Chapter 9: The Jam Filling

Edited by: Faenrir

Things were… meh. Just meh. Not to good, not no bad. But meh. I was in a meh mood and I was going to ride it out till meh became something else. Meh.

It was the day after the USJ attack and I was sitting in my room reading. Classes were canceled for obvious reasons, and I was home alone as my mum had to head off to help with the investigation and other Pro Hero business. So, I was stuck at home for the day with just about nothing to do but read on my cell phone. Unfortunately for me, I had read through every good fanfic I could find and didn't feel like re-reading any of them at the moment. I spent another three minutes searching before I gave up and looked at the clock - it was twelve twenty. I should have made lunch thirty minutes ago.

I groaned in annoyance as I rose from my bed. Pros of not have a stomach: not feeling hungry. Cons of not having a stomach: if you don't pay attention to the clock, you may not eat at all. I was a glutton, goddamnit! I love food! Missing a meal was a grievous sin and I refused to do so. That, and I still needed to replace the sludge I lost to Shigaraki, that bastard…

As I trudged my way to the kitchen, I formed several arms from my back and sent them to the fridge and bread closet. After rooting around for a bit, I pulled out four slices of bread, two pickles, the almost-finished remains of a stick of butter and cheese, a few slices of salami, and a bottle of mustard. I quickly placed all ingredients on a plate before lazily squirting a wad of mustard on the ingredients, then slammed my face on the plate. When I removed my face from the plate, all the food was gone, and I was content.

'You're disgusting.'

'You do realize all I did was eat two sandwiches, right?'

'No, you didn't! You just- it's just- you piece of trash!'

'Great comeback.'

'You're disgusting!' The voice growled.

'And I no longer care what you have to say right now.'

"Don't you dare you-" I sighed in relief as I mentally punted the asshole voice in my head away. I wanted some peace and quiet right now. I leaned back a bit and scanned the table for a moment, when I noticed a note with my name on it. I made two other arms to take care of the dishes as I picked up the note.

Hey son~!

We're getting kinda low on food, and since I'm going to be working for most of the day, could you please go out and get the groceries? I left some money and a list on my dresser. Have a good day sweetie~!

-Mom

I gave the note a half-hearted glare before sighing. I didn't really want to go outside today, but it seems like if I wanted more food I didn't have a choice in the matter. I quickly sent an arm to grab the list and cash before I grabbed one of several maroon hoodies and walked out the door.

I've been walking around for about three hours now! Nemuri was rather picky and only wanted the best and freshest food she could get, so she could keep her figure or some nonsense, which meant I had to go to specific stores to get specific things. Veggies? Random high-quality grocer in a back alley. Meat? Walk for twenty minutes down several random alleys till you find that one butcher that only sold the finest cuts of meat surrounded by big companies. Nemuri also wanted me to grab some noodles, so guess what? Walk for forty minutes till you find a tucked-away store that sold high quality, homemade noodles. Tea! Walk nearly all the way to UA, take a detour till you find a small house surrounded by the most unkempt lawn in history to get a small bag of world class tea. The old lady there was nice, but geez granny, hire some kid to mow your lawn.

Anyway, noticed anything constant in that last paragraph. It's all HIGH-QUALITY SHIT! Everything from every store, no growth hormones, preservatives, pesticides, or animal abuse if their involved in one way or another. And the places that they get this stuff, it's from a family friend, or a friend of a friend, or on a farm run by their cousin. With all this in mind, you'd expect that it's all pretty expensive - and it is - but thankfully, due to Midnight being both an active Pro Hero and a teacher. She be raking in that dough like it's nothing. So, the expenses were pretty much negligible. Why am I mentally narrating all of this to myself!? Because I like to complain and getting into a random argument with random passersby isn't something I'm very keen on doing. So, I'll complain to myself.

I was currently making my final round of groceries, as I had to take several stops at home to drop off the food I'd already gotten. Now all I had to do was pick up the bread and butter. Funny how the simplest of things had been left for last, eh? I continued strolling for a bit when I finally strolled across my final destination, a familiar bakery that was no longer burnt to the ground. It took about two months for it to get rebuilt, and when it was, I decided to pop in for a visit. The moment I walked in, I was immediately greeted by the Müller family who thanked me profusely for saving them once more and was then promised a fifteen percent discount for life. While the modest part of me wanted to deny the offer, the greedy glutton in me punched that modesty into oblivion and took their offer. Since then, I had gotten to know them rather well. Their bakery was simply called Müller's Pastry Emporium.

'Wow. Real original there, idjit.'

'...Why are you saying that like it's my fault?'

'Because shut up.'

I rolled my eyes before walking into the shop. I didn't feel like getting into an argument with my PTSD manifestation right now.

'I'm not a-' *punt* 'AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!' And it's out of the park!

"Kayama are you ok?" Asked a familiar voice.

I looked over to see the woman whom I had saved all those months ago, with a concerned look on her face. Realising that she had been calling me during that brief interaction with the asshole in my head I quickly went to reassure her.

"Sorry; just caught up in my thoughts," I reaffirmed her. "Anyway, I'll take two loaves of the best rye bread ya got… and a loaf of the best bread in existence."

"So, cheese bread?" she replied jokingly as she quickly gathered the bread I asked for.

"You know me well, Mrs. Müller: Master of The Loaf." I retorted in a goofy fashion.

She giggled at my words. "I've been thinking of changing the name of this place for a while, Masters Of The Loaf is probably one of the better names we could use, but..."

"The Mister's too attached, isn't he?"

"Yep."

As she returned to the counter to ring up my order on the register, a passing thought crossed my mind, as I look at the clock and noticed it was around two-forty.

"Odd question," I said gathering the attention of the baker. "Aren't you and your hubby usually making, like, donuts around this time?"

A relieved sigh escaped her. "Usually that would be the case, but we've got a new employee recently," she made a motion for me to hand her the required cash. "We were a bit worried at first - he was a criminal and was only put on parole recently, but he's been really handy so far."

I now stood stock still. The words criminal, parole, and bakery echoing in my mind. I stared Mrs. Müller in the eyes and gave the slightly awkward question shuffle.

"This new employee... He wouldn't happen to have a mutation Quirk that makes him look like a reptile, would he?" I asked hurriedly.

"Yes, why do you ask?" Ms. Müller answered, her head slightly tilted.

If I could still breathe, I would have taken a deep breath, but since I didn't have to, I skipped over that part as I cupped my hands around my mouth.

"Hey Ryota! How ya doin'!?" I yelled towards the baking area behind the counter, startling Ms. Müller.

"Kayama what are you-"

"Get back here you little-" Mr. Müller yelled as what sounded like a series of pans clanging came from the back.

Out from the doorway came a lizard-man in baking attire with a surprised look on his face. He started at me for a second, looking like he wanted to say something before he gave up and changed his mind.

"What's your nam-" Ryota began before he was tackled to the ground by Mr. Müller.

"gotcha, ya little hosenscheisser."

"Language." Ms. Müller chided sternly causing her husband to flinch.

Mr. Müller was a pleasant man from Germany; he moved to Japan in search of a new life. He never really got into it, but from what I could infer, his circumstances back home weren't the greatest. When he got here, he started up the bakery, starting out with only baked sweets at first, but when he got married his wife decided to diversify the menu. As I later found out, Mr. Müller never really wore any fire/heat protection because of his Quirk, Feuerschutzschild, which basically translated to fire shield. I found this out as I had grabbed a burning hot tray off him once. Not fun. However, with that in mind, I had begun to wonder why he didn't do anything when I first met them. You know, when the building was burning down into a blazing heap of ashes. Turns out while Feuerschutzschild protected him from the fire and heat, explosions are a different matter. Poor bastard was only a few meters from the blast, got knocked the fuck out.

"Oi, Mr. M." I said, interrupting his and Ryota's tussle. "S'kay. Me and him have met before. Let's just say I kinda helped him get on the right track."

Mr. Müller paused for a second before getting off the lizard man and helping him to his feet. One slightly awkward conversation after that and Royta and I sat at the Müller's kitchen table.

"So..." the draconic baker began with an awkward tone. "I never got your name and calling you 'kid' would be a but rude, so…."

"Name's Kayama. So Ryota, I see that you've finally become a baker."

"I'm more of an apprentice, really. I only really learned how to make a basic loaf of bread and I never really found out how good they were. I made some bread when I first started here; Ms. Müller said I did pretty good, but…."

"She cringed a little, didn't she?"

Ryota let out a sad sigh, "Yeah."

"Don't sweat it. Sucking at something is the first step at being sorta good at something." I shrugged with a friendly smile.

"Thanks… I guess?" The scaled baker trailed off, not really sure how to take my words of advice, before slightly shaking his head. "Anyways what have you been up to since-"

"I kicked your ass." I interrupted, causing Royta to glare mildly at me.

"Well, in chronological order. I was interrogated by the police, adopted by Midnight, saved the Müllers from a burning building, decided to become a hero, was 'trained' by Midnight, got into U.A and I am currently on a grocery run because school's out on account of the villain attack yesterday." I counted off on one of my hands in a nonchalant tone, growing a finger for each new point when I ran out.

The wide-eyed stare Ryota had was stirring with considerable confusion. "Wha...?"

I let out an annoyed sigh, "I was interrogated by the police, adopted by Midnight, saved the Müllers from a burning building-" I listed off again before Ryota interrupted me.

"You were adopted by Midnight!" Royta almost yelled in surprise.

"I am fourteen years old and was homeless at the time. My actions that night apparently made her think I could be a good hero, specifically my speech to you." I shrugged with something akin to indifference. "So, what've you been up to?"

"Interrogated by police, sent to jail, testified in court, let out on parole after a few months of good behavior and I'm now following my dreams of becoming a baker." he said while mirroring my tone from moments ago.

I gave Ryota a wry smile. "Speaking of jail, guess who I met yesterday during the USJ attack."

The dragon-esk man across from me looked shocked. "You were at the USJ yesterday?!"

I was bewildered for a moment before a thought crossed my mind. "You stopped listening after I said Midnight adopted me, didn't you?"

Ryota had the decency to look embarrassed at my accusation. After that, I repeated my chronological list and I decided to give him a quick rundown of the events that occurred yesterday. Specifically, the part where I reunited with his old buddies. I didn't tell him too much, though, just a slightly more detailed version of what the public was told. He laughed a bit when I wove the tale of how I escaped his old friends and their new buddies.

I left shortly afterward, making sure to grab a jelly donut on my way out. I walked all the way home with a content smile on my face. When I finally got home, I noticed Nemuri lazing on the couch with a sandwich, then she noticed me and sat up with a worried look.

"You should've been here twenty minutes ago; what happened?" she asked with a tone that almost made me feel guilty.

"Nothing much, just lost track of time catching up with an old acquaintance." I stated as I stashed the bread away before pulling out some milk form the fridge and taking a swig from the jug.

I blanched in horror and fell to the floor in pain as I absorbed the what I only now realized was a lumpy substance. "Oh god!" I cried in agony.

"What happened?!" Nemuri yelled in worry.

"The milk's gone bad!"

"What?! I just bought that three days ago!?"

"Why can't I throw up!?"

"Should I call the hospital!? Poison control!?"

"End meeeeee…."

'This is what you get for being a slob.'

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggggggg…."

(Third Person P.O.V)

It's was eight PM and the Müllers had closed shop an hour ago. Ryota was now standing in the almost uncomfortably small kitchen of his shoddy apartment, preparing some food for dinner. The smell of eggs began to waft through the cramped apartment as he began to scramble them, the place had been provided to him upon his release for prison. When he had first moved in, the place reeked of cannabis. A smell Ryota had only been exposed to a few times in his life, and one that he was glad to have finally gotten rid of.

A certain orange-haired thug sat alone in his cell. Specialised rubber sleeves covering the metal portions coming from his back, while his hands sported a pair of gloves and cuffs made from the same material. Said thug glared viciously at the cop that was in front of his cell.

"Anything else you'd like to declare, Kurai?" The cop asked, the tone of his voice carrying
the message 'I'm tired of this shit.'

"Eat a dick." The now named Kurai huffed viciously at the cop, causing the officer to sigh in
annoyance before walking off.

Kurai continued to glare, the wall across from him now being the target of his rage, this continued for a few minutes. Before he began to smile maniacally at a new sight in front of him.

Ryota quickly buttered a piece of toast and slapped it on his plate before walking into his living room. He quickly went to sit on the sole piece of furniture that resided in the room besides an old TV and the 'table' it resided on. It was an old beat up recliner that smelled of memories of days long past. Ryota placed the plate on his lap and pulled the remote from its hiding place in the chair's cushions. He quickly flicked through the channels till he found what he was looking for: The Heroic News Network.

It was a homemade reporting network, made up of, from what he understood, a tight knit group of All Might fanboys. There was another station called the All Might News Station, but while the HNN was so bad its good, AMS was just plain horrible. Ryota smiled fondly as he recalled all the times he and his old friends tuned into this channel just to rip into it and laugh about how horrible it was.

Kurai stood up, and quickly made his way to the purple mist in front of him. He was slightly surprised at how fast they acted, picking him up only the day after he was caught. But he didn't really care, all he could think about was what he was going to do to that slimy brat when he got the chance.

The second Kurai stepped through the portal, he knew something was wrong. The stench of blood permeated the air around him, and that was when he noticed it, or rather them.

Ryota's melancholy smile persisted as he sat alone and chuckle at the buffoonery he was witnessing. As nostalgia flooded him he couldn't help but wonder how his old friends were doing.

Blood was flooding his lungs. He had tried to escape, but the misty portal had already vanished. As his vision began to fade, he looked at the floor to see the bloody corpses of his gang and several other thugs. Kurai used his last of his strength to glare at the faceless bastard that had killed him. And after the final iotas of life was ripped away, he was tossed aside like garbage as All For One ordered Kurogiri to open another portal.

Ryota shrugged in joyful indifference, other then a few bruises, they were probably fine.

(Marc's P.O.V)

It was now tomorrow, or was it today? Classes were back in action and I was back sitting in my seat. Turns out Midnight was in a rush when she bought the milk and forgot to check the expiration date. Most of my peers were talking about the aftermath of the attack while I sat miserably in the back. For yesterday, I had experienced a slice of true hell; just imagine the feeling of a terribly bad stomach ache, throughout your entire body. The pain still echoed. From then on, I swore to always inspect before I ingest.

I swept my eyes around the class a few times and noticed that Hagakure was unusually quiet today, she was usually one of, if not the most talkative person in the class. Meanwhile, Kaminari was flaunting his admittedly cool looking lightning scar that now marred his face. I was, however, slightly miffed about the fact that he didn't realize that Hagakure was flinching every time someone said it looked cool. I would be angrier at him if it weren't for the fact she was invisible and noticing said flinches was a very hard thing to do. I'm pretty sure Shoji is the only other person who noticed, as I saw him giving her a shoulder pat at one point.

Tokoyami, the only other person that was injured in that mess, had his arm patched up by Recovery Girl. That was nice to see. I was just about to pull out my phone when Uraraka began to talk to me.

"Are you ok, Kayama?" she asked in concern, obviously worried about my current state of being.

"Ech."

Uraraka gave me and odd look. "Ech?"

I gave a lazy nod of affirmation. "Ech. Take that sound, turn it into an emotion, that is what I am."

Uraraka continued with her odd stare before giggling and returning to… whatever she was doing beforehand. Still, with that out of the way now I can-

"Attention!" Iida yelled as he marched up to the podium at the front of the class. "Home room class is about to begin! Everyone stop talking and take your seats!" he finished in what I would like to call 'Iida Pose Number Twelve.'

I promptly ignored him and everything else as I began to mope once more. Why, oh why, must the universe prevent me from reading before class! Not even ten seconds later, Aizawa popped into class, shocking the rest of my peers. I, in the meantime, silently analyzed him for a moment before sighing in relief at the fact that he had about thirty percent less bandages than he did in canon. He quickly dismissed any and all questions about his well being, when he managed to trudge his way to the podium and gave the class a serious glare.

"Your fight's not over." Aizawa declared, getting mixed (mainly shocked) reactions from the class.

And in three, two, one, the sports festival is… "Despite the fact that a majority of you got away with no serious physical injuries," Wait, what? "The fact remains that what happened at the USJ was extremely... jarring. For many of you." he continued, choosing the word jarring carefully. "If you feel the need to, we have a therapist on the fourth floor, room 406. It is completely confidential."

As he finished, a shaky silence was set over the classroom. After that, homeroom continued as normal. No surprising announcements, logical ruses, or bait-and-switches. I was still really nervous. The sports festival should have been announced today. Why wasn't it? It wasn't till it was nearly the end of class I got my answer.

"By the way." Aizawa said with a warning tone that almost caused everyone to stand at attention. "In two weeks' time the sports festival will be taking place. You'd best use that time to prepare for it."

I and several others gave a huge sigh of relief when Aizawa said that. But even then, two weeks didn't seem like a lot of time, especially since the villain attack only happened two days ago. Jiro had just begun to raise some concerns when I, per usual, went back to the inner sanctum of my mind. The race was going to be fun, and a cake walk for me. All I had to do was make sure not to end up in first place. The cavalry battle was going to be a pain as I had no idea whom to team up with and due to the fact that I tended to be an awkward idiot when it came to picking people to work with. As for the one-on-one battles, well, so long as I don't have Todoroki or Bakugou as my first fight, I should be at least be able to at least cruise my way into the second round of the tourney. But that would depend on if I even made it past the second round.

I had returned to reality when Eraserhead had begun to talk about the Olympics, and I only half paid attention after that, as my interest in the subject at hand had mostly waned. My attention was now focused on Midoriya, because the second I got the chance, I would be hauling his ass off for training. A few moments later, Cementoss stepped into the class and Aizawa hobbled out of it, hopefully to see Recovery Girl.

I almost groaned in anger; I hated this class. Modern literature. It was just so unbearably boring. Sure, there were some interesting books here and there, but not only were we not talking about any of them, none of it could really keep my attention for long. Then again, I preferred graphic novels over most books, and even then, fanfiction is where my heart lied. I really wished I could just read on my phone during this class, but I couldn't do that if I wanted to pass this lame class. Wasn't even the beginning of the year and my marks were already tanked. Not because Cementoss was being an ass and lowering my marks because he didn't like me, but because I was lousy at using a pencil and paper to translate my thoughts into the written word.

The reason I was so sure that it was my fault and not Cementoss being a dick, is because Nemuri had shared with a me a story of a teacher at U.A that did that over four years ago. The day after a student outed them, the principal held an assembly and fired them in front of the entire school after revealing their crimes. Their teaching license was promptly revoked, and they had left the country a few weeks after they were fired. Nezu had also sent a file of the incident to the media, which sent them after the former teacher like a pack of ravenous wolves.

Two hours later, class was over, and it was time for lunch. Needless to say, I booked it to the cafeteria and ordered as much food as Lunch Rush would allow me to. I wanted to replenish all the sludge I lost as fast as I could. After I received my food, I repeated the process of unceremoniously dumping said food into my mouth and dropping off my dishes. Seeing the furious expression on Lunch Rush (he was surprisingly expressive for someone whose face was always covered), brought me some joy. Annoying people was fun.

I soon made my way out of the cafeteria, wanting to see if could find Shinso again for another battle, for this time his ass was grass! I took a few steps down the hallway when just before the cafeteria door could close, it was swiftly swung open again. I swiveled my head around as the sudden nature of the action had caught my attention. When I saw who it was, I stopped and faced them like a normal person, it was the least I could do given the situation.

"Well," I began my joyful mod now replaced with solemn relief. "Guess it's time we had that talk."

The stern glare Aoyama was giving me told me all I that needed to know.

Rino: well, this took while. Sorry for the wait but my motivation likes to take frequent vacations. Anyways, this chapter along with the next one and several future ones, are what some would call 'filler'. And I use that term loosely, for they aren't really 'filler'. There will be at least 1-3 of these chapters between every arc in the story. These chapters will include everything from my own little side stories, the OVA's (or at least brief mentions of them depending on the content of it), and movies. These chapters will give me time to plan out upcoming arcs, and character building. Not entirely 'filler', but still something that will allow me to provide you with more content, while also giving me some breathing room to work with.