AN: Red5T65 - Honestly, given the ability of quirks like Ochako's Zero Gravity to just ignore physics by touching something, or Stars & Stripes ability to rewrite reality on command, I didn't put too much thought into the logic of how Stain can completely paralyze someone by drinking their blood, beyond chalking it up to comic book logic.

As for the question on anemia - basically in "my" version of the MHA world, some quirks have dietary restrictions based on the quirk itself. The most obvious cases are Tokoyami and Asui having certain foods they can/cannot eat based on bird/frog biology, but this also extends to Cementoss, who literally eats rocks and extracts nutritional value from the minerals in them.

For blood based quirk users, like Himiko, this requires them to drink small amounts of blood regularly because their bodies process it to fuel their quirk factor. And like how the body starts processing fat cells if it goes too long without food, the quirk factor will start processing the owner's blood… which would lead to anemia, but also similar to hunger and thirst, the owner's body would be telling them that it needs blood. In normal circumstances people would just shrug and treat these as normal dietary restrictions/requirements, but when you mix it with the downright abusive childhood that Himiko had you get the incident with Saito that kicks off her story.

RickRich809 - She absolutely should be in Tartarus, but here she managed to avoid arrest. Horikoshi created an interesting character, had her show up for a couple chapters to advance part of Izuku's story, then just as quickly took her offscreen. So I borrowed her to (hopefully) tell an interesting story.

As for Curious - to be honest I haven't figured out the MVA stuff yet. But not getting splatted by Himiko during the MVA arc means she'll be available, and there's plenty of interesting routes to take her. I just haven't settled on which way to go.

"For today's exam, you will all be fighting robots!" Kan-sensei announced loudly to his gathered students. "We have grouped you into teams of four, and the goal is to see how you have all improved since your entrance exams!"

He held up a small device and pushed a button, and five teams of four appeared on the holographic screen in front of him "Similar to the entrance exam, you will each be shuttled to a different training ground to fight the same one, two, and three point robots you fought in the entrance exam. There will be three major differences this time!" He held up his index finger. "First, you will be fighting as a team. That means for every robot taken down, your team will score the points. Second, you will not be earning rescue points this time. Instead, you will be scored on your ability to work together with your other classmates, so clear communication and supporting each other. Naturally, helping each other out if someone is in trouble will contribute to this, but we are not explicitly scoring them as a separate category. Finally!" He held up a third finger. "There will be multiple zero-point robots deployed to each arena, and they will be present from the beginning of the test. It is up to you to figure out how to best handle them."

Himiko looked up to see who she was partnered with. Akira Kin, Amaya Yuki, and Emily Song. She looked at Emily and cracked a smile as they went to group up with their teammates. At the start of the semester the other girl had been insufferable, but Himiko had misjudged her. She was not another Bakugo. After a rocky start they had become friends, despite the many things that she did that annoyed Himiko.

"Since I never faced these robots, you'll have to give me a run down." Emily told the group when the four of them met up.

Kin crossed his arms and lazily leaned to one side. "It's really simple, there's a bunch of robots like we saw at the sports festival, and our job is to blow them up. There's also going to be some really big robots that you haven't seen yet."

"Well, the three of us all have quirks that can take them down." Yuki said. "Midoriya, how did you handle them during the exam?"

Himiko laughed. "For your information, the robots are weak enough that I can in fact stab them!" She pulled her extendable baton out and flicked it open. "During the exam itself I had to use parts of the robots to help me tear them apart, but this should help gum them up this time."

Kin raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed, I always wondered how you made it through the practical exam given your quirk."

"Hey, be nice!" Emily chided him. "Midoriya may not be able to blow up robots like we can, but obviously this test isn't just about that!"

"Oh I can blow up robots, just not as fast. But that just means I need to take another role while you and Song do the heavy lifting!" Himiko shot him a grin.

"Yeah, we're both super fast, so we can handle any robots that make it through the two of you!" Yuki added in.

"Exactly!" Himiko smiled at her. "That way you two can focus on taking down the maximum number of points, and not have to worry about any robots that get through."

"And what about the big guys?"

"I think we just need to avoid those?" Emily said questioningly. "At maximum power I am sure I can blast through whatever armor they have, but I'm going to wear myself out quickly and then I'd be useless for the guys who give us points."

"I think you're right." Kin reluctantly agreed. "Even throwing rocks at my maximum possible density, I wasn't able to slow the big robot down during the practical exam. If I had something larger to start with I could probably handle it, but I didn't exactly feel the need to test that during the exam."

"So just to be clear, what's the plan?" Yuki asked. "Emily and Kin save their firepower and focus on the small robots, Midoriya and I will cut through anything that gets close, and if the big robots get too close we relocate?"

"Yep!"

"Yeah!"

"Sounds good to me!"

"Ok, Midoriya, are you ok being our eyes? When I'm in liquid form I can't see as well, and we all know your stakeout scores."

"Yep!" Himiko grinned, turning to Kin. "See? It's more than just who can bring down the most robots."

After settling on their plan, Emily extended her hand, palm down - a gesture she had picked up after her internship - and looked at the other three expectantly. With an eye roll Himiko put her hand on top of Emily's, and Kin and Yuki followed suit.

"One, two, three, go team!" Emily shouted, pushing her hand up and everyone following suit raising their hands.

With her little encouragement ritual done, the four found their bus and boarded it, sitting down and hashing out finer details as they were driven to training ground Gamma. The industrial construction will hopefully limit the robot's ability to come at them, since none of the four seem to recall the robots being particularly good with climbing, but the downside is that the overhead infrastructure made it hazardous if they got caught too close to the massive zero-point robots and the collateral damage it could cause. It made Himiko wish she was teamed up with Atsuko, but the teachers probably kept her out of the ground Gamma team for that reason.

Once they arrived, the four disembarked from the bus and popped in their standard-issue earpieces, waiting for the signal to begin.

"Everyone, you have thirty minutes. Good luck to you all! Time starts now!" The voice of their teacher could be heard loud and clear and the group ran into the entrance, looking for targets.

Himiko got slightly ahead of the rest - as per the plan she was their spotter, while Yuki stayed slightly behind Kin and Emily, her legs already dissolved into a pool of water. She paused at an intersection, peeking her head around the corner before waving to her teammates. "There!"

Kin and Emily rounded the corner and prepared their quirks, Emily charging a pair of light arrows while Kin was holding his first handful of coins. It only took a moment before they saw the first pack of robots barreling towards them, and the two unleashed their attacks, quickly demolishing the first wave.

Advancing further into the training grounds, they quickly found the number of robots growing faster than they were expecting. And their behavior was smarter than what they experienced during the practical exam.

"Midoriya, a little help here!" She heard Kin call out and Himiko turned around, seeing Yuki already standing on top of a robot, her arms transformed into water and shoved into its head as she was short-circuiting it. Drawing her knives and leaping in one swift motion, Himiko landed on top of another robot that had gotten close to Kin, slicing at the exposed wires controlling its limbs. Feeling the robot going limp underneath her, Himiko used its sagging body to propel herself to another robot that was getting close to Emily.

While the group was occupied by the dense cluster of robots advancing on them from the main thoroughfare, they missed the robots that had managed to navigate through the more narrow alleyways. Although with their smaller numbers, Himiko and Yuki working together were able to disable or destroy them all, giving their teammates the breathing room to bring down their primary target.

They didn't have time to celebrate, because as the last robots fell they heard it - the rumbling of a massive zero-point robot. Moments later they saw it, emerging into the long open street that they were on, where it slowly turned and began advancing towards them.

"We've gotta go!"

Himiko was looking around, and saw one alleyway in particular where there weren't any robots. "Follow me!" She dashed to the entrance of the alleyway, waiting for everyone to catch up before she continued down the alleyway to find their next objective.

This continued for what felt like hours, even though they knew it was only minutes. They would find a concentration of robots, Emily and Kin would deal with the majority of them, and then Himiko and Yuki would bounce between the remaining ones. And when they either cleared out all of the robots or, more commonly, when they were found by one of the patrolling zero-pointers, Himiko would lead them away to their next encounter.

Their routine was working well, although twenty minutes of continuous fighting had begun to take its toll on the group.

With the zero-point robots still far enough out to not be a concern, Himiko began scouting for where to go next. Picking a direction, she called out for her teammates and began heading down a side alley. She didn't know how she missed it, but when she reached the next crossroads and stepped out she ran right into a pack of robots. "Fall back!" She called, dancing backwards to avoid a robot taking a swing at her, but she wasn't fast enough - some of the more agile 1-pointers got behind her and she was surrounded.

She was quickly hopping around the circle the robots had formed, barely dodging blows as she looked for a way out when she felt another robot hit her in the back, making her lose her balance as she stumbled forward. Before she could recover fully she saw another limb coming in, and she raised her baton to block it but the blow ripped it from her hand, causing her to stumble again.

"Midoriya, down!"

She heard Emily's panicked voice and reacted instantly, letting herself fall to the ground and covering her head. She felt a massive wave of heat pass over her and waited until she heard the metallic thuds that indicated the robots had fallen over before daring to look around. The group of robots that had ambushed her were now merely charred remains on the ground. She stood up and looked at Emily.

"Thanks for the save! That was close!" She called out, the panic on Emily's face fading when she saw Himiko was safe.

"D-don't do that again! You're supposed to be our spotter and close support after all!" She fired back.

Himiko retrieved her weapons and flashed her a predatory smile. "Just gotta keep the enemy off guard."

"I don't think that works on robots!"

Himiko stuck her tongue out at Emily and then carefully looked around. The zero point robot was closer now, its movements loud enough to drown out most other noise, but her team was relying on her to find the next pack of robots. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, through a series of pipes, and pointed "There's more robots that way!"

As they were walking Himiko felt soreness creeping in from her earlier mistake. She looked at her companions and they were also starting to slow down. It felt like it was taking longer for Emily to charge her arrows, and Kan was having to manipulate density on one object at a time, instead of several objects at once. She didn't know how much longer they had to go, but they were going to be heroes! They had to push through!

The group climbed up on top of some pipes, and saw the rather large pack of robots that had somehow gathered in a dead end created by the maze of pipes. Looking around, they saw several large pipes overhead. With Himiko and Yuki helping to support them and keep them balanced, Emily and Kin were able to use their attacks to loosen the pipes. Gravity then finished the job for them, causing the damaged pipes to come crashing down, destroying most of the robots. The four of them were able to easily dispose of the remaining robots after that.

Given a temporary reprieve, the team climbed back down the way they came, and took a moment to relax.

"I-I don't know how much more I have left in me." Emily admitted.

"Same." Yuki added, showing the angry red lights on her water tank. "My backup water supply is empty, if I shift into liquid form again and lose any more water it's not going to be pretty."

Kin slowly slid himself to the ground. "This should be over soon anyways, this test was brutal."

Himiko wanted to argue with her teammates but the ache in her muscles told her a different story. "We did our best."

Propping herself against the wall, she forced herself to keep a lookout in case any robots attacked before the time was up. Fortunately they didn't have to wait too long before their earpieces chimed in with an alert. "The villain attacks have been successfully repelled, all students return to the staging area."

Having had a moment to recover, the students all returned to the entrance of ground Gamma and got onto the waiting bus. Once on board the bus driver opened up a bottle of gummies provided by Recovery Girl and passed them out, easing their aches and giving them all a little boost of energy after the exam.

Even with the boost, the usually talkative students ended up spending the return trip in silence. Once back at the staging area, the group got off the bus and rejoined their friends and classmates. Everyone was waiting with nervous anticipation as Kan came out of the building where he was monitoring the tests and walked over to the group.

Kan's serious face then split into a huge smile. "I am pleased to announce that everybody passed! Everyone will be attending the summer camp!"

With sudden energy from the news the students all cheered, celebrating nobody being left behind.

"Izu, are you ready yet?" Izuku hears his sister calling to him from the apartment's entryway. "We need to go meet everyone at the station!"

"Coming Himi!" Bookmarking the page he is on before closing the textbook, he sets it aside and grabs two other notebooks before getting up from the couch to meet his sister.

"You know, it's summer vacation, you already are spending most days on your workout, you can take some time off from studying too!"

"This isn't school work though, this is my hobby!" Izuku defended himself.

Himiko stuck out her tongue like she just ate something foul. "Right, a hobby where you're reading textbooks."

They continue their friendly bickering while Izuku pulls his shoes on and the two leave the apartment, heading to the train station to meet up with Himiko's friends. Between Izuku's workout schedule and UA's surprisingly packed first semester, this was the first chance that Izuku had to meet her new friends.

And that of course, meant an interesting challenge for Izuku. For the time being, he was quirkless, and as far as anyone but himself, All Might, and Principle Nezu were concerned, he would be taking UA's entrance exam quirkless.

'How am I supposed to handle talking to people about UA's entrance exam in the next 9 months?' Izuku asked Nezu as they were winding down from the day. 'After all, Himiko is currently enrolled, and I can't exactly dodge mom, her, or her friends until the exam.'

'Oh, that is quite simple! You just need to tell people the minimum amount of information, and they will fill in the rest themselves! No deception needed!'

Izuku thought about that. 'I think I get it, so if someone asks if I plan on taking the exam, I just tell them yes?'

'Exactly! And people will make their own assumptions, without you having to lie about your real intentions. If that doesn't work, then you can also state facts that support people's biases, encouraging them to make those assumptions.'

Izuku frowned at that, but nodded in understanding. 'I don't like doing this, but it's important enough that I will try.'

Even though he isn't exactly lying to his mom and Himiko, he still felt bad about being evasive. He hoped that one day he could tell them the truth about One For All, but until then he had to be careful. Now that he was having to talk with four more people, he felt his nervousness increasing.

"What's wrong? You were never this nervous with my friends in high school!" Himiko broke him out of his thoughts. Thankfully he wasn't muttering this time.

"This is different, now I'm meeting future pro heroes!"

Himiko rolled her eyes at him. "You realize that you're also trying to become a pro hero, right?"

Izuku gave a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his head. "True, but you will still all be my seniors next year. I need to leave a good impression on them!"

They reached the train station and Himiko began to look around, expecting Sakura to spot them first. Her guess was correct when she spotted Sakura waving to get their attention. Grabbing Izuku's wrist, she gently pulled him along to meet her friends.

Izuku stopped in front of the group when Himiko let go of his wrist, and bowed. "You must be Himi's friends! Hi, I'm Izuku Midoriya, nice to meet you!"

"No need to be so formal! I'm Habiki Hideo."

"I'm Tomoe Sakura, nice to meet you."

"And I'm Emily Song! Now hand over your notebooks!"

Izuku made a startled yelp at how direct Emily was, Himiko shot her friend a glare and everyone else seemed to just laugh at the situation.

"Song, you shouldn't be so direct." Sakura chided her.

"I-it's ok." Izuku said after a moment. "It just caught me off guard. I don't really have a lot of people who share my enthusiasm for quirks."

Before Izuku could offer his notebooks to Emily, Himiko grabbed him by the wrist again. "Sorry, not here, let's at least get to the shopping district before we leave you two in your own little world."

Emily whined at that, but Atsuko merely laughed. "She is right, I have seen him once he gets going. It is really impressive."

"Fine!" Emily almost pouted before following the two Midoriyas.

"If he's that much of an enthusiast, I'm surprised you didn't introduce the two of them earlier, honestly." Hideo chimes in once they had started walking.

"It's for my own sanity!" Himiko responds. "If they get going I just know I'm going to get dragged into it. I can only take so much of Izu's hobby at once, let alone getting it from Song too!"

Izuku found himself smiling fondly at his sister as he let himself get pulled along. No matter how much she denied it, he knew she would help him out with his hobby if he asked her for it.

It didn't take long for them to find themselves at the Tatooin Station Shopping District, and Himiko made a beeline to a food court. Scouting out a table, she dragged Izuku over to it before finally letting him go. "Ok, now I'm going to leave you two alone and run away before either of you pull me into this."

"Aww, you're no fun!" Emily responded.

Himiko responded by sticking her tongue out at her. "I have shopping to do for our summer camp anyways! Hopefully by the time I'm done you two will be tolerable again!"

"Rude!" Emily said as she was pulling out a chair to sit down.

Sakura also joined them. "If you two don't mind, I'll stay with the two of you." She had the ghost of a smile on her face. "It will be an interesting conversation at least, and I don't need anything for our camp."

"Well then, see the rest of you later!" Himiko took off back to the shopping district, with Atsuko and Hideo in tow.

Not wasting any time, Emily turned enthusiastically to Izuku. "Ok, now gimme!"

Izuku could only give a nervous smile in response to her enthusiasm. "Here you go. The notes on your class are probably a lot weaker than what you have, since I only get info from Himi, while you're actually in the class."

Emily grabbed the notebook Izuku kept for UA students and flipped to Himiko's entry, her eyes going wide at the information, including a detailed sketch of Himiko herself. "This is amazing!"

Izuku rubbed the back of his head. "I would hope so, considering she's my sister."

She dug her tablet out of her bag and scrolled through her virtual notebook, before finding the entry on Himiko, passing it to him. "My focus is more on support gear to enhance quirks, as opposed to your focus on how to get the most out of someone's quirk."

Izuku took the tablet and looked at her notes. There was less information about Himiko's quirk, but instead a laundry list of potential support gear. He saw designs for a device that could best be described as a dart gun designed to fire a dart with a hose attached to it, allowing blood to be pumped back into a tank. Next to the design was a list with many questions about how to collect blood without her target noticing. Beyond that he saw sketches and references to listening devices, grappling guns, and a strange note about both reinforcing and adding electric shocks to her collapsible baton for anti-robot duty.

"I see. Song's focus is more on practical applications and enhancement. That makes sense given her starting point - her parents both work in the support industry and she has a strong quirk, even if it's application is narrow. So with that background she would obviously focus on the most common way somebody uses their quirk and build on that. While my focus is on learning how to compensate for my lack of quirk by making note of how heroes use their quirk in any given situation and trying to apply that in a more generalized way, which has expanded into my theorizing how to apply quirks in new and creative ways. I wonder if she has ever considered support devices that emulate other people's quirks…"

A laugh broke him out of his thoughts as he looked at Emily. "I see what your sister means, that must have been one of your mumble sessions! But if you're going to talk you should speak up."

Izuku felt a blush of embarrassment on his face. "S-sorry. I know people don't like it when I think out loud like that, so I try to keep it down."

Emily seemed to brush it off while Sakura spoke up. "Does Himiko adopt any of your ideas herself? Since she is in a similar situation as you where she essentially operates quirkless."

"You managed to keep up with all of that, didn't you?" Izuku rubbed the back of his head as Sakura nodded an affirmative. "She has tried a few of my ideas, mostly from underground heroes. Unfortunately due to their very nature it is harder for me to research them as thoroughly as, say, the top ten heroes or the heroes local to Mustafu."

"That makes sense. I would also be interested in hearing some of your theories. Since I am in a similar situation where I am essentially fighting quirkless. I have some martial arts training and my costume has its tasers, but I still feel I am falling behind my other classmates in the combat department." There was a hint of sadness in her tone.

Izuku lit up and grabbed his UA student notebook back from Emily, flipping to Sakura's entry and pulling out a pencil. "How good are your enhanced senses? More specifically, can you make your skin sensitive enough to detect changes in the air caused by motion? Or hearing - have you ever considered using your hearing, possibly combined with some additional device, for echolocation?"

Emily seemed to catch on immediately, grabbing her tablet back. "You really are smart!" She opened up a catalog of support equipment and began scrolling through.

"I have tried some basic echolocation to move through buildings when the power is out, it's actually quite useful in our infiltration training. But never on something human sized or mobile. In theory I could detect subtle changes in air pressure, but I have not really practiced it because it is very easy to become uncomfortable if I enhance my sense of touch too much. What are you two suggesting?"

"This!" Emily showed her an entry on high volume smoke grenades.

"Exactly!" Izuku found himself smiling. "If you are at a disadvantage against an opponent, a very easy solution would be to blind them. It's a similar idea to how Himi uses misdirection and stealth to overcome any quirk-based advantage her opponent may have. If you train yourself to fight while blind, using your other senses to compensate, you'd be at a significant advantage over them."

Sakura looked at the two and smiled. "I'll have to try that. It would require some adjustments to both my training and my costume, but I can see the benefit of something like that. I've always thought of using my quirk for reconnaissance and information gathering purposes mostly, and not applying it like that."

"I'm not saying you have to try it right away, but it's definitely something to consider! The other option is to talk to your teacher Snipe. Given your quirk, the fact that you have excellent vision naturally would lend itself to adding some sort of ranged weapon to take down villains before they can get close."

With the ice seemingly broken, Izuku and Emily found themselves comparing notes for the next several hours, with Emily and Sakura helping Izuku fill out his own notes on the quirks of their classmates, and then Izuku speculating on new applications for the quirk in question, which fed back to Emily coming up with support gear that would support these theoretical applications of a quirk.

This continued until Himiko, Atsuko and Hideo returned carrying shopping bags.

"Is it safe to come back yet?" Himiko asked.

Izuku laughed. "I think so? Song and Sakura helped me fill out my notes for your class, but we can stop."

"Good!" She set the bags down and plopped down in the chair next to Izuku. "We are just about done shopping for the stuff on Kan-sensei's list, and I'm getting hungry."

Taking turns, the six of them ordered food and returned to the table. When he sat down Izuku handed a second order of katsudon to his sister, who was already digging into a bowl of soup from a different stall. Once everyone had their food and settled back in, the conversation picked back up again.

"So you're planning on attending UA next year too?" Hideo asked.

"Y-yeah. That's the plan!" Izuku looked down at his food and poked at it. "If I can pass the practical part of the exam at least."

"Will they even let you apply? Since you're, you know…" Hideo asked.

Himiko glared at Hideo and looked like she was ready to stab him with her chopsticks while Izuku nervously laughed. "There aren't any rules requiring a quirk to take the test, actually! Given the makeup of most graduating classes at UA, there is a definite bias towards those with strong physical quirks, but it isn't a requirement."

Hideo was holding his hands up defensively in case Himiko actually did decide to attack him. "That makes sense. I always thought having a quirk was a requirement to get in. But I can totally see why they don't want to limit their options - In our combat training Himiko and Sakura have to rely on their support gear to keep up, but whenever the lesson is about infiltration, reconnaissance, or stakeouts they embarrass the rest of us with how good they are."

"You'd better believe it!" Himiko forcefully speared a piece of food on Hideo's plate with her chopstick, and carefully pulled it back to eat it, never breaking eye contact with Hideo.

"The same is true of heroics as a profession." Sakura pointed out. "Where there is an inherent bias towards those with powerful quirks, especially if there is an element of flashiness to them. However it isn't necessarily the only component."

"Exactly!" Izuku jumped in. "Like All Might! Whenever people see him, they feel like everything is going to be ok now that he is there! And his title of Symbol of Peace isn't merely for show, either. His mere presence has cut the crime rate in Japan down dramatically, acting as a deterrent."

"But he also has a super-powerful quirk to back that up, he can literally change the weather with how strong his punches are!" Emily stated.

"True, but look at someone like Kamui Woods. He's rapidly rising through the hero ranks, and his quirk isn't nearly as strong." Sakura countered. "He simply has the ability to rapidly change the shape of his wooden body. While it's true that his body also gives him several advantages over the average person, it also comes with its own unique weakness - he would suffer against a fire-wielding villain more than one of us would."

"And he is popular enough with the civilians of Mustafu." Izuku continues. "The top five heroes all have extremely powerful quirks, but really it comes down to a matter of scale. All Might, at his debut, was able to save a thousand people from a natural disaster. That doesn't discredit the fact that Kamui Woods may only be able to save a bus full of people from a disastrous accident. At the end of the day, they both are saving people."

"So, what kind of hero do you want to be?" Emily asked.

Izuku looked down at his food again. "I want to be the kind of hero that inspires people. One that will tell a quirkless kid he can be a hero if he wants to be."

"Now you all can see where Himiko gets it from." Atsuko said.

"I see, so you both want to fight against quirk discrimination?"

"Yep!" Himiko grinned.

"Yeah!" Izuku looked up and nodded. "It's not right that people suffer from quirk discrimination through an accident of genetics, or are treated as someone who is lesser because they are part of the 20% of the population that doesn't have a quirk. All Might said it best - being a hero isn't just about saving lives, but saving hearts as well!"

"I think that's pretty cool. There's a bunch of heroes out there with quirks of all power levels, but a lot of them never really talk about social issues like that."

"It really is cool!"

AN: After reading several other "hero society in its current form kinda sucks, doesn't it?" stories this past week I ended up feeling self conscious and did some heavy rewriting in this chapter. Hopefully you all still enjoyed it.

Time for another time skip - without the pressure on UA to speed up teaching the kids, it's going to be a pretty boring second semester, so next time we're jumping ahead to Izuku's entrance exam.