The episode started out at the beach, just after All Might had punched Izuku for his recklessness in going to save Bakugo. He was shown talking again about how he was effectively retired, and how happy he was that Izuku had made it out of a battle without injury.
"Ah man, not this again." Kirishima said through his sniffles. "Come on, we already saw all that..."
"But its still so beautiful!" Hagakure said, her own voice strained. Drops of water seemed to appear out of nowhere from the space her head would be, and dripped down to leave dark spots on the collar of her shirt.
Izuku blushed at their reaction, and the warmth from that seemed to spread through his body as he remembered how All Might said he was proud of him.
Izuku suddenly jerked away, revealing the scene to have been a dream. Izuku remembered that he wasn't at home anymore.
"Oh yeah, spending the night in a new place for the first time can be rough." Ojiro said. He'd had to travel for a few of his martial arts competitions, and he'd always had a hard time sleeping away from home.
Uraraka nodded, remembering her first few nights at the little apartment near the school. She wondered if her other self also slept poorly due to the transition, or if she slept better since she knew all her friends were in the adjacent rooms.
Izuku went into the bathroom. Iida was already up, in uniform and brushing his teeth. Several of the 1A boys were shown joining them, then they switched to images of all the students enjoying breakfast together. Through it all, Izuku's voice explained how the dorm was only a five minute walk from the main building, and how they were now about to start the next part of their hero journey.
"Should have known you'd be up and ready to go right away." Sero joked.
"Of course! Just because we live closer to the school now does not mean we should allow ourselves to be tardy!" Iida said as he chopped the air.
"That food looks so good!" Mineta said, staring at the plates enviously.
"Maybe we should take a break for food after this." Shoji suggested.
"It would be so fun to hang out with everyone everyday like that!" Ashido said.
"Is that not what we are doing now?" Tokoyami asked.
"Well, I guess so, but the dorms will be because we want to be there, not just because some cryptid kidnapped us and made a deal."
"Hm, a good point. Having some level of control over your environment always makes things more pleasant."
The scene switched to the 1A homeroom, where Aizawa explained that the class would be focusing on gaining their provisional licenses. He emphasized how heavy a burden in was to get one, since they would be responsible for the lives of others, and how difficult the test would be.
"Do you think us having fought villains before will give us a leg up on the provisional exam?" Tsuyu asked. "It seemed to help with the Sports Festival."
"It might in comparison to other schools, but not in comparison to 1B. They've also faced villains at this point after all." Momo pointed out.
"It might help you with part of it, but not all of it." Present Mic warned. "The Sports Festival was all about getting noticed and competition, but the provisional license exams are about a lot more than that."
Recovery Girl nodded. "Yes, this exam should also test you on how you deal with rescue operations, which means dealing with 'civilians'. Before you only had to worry about dealing with your competition."
Some of the students frowned or looked at each other in concern. They hadn't had much in the way of rescue training, since the villains kept interrupting their classes in that area.
"Well, whatever the test wants us to do, it can't be scarier than everything that just happened with All for One." Kirishima argued.
"Doesn't mean it can't be harder." Bakugo countered. After hearing what Recovery Girl said, he felt very aware of the fact that 'rescue' and 'civilian interaction' weren't his strong suits.
"It's odd to think a test could be more trying than dealing with a villain organization lead by someone strong enough to fight All Might." Todoroki noted.
Aizawa announced that, in preparation for the test, they would be working on everyone's 'ultimate moves'. The students were immediately excited, and became even more so when Midnight, Ectoplasm, and Cementoss arrived and hyped up the moves even more.
Pretty much the same thing happened in the room, with students breaking out into excited chattering about ideas for moves and what they would call them.
"Are you sure it's best to focus on that right now?" Recovery Girl gave him a shrewd look. "At this point they're much more behind on rescue experience than they are on battle experience."
"Like Midnight said, heroes without any ultimate moves are a dying breed. It's something they'll be expected to have by the time the test roles around, so it's important to focus on this too."
"And I'm sure the fact that the kids are super excited to work on something like this after such a harrowing experience didn't play into that decision at all, right?" Mic asked teasingly.
Aizawa just shrugged further into his capture weapon.
Aizawa told the kids to get into their costumes and head to Gym Gamma. The scene changed to the gym, where Cementoss explained how the gym could be used to cater to everyone's quirks. Iida raised his hand and asked why it was important for them to have ultimate moves for the provisional license test. Aizawa explained that it was a heroes job to save people from anything that might threaten them, and that the test would see how well they could gather information, lead, draw people to them, etc. Midnight and Cementoss went on to explain that fighting would be a very important part of the test, and that they would need to get these moves down so they could act consistently no matter what was happening. Also, the moves themselves didn't have to be based around fighting, as Iida's Recipro Burst, which allowed him to move very fast, could count as an ultimate move.
Just like his on-screen self, Iida felt incredibly proud that his other self had already figured out something that could count as an ultimate move and had used it numerous times.
The students' excitement began to temper into something more serious as the importance of ultimate moves was explained to them. Determination blazed inside them, and they sat at eager attention, hoping to see what their future selves would come up with so they could get a start on it themselves.
Izuku leaned forward, especially vigilant, as he knew that his future self had limitations he needed to work around. He hoped he could avoid hurting his arms so badly himself, but it would be important to know how he'd deal with it if it did happen.
Aizawa looked at Recovery Girl and gestured at the screen, as his other self had just given a very good explanation as to why they were focusing on this rather than rescue training.
Recovery Girl just sighed. In her experience, rescue training and support roles got overlooked too often in today's hero culture, including at UA, and she felt that this was just further proof of that. She hoped the 1A students wouldn't end up paying for that bias once they got to the provisional license exam.
Aizawa however was thinking more about how it was important for the UA students in general to focus on fighting because of the practice of 'UA hunting'. They would need to be a step above to make it through that, and get to the rescue phase of the test, which didn't pit the students against each other.
Midnight explained that the move Kamui Woods used to restrain everyone during Bakugo's rescue was also considered an ultimate move. Aizawa said that the days that would have normally been spent at the summer camp would now be spent here, training their ultimate moves. He also said they should think about how to make their costumes work better with their quirks. He told them to get through everything with a 'plus ultra' mindset, and got a unanimous 'yes sir!' in response.
'For all the good it did him.' Bakugo thought, thinking back to how the League had all escaped from Kamui Woods branches. 'But it's not like I did much good either...'
"Yeah, we'll show the villains! Just because they messed up our training camp, it doesn't mean we're down or out! We'll come up with ultimate moves that will have them shaking in their boots!" Ashido said. Many students were quick to jump in with their own declarations of determination and dedication.
Momo wondered if her other self would take the opportunity to adjust her costume, especially after her very shallow internship. On the other hand, she wasn't sure if her other self had spoken to Midoriya or anyone else about her costume, so her other self might not have access to the ideas they'd shared.
Todoroki figured his other self would probably get rid of that 'half covered in ice' thing for good, now that he was accepting his quirk more fully.
Midoriya was shown, holding his arm, and asking himself what he should do.
"What's up with that?" Kaminari asked, wondering why Midoriya seemed so worried.
"I'm probably thinking about how I'm in danger of losing the use of my arms, and how that's going to be a problem since I usually fight with punches and finger flicks."
"Oh...right...I almost forgot about that."
Ojiro was shown sparing with an Ectoplasm.
"Oof!" Ojiro couldn't help making a noise when his other self got hit in the face. If even the clones could hit that hard, he suddenly had a lot more respect for Tsuyu and Tokoyami taking that teacher on. Assuming that was a clone anyway, he could never tell.
Ectoplasm told him his movements were based too much on him having a tail, and that they should reexamine things from the ground up. Ojiro took this to mean he was too normal.
"Awww, I'm sure he didn't mean it like that. We probably all have to go over the basics again to come up with something really unique to us." Hagakure said.
"Probably to some degree, yeah." Ojiro conceded. After showing off all the rooms though, he couldn't help but feel a little sensitive about how 'normal' he was compared to the others. Even Shoji's room had stood out for how minimalist it was, while his looked like something you'd find out of a cheap catalogue. Maybe he could talk to Hagakure about finding his own style...
Hagakure herself was studiously ignoring the knowing look Ashido was giving her.
"Honestly, our class probably needs some normality." Sato's eyes trailed over his more eccentric classmates. "You know, to balance things out."
"There must be balance between the light and the dark, between chaos and order." Tokoyami said.
Sato gestured at Tokoyami as if to say 'case and point'. Ojiro chuckled.
Another Ectoplasm worked with Ashido. She was trying to make a move out of shooting her acid. Ectoplasm directed her on how to shape her hands to make it spray further, much to Ashido's delight. Another clone worked with Momo. Izuku was shown staring up at all the various attacks his classmates were doing.
"Oh my gosh that's so cool! I'm so practicing that for our Sports Festival!" Ashido gushed.
"That really is a great idea! It allows you to have a more high powered and better aimed distance attack with very little effort! Much more efficient than just throwing it like you did before!" Izuku joined her.
Momo was rather disappointed her own training wasn't shown more so that she could get a similar revelation, and hoped that the show would come back to it later.
A few students sighed when Midoriya was shown, since that likely meant the show would focus on him for a while and that their own training might not be shown as a result.
'Ah well, if we don't get shown our ultimate moves and how we found them out, that just means we'll have to work harder for ourselves once we get out of here.' Kirishima decided.
Ectoplasm smacked Izuku and called him out for staring into space.
Yagi frowned. While he'd done the same to get his successors to snap out of something before, he was beginning to think that wasn't the best way to go about it. It felt too much like what that middle school teacher had done when the boy had been mumbling in class, and he didn't want to be like that teacher. Maybe he should talk to the others about it...
Izuku explained about how his arms were like ticking time bombs now and that he wasn't sure how to develop an ultimate move because of it. Ectoplasm conceded that his quirk had issues with consistency and told him to focus on developing his quirk more.
Izuku bit his bottom lip and looked down at the notebook on his lap. It was full of partial thoughts on how to deal with this potential future problem, but he'd not had any time to refine them into something that might be workable. He only hoped that his future self would find the time for it, and that he wouldn't fail this quirk, this legacy, right as he was finally beginning to understand it.
Aizawa was shown watching from a distance when All Might appeared in the doorway behind him. He briefly turned into his muscle form while saying he'd shown up because he didn't have anything else to do.
"Stop pushing yourself into that form! It's not good for you!" Recovery Girl scolded.
Yagi was quick to apologize and try to assuage her, but on the inside he was thinking that nothing would be able to stop him from doing that while he still could, even if it was only for a couple of seconds at a time. His other form, the Symbol of Peace, he become such a large part of him, he didn't think he'd be able to resist using the last embers of it before they eventually faded from him completely.
Aizawa told All Might to focus on his recovery, and All Might told him not to be so cold and that he didn't want to miss the students developing their ultimate moves. He said the later part while staring straight at Midoriya.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised." Todoroki said in his signature dead-pan voice. Several of his classmates had been thinking something similar, and couldn't help laughing in response.
"Y-you don't have to push yourself just for me, you should rest and-"
"I'm hardly pushing myself by coming to see you, Young Midoriya. And I promised you and your mother I would put my all into raising you from now on, so of course I'm going to be there to see you working on your ultimate moves."
Midoriya smiled at the pure comfort that promise gave him, even as the strength of the emotion brought tears to his eyes.
All Might noticed that Midoriya seemed to be having trouble, then his attention was drawn to Bakugo blasting an Ectoplasm clone and rejoicing in being able to go wild. All Might called him amazing, and Aizawa agreed that Bakugo would grow stronger over time.
Bakugo expected the surge of pride and vicious glee at hearing his teachers say such things. He was taken off guard by the fact that it was accompanied by another emotion, one that twisted in his gut and seemed to crawl up his throat as he remembered how All Might could only buff up for a couple seconds at a time.
'It's because of you.' the thing clinging in his throat seemed to whisper 'He spent his last moments as the Symbol of Peace saving your sorry ass.'
He was so busy trying to force that feeling back down that he didn't even notice when Kirishima praised how quickly he got his spirit back and clapped him on the shoulder.
Izuku was shown watching as his classmates worked on their ultimate moves and went on about how they'd been thinking about them for a long time. Mineta talked about grape rush and Kaminari wanted a lightning sword. Izuku wondered what moves he could make with his arms like this.
'Ah, I think I see what the problem is.' Yagi thought to himself. He wondered if his other self would see it too.
'Everyone has ideas about this, and I'm still just trying to figure out my own quirk.' Izuku thought unhappily. 'Hey, remember that you've only had this quirk for a little while, and you've figured out a lot of things really quickly.' another part of his brain told him. He tried to listen to the latter thought more than the former.
"Oh yeah, a 'lightning sword'. Just own up to your nerdiness and say you want a lightsaber." Jirou teased.
"It wouldn't be a lightsaber! It would just be...similar to that."
All Might approached Midoriya to give him advice. He told Midoriya he was still trying to imitate himself. While Midoriya thought about that, he went over to give Kirishima advice. He looked back at Midoriya, thinking that it wouldn't really be teaching if he just told the boy what to do. It was important for Midoriya to think of a solution himself. Then he went over to give Jirou advice.
Izuku took that to heart as his mind immediately started racing with ideas about what All Might could mean. Yagi chuckled fondly as his protege went into mumbling mode, feeling confident that the boy would figure it out.
Meanwhile, Kirishima and Jirou preened over the fact that All Might had come over to give them advice personally.
Aizawa wondered what All Might was doing, then he noticed a book in the man's back pocket. It was titled 'teaching for dummies'.
Aizawa snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. Students gaped at the scene, then started breaking out into giggles themselves, which caused Aizawa to lose the battle. Mic and been laughing from the start.
Yagi blushed. "Well, considering my previous classes and experience level that seems like a good place to start."
"Don't, don't get me wrong." Mic said, a little breathlessly. "It's super awesome that you're making an effort to improve, especially since you're doing it with everyone and not just Midoriya. Just...maybe leave that particular book in your car or something next time."
Aizawa pointed and waved and Present Mic as if to say 'yeah, what he said'.
Midoriya was shown walking to the support department on campus, as All Might had suggested he go to the experts for ideas on how to improve his costume. He still wasn't quite sure what All Might's advice to him meant yet, but that he wanted something that would support his arms and make them less likely to be hurt badly in the future. He needed to keep from falling behind, he needed to be on top!
"That is a good place to start." All Might agreed to Izuku's thoughts about arm bracers.
"Careful there, for a minute you almost sounded like Bakugo." Uraraka teased after hearing her friend's last line.
Bakugo gave her a flat look. Izuku chuckled awkwardly, but his mind was still on the advice All Might had given him. 'I get the impression he meant I shouldn't be imitating him, but in what way? What specifically should I be doing differently?'
Momo, and a couple other students, made a note to visit the support department studio when they got back to see if there were any students willing to work on their costumes. Probably not since they would be preparing for the Sports Festival too, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
Iida and Uraraka were shown walking down the hall and talking about their own desired improvements when they saw Midoriya standing outside the studio door. Uraraka ran to catch up with him and ask if he was there for costume improvements too. Izuku said he was and started to open the door, just in time for an explosion from inside the room to hit him.
"OW!" Izuku yelped, very much caught off guard.
"Are we being attacked again? Please tell me we're not being attacked again!" Mineta begged. Aizawa sighed.
"No, I don't think we are. The support department is just..."
"Like that." Present Mic supplied.
Recovery Girl sighed and wondered how many patients her other self was going to have to treat in the aftermath of whatever experiment had gone wrong this time.
Power Loader started scolding a figure that was obscured by the smoke of the explosion. After a minute the smoke dissipated enough to show that it was Hatsume Mei, who had fallen on top of Midoriya in a way that pressed her very full chest against him. Much to both his, and Uraraka's, dismay.
'Lucky bastard.' Mineta thought.
Izuku's face went beet red and Uraraka stared at the screen, one eye twitching slightly.
"Okay, take it easy Uraraka, try not to murder Hatsume." Ashido teased.
"Wha-I-you-I'm not going to do that!"
"Oh, you just want to switch places with her then?"
"One more word and I might murder you."
Iida, who would normally be the one to try and calm this whole thing down, was too busy having flashbacks to how thoroughly this student had humiliated him at the sports festival. So All Might ended up being the one to calm everyone down instead.
As things began to move on, Ashido glanced over at Aoyama, wondering why he hadn't joined in the shipping banter and why he looked so distant.
Hatsume finally got off of Midoriya and greeted the three 1A students. She admitted to not remembering their names.
"Okay, now she's the one starting to sound like Bakugo." Jirou said.
"At least she has the excuse of not seeing us everyday." Sero pointed out.
"She should at least remember me." Iida said testily.
Izuku shakily introduced himself, and Iida reminded her of how she'd used him during the Sports Festival. She said okay, then immediately dismissed them to turn back to her work, much to their shock.
"She's got a one track mind." Shoji observed.
Izuku called after her and explained that he was there about improvements to his costume, which immediately got her attention. Power Loader interrupted then, telling Hatsume she'd be banned if she wasn't more careful from now on. Then he explained that Aizawa had already contacted him about the costume changes and invited them into the studio.
Izuku and Uraraka both breathed a sigh of relief as things seemed to get back on track. Iida was still pouting over being so easily forgotten.
The trio marveled at how cool the studio was. Power Loader asked for their costume instructions that came in the original case, and explained to them what changes he could make himself and what he'd need to submit an application to the support company for. Hatsume seemed to be speed reading some of the instructions while he talked. Izuku explained what he wanted for the arms of his costume, and Power Loader said that should be possible with just minor adjustments.
If the change would be that simple, Izuku felt better about the idea of going to Power Loader before the Sports Festival when they got back. He wanted to be proactive as possible about these things in his own timeline.
Uraraka and Izuku were excited by the news. That quickly cut off when Hatsume suddenly grabbed Izuku from behind and started groping around and feeling his body. She commented that he was much more solidly built that she assumed.
Izuku's face went fully red again and he squirmed in his seat, feeling exposed and somewhat violated.
Uraraka looked like she might actually be contemplating murder this time.
A couple of people chuckled on reflex after seeing the on-screen reactions to what Hatsume was doing, while most others just looked suddenly uncomfortable.
"I'm going to make a note to talk to Power Loader about this student's boundary issues when we get back. Someone remind me if I forget." Recovery Girl said. Both Aizawa and Nedzu agreed to do so.
Yagi gave Izuku's shoulder a comforting pat, unsure of what else to do in this situation.
Before anyone knew what was happening, Hatsume had wrangled Midoriya into some kind of battle armor. He tried to explain he wanted something simpler than this, but then she activated the armor. Midoriya was amazed that it moved on it's own, until it started moving too much in one direction and Midoriya started crying out in pain. She was quick to stop it and give a quick apology, but that didn't prevent Izuku from shaking on the ground while saying he almost got his torso twisted off.
Uraraka was quick to jump into comforting Deku when the pain factor kicked in. Her words and touch were soft, but her eyes were hard as she glared up at the screen. She was really beginning to think that Ashido had the right idea earlier.
Recovery Girl made an extra note to talk to Power Loader. Midoriya had enough on his plate to deal with without adding back problems to the mix.
"How did she even get that on him?" Ojiro asked. "Midoriya didn't look like he put it on himself."
"That's a good question." Tsuyu admitted.
Koda was looking at the screen warily, and told himself to make sure that Hatsume was elsewhere if he ever needed to go here for costume adjustments. She was way too intense for him.
Iida tried to tell Power Loader his own request quietly, but, somehow, Hatsume still heard him and zeroed in on him in a milisecond. She put huge boosters on his arms, and Uraraka and Izuku tried to sneak away while she was explaining what the booster did.
"Don't leave me alone with her!" Iida begged
"You wouldn't be alone...Power Loader is right there." Izuku argued weakly.
"He's not doing anything to help!"
"We appreciate your brave sacrifice Iida, you will be remembered in our hearts forever." Uraraka said, urging her and Deku's counterparts to sneak faster.
The boosters activated and sent Iida hurtling straight into the ceiling. When Iida got hurt, Uraraka and Izuku stopped their sneaking to run to his aid.
Iida made a strange noise as the wind was knocked out of him on screen. Despite their earlier words, Uraraka and Izuku both took after their on screen selves and rushed to comfort him as he recovered from Hatsume's experimentation.
Iida pointed out his engines were on his legs, not his arms. Hatsume said she knew, but she figured he could give his legs a break by running with his arms. That seemed to trigger an idea for Izuku. As the others argued, he seemed to put something together about what All Might said earlier.
Izuku felt like he was having an epiphany. Of course! He'd practically been ignoring half his limbs while fighting!
Uraraka sighed. "Well, if what she said helped Deku figure something out, then at least we got something out of this visit."
Power Loader apologized for Hatsume being self centered, but also said that they should value their relationship with her due to how talented she was. He showed them just how much stuff she'd made in the four months since school started, and went on about how dedicated she was and how she wasn't afraid of failure.
Uraraka found herself relaxing just a little as Power Loader went on. "Alright, so she isn't just invasive and self centered, she clearly has some good qualities too. Still, gotta talk to her about not feeling people up or forcing them into testing things they don't want to."
"Agreed." Iida and Izuku said together.
"We're on it, kids, don't worry." Recovery Girl called.
Mineta wondered if he could get away with talking to Hatsume about his costume before that happened. Would it count as pervy if he asked for help and she got all up close and stuff of her own volition?
The way Power Loader phrased his praise seemed to set something in motion in Izuku's brain. The words of All Might and Hatsume and Power Loader echoed through his mind as he realized what he needed to do. He jumped up and asked Iida to train him, but Iida didn't know what he was talking about and pointed out they still needed to get their costumes sorted out. That distracted Izuku and he asked about Uraraka's costume. She said she wanted to control her nausea more and that triggered Hatsume once again. They went for the door as she brought out another invention, but didn't make it before there was another explosion that knocked them all down.
Yelps of pain, and a few choice curse words, came from the couch the three sat on as the explosion went off.
"Are you all okay?" Momo asked worriedly.
"Uh huh..." Uraraka mumbled.
"I've had worse." Izuku said.
"Ugh..." was Iida's only response.
"Okay, which one of you swore? I need to know, because until now I didn't think any of you were actually allowed to say 'fuck'." Kaminari pressed eagerly. Jirou sent him a withering look.
"They just got exploded, at least give them a minute."
With all the explosions happening, Bakugo wondered if it might be a good idea if he went and talked to Pink Hair. He could always work with bigger explosions.
Izuku's voice explained that they continued working on their ultimate moves over the next four days. A montage was shown of various classmates working on their quirks or ultimate moves. Kaminari was shown talking to Hatsume at one point.
Students perked up and made noises of interest whenever their other selves were shown training.
"Whatever you're talking about must be really out there if even she's shaking her head to it." Sero teased Kaminari.
"I'm guessing that means no lightsaber for you." Jirou joined in.
"Awwww!" Kaminari whined.
"Oooo, Tsu! Were you just doing camouflage?" Uraraka asked excitedly.
"That's what it looked like, kero."
"That's so cool! I didn't know some frogs had that ability, I thought it was just reptiles! I wonder if you could do other things, or maybe make your secretions have more potency and be more dangerous, maybe you could talk to Ashido about that..."
Some looked at little exasperated at Midoriya's mumbling, while others leaned in to listen and see if they could glean something that might help their own training later.
There was a time skip of four days. Aizawa was shown still watching the kids train, and All Might visited again to ask how things were going.
"Heh, with the way that was done you'd almost think we'd just stayed in that gym for the entire four days." Sato said. After a moment he frowned, then turned to Aizawa. "We wouldn't have spent the night in there would we?"
"Doing that would defeat the purpose of the dorms." Aizawa pointed out.
"That wasn't a no."
"I may demand long hours of training but even I wouldn't go that far. Even the people who failed the final exam got scheduled time for sleeping during the summer camp."
"Not nearly enough." Recovery Girl muttered.
The scene switched to a hallway with Izuku walking down it in his hero costume. Mineta caught up with him and asked him about his modifications, and Izuku explained them to him. Mineta said he should have revamped his costume more since it looked kinda boring as is. Izuku remembers his mom giving him the original jumpsuit, and told Mineta he didn't want to change the base too much.
Midoriya blushed lightly when several classmates cooed about how he and his mom were so cute or so sweet. He decided that him not turning full crimson meant he was getting used to his classmates knowing these things and getting this kind of reaction, which was pretty awkward but far from the worst thing he'd experienced here.
'Still such a nerd.' Bakugo thought.
The scene changed back to the gym, where Tokoyami was showing off his new ultimate move to Midnight. She approved of the move but gave him a tip about changing the name.
Midoriya's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh that's a brilliant idea! It's like having sentient armor! Do you think Dark Shadow covering you feels anything like Full Cowl does for me?"
"I am uncertain, but we can test it and compare notes when we both learn how to do those things." Tokoyami offered. He was looking at the screen with a gleam in his eye, and he could hear Dark Shadow's excited chattering in the back of his mind. It was good to know his partner was just as excited about the idea, and he wondered if Ojiro would be willing to spar with him once he got the move down.
"I hope Hatsume doesn't see that, it might give her more ideas for spine bending body armor." Jirou said.
Aizawa told All Might that, while some were perfecting and naming moves, others were going so far as to create multiple moves. They looked up to where Bakugo was standing. He shaped his hands in a way that let him concentrate his blast, which allowed him to make a hole in a piece of concrete that looked like it was at least a foot thick.
Bakugo grinned broadly. His pleasure at learning such a cool move, with an awesome name, was enough to drown out the unpleasant thoughts that had been plaguing him recently.
"That was amazing Kacchan! Being able to blast holes like that will have a lot of uses out in the field, like breaking into a building, or getting rubble out of the way, or making sure you can hit a villain even if there are civilians around!"
"You don't have to tell me Deku, I can see for myself!"
"Hey, that's kinda like my move with my acid! Do you think I inspired you? Is that how you thought of it?" Ashido asked.
"How should I know? I didn't see it until now, but I can think of my own moves!"
As Yagi and Aizawa discussed how Bakugo was doing quite well, as usual, a chunk of concrete broke off from the pillar he was using and started to fall to the ground.
Right where Yagi was standing.
Bakugo felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. The thoughts that had been shoved back just moments before came barreling back to the forefront.
'It wasn't enough that you ended All Might's career? Now you have to kill him yourself?'
'Shut up! He's not gonna die! Eraserhead is right there, he can pull him out of the way if All Might doesn't see it fast enough.'
'He wouldn't need to worry about being fast enough if he still had the remains of One for All.'
'Shut it!'
'But he doesn't-'
'I said SHUT UP!'
'because of you.'
'It would have happened anyway. He said that himself. He could have lost it saving anyone.'
'But he didn't lose it saving anyone. He lost it while saving you.'
Bakugo felt the heat of tears welling up in his eyes. He grit his teeth and blinked rapidly to force them back down again.
During Bakugo's internal argument, other students had also freaked out upon seeing this turn of events, Midoriya chief among them. Yagi was quick to reassure him and the other students that he had complete confidence that he would avoid being hurt, either by his own actions or by the intervention of one of his fellow teachers. Everyone was so distracted by that, that they hadn't really noticed how utterly still and tense Bakugo had become.
Bakugo yelled a warning, Aizawa jumped forward, Yagi started to turn. But the thing that saved the day, was the sudden appearance of Midoriya. He leaped into the air, and kicked the slab so hard it broke into dozens of pieces.
Yagi remembered seeing Midoriya on the rooftop back when they first met, and smiled when he realized how far the boy had come since then. Midoriya landed safely as his voice explained that the solution to his problem was so simple he hadn't seen it. Just because All Might fought with punches didn't mean Izuku was required to, he could use his legs instead! He called it Shoot Style.
All Might smiled at him and said "That's right!"
Sighs of relief swept through the room as the threat to their teacher was demolished.
"See? I told you I would be fine. Though I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by where help came from, and quite proud." Yagi smiled at Midoriya and ruffled his hair. "I knew you'd figure it out, and you're already doing a great job with it!"
Midoriya felt so overwhelmed from the relief and satisfaction and joy that he started crying again. He hugged Yagi around the middle, and the man gently teased him for still being such a crybaby.
"That entrance was so manly!" Kirishima crowed. "And congrats on finding a new way to fight!"
"You know, I always get told that your legs are naturally stronger than your arms, so this totally makes sense!" Hagakure said.
"Oh yeah, they definitely are, because your legs are always caring you around and you use them for dancing and stuff!" Ashido chimed in.
"Not sure that applies to some mutant body types, but I can see that being the case for non-mutant ones." Shoji said. "You think this means Midoriya's moves will be even stronger in the future?"
That was about all Bakugo could stand to hear. He got up, mumbling an excuse about needing the bathroom, and stiffly walked over and locked himself into one.
'Good thing Deku was able to jump in and fix your screw up. Again.' the same voice from before mocked.
Bakugo had never wanted to blow something to pieces more than he did that voice in that moment. Considering that the voice was in his own brain, it was probably a good thing that Truth had taken away the use of his quirk. He still really wanted to explode something though. Just to remind himself that he could, that he was strong, so he'd stop feeling so goddamned useless. He tried doing what he thought Kirishima would do, and tried to focus on the positives. He tried to think about how cool his armor piercing shot was, and how he'd been praised by both Aizawa and All Might, but those images kept getting washed away by the memory of the debris falling toward All Might.
Frustrated beyond belief, Bakugo butted his head against the wall a few times, as if he should shake the image from his head. Then he flung the door open and made a beeline for the kitchen. He didn't have a plan in mind, he just felt the sudden need to chop things. He'd figure out what to do with all the diced fruit and vegetables later.
A.N.
Bakugo's really going through it at the end of this episode. Even with the character development he's gotten in this fic, the guilt of being involved in your idol's downfall isn't something that's going to be easy to deal with, even if it wasn't really your fault.
I've heard rumors of this sight getting shut down some time in the near future. In the event that happens, I want to let you all know that I also post this story on ao3. It's under the same title and my pen name is the same.
