A/N: The timeline is going to be very canon divergent. It's not a mistake on my part, just something that is going to make my plot run smoothly! (I'm hopeful this won't be an issue or confuse anyone considering that I already did major things that were canon divergent already, like Denki being taken and not Bakugou at all, for instance, and that went over really well with everyone! But I wanted to throw out the warning anyway. My internal mental timeline of MHA is already all over the place because I spend more time reading fics than actually watching the show, so things already might be out of order anyway!)

"Oh, she's hot," Mineta gasped, trying to discreetly get Denki to look in the girl's direction without blatantly pointing at her.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Denki offered without even looking in the vague direction that Mineta was hinting at.

"Damn. They have you down bad, don't they?" Mineta probed, squinting at his friend as they ate together in the food court at the mall.

"Who?" Denki asked, entertained and ready to hear Mineta's theories.

"Those soulmate dudes… Monoma and Shinsou, right? Hook, line, and sinker, buddy!" Mineta exclaimed.

"Is it that obvious?" Denki asked, amused.

"Is it that obvious?" Mineta mocked, but his smile was still friendly and not malicious. "The only thing more obvious is the fact that you're UA's traitor. Are you going to finish that?" he asked, gesturing towards Denki's milkshake.

"Uh—what?" Denki stuttered out, pushing the remaining milkshake toward Mineta who snatched it up quickly.

"Oh? Yeah, it's obvious. You come back from the League unharmed, you keep talking to the damn villains even after figuring out who they are, and you let them 'endorse' you, like that would ever go over well!"

"It's just video games. We don't talk about anything important," Denki defended, but weakly, knowing even as he said it that it was a weak argument.

After slurping up the rest of the milkshake, Mineta snickered. "That's not how everyone else sees it, whether it's true or not. You're just so damn stupid, aren't you? Or maybe you're just crazy? Do we need to send you back to the psych ward? Maybe you should never have left."

"I knew Dabi from before, though. He was Touya! I can't just ignore that!" Denki pleaded, ashamed at the crack in his voice.

"Why not? You ignore everything else!" Mineta exclaimed, throwing his hands out to the side in his amusement at Denki's stupidity.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Denki asked hesitantly, not sure he wanted to know what the little purple boy thought anymore.

"You ignore your own feelings towards Monoma and Shinsou, and you ignore that their feelings match yours. Why don't you go after what you want, huh?" Mineta pried, the smile on his face still seemingly friendly, not matching the content of his voiced thoughts.

"It's not so simple!" Denki argued with a frustrated shake of his head.

"You better make a move before it's too late! Oh—! Never mind. It's already too late," Mineta sneered, gesturing with his hand further toward the center of the food court where Hitoshi and Neito stood on raised platforms, both muzzled and chained.

All For One's figure loomed in the background, blurry but unmistakably him. He came forward, ready to take the quirks from the boys who Denki loved. Denki lurched forward, toppling his chair over in his frantic rush, but no matter how fast he ran, he knew that All For One would get there before him.

With no more options, Denki charged up at full strength, and shot his electricity forward, praying to whoever might be listening that he hit his target and not either of the soulmates. When All For One buckled, Denki rushed to undo the chains and muzzles restraining the soulmates.

"What have you done?" Neito asked, tears in his eyes as he looked at the scene around them. "I thought you were against collateral damage!"

Denki was about to argue that he didn't cause any, but when he followed Neito's stricken gaze, he saw that most of the lights had shattered, the few that survived flickering ominously.

"I—I didn't mean—"

"You never mean anything!" Hitoshi protested, interrupting Denki's pitiful excuses. "Yet, you somehow manage to ruin everything! You can't just leave a good thing alone, can you?!"

Denki knew that Hitoshi was talking about him meddling in their soulmate relationship, and not about the destruction that littered the area they were in. The crowd was long gone, and Hitoshi's angry voice echoed off of the walls, tormenting him over and over again.

"I didn't—"

"You did!" Neito raged, flipping over one of the tables in the food court in his anger, cups and empty plates and bowls flying in every direction.

"I'm sorry!" Denki wailed, dropping to his knees, and pressing his forehead against the floor.

"You should be sorry," the distant voice of Aizawa stated.

When Denki looked up, tears blurring his vision, he was surrounded by his classmates and teachers. Denki choked and heaved when he realized that every single one of them sported horrendous wounds. As he staggered to his feet, taking a step forward to offer help, Aizawa pushed him away with so much force that Denki ended up on the floor, looking up at his classmates and teachers who were towering over him, staring down at him with pure hatred and disgust in their eyes.

"How dare you endanger my students?!" Aizawa roared, eyes flaring red with anger, his quirk activated as if Denki would fight back.

No, Denki knew he deserved every bad thing that was about to happen to him. Maybe the pain would help lessen the guilt.

The floor turned to murky, bubbling water that deepened as his classmates surrounded him, putting their hands on him, some fisting the fabric of his clothes or the hair on his head in their hands, and forcing him down, under the surface of the water. Denki couldn't even bring himself to fight back, forcing himself to accept his fate.

When Denki shot awake just as he was about to give in and allow the murky water into his lungs, he was breathing heavy and looking around frantically. He was relieved when he was met with the dark sight of the inside of his dorm room, fresh oxygen flowing through his lungs instead of water.

"Just a dream… it was just a dream…" he tried to soothe himself, but he couldn't seem to stop shaking.

He burrowed himself under the covers and surrounded himself with his pillows to try to feel more secure. When he lied awake an hour later, no closer to sleep than when he first jolted awake, he squeezed his eyes shut and began to sing.

"Dashing through the snow… in a one-horse open sleigh…"

Maybe it was stupid; no, it definitely was. But the idea that Hitoshi and Neito could sing to each other when they had nightmares was at the forefront of his mind, and he felt so, so lonely in that moment. If he was lucky enough to have a soulmate out there, they would probably be so annoyed that he was singing a Christmas song in July, but that was the alert song that was assigned to him way back on Unit Beta, so that was the one he chose.

"Over the fields we go… laughing all the way…"

Denki knew that if he started sobbing while singing, he would feel even more pathetic. He was relieved that the singing actually made him feel a little better, a little less alone, like he was actually connected to someone out there.

"Bells on bobtails ring… making spirits bright…"

Denki fell asleep with the lyrics dying on his tongue. Hitoshi and Neito didn't stir from their own sleep, but strangely, they did find themselves dreaming of Christmastime.

"Who did you choose for summer internship?" Neito asked Denki as they walked out of the academic building together.

Hitoshi had already bid them both farewell and headed in the opposite direction, toward the gyms to have the last training session with Aizawa before they all moved off campus, Hitoshi out of the dorms and Aizawa and Yamada out of the teachers' block, back to their apartment in the next city over.

"Thirteen," Denki declared proudly, to Neito's surprise.

"Really?" Neito asked consideringly. "What made you choose Thirteen?"

"Uh… what you said, actually," Denki admitted, going from being extremely proud to almost bashful. "You know, about how you thought it was heroic that I was the reason there were zero casualties with the whole League of Villains thing, and what Hitoshi said about collateral damage… I just think it's a good idea to get stronger in the area of rescue and focusing on defensive maneuvers and civilians who might be in the way."

"That's awesome!" Neito exclaimed, having already worked through his thoughts as Denki explained. "Your quirk is obviously amazing for offensive uses, so it's really amazing that you're trying to be well-rounded and figure out more unique and creative ways to use your quirk. You're going to be a force to be reckoned with!"

"Thanks," Denki said, smiling and not looking away from Neito, even as his cheeks began to redden with all the praise being thrown at him. "What about you? Did you decide between Sir Nighteye and Midnight?"

"I actually went in a whole different direction!" Neito chirped, a smile growing over his face. "I was almost completely decided, but I'm pretty sure Sir Nighteye only offered because Mirio bugged him endlessly, but I'm not sure how I would feel about copying Mirio's quirk in public only to lose my pants! I'm shameless, sure, but even that's a little much for me!" Both boys chucked, specifically remembering when Neito had started to strip in the hallway back on Unit Beta, to the chagrin of the technicians who worked there.

"So, then you chose Midnight?" Denki prompted.

"Nope!" Neito chirped. Denki wasn't even surprised. The only way Neito could be surprising to him anymore would be to actually do something that he had predicted. "I went with Best Jeanist! The added bonus is if I can copy his quirk right before meeting with Toshi, then I can help him train like Sero and Shiozaki do while increasing my skills with yet another quirk!"

"Uh… Nei…" Denki started, furrowing his brow. "That's where Bakugou chose to internship, too."

Neito's smile grew manic, or maybe it was that way from the beginning and Denki was just then realizing it.

"I know."

"Okay," Denki dragged out, wondering which blonde boy he should be more concerned for. "Is Hitoshi interning with Eraserhead?"

"No, actually," Neito asked, just as perplexed as he was when Hitoshi broke the news to him. "I'm not sure if Aizawa wouldn't allow it or if Hitoshi didn't want to, but he's going to be interning with Ms. Joke this summer."

"Oh, wow!" Denki exclaimed. "She's really good with hand-to-hand combat, so that's a really great choice for Hitoshi!"

"You've been spending a lot of time with Midoriya," Neito guessed, and he was right, of course.

Neito knew that Denki was smart, of course, but the only one who would know specifically about a hero that the classes had never trained against would have been the note-taking hero-obsessed green-haired nerd in Class 1-A.

"I was with Hitoshi at lunch when Midoriya and Todoroki joined us to talk about internships. When Hitoshi said he hadn't decided yet, Midoriya slammed one of his notebooks on the table and got started with the best options depending on what skills Hitoshi wanted to better develop," Denki answered with a shrug, not concerned in the least. Midoriya was great company, and he always learned a lot when he was with him.

"Where the hell was I, then?" Neito asked incredulously.

"In Recovery Girl's office… after you picked that fight with Bakugou…" Denki reminded gently, a smile threatening to take over his face.

"Oh, yeah… I'm getting better at handling his quirk; he got a lucky shot in, was all," Neito dismissed, not commenting on Denki trying and failing to contain his smile at his antics.

"It's all fun and games until you're sent to Recovery Girl," Denki quoted.

"Tell me about it," Neito muttered in agreement, before defending, "it was all in good fun… kind of."

Neito joined Denki's burst of laughter as they walked to the train station, duffle bags swinging at their sides as they walked, taking turns balancing on the curb or jumping over benches that could have just as easily been walked around.

This is the moment that Denki thought of fondly as he traipsed through the rubble at the first major disaster that Thirteen's group had responded to of the summer a week later. The mood was somber because there was already one fatality; the heroes had to be on high alert as to not let any more casualties happen, so despite the sadness and helplessness that comes along with not being able to save everyone, Thirteen's team pushed on, almost desperate to save as many people as they could to atone for their failure. The fact that there was nothing that anyone could do didn't matter in the grand scheme of things; heroes would still feel the loss in full-force and wonder if there was something they could have done.

With the villain, Full Throttle, involved, there was always at least one casualty. In fact, it was considered a massive success if there was only one.

Full Throttle had surfaced as a villain the year before. His quirk essentially turned someone else's up to eleven, which always ended in death for the one affected. Full Throttle was a smart and calculating young man who chose his targets carefully. Using his quirk on a healer might actually do some good but using his quirk on someone with a quirk called Shake could make a massive earthquake with the victim at the center. The victim's quirk had overpowered her, bringing her office building down around her as she succumbed to her quirk at full power overload.

Full Throttle was at the top of the list of dangerous villains. Unlike other notorious villains, he did not discriminate against who he targeted. The League of Villains went after heroes, or up-and-coming heroes at the very least. Full Throttle wasn't above targeting civilians, children, and even the elderly. Anyone who had a quirk that could be turned destructive if given enough power behind it was a potential target to Full Throttle. That day, it just so happened to be Misone Ayatsu, a low-level manager at the collapsed office building that Denki found himself rummaging through.

If there was ever a time to be hiring quirkless people over people with quirks, it was when Full Throttle was at large and causing as much damage as possible with his carefully chosen targets. Did that make it easier for quirkless people to find jobs? Unfortunately not.

Denki heard a wheezing cough from his left and shone his flashlight in that direction, his beam cutting through the dusty haze from the collapse that happened not thirty minutes earlier.

"Anyone there?" he asked softly, stepping carefully in the same direction. "I'm hero intern Chargebolt, and this is hero intern Real Steel. We're here to help."

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu had never walked so delicately, following Denki closely, and trying to avoid causing any secondary collapses within the disaster zone. He had to admit that he was impressed that Denki never hesitated in his path, always confident with every turn he made. He had heard that Denki was very spatially apt but seeing him in action was something else entirely.

Denki's flashlight beamed over a figure that was trapped beneath a fallen beam, and he quickly and carefully rushed over. Before he could reach the victim, however, Tetsutetsu placed a hand on Denki's chest, stopping his progression. Denki didn't resist when Tetsutetsu took the flashlight from him, shining it into the young man's face.

Tetsutetsu sucked in a breath through his teeth. He knew that face, even covered in dust and soot. There was no mistaking the villain that was featured in a major case that his spring break internship had focused heavily on.

"He's a wanted villain in the middle circuit," he informed quietly, glancing over at Denki to make sure he was listening. "We should wait for backup."

When the ceiling creaked under the weight of the upper floors, Denki rushed forward toward the man anyway. "No time."

Tetsutetsu was no stranger to the sounds of the structural integrity of a building quickly giving way; a few fights against the destructive force that is Bakugou could turn anyone into a quick expert. He cursed under his breath but didn't hesitate to join Denki in his self-appointed mission. A preventable casualty wasn't going to happen on their watch, villain or not.

Tetsutetsu was secretly glad that he had the steel quirk to be the one to brace himself against the beam that was pressing the villain into place against the floor; he didn't know how Denki didn't even need to hype himself up before reaching right for him and pulling him out from under the beam, quickly checking him over for injuries and asking him if anything hurt, if he felt dizzy, and if he could walk.

The villain activated his quirk, turning his hands into sharp instruments of destruction, and reached for Denki's face. Tetsutetsu, if questioned, would probably just assume that Denki had activated his electricity at a low level to discourage contact, and that is what made the villain turn tail and scurry away as quickly as he could.

That wasn't it, though.

The villain got a good look at Denki as his hand got closer, ready to slash at the hero-in-training before making his getaway to ensure that the other hero-in-training would be too concerned with his companion to stop him.

The villain cursed under his breath as he pulled back, scrambling to his feet. He hesitated in his escape, nervous that if he were to leave the amateur heroes behind, that they might meet their demise if they did not find an exit quickly enough.

"Exit's this way," the villain muttered under his breath before darting around the corner.

Tetsutetsu would later report that they chased the villain as to not let him escape. Denki would know that they followed because the building was seconds away from collapsing if the groaning and creaking from above was any indication. Only the villain would know that he helped a pair of heroes-in-training. And only he would know that it was because the blonde boy who introduced himself as Chargebolt fit the exact description sent out by the League of Villains.

Razor was smart enough to not make an enemy out of the League of Villains. If something as simple as showing the two the way out before a building collapsed before making his quick escape could get him on the League's good side, then he would be a fool not to take full advantage of the opportunity.

There was something uncanny, though, about the kid. Razor thought hard about it as he checked over himself when he was sure he was in the clear, cleaning his scrapes and icing his bruises from the collapse. It was so weird that, even with his sharp-as-knives fingers heading right towards the kid's face, only pure concern continued to shine in his eyes. His line of questioning about Razor's wellbeing didn't pause or hesitate, neither did his instinct to follow Razor when offered to be shown the quickest way out.

And was that a smile on the kid's face as he told him to follow him to the exit? No… He couldn't have known that Razor was actually showing him the exit. He couldn't have been confident that Razor wasn't leading him right into a trap. It was probably a grimace if anything. It couldn't have been a smile!

Could it?