A/N: Alright people, here it is, a chapter you have long been waiting for! Before the end of today's reading, you will have an answer for why Yaoyorozu has been avoiding Kurai ever since their first exercise together at the beginning of the semester. But first we gotta see how Kurai is going to handle the Iida situation...

Phase 1: Chapter 20

Talk With Your Fists

"A sparring match?" Aizawa glanced up at Kurai, who had asked to see him after class in private. "Why?" The boy had asked his teacher to supervise a fight between him and the class rep, since he didn't want to get either of them in trouble if it came to a scuffle, a request that had surprised Aizawa greatly.

"There's something I need to settle with Iida, and words alone aren't going to be enough to convey what I need to say," the student answered. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, sir."

"Hmph," Aizawa mused as he looked the boy up and down. This isn't like him, he thought. Kurai normally preferred to settle things without violence, though he clearly had no issue with throwing a punch if there was no other option, like during the USJ attack and the Sport's Festival. The only time that he instigated violence was when he had been overusing his quirk, but that couldn't be the case here.

Then again, boys are boys, he thought tiredly. "You're sure you can't settle this any other way?" he asked his charge.

"No, sir," Kurai answered grimly.

"Does Iida know that you want to fight him?"

"Not yet, sir."

"I'll referee if he agrees to it, on two conditions," the teacher replied as he scowled at the boy. "Don't make me use my quirk to stop the fight. If I have to use Erasure, you'll be running laps after school until you vomit for a week. And you won't be allowed to use Recovery Girl's quirk to heal yourself since you're the one starting this."

Nodding in acceptance of the terms, Kurai said, "Yes, sir. It won't come to that."

"Fine, get out of here- you're going to be late for English, and I'm not writing you a hall pass."

It was at lunch when Kurai was sitting with Mina and their other friends when Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida sat down at the table next to them, the two boys looking a little apprehensive when Kurai quirked an eyebrow at them. "Why so serious, guys?" he asked them in an even enough tone.

"Er, no reason," Iida said as he took his seat. "I suppose I've just been a little rattled since Hosu."

"I'm sure anybody would, getting jumped by Stain out of nowhere like that," Kurai replied as he turned his attention back to his food. "But other than that part, I'd imagine that you guys learned a lot from studying pro heroes in action, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah!" Midoriya said with a bright smile. "Gran Torino was kind of… unorthodox, but I learned a bunch of good things from him!"

"Hey, that's great," Kurai said with a slight smile. He looked back at Iida, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his food untouched. "What do you say we have a little spar, then?"

"Wait, what?" Mina asked him, surprised. "Since when do you volunteer for fight training?"

"Well, I fought Iida in the tournament, remember?" he answered as he turned to face his girlfriend with a ready grin. "I gotta admit, I'm curious to see what we've both learned since then."

"Well, we can always compare notes after class," Iida said as he turned to face his bowl, sweat lining his brow.

"Pfft, words can only tell us so much," Kurai chuckled. "When it comes to this kind of thing, I think it's better if we apply it practically."

"Does it have to be a fight, though?" Asui asked blankly. "We just got back to school, and I'm sure that we'll be getting more practice in that area without volunteering to get beat up again."

"True," Kurai nodded. "Sorry, Iida. I guess I didn't consider how unsettling your whole ordeal with Stain must have been. You probably want to take it easy, reflect on that experience." By now, the others at the tables were beginning to feel like something was off, and they were all quiet as they waited for Iida to answer the implied challenge.

The bespectacled student didn't say anything for a few moments with Midoriya looking back and forth between his friends with a nervous air. Finally, the tall boy looked at Kurai and said, "All right, Kurai. If you really want, I'll show what I've learned."

"Looking forward to it." This time there was nothing friendly about the way that Kurai was smiling.

"All right, you two," Aizawa said from the side of the P.E. field. "The rules are same as in the Sport's Festival. Push your opponent out of bounds, get him to surrender, or knock him out. If I think that things are going too far, I'll step in. For your sakes, it'd better not come to that."

"I wasn't counting on having an audience," Kurai muttered as he glanced at the stands, where all of their classmates, sans Bakugo, were watching in anticipation of the match to come. Once Iida had accepted Kurai's challenge, the others in the class had been muttering among themselves, wondering why the two friends were about to duke it out, but neither of the boys had said anything about it to anyone else. Apparently everyone was curious to see which one of them would come out on top this time.

"Why are you doing this, Kurai?" Mina asked him as she stood next to him with her arms crossed. "This isn't like you."

"I know," he said wearily. "But there's something about Iida that I need to know, and if I turn out to be right, then I need to be able to talk with my fists instead of just my mouth." Both he and Iida were dressed in their P.E. uniforms- Aizawa had not permitted them to use their costumes for this match.

"Is this like a boy thing?"

"Guess so," he grinned weakly. "Trust me, I'm not gonna enjoy this, especially if I'm right. But even so, I can't turn away from this."

"What do you hope to accomplish?" she asked.

"I need to know if Iida can be the hero capable of replacing his brother, like he's always wanted," he answered.

"Ashido, get off the field!" Aizawa called out. "You're not cleared to be in this fight."

"Yes sir!" she yelped, wary of his scarf. As she jogged away, she called back, "Good luck!"

"I'm gonna need it," Kurai muttered as he tightened his fists while he stared at Iida, who had been silent this entire time. "All right, Iida. Let's get this going."

"I invite my opponent to the first strike," the other boy replied as he took a running stance.

"Is that right?" Kurai asked, speaking only loud enough for his old friend to hear, and not those watching. "Did you offer Stain the same courtesy?"

Iida's eyes widened, and he was distracted for a moment by his vivid memories of Hosu, a moment that Kurai took advantage of. With a shout, he dashed forward and slammed his right fist into Iida's shoulder, causing his classmate to grunt with pain and leap to the side.

"So I was right," Kurai growled as he settled into a crouch, his eyes sparking blue, but he kept his power in check before he could actually transform- he had no doubt that if he did that, Aizawa would stop them immediately. Glaring at his closest friend, he added, "There's no way you just happened to intern in the same city as Stain's last attack, or that you just happened to be his next target. You went to Hosu to kill him, didn't you?"

"And what if I did?" Iida grunted as he eyed his opponent warily, having been taken aback by the other boy's vicious attack and underhanded tactics. "I can acknowledge that I made a mistake."

"That doesn't change the fact that you tried to take him out!" Kurai shouted as he began to charge a Rasengan. "Worse, you dragged other people into your vendetta!"

"What are you-?"

"I got Midoriya's text, along with everyone else in class, I'm sure," Kurai snapped. "When I saw the timestamp on it after the news special the following day, I started putting things together. Did you get him in on your little plan, or did he have to show up to save your sorry ass?" Before Iida could answer, he added, "And Todoroki? I doubt that he got those injuries by falling down the stairs at his father's agency."

"Shut up before I throw you down a flight," Iida said warningly, his engines revving ominously. "I got them tangled up in my mess, but they were the real heroes that day. They saved me and Native. Neither Todoroki nor Midoriya did anything wrong."

"Got it, so the only idiot involved was you," Kurai replied as he finished charging his attack. "At least our classmates have a greater moral integrity than the guy that's supposed to be leading us."

"What do you want from me, Kurai?!" Iida shouted. "I'm sorry for what I did, and I'm going to learn from it! Besides, weren't you the one struggling with your own demons not two weeks ago?! Why can't you let me sort mine out?"

"Because thanks to you, I didn't cross the line!" his friend shouted in frustration. "Iida, I admired you our entire childhood! I wanted to be a hero like Ingenium, a hero like you!" Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes as he roared, "But you betrayed everything that our heroes stood for! You told me that heroes can't hold grudges, and you were right!"

Blasting forward, he held his Rasengan behind himself, waiting for the right moment to strike with it. "You ignored your own words and became everything that we stood against!"

Iida leaped high above him and began to fall back toward the earth, his engines granting his oncoming axe kick an enormous amount of force. "I can still become a hero that my brother will be proud of!" he declared. "One that will be worthy of carrying his name!"

Kurai, instead of trying to counter directly like he had in the tournament, rolled to the side, dragging his Rasengan along the ground for just a moment, tearing up the field and making the ground unstable for Iida's landing, throwing him off-balance. "If the others hadn't shown up to stop you, would you have stopped yourself?!" he shouted over the sound of the rubble being tossed around.

Iida was then on him like a bullet from a rifle, his eyes dark and his mouth grim. "No," he answered right before he kicked Kurai in the chest, sending him flying toward the boundary line. "Did you stop yourself when you were confronted with your uncle's killer?"

Kurai glared at him as he dug his hands into the earth, ignoring the way that the ground cut up his fingers and palms as he stopped just short of being tossed out of bounds. "I did," he replied bitterly. "Because of what you and Mina said to me after I met Endeavor, I was able to bring myself back from the brink. But I guess the words of your friends don't mean as much to you."

"What are you-?"

"Instead of turning to your friends like I did, you isolated yourself!" Kurai shouted as he dashed back toward Iida, ignoring the throbbing agony in his ribs. "You didn't even give me, the only guy around that really understood what it felt like to lose his hero, a chance to help you through this! You allowed your desire for revenge to swallow you up!" The two of them then exchanged blows at super speed, dust flying all around them as they bruised and bloodied each other.

Neither of them spoke until Kurai got one of Iida's legs in a grip lock and he was twisting it so that the joint threatened to pop out of place. "Surrender," he growled as Iida tried to wrest his limb out of the painful hold. "Disgusted as I am with you, I don't want to hurt you any more than you've already damaged yourself."

"I won't give in!" Iida shouted as his legs began to heat up rapidly. "I'll work until I've atoned for my mistakes, and then I'll be a hero! Recipro Burst!" Kurai was forced to let go as Iida's leg spat blue fire and the other boy was able to get away from him temporarily.

He's only got nine more seconds where he can use his legs, Kurai thought as he unleashed an energy barrage at his opponent, who managed to dodge all of the yellow bolts with his enhanced speed and practiced reflexes. I can work with that.

Summoning the last of his will to fight, the energon quirk-user faced his friend head on and began to charge a Kamehameha. "You're not a hero," he told his old friend grimly. "And you'll never be Ingenium."

"That's not up to you!" Iida shouted as he came in for thunderous roundhouse kick that would surely send Kurai flying.

"You're right," the other boy replied before he leaped up at the very last second, positioning himself so that he was directly over Iida's head. "It was up to you." He unleashed the beam attack into Iida's back as he passed underneath him, causing an explosion that sent his opponent rolling to the edge of the ring, where he lay, unmoving.

Kurai narrowed his eyes and walked over to Iida, clutching at his chest. He was sure that at least three of his ribs were cracked, which meant that he was going to be in for a rough few weeks without Recovery Girl's healing capabilities.

Once he had made his way to his classmate, who was struggling to get to his feet, he planted one foot on his back and said, "Surrender, or I'll shove you out of the ring. Your legs have burnt themselves out from your recipro."

"A real hero…" Iida grunted as he tried to escape the weight of the other boy's foot. "…will always find a way to endure."

"Then by your own standard, you're not a real hero," Kurai said with a stoic face as he exerted extra force into his foot and sent Iida sprawling out of bounds with a grunt. As he gazed down at his defeated opponent, he asked, "Does Tensei know?"

"…No."

"I figured," Kurai muttered as he turned around to walk away. "You'd never be able to show your face to him if he knew." Iida tried to get up again, but his muscles failed him, and he sagged to the ground, utterly defeated. Since he lacked the energy to even lift his head, he missed the tears that fell in rivulets down Kurai's face, watering the broken field with salty water.

As he passed by the stands where all of his classmates were sitting, most of them looking apprehensive at his approach, he turned his face away from them as he walked by without a word. He only stopped when he saw Aizawa lying on the ground in his yellow sleeping bag.

Of course.

Kurai and Iida didn't speak to one another for weeks after their fight. Midoriya, Uraraka, Kirishima, and even Mina tried to get them to make up, but both of them silently refused every time that the subject was brought up. As for Midoriya and Todoroki themselves, Kurai bore no ill will, having heard that they hadn't joined Iida for his vendetta, merely to save his life. Even so, he didn't speak to Izuku as often as he usually did, given that the green-haired boy spent a lot of his time with Iida and Uraraka.

At first the other classmates were wary of the two of them, but as the days went by, things became more relaxed, and Kurai was able to have easy conversations with everyone- save for Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, and Iida. He knew well why Bakugo hated him, but Momo continued to be a mystery to him, and even their mutual friends were unable to work out why she seemed to regard him with barely controlled disdain.

The biggest issue that their fight had created was that now most everyone in class 1-A knew what had really happened in Hosu, but Eraserhead had warned them all that if any of them breathed a word about it, the entire class would be expelled immediately. That pretty much squashed any chances of the story getting out, since they all could tell that he was dead serious, despite his prior lies about expulsion.

Even so, he continued in his academics, earning good scores, and devoting his spare time to hanging out with Mina and their other classmates on occasion. Kurai still preferred to avoid being the center of attention during these gatherings, but it didn't turn him into a stuttering wreck anymore, either. It became clearer as the weeks went by that Mina was having an influence on how he handled social events, and it was worth mentioning that her test scores were climbing steadily. She wasn't the class Brainiac, but she wasn't sitting at the bottom of the listings anymore, either.

Before they all knew it, the semester was over, and it was time for the final exams. Leading up to the event, Kurai heard a number of rumors that seemed to point toward a battle against the mechs that had set the bar for the entrance exam, but that didn't seem right to him. If Mister Aizawa had any say in it, this test is gonna be way harder than the entrance test.

When he mentioned this to Mina as they headed out to the testing grounds with the rest of their class, she turned to him and asked, "Okay, does your pessimism come with an 'off' switch?"

"No, it's my gift to the world," he grinned.

"Hate to tell you sweetie, but the world wants a gift receipt."

"No refunds of exchanges, only store credit."

"You guys seem relaxed today," Midoriya said as he walked beside them, with Iida and Uraraka on his right. "Aren't you worried about what they have in store for us?"

"Well, we know it's gonna be uber-hard, but not impossible," Mina shrugged. "As much as Mister Aizawa seems to enjoy torturing us, he's never given us a job that actually wasn't possible to complete, so…" She shrugged and chirped, "We totally got this! We've been studying super hard all semester, and now it's gonna pay off!"

"Some harder than others," Iida muttered just loud enough for the others to hear.

Mina's expression wilted, and Kurai was instantly furious. "Take that back, man," he said warningly before Midoriya or Uraraka could intervene. It was the first time that they had spoken to one another in months, and it was already going poorly.

"I spoke the truth and I see no reason why I should retract the truth," Iida said without looking over at his old friend. "You know how powerful the truth can be, Hikari."

"Fine, if you don't want to take it back, then apologize," Kurai shot back, holding up a hand for Mina and Midoriya to stay out of it for now. "You didn't say that to be constructive, you said it to be nasty to her, and me. You know how hard she's been working to improve her academics. Or at least, you might if you'd pull your head out of your ass."

"This argument is childish and beneath us, Hikari," Iida replied neutrally. "Let it go."

"…Apologize to her right now, or I'll pick up where we left off in the sparring field," Kurai said threateningly.

Iida stopped walking, causing Kurai to do the same as they faced each other. The others, sensing that this was going to be an ugly scene, pushed on ahead without them, though there were a couple of worried glances thrown back their way. "I thought that heroes aren't supposed to use violence for personal vendettas," the armored boy said quietly.

Kurai grimaced and laughed at himself, smacking his own forehead. "Damn, you got me there," he chuckled. As he lowered his hand, he said, "You're right Iida- my mistake, won't happen again. But I suggest that you apologize to our classmate very quickly, regardless."

"And if I don't?"

"Then Ingenium learns what really happened in Hosu."

Iida stood very still for a few moments, the only sound coming from him the deep breaths from within his helmet. Eventually, he said, "You never used to apply pressure to peoples' weak points so callously. What happened?"

"I learned to strike back before I got hit, myself," Kurai replied bitterly. "I guess I became disillusioned when my best friend turned out to be a fraud." Shouldering his way past Iida, he dashed at his eyes and said, "You've got until the end of the day- I don't make threats very often, and when I do, they're not idle. And before you complain about heroes that make threats, you'd do well to remember All Might's fight at the USJ."

"I did… not see that coming," Kurai said as he sat in the exam waiting room.

"I know, right?!" Mina complained as she slouched next to him. "We gotta make it past actual pros?!"

Eraserhead and many of the U.A. faculty had just revealed that the students would fighting one of them in teams of two, each. For example, Asui and Tokoyami were set to fight Ectoplasm in the second battle. They could win one of two ways, either by one of them making it to the exit gate, or applying a set of handcuffs to the pro that they were fighting. One of the two conditions had to be met before thirty minutes passed, or they would fail the test. Both team members being captured meant the same thing.

"Forget the pros, some of us are might end up killing their teammate," Kurai muttered as he glanced across the room at Yaoyorozu, who was studiously ignoring him. The two of them were set to fight against Mister Aizawa of all people, so Kurai knew that it would be a very difficult battle on both fronts.

Then there was the fact that Izuku and Bakugo were being forced to team up against All Might- a situation that no one envied. Being forced to work with a bitter rival would have been hard enough, but going up against the number one hero in the world… Honestly, I'm not sure which one would be more difficult.

He knew that Aizawa had probably set it up to force the two of them to learn to work together, but that also just made him wonder why the teacher hadn't made him team up with Iida, if that was his line of thinking. I doubt I'll ever understand the guy, he concluded glumly.

"Hey, why the long face?" Mina asked him. "I've gotta fight the principal, remember?"

"Yeah, do you know what his quirk is?" Kurai asked with a slight frown.

"No clue."

"Midoriya?" Kurai asked as he turned to his green-haired friend.

"Actually, Principal Nezu is one of the few heroes that I don't have data on," the boy admitted, looking thoughtful as he pondered the question. "Sorry, Mina. I think you and Kaminari got the short stick on that end."

"Aw, dang it!" she pouted. Spotting the electric boy from across the room, she got up and muttered, "Guess I should go see if we can work out some kinda strategy with him…"

Once she was gone, Uraraka and Midoriya turned to look at Kurai with slightly disgruntled expressions. Seeing them, he held up his hands and asked, "What?"

"You know what's up," Ochaco told him. "You and Iida are supposed to be friends. Now you can barely walk next to each other without it turning into a big fight."

"This again?" Kurai groaned. "Look, guys, I'm sorry that I made everyone a witness to our argument. But I just don't have it in me to forgive the guy."

"Why not?" Midoriya pleaded. "He'd forgive you if it was the other way around."

Kurai lowered his face into his hands and mumbled, "No, he wouldn't."

"Sure he-"

"Wrong," Kurai huffed as he straightened his back and looked at his friends again. "Iida's not a forgiving person- it's not in his nature. For generations, his family has strictly abided by the law, punishing evildoers whenever they can. They don't really teach forgiveness in his family."

"Then how is he supposed to learn how to do that if his friend won't show him how?" Midoriya asked him.

Kurai shrugged and responded, "I'm not the one that needs to be forgiven."

"No, but you should forgive him," Uraraka asserted, surprising both of the boys with the strength of her declaration. "Maybe it's not what he deserves, but if you keep holding onto this bitterness, you'll end up making the same mistakes that he did. And if you wanna think about yourself as being on the moral high ground, you might wanna remember that you said some pretty mean things to him during your fight."

Her words rendered Kurai silent for a few moments, a thoughtful look on his face. Finally, he said, "I need to think about this when we don't have our biggest exam to date right in front of us." With that, he stood up to go speak to his teammate- or so he hoped.

As he walked away, Midoriya muttered, "Well, at least he'll think about it. That's progress… right?"

"Deku, why are boys so stubborn?" his friend asked him blankly.

"Eh…"

"Hey, Yaoyorozu," Kurai said as he approached her and Todoroki. The heterochromic boy had been paired with Sero against Midnight, a matchup that he did not envy. The woman, despite her airheaded approach to most things, was actually a very accomplished pro with a knack for using sharp wits in combination with her quirk to incapacitate most of her opponents before they even really understood what was happening, or even before they knew that she was there. The two boys were sure to be in for a tough fight.

"Hikari," Todoroki said as he nodded a greeting to his friend. "How are you feeling?"

"I wanna say 'great', but we both know that'd be a lie," Kurai chuckled weakly. "Yaoyorozu and I have to fight our homeroom teacher, so that's sure to be a barrel of laughs- at our expense."

"I was actually just talking to Yaoyorozu about some tactics to employ against him," the heterochromic boy said while their student deputy nodded to confirm his statement. "If you can block his line of sight, he won't be able to use his quirk on you."

"I should be able to do that by kicking up some debris, maybe even try to get some dirt in his eyes so he can't keep them open," Kurai nodded. "Nice idea." Turning to Yaoyorozu, he added, "Do you think you could make something that could blind him?"

"Yes, but I just assumed that you already knew how to take him down single-handedly," she said stiffly. "I can just stay out of your way and head for the exit gate while you take down the villain."

Both Todoroki and Kurai blinked silently at her a few times before the half-and-half student said, "I'm going to go coordinate with Sero…" He made his departure without another word, merely giving his friend a look that said 'good luck'.

"Can we talk in private?" Kurai asked. To his relief, Yaoyorozu nodded and started making her way to one of the prep rooms.

Once they were alone, Kurai turned to face his partner, who was now avoiding eye contact with him. Grimacing to himself, he took in a deep breath before he said, "Okay, normally I don't like being too blunt, but in this case, I'm just gonna ask; the hell?!"

"Sorry, did I say something too privileged for you?" she asked him as she finally turned to look him in the eye. "Should I speak in a more colloquial manner?"

"I'm sorry, what have I done to earn this?" he asked, making an effort to keep his voice down and avoid a scene. "Why are you treating me like you're a rich kid from those cheesy old movies that picks on the poor guy? I know you're better than that."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have acted the part of the prince disguised as the pauper," Yaoyorozu shot back angrily.

"Prince and the-? What?!"

"The entrance exams!" the girl said, as if that explained everything.

"Sorry, lemme ask again… What?!"

"You could have gotten in on recommendations, but you apparently felt that it was beneath you to have an acceptance 'handed to you on a silver platter', as you put it," she replied bitterly. "No, you would rather have bragging rights than accept an invitation to the world's most prestigious hero academy. What makes the whole thing so frustrating for me is that I can't help but wonder if you were right!"

"Okay, I know I'm asking this way too many times today, but… What?!" Kurai felt as though he was getting more and more confused with each answer that she gave him when he felt like it should have been the other way around.

"You forced yourself to participate in the standard test, and you've been going strong since the beginning of the year," Yaoyorozu told him as she clenched her fists. "And you've only continued to excel while I've been falling further and further behind! You stood up to a monster of All Might's caliber-!"

"Hey, I took no joy in that."

"You claimed victory in the Sport's Festival over Bakugo and Todoroki, while I didn't even make it into the quarter finals-!"

"Todoroki forfeited the match."

"You did things the hard way instead of doing things the way I did them, and it's infuriating!" she admitted. "I've always been at the top of my class, and in academics, I still surpass you. But that doesn't matter in the real world- experience and street knowledge go so much further than my memorizations in algebra! So what have I been doing this whole time?!"

Kurai blinked rapidly, unsure of how to answer her frustrated question- he was having a hard enough time just processing everything that she had told him. Still, he knew that he needed to say something if she was going have her act pulled together in time for their exam. "Look…" he began awkwardly, flinching when she glared at him through a film of tears.

At least now I understand why she's been mad at me this whole time.

He gulped, then said, "I'm sorry if what I said about the recommendations exam was rude- I didn't mean for it to be an insult aimed at you. It was just supposed to be a passing remark and nothing more, but I see now that it certainly didn't come off that way."

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, but she held her silence, which he took as permission to continue. "I, uh…" he grinned awkwardly, losing his words for a moment. "I wouldn't say that there's anything wrong with the approach that you're taking to become a hero. You and I are different people, and it'd be ridiculous for us to walk the exact same path, ya know? And like you said, you're way better than me at hitting the books, and not all hero work is fighting. If it came down to doing first aid, there's no way I'd be as good at that as you are." Shrugging helplessly, he added, "Besides, your quirk is way more versatile than mine is, so if we're placing bets on which one of us ends up with a more successful career, I think I'd throw in with you."

"You've got people at school saying that you're going to be the next All Might, and even Gang Orca thinks you're amazing," Momo said, almost sounding as though she were tired. "You're already marked for success."

"Come on, it's only the first semester," Kurai said with a helpless gesture. "Sure, people think all of that now, but opinions can change a lot faster than you'd believe. Who knows? Maybe by the time that we're all graduating, I'll be the class clown, and no one'll want to hire me."

"Somehow I doubt that," she replied with the barest hint of a smile, a sight that gladdened Kurai.

Deciding to try and finish strong, he added, "There's another thing that I know I'd lose out to you on every time."

"And what is that?"

"People know that they can depend on you," he told her. When she gave him a confused look, he said, "You got voted class deputy, remember? And everyone was practically fighting over who would get to study with you leading up to the written exam." Shrugging in a self-deprecating manner, Kurai added, "No one asked me for help with their studies- except Mina, and I'm pretty sure she only wanted to study with me as a chance to get embarrassing childhood stories out of my brother."

Momo was smiling a little more now, so Kurai bowed to her from his waist and said, "I really am sorry that I hurt your feelings, Yaoyorozu. I'd like it if we could be friends, like I thought we could be after our first training match together." He remained where he was, determined to hold his position until she gave him an answer.

It wasn't long before she said, "Don't apologize… I was frustrated with myself, and I just took it out on you. I'm sorry for doing that, it was wrong." As he straightened up, he was surprised to see that she was now bowing to him in a similar fashion.

"Oh!" he laughed nervously. "No need for apologies on your end, Yaoyorozu. I was the insensitive jerk that caused this whole mess in the first place."

"Then don't feel the need to apologize to an insecure complainer like me," she smiled back as she straightened up. "And to your earlier question, I'll say yes. I'd like it if we were friends, too."

"Awesome," Kurai said with a sigh of relief. Giving her a thumbs-up, he asked, "Now whaddya say we figure out a strategy for beating Eraserhead?"

"He's Mister Aizawa."

"Hey, they said to think of them like actual villains, and let's be real- saying 'Eraserhead' makes it easier to think of a villain lurking in the shadows… either that or some weirdo with a chunk of pink rubber for a head." Both of them were silent for a few seconds before bursting out into helpless laughter.

Kai: I hate you.

Mataras: What? You finally made nice with Yaoyorozu.

Deku: But you made him fight Iida, and I don't see them making nice anytime soon!

Mataras: Oh right, that. Umm...? Give it time?

Kai: That's all you have to say for yourself?!

Mataras: Pretty much, yeah.

Kai: Deku, I think we're gonna have to make today's section short before I strangle our writer.

Deku: Uh, okay! Next chapter will be the end of the semester exams, and will lead into the beginning of the first movie arc!

Kai: Already? What about Deku and Shigaraki meeting at the mall?

Mataras: Eh, that'll pretty much happen the same as in the original, so I'm not going to bother.

Kai: Lazy writer!

Mataras: You wouldn't exist to complain this much if not for me! How about a little gratitude?!

Kai: If you wanted grateful, you shouldn't have pitted me against my best friend! We don't need another Midoriya and Bakugo dynamic in the class!

Deku: I actually agree with him on that. Isn't this going to come across as a retread?

Mataras: Not if you guys let me do my job! Gah, let's just wrap this up!

Kai: Next time- Superabit... What is that, Latin?

Mataras: Look it up. Until the next chapter, Go Beyond!

Deku: Plus Ultra!

Next time on Your Hero Academia...

"Of course he'd set us up in an urban area," Kurai complained as he looked around at the testing grounds. The two of them were on the western end of the arena, with the gate having been set up on the east side, and Aizawa somewhere in between them.

"Why does that bother you so much?" Yaoyorozu asked him as they began to jog toward the exit. While they did, she began generating small doll figures with her quirk- once they stopped popping out of her, they would know that Aizawa was near, and could take appropriate countermeasures that they had planned out beforehand.

"It's harder for me to use my powers precisely instead of just spamming monster blasts like I normally prefer in situations like this," he answered as he charged a Rasengan. "I doubt that I'd receive top marks if I fired a Kamehameha through the town just to clear a path to the exit, or to get him out of our way."

"That's true," his partner nodded as they jogged around a corner, her little dolls clattering on the pavement as she left them behind. "Hero agencies don't exactly like having to pay for damages done to civilian areas."

"I can't imagine that it does those citizens much good either," Kurai grinned back at her, to which she smiled back- at least, until she noticed the look of alarm on his face.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

"You stopped making dolls," he told her, even as she looked down at his right hand, where something was clearly missing.