"Come on, man," said the girl in grey as birds plummeted around her and all creatures of the ground were glued to the floor. "Don't make it harder. I don't want to do this to them."

Koji shook his head and signed to her.

I'll make sure they know what you intended.

The girl cocked her head. Koji wondered if she knew sign language. His hopes were rapidly falling, almost as fast as the birds, until she hesitantly raised her hands and made some shaky signs, whereupon they were lifted up only to be dashed against the rocks on the way down.

Don't know.

Koji nodded. The girl shrugged.

"I'm not that good, sorry," she said with an apologetic smile. "Anyway, I think you should stop calling the animals or, whatever. They keep getting in the way."

Slowly, Koji shook his head, and was thereby confused when she grinned at him.

"I like the spirit, but I'm just kidding," she told him, and she flapped a hand at him. Koji smashed down into concrete with the speed of a meteoroid, and the world went black.

=0=

Ochako cancelled gravity on herself just in time to flip upwards, and released once she was stable and vertical. Her opponent whistled.

"Nice reflexes," he said, twirling the gun. She eyed it warily.

"Is that your quirk?" she asked.

"Hmm?" He looked down at the gun. "Part of it, yeah."

Ochako privately thought that having a gun for a quirk was hugely unfair. He raised it and fired again. She dodged easily right before he pulled the trigger. He lowered the gun.

"Huh," he said quietly. "Gunhead, right?"

Ochako stilled in shock.

"I can tell," he continued. "I took a course with him once. You dodge the same way. Better than I do, that's for sure." He laughed.

Ochako slowly moved into a subtle position for maximum boost. He eyed her feet.

"If you're thinking of getting the jump on me, try not to, yeah? My reflexes are good enough that I can shoot you while you get here. You can dodge when you have a stable point to push off from, but while moving? Lot more difficult, right?"

Silently, Ochako shifted her feet into something better suited for an opponent with a ranged weapon.

"You don't look like you want to talk. Did I freak you out?" He tilted his head. "Sorry about that. I forget sometimes. People don't like someone who knows more than they should."

He looked so forlorn, so dejected while saying this, that her heart softened for a bit, enough to overcome the wariness. She just hadn't wanted to give him too much information.

"It's okay," she said, trying to smile at him. "I don't mind." He immediately brightened.

"Oh, good," he said happily, and the gun disappeared. Ochako recoiled. The gun hadn't just been swiftly holstered away somewhere on his person, it had vanished. One instant it was there, in his hand, then the next it just wasn't.

What was that quirk?

He looked down at his hand in dismay. "Damn. Time ran out."

Ochako launched at him while he was distracted, and they crashed to the ground with her on top. She raised her fist for a quick punch to the forehead to knock him out, but he grabbed her throat and shoved her off, forcing her into the asphalt. His eyes widened, and he quickly let go. She sat up, coughing, as he squatted beside her.

"Oh shit, sorry," he said, hands nervously out but hesitating to touch her. He reached behind him and pulled out a water bottle from somewhere.

Ochako accepted the bottle gratefully, privately wondering where it came from. As she drank from it in small sips, she was aware of him watching her. She glanced up. He regarded her without any significant emotion apart from concern.

"Sorry. Are you alright?"

Ochako nodded, then punched him straight in the solar plexus, aiming for the space between his armour. He fell back, gasping, and as she went in for the kill he snatched the bottle from her hand and threw it behind him sideways, although it didn't come out the other side, then reached behind again and pulled out another, identical gun, which he spun on his finger before it settled, aiming directly at her.

He shot her point blank.

=0=

If anyone had seen Iida at that moment, they would have been treated to a view of him running at walls full speed, then tottering back into place for another try at, quite literally, knocking himself out.

"Alright," his mouth muttered. "Last try, and if this doesn't work I'll just have to drop him off a building."

Blue flames erupted from his engines, and he shot forward with a look of pure determination. Right before he crashed into the wall, wisps of silver smoke began leaking out of his ears, and the vague shape of a person was visible for a split second before he slammed into the wall, and fell backwards like a felled tree in a forest. The spectre, too, vanished with him.

=0=

Izuku watched everyone in a state of distant shock. Every single one of them had been taken out. Even Kacchan had been defeated, and was sitting by himself with a mutinous expression. Kaminari had recovered from electrocution and was provoking him every now and then. It was like watching a fish get dangled by an experienced angler in front of a shark with toothache.

Iida on the other hand, was the only one still out, and as stiff as a board. Recovery Girl's efforts to loosen his comatose body out had been met with severe resistance. You could probably have used Iida, as he was right now, to make a bridge over a narrow gap for an elephant to pass on. He was just that straight. Anyone could have mistaken him for being made of wood.

Gradually though, he was loosening. Recovery Girl could shift his arms and legs now, although they still remained perfectly straight. People from the first dimension couldn't be as linear as Iida.

"When do you think he's gonna wake up?" Uraraka asked him.

"I-" Izuku began, right as Iida sat bolt upright. He just transferred from being horizontal to a 90 degree angle.

"Goddamn," Iida said. "That took too long."

Izuku blinked. Everyone blinked. They all transitioned to various intensities of shock.

Iida had cursed.

Iida noticed them all looking.

"Oh, right. You're probably all a little confused right about now."

He breathed out, and silver smoke condensed into the air around his face like a winter breath. The cloud of silver was funnelled away by some invisible force right beside his bed, where it shaped itself into a humanoid figure.

One with long hair.

Then it immediately solidified, and now a girl with silver hair was standing right beside Iida's bed, where Iida himself had collapsed back onto the pillow, breathing heavily.

She swept her hair over her shoulders and onto her back. "Never staying in someone while trying to knock them out again."

Izuku looked back at Iida.

So that's where the bruises on his head came from.

"Please," Iida said between breaths, "don't do something like that again. I beseech you."

She gave a small laugh. "You're actually so formal, aren't you."

She looked at the rest of them, then bowed. "Hashimoto Yurei, pleased to meet you."

Everyone in the room bowed back uncertainly. Iida managed to nod his head forward before falling back. She noticed, and pushed his head further down into the pillow with a finger.

"You take it easy," she told him, and gave him a gentle smile. Mineta was immediately fixated, and managed to push forward a little through the throng.

The girl, Hashimoto, looked around. "There's too many people here. I'm going out."

Everyone scrambled to clear a path to the door, but she just walked through them.

Literally.

Where there were people in front of her, she just walked straight on and passed through them, leaving them shivering in the sensation that followed. It was the complete opposite of heat. Even absolute zero is only the absence of heat. What everyone who got walked through felt was like having swallowed burning ice.

Casually, she walked out the door, and disappeared into the wall outside. Everyone who had seen her go just watched the point where she had sunk into the plaster as if she would come out again, while everyone else just looked around to see what the silence was about.

A few seconds passed.

"What the fuck," Bakugo said. Even if no one else said anything, they were sure they agreed. A little bit later, a portal opened, and Fukusei peered through.

When he saw them, he beckoned, and walked out of sight, away from the window the portal had opened up.

Izuku helped Iida out of bed, who leaned on him for support. With uneasy glances at each other, Class 1-A stepped through, one by one.