Izuku Midoriya faced the newly recovered classmate. She had healed against all odds and managed to almost defeat all of the villains at USJ. A heroic accomplishment, but her face told him that she wasn't so happy. The girl groaned lowly as she was barraged with questions from her other classmates, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Iida, Ochaco, Asui, Ashido and Midoriya himself. The rest weren't so eager to talk to her right now. Maribel's body language spoke of how tired she was as she quickly gestured with a swipe of her hand toward and away from the giant doorway. She frowned somewhat irritably. "...Can I get to my seat please?"

Some of them were abruptly silenced with her blunt words, which signaled to her that she was free to pass. The blonde moved through the doorway and over to her seat. Located just behind Bakugo, diagonally separated from Izuku's seat and two seats away from Yaoyorozu's seat. Immediately, she threw her arms onto the table and rests her head in them, clearly pondering as she stared down at her table.

The bearer of the quirk One For All wasn't so easily swayed from talking to people. When push comes to shove, he'd go and talk to his bully too. He wanted to save people and help their troubles. So he turned to look at her as she sat down. Iida had strode up next to him and did much of the same, but Izuku was the first to say something. "Is she alright? Shouldn't we talk to her?"

Iida's eyes fell down to look at Izuku. "She's our classmate. It's expected that we support each other." He said and walked on over to her. With the support of his friend, Izuku felt more confident to approach the girl. Normally he wasn't all that courageous around girls, but he'd have to learn sometime. After a few steps, they got close, and her eyes immediately went to Iida before Izuku. She wore the female school uniform of U.A and had little to no makeup, but looked fine anyway. Her shoulder-length blonde hair mostly tucked behind her ears with short bangs on the side of her face, with another hanging down just between her nose and left eye. Upon seeing them, she straightened herself out a little and put her hands on the flat plane of the table. Her figure was lacking at all, to the point where you could almost immediately feel the gaze of two other classmates in her direction.

"Uhh... Hello!" Maribel said as her expression became a strange meld of happiness and irritation as she focused mostly on Iida. She had a smile and a happy expression, but there was just something that lingered behind it.

"I see you're fine now. That's a relief." Iida observed and smiled. Izuku realized at this point that she was either far more receptive to him than the rest of the class or wasn't in the mood for talking with the entire class.

Izuku Midoriya decided to get to the point as cheerily as he could. "Uh... Merry, was there something wrong earlier? We're your classmates. You can talk to us, you know!" He said, which got the girl's attention immediately, she turned her upper body and her head to face him all of a sudden. Now she looked a little bit more irked, but perhaps also more curious. He almost flinched simply because of the way she shifted her focus. It felt a bit like when Ochaco started talking to him.

Suddenly the irritation completely drained from her face, and she looked very innocent and excused her previous behavior. She raised her hand along with her speaking, which made both of her classmates focus on what she said. "I'm sorry for earlier. Everyone's been wanting to talk to me, and I'm just a bit sick of it... My night's sleep also not been that good. Perhaps I just need getting back into the school life, too... Feels like I've been away for quite a while, even if it's only been a couple of days. Hehe..." She rubbed the back of her head, an expression of embarrassment.

The student with the glasses decided to talk a little. "If you want to get back into the feel of school, why don't you follow me around for the day?"

"Ah, you mean like eating lunch with you and your friends, things like that?" Maribel looked over to Iida, and then Izuku at the last word. Iida nodded, and she gave her answer, angling her head a little to the side as she did. "Why not? Maybe I could get some tips in regards to the sports festival."

Izuku humored her request immediately. "For the festival many classes seem to be wanting to measure up against us. It's safe to say they're going to be trying to beat us out."

Maribel decided to ask, less cheery now. "Which classes?"

Iida was the one to speak now, he looked a bit tense. "There were many people, but those that stood out most was the other hero course class and one student from the general department."

The blonde pondered on that for a moment. "I met someone from the general department some days ago. Who was it?"

"Well. He didn't tell us his name, but he had unkempt purple hair and looked like he's gone without sleep for a while... He told us to consider his presence a declaration of war. Seems like he wants to use the festival as a chance... A chance to transfer to the hero course!" Izuku somewhat eagerly explained.

The girl closed her eyes as she thought back to the last few days, her right index finger and thumb lining her chin in an expression of thinking. "On appearance, I would guess he's Hitoshi Shinso of 1-C. That's who I met the day before U.S.J..."

"You mean the day where security was breached?!" Izuku yelped out somewhat loudly, gaining some of Maribel's ill attention.

She responded somewhat coldly. "The cafeteria was pretty full, so I sat with whoever I could. Happened to be him. Anyway, the security went off, and I decided to avoid being trampled with my quirk. I took both of us to the woods just outside, relaxed a bit before we moved back into the building. Happened to see the entrance was destroyed when we did and informed Present Mic." Her eyes then flew to the side and the desk behind her, meeting with someone elses the moment they let loose a sound from their mouths.

"Relaxed? You sure that's all?" The voice of Mineta rang out from the desk behind Maribel, sounding very teasing. He sat by his desk while Kaminari stood right next to it. It looked like they had been discussing something without them paying attention.

"...Indeed." She reached for her pocket on her uniform and pulled a pen out. With a quick click and a bout of focus, she found herself energized and tossed the pen like a dart right at the desk. Mineta saw the pen quickly embedding its tip into the top of the desk and forming a slight indentation. What remained of its momentum sent it and its parts bouncing right into his face and made him yelp like a coward. No ink would spill from it, luckily enough.

"Hey! Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" He let out, but the girl merely ignored him.

Iida looked on over to Hearn, purposefully avoiding her eyes for whatever reason. "I know they're acting inappropriately, but you should apologize. Don't be so rude!"

With a sigh, Maribel pondered for a second, before commenting on his statement. "Fine, fine. I won't forgive if they try it again, though." Maribel turned herself back a bit and looked at Kaminari. Her dialogue was quick, cold and straightforward. Something in her voice added to its delivery, but none of them could really discern it. "Sorry if I hit you too hard. Please don't irritate me again." She closed her eyes and took a short breath before opening them again. But they didn't instantly change, they just started to lose their eerie purple color ever so slowly. With a hand on her table, she twisted her chair on over to the other two again. Maribel sounded a lot more satisfied and calm as she looked back to both Iida and Izuku. "So as I was saying, we found the gate all destroyed. We decided to give our opinion to the teacher and concluded someone would've had to have broken it down with a quirk. Turns out we were right. It didn't take much time for me to understand what quirk that villain had when I had to fight him."

Izuku began to talk. He was nervous. "Ehehe... Well, the other classes here also came to scouting us out... Since you got injured and almost fought them off, they must be eager to learn things from you!"

The man with the glasses gestured almost robotically to Izuku as to look away.. The girl began speaking a sliver of irritation, but hid it with some amount of apathy. Her classmates didn't quite pick up on this. "Hmph... I suppose that's just logical, but more trouble for me... Oh, my eyes." And closed her eyes again, draining all focus from herself with a long and drawn out breath. Once she opened her eyes, her quirk quickly became unfocused again, returning her warming golden eyes. Hearn looked at Iida and Izuku in the eyes for a moment as they looked back at her, she nodded and spoke somewhat cheerily again. Her head turned to Iida, angled a little to the side, as she lifts up her arms a little in an expression to gain his attention. "So, when's class starting?"

He looked back at the clock for a moment before looking back to her, right in the eyes. She visibly smiled just because of that. "Just a minute. We're having homeroom! Get to your desks everyone!" He said before yelling it out to the rest of them. Everyone quickly shuffled on over to their desks.

Izuku Midoriya walked back to his desk and sat down on his chair. He had savored the conversation a little, previously he hadn't really had a proper conversation with her. Now that he had, he felt like she purposefully avoided wearing her heart on her sleeve. Maybe it's just the irritation or her quirk, but he just felt like he had to talk to her about it. But had he the courage? It didn't seem like she'd be so open to talking right now. Previously, Izuku felt like he opened up in a tight situation... His face was somewhat stern as he thought about it.

I guess there'll be another time...

So Shinso wants to challenge the entire class, huh... Maybe I could try getting some information out of him as well, I'm sure that if I said the right things, he'd swoon on over to an unannounced alliance. Was it so easy? Maribel had tried things like that back during junior high. "Nnh... Leave it to the heat of the moment." Maribel tiredly moaned to herself.

"Leave what?" Aizawa asked. The teacher had been heavily bandaged after the incident at U.S.J, but his legs and his face were just fine. It's a relief that the villains didn't do more damage, at least she had something to be proud of.

"Oh, I was just thinking about the sports festival. By the way, we get time on the hero lessons to practice for it, right?" The blonde asked her teacher, he looked in her general direction.

Aizawa smiled a little. "Yes. I take it someone's been telling you about the activities at school while you've been gone. It's great the class is getting along at least."

Maribel almost expected such an analysis. "Yep! Iida-kun gave me his number to update me on what happened while I was out."

"Hm. Have you spoken to anyone else about the incident at U.S.J? The media has already decided to put out quite a few stories about the incident, some based on the police's divulging and some pure conjecture. We've requested of the police to keep some of the details of the incident secret, as well as details of your little battle. They also scrubbed a lot of your personal information from publicly available records to ensure your security. There's a reason why we don't want you to speak too much about the incident, just so you understand." Aizawa explained, giving her a watchful eye as he did. They kept pace down the hall, despite this.

Maribel blankly stated what she knew on the issue. Coinciding with this, her hand went to her, where in she ran her fingers through a couple of times to untangle some of it. "I've only really shared any details with Iida-kun."

It might not require a genius to figure out where they were walking. Maribel needed to consult the school about the incident to settle on what she could say to the media and other people. It was a move to maintain the reputation of the school from taking too much of a hit. A student almost dying at the hands of a villain while at the school grounds sounds absolutely laughable. Why should anybody believe in such a school? They'd have to prove them wrong, somehow. And she also had to excuse her behavior during the attack, as she defied Aizawa's instructions and threw herself into a deadly situation.

"I'll have to speak with him later, but it's not the worst you could've done..." Aizawa continued speaking. Maribel was a bit unnerved in talking to him personally like this, she felt a wrong word could easily land her punishment. "I've expelled students for less than you did back at U.S.J... If it didn't save me and my student's skins, it'd be completely unfitting of a hero. You have to learn caution and be less hasty."

Maribel decided to try and defuse the passive aggressiveness. "I will. If you want to be reassured, you could always try and give me some of your own teachings."

"That might be rational. We'll have to save those thoughts for later, we're almost at the Principal's office." He replied. Meanwhile, Maribel's thoughts drifted off.

He's correct, I need to be more cautious. And honestly, it's not my fault that I am not, it's my quirk. For such a versatile tool, I barely know how to use it. Only recently did I think about using the vacuum it creates to use fewer harmful means of fighting and subduing. Using fists and feet feels more natural to me, but it's unsafe. My ability to make a boundary split something that passes through is a lethal attack, I don't even need to think all that much to coordinate it anymore. Something that can instantly kill. I'm sure if that Noumu... Maribel thought back to her very short lived encounter with its fist. ...Couldn't regenerate, they would've expelled me after the incident. Perhaps I'd be put in a juvenile detention center. Not the greatest of destinies to strive for. The law doesn't support the full potential of my quirk, and I understand precisely why that is. But I just don't like it...

Her dreams most recently had been most interesting, she'd found herself in what she remembered as an old dream. Before she managed to find out the true ability of her quirk, before she talked with Renko about the idea of a clear reality. There was a dream where she encountered an unusual mouse... Or rabbit, she couldn't quite remember. With a humanoid face, it was absolutely terrifying, extremely so considering Maribel's age at the time. It laughed and forced her into a sprint, but she got nowhere. Trapped in a never-ending bamboo forest, Maribel Hearn had run into a girl who was aflame. No, rather, she was emitting fire from her entire body. It engulfed her, made her look a terrifying beast. Her younger self had gazed into the brightly glowing eyes of this burning woman and was scared all the same, hiding instead of thanking or talking to her.

In the far later followup to this dream, it was daytime. The same infinite bamboo forest of old, now something which she could see clearly. It was a delightful experience. In the real world, Maribel had never once visited a bamboo forest, the ones that exist were small remnants of what once existed. They managed to survive the century where pollution ran rampant, barely. There was no sound but nature, the birds sang and the insects hopped where they pleased. There was no car, plane, city or person to be heard. That was until she ran into the girl who's face she remembered from that dream. This time, she wasn't burning. She wore red patterned hakama. Her hair was white and decorated with the same kind of charms. If it wasn't due to her quirk, she'd guess she was some sort of youkai, but this girl felt as human as they come. Even if she felt something slightly off, like she held a quirk of sorts. She's a bit masculine, though.

Introducing herself, this woman was Fujiwara no Mokou. I had never heard of her, but I felt like I had read a similar name somewhere before. I know a thing or two about this place. She said and offered her hand and to lead me out of the woods. Not wanting to act like a total stranger, I accepted the offer. On the way out, we talked only a little. During a pause we took, I brought up my dream and how I recognize her face from before. I even thanked her. Yet, she said that she'd never recognized my face anywhere, even if her description seemed accurate. Truly, she was a mystery. I felt like she wasn't lying, her face nor her body language told of such. These dreams are always so confusing, I've always wondered where they take me. I decided to ask her which era it was, she told me it was Kamakura. So I didn't even meet her on that day? I met her in the past, apparently... The walk wasn't all that long, and I didn't have the courage to ask her more stuff, since it felt like she was in somewhat of a bad mood. My dream ended there, but I just can't get it off my mind.

"Here it is." Aizawa mumbled and opened the door to the Principal's office. Both of them stepped in to the view of a table, two sofas, a window out over the city, an office desk and the visage of the Principal Nezu behind it.

"You're finally here, take a seat." He spoke, the humanoid mouse's voice as soft as the fur on his exterior. Maribel thought he looked weird, as with almost all mutants, but she could bear it. She nodded and made her way on over to the sofa that was closest to her. Nezu got off of his chair and walked out from next to his desk. As he stood next to the sofa, he looked to Aizawa and said. "I'll handle it from here."

"Alright then." The teacher replied, turning around to leave through the door and closing it behind him.

The principal moved to the sofa in front of Maribel and began to converse about real matters. "It has come to my attention that you decided to make a move to save your teacher and fellow classmates at the incident last week. An admirable effort. It appears you were mostly successful too. However, you also put yourself at tremendous risk, which did not go in your or our favor. As a hero school, it's most damaging for the villains to even be able to make intrusions into our grounds, let alone seriously hurting one of our students. While the media is seldom harboring ill intentions, they play a large part in public perception. I'm sure you understand that, Maribel Hearn-kun."

"I do." Maribel said, she held a stern interior now, but her exterior was as passive as she could make herself. He speaks mostly important things, meaning that he likely won't be beating around the bush with this conversation. Not only that, but he can pronounce my name properly. In a way, I feel at ease, but he may also be a lot smarter than I take him for. "I knew about the risk and it's what I believed had to be done." She replied, briefly moving out her arm and giving the Principal an open palm before withdrawing it. That way, he would remember and not go on a tangent about it. Maybe that was just her perception, but she had some experience with stuff. "But I must apologize for the trouble I have caused." She continued, standing up and giving almost ten seconds to an apologetic bow. Placing her hands together while she bowed and then slowly returning to her normal posture after three seconds of holding it. Then she sat down as calmly as she could.

"Apology accepted. We can only hope to reassure the security of the school. You may be able to play a part in that, it might make everything much easier for us." The Principal uttered in the same tone as before. He grabbed a cup of coffee that sat on the table in front of him. Must've moved it there in advance, he thought ahead.

So he wants me to be a pawn in his plan. I feel that denying him such would shower me with a worse situation. But I'll have to at least listen to it. "Tell me what you have in mind, Principal-sensei." Maribel requested. She felt herself on guard, being weighed with responsibilities wasn't her ideal situation.

"Your words to any media presence will have to coincide with what we will tell them in the future. Currently, we're to give them new information as to clear it all up and let it fade into memory, and that's where your part will be most important. It's required that you help diminish the perceived incompetence of our school, the villains were quite formidable after all. Even so, you managed to do serious harm to them on your own. All Might was the one required to defeat their trump card, Noumu. None of the students at U.S.J and only one of our teachers in the school were capable of defeating it. The public does not know how much damage you did to it, so they will think you were simply incapable of handling such unfortunate circumstances." Nezu calmly explained, it was entirely expected that he had a lot to say. So far, it doesn't seem like he's being too demanding...

"Wouldn't that make me look incompetent, though?"

He scoffed a little and took a sip of his coffee. "Not exactly. Their identified leader, Tomura Shigaraki and his accomplice Kurogiri were both repelled in large part to you. In turn, you were of much aid to Aizawa, even if you were also a liability. My analysis of the situation concluded that it would likely have ended worse for him if he kept fighting alone."

After a short pause, he continued. "Another thing working in our favor is the public does not know All Might was supposed to be a part of the lesson. We know they somehow managed access to information regarding the teacher's assignments, but we have also concluded that no file transfer was made on the file between computers and no memory storage had been inserted into them either. They had simply viewed the file. There is a lack of reliability for any media to take it seriously if the information they have spread online. Using this as evidence of a teacher neglecting his duties and thereby putting his students at risk will not be taken seriously. We can be safe from retaliation, making our mission entirely oriented around making the mass media look foolish."

"Mhm. I get it." Maribel nodded in understanding."Well, is there anything else?"

"There is actually. With the sports festival just two weeks away..."

Maribel froze on the inside. ...

"The first-year students have begun scouting your class to improve their chances. Your competition will be fierce this year, not only between your classmates, but also from other classes. From your performance at U.S.J, everyone will want to understand what exactly made you able to take center stage. It's clear you did more than just rise up to the villains, you drove them back. Such a thing cannot be said of most students in this school." Nezu spoke and took a long sip of his coffee, closing his eyes and preparing himself. This is what I hadn't hoped for! Placing faith in me to hold up the reputation of the school?! On one person?!

When he was done, he put it down and looked as serious as a mouse person could be. His voice changed to fit the mood. "The people, the media and your fellow students expect you to be one of the best. Based on your apprehension test performance and the incident at U.S.J, I have to agree with this. Participating may present a problem, but also an opportunity. If you can show the world that you were capable enough to handle things that even the teachers couldn't. We may be able to alleviate the pressure put upon us by the masses much more easily. Prove to them at we were caught without awareness of their strength and that still, you were able to hold your own."

Maribel couldn't take more of it. It almost felt like she was being talked down to if she just blindly accepted his words. "Isn't it a bit extreme to put all this pressure on just one person?!" She raised her voice a bit, casting a somewhat light shrug in tandem as to question him. She then lowered her hands to her lap again. "I can handle only being able to tell the media what you've told me to tell them. But staking your reputation on one person sounds a bit risky don't you think?"

"I can see why you'd think that. But the thing is, whether you fail or don't participate, the result is the same. The masses will believe you were too hurt to be part of the festival, or grossly incapable and reckless if you have poor performance. Then, they will pin that on us. However, if you do participate, you will at least present us the chance for an easy way out of this. As long as you are capable of keeping your quirk's mental effects in check, everything should be alright." Nezu retorted much more calmly than she did.

...Really!?.. Agh, come on! I don't want to deal with this... But I can't say he's wrong, he thought about this much more than me. He even read up on my quirk too, must've been keeping an eye on me for some reason. Hearn thought and groaned lowly, straightening herself out a little. "...Fine, I'll have to go along with your plan."

"Then it is settled. You may ask some of our teachers to help you train yourself in this endeavor. Should they be available, they may come to you during the hero lessons. That's when you have time for it. Remember, we expect you to perform at the top, perhaps even number one." Nezu concluded. "Now that we are done, you may go have your lunch."

Maribel stood up and gave him another bow, much faster this time, as a sign of goodbye. "Thank you, Principal-sensei."

He stood up and returned the favor. The girl then turned and left after opening the door. Just outside of the office, she placed a couple of fingers to her forehead, looked down and let her hair fall.

I hate it.

But I have to bear it.

And here it starts off. It took me a bit of time to get around to writing it, but it's somewhat of a habit at this point. I plan to introduce more stakes later into the story, but currently she's stuck with a school specific one that'll mesh better with the other students.

I had also planned to write out a piece where Doremy actually starts to do something about Kurogiri being stuck in the dream world, as to get things rolling on a side-plot involving the villain side of things. But maybe I'll save that for later, towards nighttime. The day hasn't ended in this chapter, after all. I do think that this chapter could've used some more polish, but I think I'll fix that at later date.

Oh, and to the people who guessed Junko on the last chapter, I'll go ahead and say that you're wrong. Whoever it was isn't quite that important on her lonesome.

Remember that I don't have any problem with constructive criticism, so leave a review if you have anything valuable to say. Have a nice day.