"Sorry for the unexpected explosion! It's been a while," said Hatsume, straightening her goggles as she stood up. "You guys're from the hero course…um…what were your names again?"

Midoriya stammered out "I-I-Izuku M-m-Midoirya…"

Distinctly annoyed at being ignored, I called out to her, "I am Tenya Iida! The man you used as a walking billboard during the Sports Festival!"

"Of course!" she cried, and turned away with a shrug. "Anyway, I'm busy. Got to get back to working on my babies!"

Midoriya ran forward and called out, "I'm, I was hoping to talk to Power Loader sensei about revisiting my costume?"

"Costume remodeling!" called Hatsume, turning around, suddenly very excited and smiling "Color me intrigued!" She jumped into Midoriya's face again.

"Hatsume!" called Power Loeader, "It's fine if you basically live in the shop, thanks to the new dorms…but keep raising havoc like this and I'll have to ban you for life!" He turned to us. "Easerhead gave me the heads up. He said his kids might want costume modifications to accommodate their ultimate moves. Come on in.."

He lead us into the support department garage, which was well equipped for the job - filled with work benches and tools.

"Wow! It's like a secret base!" cried Midoriya.

Power Loder sensei beckoned to us. "Ok. Show me your costume's blueprints. It should be included in the case it came in. Don't worry, 'm licensed to do this. I'll take a look and se what we can fiddle with. For small modifications and redesigns we just have to report the chances to the design agency, and they'll take care of the paperwork. Bigger mods require us to submit a formal application to the agency, though. Then they have the government inspect the altered costume, and if it's approved, they send it back to us. The agency I work with is one of the best, so we could have the whole process done within three days."

"Um, I'm just looking to reduce the stress on the ligaments in my arms," said Midoriya. "Would that be possible?"

"Right. You fight with your fists and fingers, Midoriya. Shouldn't take much tinkering to come up with what you need. We'll get done in a jiffy."

"Way to go, Deku!" Uraraka cheered him on.

"Yeah!" he replied - then jumped…

Hastume was feeling up his body...she was actually running her hands all over him...

"W-what are you doing, Hatsume?" Uraraka cried out.

"Hey hey hey, I'm touching his body," she replied. "Yes, yes, more ripped than he looks at first glance. Hey heh, right, this'll be perfect for you…"

Before we knew it she'd dressed Midoriya in some giant iron metal suit.

"One of my treasured babies! A powered exoskeleton!"

"Um…." mumbled Midoriya. "It works by sensing the contractions of your muscles and then moving to support them. A High-tech baby! This one is #49!" She laughed, preparing to turn it on, as we stared, dumbfounded.

"But all I wanted was something to support my arms!" cried Midoriya, as the machine powered up. "Whoa, it's moving by itself - wait, it's not stopping! holdonholdonhold - ow ow ow! My Back!" he screamed as the machine began twisting him in two!

"It looks like I might have misprogrammed the range of motion!" said Hatsume. "Oops! I'm sorry."

Uraraka rushed over to Deku as soon as he was out of that thing. "All I wanted was some arm support…instead my body almost got twisted off," he groaned.

"It looks like that one could maybe he used as a capture tool, then, huh?" said Hatsume.

I wasn't interested in going through such silliness myself. I scooted to the side and did my best to speak too Mr. Power Loader without being overheard. "I'd like to augment the cooling capabilities of my legs…"

"If that's what you want, then…" said Hatsume, almost teleporting right behind me. And again in a flash, she'd attached boosters to my…arms.

"Super cooler electric boosters designed to limit the generation of heat! This one's #36, isn't it super cute?!"

"Hatsume, I don't need boosters!" I cried out."But why my arms?"

"Boosters on!" she hit a button and I was blasted into the ceiling! by this wild and foolish invention of her

"Iida!" Midoriya and Uraraka both cried.

"You know my quirk's only in my legs, right?" I cried as the booster hit me to the ground, and Midoriya and Uraraka fussed over me.

"Ho ho ho, of course I know that. But you know, here's how I think about it," said Hatsume. "If you want to cool your legs, all you have to do is just run with your arms!"

"What are you talking about?!" I cried in frustration - what an agravating girl!.

Fortunately Power Loader smacked her. "Stop messing around!"

"Violence!" she retorted.

"Seriously, you want to get banned?" he snapped back. "I'm sorry," he told us. "She's abnormally self-centered."

"Yes, we are well aware of that," I snapped. "Yes," Uraraka agreed.

"However, if you are all aspiring to become heroes, it's best to invest in your relationship with her," he added. "Because once you become pros, she'll take care of you." He pointed to a pile of stuff in the corner of the room. "That mountain of trash over there in the corner…those are all the support items that Hatsume has created since she started here. Even during school Holidays she comes here to tinker with something. Over the years I've seen many in the support course come and go, but Hatsume is one of a kind."

Midoriya said, sounding shocked, "It hasn't even been four months since school started, and yet she's made so many." I gaped too.

"Common sense is a collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen,'" quoted Power Loader. "Einstein said something like that once. That girl is unafraid of failure. She continues to come up with new ideas and attempts to make them real."

Next to me, MIdoriya face lighted up. "Iida! Come here, could you teach me something?" he ran over to me, smiling, out of hte blue.

"I'm not sure what that something could be. Also, wait! I'm not sure you've realized, but we've made no real progress on the costume front."

"Ah, I see."

"Deku, your face suddenly just lit up!" Uraraka cried out.

"Ah, is that so? By the way, Uraraka, didn't you want an improvement too?" he asked.

"I want something that can help me with my motion sickness - " she began, and immediately regretted it, because Hatsume jumped up behind her with a barrel that looked ready to explode.

...

In the next few days, I continued my work on my Reciproburst. And when I had spare time, I helped Midoriya to train. It was, however, a friendship gesture that I found a little bit daunting. Midoriya had made a decision...and it was a decision that would put us once more as rivals. I had thought I was doing quite well - the Professors had told me, hadn't they, that my Reciproburst was already an ultimate move?

But now here was Midoriya, with this new plan, this new way of doing things...and suddenly I wondered if it was really enough. Would it be a true plus ultra mentality to simply coast on my old skills? After all..

"Just because something I invent doesn't work like I intended it to, it doesn't mean it's a waste of time".

That girl Hatsume...even if she failed, she still pressed on, continually improving...Can I call myself a true pro if I cannot do as well as a worker in the support course?

Even though I know she's a rather obnoxious, difficult person...there's something about Hatsume I rather admire.

In any case, I need something different, something new.

I will not allow myself to fall behind.