This was it. Standing at the door to his old classroom. I didn't know if I was ready for this. Could I look at the faces of people who I had failed, many of whom I had seen die? Was he ready for those same faces to look at him like he was a complete stranger? He knew these people almost better than he knew himself after three years of school together, though most of the friendships hadn't really blossomed till the third. It had taken the first two years before anyone other than Kaminari would willingly associate with him, and honestly, Kaminari had been just the kinda guy to associate with anyone. He was nice and did not judge people about how weird they were. He was the kind of guy you saw being able to enter into a dozen different clicks and move onto the next one with everyone being happy about his company. He had managed to hold a place in the Bakusquad while still being close friends to everyone else. He was easily my best friend, though I doubt I was ever his. We had bonded over a mutual interest in the fairer sex, being able to crush over the beautiful girls in our class. Of course, while my self-esteem had told me I would never have a chance with any woman until I was rich and famous and just settled for creeping on them like a disgusting perv. Of course, now the thought of crushing on 15-year-old girls just made me feel like a pedophile. I may be hormonally 15, but mentally I was in my late twenties. Not to mention having gone through the end of the world. Romance had not been something I had worried about in quite some time. Our priorities had been a bit different. I wasn't exactly certain how old, it had been hard to keep track of the date after a while.
I was avoiding opening the door. Just sitting there with my hand on it, God after everything I was still a coward. I didn't really blame everyone for being so distant to me the first two years, it had been hard growing up a short weird ugly boy whos only role model had been basically a man-whore. There hadn't been a lot of opportunities to learn social cues and what was and was not acceptable. Not that made my behavior acceptable, thinking about the things I had done still racked me with guilt. Honestly, I was not certain what Aizawa sensei had seen in me. Of course, he and several other teachers had talked to me and kept my behavior from crossing certain lines, but if I had been born in a more western culture, my behavior had already crossed over enough lines. This circle talk was getting me nowhere, I wasn't that child anymore, I had grown up, and I would never again be making my friends uncomfortable due to me being a creep. I was stalling again, wasn't I? Taking a deep breath and doing what Karashima had taught me to I manned up and forced my way through my fear. The door rushed open much faster than I meant it to, and everyone turned to look at me. There wasn't a face in that classroom that didn't threaten to send me into dark memories. Thankfully they were all so young, not quite yet settling into the looks they would have in a few years. Of course, history had taught me never to enter a room without fully surveying it. It only took me a quick second or two to establish the room wasn't holding anything immediately threatening to me, but just past Bakugo, was my best friend. Any control I had of the situation shattered when I thought of the last time he and I had been face to face.
"Kaminari was our early warning system, these days. He had managed such fine-tune of his quirk that he could detect electrical impulses within 50 meters. "Guys, we got a patrol outside" Kaminari whispered slowly getting out of his sleeping bag. As the rest of us rolled out of bed quickly scrambling up from our hiding positions in the deserted bank, Kaminari held up three fingers. A patrol that small could be avoided easily, they wouldn't have any sensor quirks, we just had to avoid detection. Of course, there was only one villain comfortable enough to search for us with a retinue that small, and he would be nearby. Fear filled me, making every action just a little more jerky and rushed. Silently we packed everything up and moved deeper into the bank heading to the vault. We might have made it if I had stayed calm. I was halfway across the room when I realized Kaminari wasn't behind me. I twisted to look back towards Kaminari and stupidly failed to see an old cup filled with pens right next to me sending it falling to the cracked tiled floor. Reflexes I had built over the last few years allowed me to successfully catch the cup before it could hit the stone. The pens inside the cup however hit the floor. Dread hit my face and everyone looked at me with fear in their eyes. It was such a quiet sound, maybe we would be lucky. There was a moment of complete silence. A loud explosion destroyed the front entrance. Three Numo stood in the dust cloud. Before anyone could move Kaminari threw himself at them, locking them down by stunning them repeatedly with his muscle lock martial art. "GET IN THE VAULT!" Eri, Ashido, Ojiro, Kendo, and I all moved quickly into our escape plan. I cracked the vault door as Mina began to melt through the floor into the sewage system. I began to place my grapes against the wall so we could seal the vault shut. The Numo could not report what they saw, only follow simple commands. If we were able to distract and lose them it would take that monster precious time to track where we had gone. We could be long gone before we picked up the trail again.
"Come on come on come on" Mina mumbled to herself as she worked quickly to melt through the floor. Ojiro looked back up towards Denki. "Were not going to make it." Kaminari was a flurry of fists and kicks every movement using his electricity to paralyze the muscles of the Numo and keep them locked in place. "CLOSE THE VAULT, THEY WILL BE HERE ANY SECOND!" I couldn't do that I wouldn't. We were not losing anyone today, we had already lost so much. I could help him, I could use my grapes to slow the Numo down, They'd be right after us, but it would buy us a few moments. "FUCK NO KAMINARI! MOVE I CAN LOCK THEM DOWN IF YOU JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Kaminari looked at me and smiled. "Mashirao its time." Ojiro nodded. "It's been an honor Chargebolt." Ojiro grabbed me throwing me back into the room. He spun slamming his tail into the vault door, smashing the vault shut and sealing it into the place with my preplaced quirk. I lay stunned against the ground. It couldn't end, not like this. I scrabbled to my knees, pushing toward the door. "Ashido, YOU NEED TO MELT THE DOOR!" There was a thudding noise behind me and I knew Mina had finished the escape route. "MINA THERES STILL TIME!" Ojiro grabbed me, picking me like I was nothing as Mina and Eri dropped into the hole. "DON'T DO THIS! WE CAN'T LEAVE HIM!" We dropped into the floor and emerged in a set of sewer tunnels. "DENKI!" I struggled, weakly hitting Ojiro with blows I doubted he could even feel. I could just hear a sobbing sound coming from behind me as Mina lost control of her emotions. Eri grabbed Ashido pushing her into her chest. We survived another day, but I had killed my best friend. Ojiro looked lost for a few moments, before quickly leading the way, still carrying me slung under his arm."Denki is giving us time to get away, every moment we stay here is another moment his sacrifice is wasted." I stopped struggling, openly crying in grief. Mina was just as loud as I was but Eri and Mashirao led us through the tunnels and into the darkness.
"Uh excuse me?" I jumped turning to see Midoriya standing right behind me. I turned back and saw the whole class was staring at me now. So much for good first impressions. "Sorry about that" I mumbled and quickly pushed into the room sitting at my desk. I could feel the stares of my other students and I felt like breaking down into tears. God even when I was trying not to be weird, I was the weirdest one in here. I didn't belong here with these amazing heroes. God how on earth was I going to save them. It was impossible to do this by myself. I would completely and utterly fail. Iida broke the silence quickly rushing up to argue with Bakugo about something stupid, something I remembered fondly. The two were always bickering about something ridiculous, even in the face of the apocalypse. It was weird, but somehow the fact the two could find silly things to bicker about was actually calming when the whole world was falling apart. It had a way of grounding everyone. Plus, people weren't staring at him anymore.
A few moments later, Aizawa-Sensei walked into the room. He managed to get everyone to pipe down with just his aura alone. Gruffly ordering as around as he looked like he would keel over at any minute. It didn't take him long to have us following him out to the training field. I knew that it was a logical ruse, but I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had placed, or how anyone else had done. Was it important that I get it exact? I had already made changes just by being more mature than I had been previously, but I wasn't willing to be creepy and harass my friends just because I had done so the first time. No, it couldn't matter, as long as I didn't do too well or too badly, it would be fine. I just would do the tests to the best of my ability and just go from there. "DIIIIEE!" I looked up startled as Bakugo rocketed the damn ball out of sight. Jesus Bakugo. Could never be content with anything other than his absolute best. This test was going to be extreme.
The first event was the fifty-meter dash. One of the most important skills for a hero was to figure out how to get someone fast when you needed to. I had long mastered this skill and when it came time, it was instinctual. I threw my grapes ahead of me and bounced quickly from grape to grape getting a solid 6.93 seconds. Not my greatest time ever, but I was sure that was at least as good if not better than when I had to run it normally. The time led to several snickers and some outright laughter. I glanced around in confusion, I didn't think I had done that bad, I had done better than a couple of the other students. "Grow up children, your futures are still on the line. Clearly you are not taking this seriously enough. The last two to place will be expelled, and the three above that will have remedial training. Did that make it serious enough for you?" Aizawa-Sensei quickly darkened the mood again, but I didn't feel any more pressure, after all, it was a ruse right?
There was of course nothing I could do for my grip strength and the standing long jump just required the same trick as the 50 meters, jumping onto the grapes to give me extra distance and height. I picked the best angle for maximum distance and flew through the air like a ball shot out of a cannon. The sideways jumps were just as easy as I bounced between the grapes like a kid in a bounce house letting gravity and momentum do most of the work. There was nothing I could do for the pitch, but I got to watch Midoriya impress sensei once again. At the time, I hadn't understood what was so impressive about him breaking a finger instead of an arm, but now understanding the depth of Midoriya's ability to think outside the box and come up with unorthodox solutions I was almost as excited as Sensei. Even as a 15-year-old teenager breaking his body every time he used his quirk, his dedication to becoming a hero outshone me even as a fully grown adult. Midoriya should be the one with the second, literally any of these kids besides him. It really had me wondering about what if Midoriya had his quirk just a year or two earlier how much more amazing he could have been.
The rest of the tests passed quietly, even with the advantage of an additional ten plus years I still had only managed to place 18th. I barely beat out Hagakure whose quirk was being invisible so of no use to her for these tests. Of course, this was UA and this was class 1A. No one was here coasting on their talents. Every single one of us had killed ourselves to attend this class, to assume any of us weren't in the best shape of our lives would be a mistake. Even I had put in months of physical training when I decided to come here the first time around. "Great job everyone, no one is getting expulsion or remedial classes. Hit the showers, and met me back in the classroom in a half-hour for our heroics conduct classes. We have some rules to go over before you'll be allowed to participate in the heroic simulations.
The showers were a godsend. I didn't care how many I had since I got back, there was nothing as good as hot water and good pressure. I could only imagine how I would feel about a trip to some hot springs. There were so many things people just took for granted these days, things people wouldn't even think were a luxury and I was determined to enjoy every last one of them. Putting on fresh clothing that actually smelled clean was one of them. While eventually, you stopped noticing the smell of death, rot, and shit when you suddenly didn't smell it anymore everything was simply marvelous. Though I was getting extremely tired of perfumes, his home just perpetually smelled like someone had dropped at least a dozen different brands of perfume bottles all over the house and hadn't bothered to clean it up. He couldn't wait to move into the dorm. Uncle Charlie had essentially stopped being a part of his life once he had moved into the dorm. This was probably the moment when I had started to learn how my conduct was coming across and the negative impacts became apparent. Uncle Charlie was nice, but I don't think he ever learned to deal with his grief healthily. It wasn't his fault my parents had died in an attempted mugging, but I think he blamed himself. He was always in the right place for him, but that day, my parents weren't where it was right for him to be. It was a wonder I didn't blame him, but he had taken care of me since I was 4. He was the only real family I had before I came to UA. There was always a distance between us though, and after a while, I had given up on trying to cross it, and just settled on trying to be him. He paid the bills, made sure I didn't get into trouble but otherwise let me do my own thing. I had become rather self-sufficient, learning how to make my own food, figure out my homework, and just overall take care of myself. I suppose I could try to learn more about him this time around, but that was a minor thing. It would be selfish to devote to much time to that when the fate of the world and my friends depended on my actions now.
I had a job to do, but the pressure of it all was growing more by the day. It was never supposed to be me here. Mina would have been better, she would have known how to interact with people to give a positive change to everyone, known what she could fix and what needed to happen. If I changed things, what would happen? Were we the sum of our experiences? If Midoriya didn't meet the hurdles he had, would he still have been our Symbol of Hope? What if something I did caused a butterfly effect that got someone killed? I could make the whole situation worse and there would be no one to blame but me. What if it was the opposite, what if everything was predestined, what if nothing I did could change anything major? there was also the fact that even as a pro hero, I don't think I could have taken down anyone actually important in the league of villains. I definitely couldn't take down Overhall from what Eri had told me. My quirks had always leaned more to restraining the small-time crooks and in certain situations disaster management. Anyone else in Class 1A would have been better. Instead, it was me here, because I was the last of them. The cowardly pathetic survivor that everyone else had died saving. It should have been me any of those times. My friends died and I am here, I can't fail them. But how on earth was I going to save them?