to shield us all! You won't win! I won't let you -

And yeah, I was totally overwhelming Gluttony! That goopy shit was melting when it touched my acid and Gluttony was actually - with what little of a face she had - looking scared.

And she pulled back, balancing delicately on the edge of the building.

"Yeah, you're not getting away this time!" I called at her, smiling. She was swaying a little. Envy called out, "Shit, how long's it been?" I glanced down at her and saw she was looking at a watch on her arm. "We got - shit - five minutes!" she choked out.

Five minutes? What does that mean?

Gluttony called back, "NO - MORE - "

I saw then - Musha had leapt onto the roof of the building opposite us. And his three sidekicks were all aiming attacks our way. Aoyama and Hagakure were holding up light, pointed in their direction.

"Give it up, you two!" said Musha. "You're surrounded!"

"I got them!" I called out to Hagakure and Aoyama. "Nobody uses my body to hurt people!"

"I am glad you are okay, Pinky!" Aoyama called to me. Which made me grin.

"Five..." muttered Gluttony. Then she screamed. And shot tons and tons of that awful gloop down at the building we were standing on!

The roof collapsed beneath my feet as the building disappeared. Butterfly flew to me and caught me before I could fall to my death.

The villains must've got away somehow, because there were no signs of them in the wreck. I sulked quite a lot. I mean, I'd had them right under my thumb, and they'd gotten away!

"You did very well" Musha reassured me. "Considering, from what you said, they were most likely using the most potent form of quirk enhancing drug available, remarkable job."

"When the building collasped and it looked like you were gonna fall!" cried HAgakure, hugging me. " So scary! I thought I'd lost you!"

I gave her a little shoulder squeeze and turned to Musha. "Did you say quirk enhancing drug?"

"Yes. WE will look more deeply into this, and contact everyone across the Hero Network. This seems like organized activity. It would not surprise me if there were more villains like this that havent' been seen yet."

Eiji's hero debut got on the news that night and everyone was excited.

"Your name! Your hero name's in the news!" Kaminari called out to him, holding up a phone.

"Tsuyu, Uraraka! This is too cool! Your names' here too!" I added, sharing the news of their debut. "New recruits at the Ryukyu agency"

"Heh - pretty exciting I guess!" blushed Uraraka.

"Where'd they get that picture from?" asked. Asui

"I love it! Bet you've laready got hordes of fans, just like Mt Lady!" Ashido smiled.

"Provisional licenses or not, we are now heroes when we step onto those mean streets. Wonderful job!" I ida told them. "But a student's primary concern is academics! No slacking off now!"

"Gotcha, Iida!" said Kirishima. "We're ready to learn and all that."

"Yeah!" added Midoriya.

"You suck at school, though," Kaminari told Eiji. "You gonna be ok?"

"SEnsei's gonna be giving me some extra lessons," Eiji explained. "Maybe I should join you?" dded SEro. "KEeping up this doulbe life is tough."

"Everyone learns at their own pace," interjected Yaoyorozu.

"You always know just what to say!" Kaminari smiled at her. I grinned at Eiji, proud he was doing well, and resolved to try as hard in remedial classes.

That weekend I got a call from Mr. Musha. We were going in.