"Mmmph…"

"Uraraka? You awake?"

"Mmm? Tod'ro'-kun? Wha're you doin' 'ere? Were's Recof'ry Gir'…?"

"…Are you on pain killers?"

"I d'know… Prob'ly? M'sleepy…"

"Hm. Maybe we should talk later then."

"No, s'okay. I should… geddup… Wha'cha wanna talk 'bout?"

"I… I wanted to talk to you about Wraith."

"Hmm? What about 'im?"

"It's just… You know Wraith's costume?"

"Hm? Yeah?"

"Well, the night that Deku came to my family estate… his outfit looked just like it."

"…"

"Look, I know it sounds crazy. But Deku didn't act like a villain should act. He wasn't actually trying to hurt me. Instead, he reminded me of what I wanted to protect, even convinced me to start learning to use my fire. If I hadn't done that, you and Iida might have died last night. And that was the same day Iida's brother was attacked, remember? And he was rescued by Wraith and… and that other vigilante. Maybe… Maybe he didn't have time to change between the two events?"

"…"

"Please, Uraraka. You were closer to him yesterday than Iida or I were. Did… Did he say anything to you? Anything that might indicate he and Deku are-"

"Green light."

"…What?"

"I… Look, Todoroki-kun, I don't think you should get your hopes up about this. Maybe there's a connection between Wraith and Deku, but there might not be. Even if you're right and there is, we can't take the risk that he might just be playing us, trying to make us trust him for some future plan."

"…You- You're right. Yeah. I… I should just forget about it."

"…"

"…"

"…Todoroki-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Bakugou-kun about this."

"Why?"

"It's just… he hasn't said anything directly, but you know how he chose 'Kacchan' for his hero name?"

"…Yeah?"

"I don't think it's because he was trying to 'declare war' like Kyoka and Tooru thought. I think that was his way of telling Deku that he hasn't given up on him."

"What's your point?"

"If Bakugou-kun finds out that Deku is really Wraith, he'll let that hope go to his head. He won't be able to fight like he needs to. Then if Wraith turns out to be our enemy, he could get really hurt."

"…Okay, I understand. I'll keep quiet until we know more."

"Thank you, Todoroki-kun."

.oOo.

Ochaco hoped that she had made the right choice, leaving Katsuki to handle Wraith's-Deku's-warning alone. She had made the decision long ago not to tell him about her and Shouto-kun's suspicion about Wraith and Deku-ever since she'd drawn the connection between the flash of green light beyond Wraith's cracked helmet and Deku's quirk factor-and in the heat of the moment she had stuck with it, but as things now stood, she couldn't help but fear that she may have made a critical mistake.

Sure, it was more practical for her to take Kouta back to the safety of the lodge than Katsuki-kun; if he were to leap off the cliff like she had, he would have had to use his hands to control their direction and speed and Kouta could have easily lost his grip from the whiplash of the explosions. On the other hand, she could keep her arms tight around the boy while simultaneously controlling the amount of force gravity had on the two of them, even increasing it past the norm to increase their speed until they were almost to the ground, then reversing the effect so that they hovered a few meters away before dropping once again. Not to mention, she and Kouta already had a bond of sorts. Katsuki-kun and Kouta didn't have anything like that. If they needed to make a sudden change of plans, Kouta would be more likely to trust her than him.

Still, Ochaco was taking a huge risk, and now that she had a chance to think about it, she was terrified.

What in the world had she been thinking?! She had no way of knowing if Deku had really vanished from that clifftop! What if he'd just been waiting for her to leave so that he could attack Katsuki-kun when he was alone?! What if he was attacking him at this very moment?!

"I never thanked him."

Ochaco twitched, her arms tightening around Kouta as his voice pulled her back to the current circumstances.

There were definitely tears in his voice. Tears, worry, and gratitude. It struck a chord with her, remembering how she herself had felt when Wraith rescued her in Hosu.

After all, no one ever thinks about the heroes themselves needing saving.

Is that… what he's been trying to do all along?

He called off that Nomu from attacking Aizawa-sensei and ordered the League to leave the USJ, saved Tenya's brother, helped Shouto-kun with his quirk, saved all of us from Stain, sewed up my wound, saved me from the Nomu, warned Aizawa-sensei of the attack, rescued Kouta when Katsuki-kun and I couldn't make it in time, dropped hints as to their plans and left analysis notebooks with people that could use them. Not to mention in the mall…

That look in Deku's eyes, seconds before he dragged Shigaraki into the warpgate, that expression of utter terror when he met her gaze, just barely overshadowed by a flash of relief. That same terror had been mirrored tonight, when they faced one another at the top of the cliff. It hadn't been the kind of look you'd give your mortal enemy.

It was the look you gave a friend in imminent danger.

"Run while you can, One for All."

"Neither did I," she whispered, clutching Kouta a little bit tighter. "Don't worry. We'll get our chance. I'll make sure of it."

Even if I have to arrest him to do it.

Ochaco kept the gravitational field produced by her super-charged quirk as close to her body as possible, avoiding ripping up any grass or fallen leaves as she ran, the pink light of her One for All illuminating their path. She had to move fast, get Kouta to safety, and then get back out and find Ragdoll and Katsuki-kun. Whether Wraith-Deku, whatever-was trustworthy or not, they would need help.

It felt like it took hours to reach the lodge, although it probably only took a maximum of about seven minutes, seeing that it had only taken ten for her to get to the clifftop from the test of courage starting point.

"Who's there?!" a familiar voice barked.

"It's me, sensei!" Ochaco panted, skidding to a stop.

"Uraraka!" Vlad King-sensei grunted, lowering his hand. "And young Kouta!"

"Kouta, go to him," Ochaco murmured, gently lowering the boy to the ground.

"B-But what about you?" the boy replied, looking up at her with wide, dark eyes.

"I have to go back and help Katsuki-kun and Wraith," she explained, forcing as gentle a smile as she could through the thrum of anxiety still pulsing in her chest. "Just stay here and stay safe, okay?"

"O-Okay. Be careful!"

"Uraraka! Wait, where are you going!? Uraraka, get back here!"

Ochaco didn't stop. She turned and dashed back up the path, allowing the 'weight percentage' of One for All to increase from three percent to five, now that she was on a path and less concerned about dragging debris up that could blind her view. Of course, there was still a risk of that happening-she didn't have perfect control over her personal gravity field yet-but she had to move quickly if she wanted to catch up with Katsuki-kun.

Before long, she stumbled into the clearing where Aizawa-sensei had first burst into view, yelling for Mandalay to warn everyone of an imminent attack. A moment later, Pixie-Bob had been wrenched off her feet with a cry of surprise and alarm. Thankfully, her teacher had managed to snag the pro with his capture scarf before she'd gotten hurt, but right after that two villains stepped out of the forest-a man with a lizard quirk that she recognized from the sketches in the notebook given to her at the mall, and a… woman... with maroon hair and an oversized magnet on her(?; not being rude to anyone-Ocahco honestly couldn't tell for sure) shoulder. Mandalay had immediately sent out the warning, as well as Aizawa-sensei's permission to use quirks in self-defense, and the bulk of the class-excluding Hitoshi, Koji, Tenya, and Tooru, all of whom had already left for the 'test'-had been expected to head back to the lodge, herded along by Kyoka and Yaomomo.

But Ochaco hadn't been able to bring herself to do so. One look at Mandalay, at the frantic fear in her eyes, and Ochaco knew that she had no idea where Kouta was. She'd raced off to his hideout a moment later, closely followed by her cursing partner, Katsuki.

The circumstances had changed this time around. Mandalay was engaged in combat with the lizard man, and Tiger with the maroon-haired villain. Pixie-Bob seemed to be pitting her Earth Flow against a lashing wall of living plants; Ochaco couldn't immediately tell who was winning.

That was beside the point though.

"Mandalay!" she cried. The brunette hero's head snapped towards her, dark eyes wide. "Kouta's safe! He's back at the lodge!"

Relief flooded the woman's gaze even as she dodged another snarling strike from the lizard man. "Thank you for telling me! Now get back to the lodge; it's not safe here!"

"I can't go back yet! There's something else! I think the villains are after Ragdoll; they're sending someone called Compress and Moonfish to attack her! You have to warn her!"

"Okay I will, now- Uraraka-chan! Uraraka-chan!"

Ochaco cut through the forest to try to save time on her race to the half-way point. It was a risk not following the path-she knew she might get lost-but she couldn't afford to waste any time on the wide loop the path followed. The pounding of her feet drowned out the terror that she was tempted to wallow in, transforming into a mantra of hope and fear as she ducked low-hanging branches and dodged tree trunks.

Please let me not be too late! Please let Deku really be our ally! Please-!

"Look out!"

Ochaco's eyes snapped up just in time to see a massive tree falling directly towards her. With a yelp of surprise, she released her hold on gravity completely and leaped backwards, the increased power in her legs combined with the lack of force pulling her downward sending her zipping out of harm's way with room to spare. "What in the-?!"

"Come on, we gotta move!" a familiar voice shouted, and Ochaco's eyes snapped up to see Tsukino Aito from Class 1-B-closely followed by Awase, the American girl with hooves and horns, and that girl with bobbed black hair-sprinting towards her, a mechanical whirring and the groaning and splintering of trees crashing behind them.

"What's going on?!" Ochaco cried, falling in step with the four of them.

"One of those damn frickin' monsters from Hosu!" Awase yelled. "It's got eight damn arms and four of them have frickin' chainsaws on the ends of 'em!"

"We must run!" the American girl-Pony, was it?-added, her huge blue eyes filled with fear.

"I don't think we'll be able to run all the way back to the lodge at this rate!" Tsukino countered. "There's gotta be something we can do to slow it down!"

"How the hell are we supposed to slow that thing down?!"

"If you can get me an opening to touch it," Ochaco panted, "I should be able to trap it!"

"Trap it?! Trap it how!?"

"Floating it won't work," Tsukino warned her. "The forest is too thick here; it'll still be able to use its arms and chainsaws to navigate by gripping and stabbing the trees!"

"Then I'll just increase its gravity instead!" Ochaco explained. "With its bulk, it shouldn't take much before it won't be able to move!"

"Shit, you can do that?!"

"It's a recent thing!"

"That might work," Tsukino nodded, shooting a glance over his shoulder. "Dodge!"

Ochaco threw herself to one side just in time to evade another oversized tree, narrowly avoiding a concussion.

"Uraraka, get behind it! We'll get you your opening!" Tsukino shouted.

"What the hell!? We're seriously doing this?!"

"Just trust me! Kodai, shrink that tree for me, then find a few stones you can grow! Tsunotori, get ready to pin his arms for a moment!"

Ochaco activated One for All, leaping into the treetops, trusting the 1-B students to form a better strategy amongst themselves than she could considering her lack of knowledge about their quirks and skillsets. From her raised position, she could finally see the green-skinned Nomu. Just like Awase had said, it had eight arms. The front two were empty, the three back right ones bore chainsaws, as did the second left, and the last two on the left held a claw hammer and drill respectively. Its head was largely covered by a purple, visored helmet with a metal gag, although she could still see some of its exposed brain; there was an opening at the top of its headgear. If she was going to tag the monster, her best bet was to go for the left side, avoiding the chainsaws entirely.

Tsukino seemed to think the same. Under his instructions, the black-haired girl, Kodai, grabbed the massive tree and shrank it more or less to the size of a training sword-a little long and leafy, but something he could make use of. A moment later, he charged the Nomu's right flank, yelling an order to Pony as he went. Ochaco used the opportunity as best she could despite her heart sticking in her throat with worry, leaping from branch to branch to dart behind it, then utilizing her personal gravity field to readjust her orientation against the tree.

The Nomu roared as Tsukino rammed the branched end of his stick into the first of the chainsaws and yelled for Kodai to release her quirk. A moment later, its arm was temporarily pinned under the very tree the monster had initially thrown at them. In almost the same instant, Pony revealed her quirk, firing her horns off her own head and controlling them telepathically to pin the chainsaw on its left side.

"Uraraka, now!"

Ochaco launched herself off of her branch, directly towards the Nomu. Its head twisted around, registering her attack, and in a flash of terror, she saw the hammer fly towards her. In a bizarre moment of deja vu, Ochaco envisioned Tsukino's sword streaking towards her during the Sports Festival, and the way she'd taken his blow to get a hand on the taller boy's arm.

But this was not a blow she could afford to simply tank.

Ochaco twisted her body just enough to avoid a hit to her head, swinging her hand outward to tag the monster's arm, crying out in pain as its hammer struck her upper arm instead and she actually heard the bone snap. Gritting her teeth against the throbbing in the limb, she focused on the sensation of weight in the pit of her stomach, willing it to extend outwards, passing through her field to her target and yanking on the energy contained in One for All.

She hit the ground hard, biting back another cry of pain that was drowned out by the frustrated screeches of the Nomu as it was dragged downward under its own, vastly increased bodyweight. "I-It's down, but I can't hold it forever!" she cried through clenched teeth, her ears beginning to ring with the pressure of added gravity-she'd have a killer migraine on her hands when this was over.

"Kodai! Awase!"

"Shiiit! Dammit, fine!" The black-haired boy rushed forward, pressing one hand into the Nomu's back and the other against the ground. Ochaco watched in amazement as the Nomu seemed to be fused with the Earth itself, doubly adding to her own quirk's efforts to pin it to the ground. He further fused the tree trunk Tsukino'd used as a weapon to the Nomu's body, adding even more weight, then added a couple stones that Kodai had increased the size of to its back as well. Pony helped too, adding another pair of her horns to pin each of the monster's legs to the earth.

"That should do it! Come on!" Tsukino called, running forward to grab Ochaco's uninjured arm and pulling her to her feet. "Let's get back to the lodge!"

"No. You go," Ochaco panted, grimacing as she held her definitely-broken left arm close to her side. "I have to help my classmate. Get going; I'll catch up!"

"Whoa, hold on! Uraraka!"

It didn't take long before Ochaco started hearing explosions slightly to her left and adjusted her course, because where there were explosions there was Katsuki. He must be okay if he was fighting so viciously; that knowledge took a little bit of weight from her heart, but there was still a steady pulse of anxiety throbbing in the pit of her stomach. The sense of urgency instilled in her when Wraith first appeared on that clifftop had only increased through the evening. By now, her chest heaved with each frantic breath; her heart felt as though it was about to explode under the strain of her unending race. It was like something inside her was crying out, driving her forward, urging her to fight. To protect.

She had a strong suspicion that it was One for All's voice crying out in her heart.

At least the adrenaline kept her from really feeling the pain of her broken arm.

"DIE!"

Ochaco skid to a stop in an unfamiliar clearing, gasping for breath as she stared wide-eyed at a man in what looked like a black straight jacket as he received an oversized explosion to the face, courtesy of her classmate. Almost at the same instant, another, much more familiar figure dressed all in black flew at the man from behind, slamming his leg against the back of his head in a vicious kick. The guy in the straight jacket practically flew across the clearing, slammed into a tree trunk with a hollow, almost wooden sound and slumped to the ground.

"Holy shit," a boy on the far side of the clearing whispered. He was another of the Class 1-B students, one of the ones Ochaco didn't know, with spiky brown hair and pale skin. "We could barely fend that… that thing off, then this guy shows up and-?"

"Katsuki-kun!" Ochaco cried, rushing towards them as they landed back on the ground. "Are you all alright?!"

"You're late, Round Cheeks!" Katsuki growled, red eyes darting curiously towards his mysterious battle partner. "Is the kid safe?"

"Yeah, he's at the lodge," Ochaco grimaced as she gripped her injured arm. "Where's Ragdoll?"

"Eh? What're you talkin' about? She's not in great shape, but she's right-" Katsuki froze as he turned, his expression twisting in confusion, as did the 1-B kid.

"She… She was right here," the brunette boy whispered.

Ochaco's heart rate spiked in fear, eyes snapping towards Deku, seeing his posture tense and his head swivel back and forth as though he were frantically searching for something-or more likely someone. She wanted to trust him, but-

"Nice trick, eh?" a voice chuckled, and four heads swivelled towards a new figure dressed in a yellow overcoat, white mask, and top hat that had seemingly appeared overhead, standing on one of the larger branches of a nearby tree, twirling what seemed to be a blue marble between his fingers. "I took the woman you're talking about with my mag-"

A black shape flew at him, forcing the man to leap backwards to dodge a vicious strike. The villain cursed as he kept moving, his voice fading as he was forced to keep dodging Deku's blows. "Unrehearsed amateur! You ruined my monologue!"

"Get back here, damn you!" Katsuki roared. "Round Cheeks, if you're gonna help, we gotta move!"

"Uh, right!" Ochaco yelped, sprinting alongside him, One for All flaring to life so that she could match his speed, panting for breath and cringing as the movement jolted her arm. "You should get back to camp; we'll handle this!" she added, shouting at the 1-B kid as she raced past him.

"Oi, what the hell's wrong with your arm?!" Katsuki growled as they ran.

"I'll be fine!" Ochaco panted back.

"Don't play tough, Round Cheeks! If you can't fight, you shouldn't be here!"

"You really think I'd lie about something like this?" Ochaco snapped, her exhaustion flaring into irritation. "I know my own strength, Kacchan; just worry about yourself for once!"

"Tch! Fine!" Katsuki grumbled, a dark, almost shuttered look passing through his eyes that made Ochaco instantly regret her waspish response.

"Kat-"

"There!"

Ochaco's eyes snapped up as she caught sight of two familiar figures falling to earth: a man in a yellow coat and another in a black jumpsuit pinning his arms behind his back.

"Compress, watch out!" an unfamiliar woman's voice cried out, closely followed by the rush and snap of a thousand sticks, like the sound as a forest giant begins to fall-a sound Ochaco knew how to recognize, growing up as the daughter of a construction worker in the country.

Ochaco and Katsuki burst into yet another small clearing an instant later, where they saw Wraith backflipping away from a small crater in the ground, barely managing to avoid what looked like a spear rising out of the ground, aimed directly for his chest. He stumbled slightly as he landed, one hand rising to his helmet as though he were in pain.

Did 'Compress' manage to land a hit on him or something?

"Dammit Compress, you've brought along a whole pack of them!" a woman's voice snarled a moment before another series of wood constructs flashed towards them, forcing Ochaco and Katsuki to leap in opposite directions so as not to be skewered. It was only as the hero-in-training regained her feet that she realized they were sharped roots exploding from the ground, only to recoil protectively back around a woman with long, auburn hair, held back by a purple flower crown and dressed in a green jumpsuit, her green-painted lips curled in a snarl.

"It's not as though I invited them backstage; this show isn't meant to have an encore!" Compress protested, seemingly appearing out of thin air on the ground where Wraith had just been crouched.

"Where's Ragdoll? What are you going to do to her?!" Ochaco snarled as she straightened up herself, trying not to favor her left arm too obviously.

"Do you seriously expect us to start monologuing and reveal all our plans?" the green-clad woman scoffed, raising her hand. "Sorry sweet cheeks, but real life doesn't work like your little hero cartoons. In the real world, it's kill or be killed!"

"Yeah, so look out!"

The plant-control woman's head snapped up and she brought her hands up just in time to block Katsuki's next explosion-a blast powerful enough to drive a massive whole in the wall of branches she'd thrown up and send charred pieces flying in every direction.

"Dammit! Compress, call Kurogiri; we need to get out of here now!"

"No!" Ochaco cried, rushing forward, determined to stop them before it was too late.

A slight shift of air behind her was the young hero's only warning. She managed to pivot to one side just as a knife flashed by her neck, the girl with manic, cat-like golden eyes and sharp teeth wielding it grinning up at her. Instinctively, Ochaco caught the girl's wrist with her right hand, gritting her teeth through the pain as she raised her injured left arm to the back of her neck and took her down Gunhead Martial Arts style, kicking the knife away and pinning her to the ground with her knee in order to compensate for her bad arm.

The blond girl stared at her, wide-eyed for a moment, before a broad grin stretched across her lips. "You're strong!" she gasped, cheeks flushed like an excited middle school girl instead of a crazed maniac that had just casually tried to stab her with a knife. "Strong like Yuki-chan! And you're so cute with your arm all purple and bruised! I like the red I added to your neck better, but purple is cute too! What do you think, wanna be friends?!"

Ochaco shuddered, a sense of wrongness increasing with each word out of the girl's mouth. "What are you-?"

"Agh!"

Ochaco's gaze shot up at the cry of pain, her eyes wide as she realized that Wraith had just slammed a kick against the back of Compress's head, forcing a bright blue marble to fly out of his mouth.

Ragdoll! the young hero realized, remembering the pale blue marble he'd been twirling between his fingers earlier. Before she could get her hopes up too high though, a swirling, inky purple circle appeared exactly in the marble's trajectory and Ochaco's blood ran cold, a frantic cry escaping her mouth as she realized she was too far away to stop it.

Then several things seemed to happen at once.

Katsuki flew out of seemingly nowhere, slapping the marble away from the portal.

Wraith kicked off of Compress's shoulders, snatching the marble out of thin air.

A branch snapped through the air, catching the blonde across his stomach.

And Katsuki was thrown sideways-

-directly into the warpgate.

"Katsuki!" Ochaco screamed shrilly as her classmate disappeared. The girl underneath her bucked and, off guard and off balance as she was, Ochaco couldn't stop herself from being thrown forward, landing heavily and with a cry of pain on her already-injured left arm. She gasped as she saw a flash of silver headed straight towards her chest, only for a strange force to wrap around her stomach and yank her out of the way at the last second.

"Toga, we have to go now!"

"No!" Ochaco cried frantically, floundering as she struggled to reach her feet, but she was too late. The portal vanished, and with it Katsuki and the three villains.

An eerie silence descended over the forest, a silence that not even the birds or insects dared to break.

No…

Ochaco slumped to her knees, staring at the place where her friend had disappeared. Her arm had gone numb, the pain that had plagued her before seeming irrelevant when compared to the horror flooding her chest.

Katsuki…

The snap of a twig sent Ochaco's eyes flicking upwards once again.

Before her stood Wraith, clutching a restored, but unconscious Ragdoll in his arms as he stared at the spot where Katauki had vanished, her yellow costume and teal hair each stained red with blood due to a head wound and several deep gashes in her arms and legs. He may very well have saved the pro hero's life, yet the only thing Ochaco could feel when she looked at him in that moment was an unbridled fury.

"You!" she growled as she staggered to her feet. "You did this!"

Deku-Wraith, who the hell cared at this point-didn't say a word as she stumbled towards him, merely bent down and set Ragdoll gently aside, turning to face her just as she slammed a closed fist against his armoured chest.

"Why!?" Ochaco screamed at him. "You've been here this whole time, you knew about the attack! If you knew this was going to happen, if Katsuki ever meant anything to you, then why couldn't you stop this?!"

Deku didn't answer her, and Ochaco's screams of anger and frustration quickly subsided into sobs of despair.

She'd been right there.

She'd been right there!

After everything that she'd done to get stronger, all of the effort she'd put into mastering her new quirk, everything that she had learned in the last few weeks, when it really mattered, she'd been helpless to protect one of her friends.

Just like that day in Hosu, when she lay helpless in an alleyway, watching Tenya-kun about to die.

She wasn't sure when Wraith put his arms around her. She honestly didn't even notice until she found herself wrapping her one good arm around him in turn, gripping at his shoulder blades in a desperate bid for comfort, instinctively keeping her pinky finger raised. Some distant part of her brain seemed to register that it shouldn't be this easy, to sink into his embrace and let his chest soak up her tears, the way he almost instinctively accommodated her broken arm and tucked his head into the hollow of her shoulder. In that moment, it didn't really seem to matter who or what he was. All that mattered was that he was there, that despite the misplaced anger born of her sheer panic, he hadn't abandoned her.

But it couldn't last forever.

"Kurogiri-san. Status report."

Ochaco lifted her tear-stained face to see that Wraith had raised a hand to his helmet. His voice was strange. Tinny and fluctuating, one word spoken in a deep bass, another a high soprano. He was using some kind of voice changer, probably not unlike Hitoshi-kun's, designed to alter his voice so that no-one would know what he really sounded like.

"So Mustard, Muscular, Moonfish, and the Nomu didn't make it back?" Deku continued. "What do you mean they didn't manage to get Ragdoll, either? What!?"

He's putting on an act, Ochaco realized, her breath hitching in her throat. Of course the villains wouldn't know he's Wraith.

Oh my God.

The risk he's taking-!

"Kurogiri-san, open a warpgate at extraction point B in two minutes," Deku ordered, beginning to pull away from the hero-in-training. Even with his visor hiding his face, Ochaco had the distinct impression that he was looking her straight in the eye, desperate to impress upon her the sincerity of his words. "And be sure to tell the League:

"If anyone hurts Kacchan, I will destroy them."

Outtake:

Touya smiled as he watched Eri dangle a feather toy in front of Stanley. The gray-furred cat pawed curiously at the object, then lifted up on his hind legs to try to grab it with both paws. Eri quickly tugged it just out of reach, her crimson eyes shining.

She still didn't know how to smile, but that didn't make it any less obvious when she was happy.

"Alright kiddo, time for bed," Touya chuckled as Stanley finally got a strong enough grip on the toy to tug it from Eri's hands.

"Okay," the little girl replied, standing up. She was obviously disappointed, but she'd also been conditioned to follow instructions.

In some ways it was a relief.

In most, it hurt to watch.

"Come on. Let's put the toy away first," he urged her gently, helping Eri to carefully pull the toy from Stanley's paws and set it in its box, then he carried the girl to her shared bedroom with Daigo. It wasn't a permanent solution to have the two stay together, but considering how small their apartment was, they had little other choice for now. And anyway, Eri seemed to sleep better when she knew that she wasn't alone.

In comfortable silence, Touya helped her change into pink cat pajamas, waited while she brushed her teeth and used the restroom, then took a brush and carefully pulled the tangles out of her long hair-they'd learned the hard way that if they didn't brush it the night before, it would be a veritable rat's nest in the morning.

Once ready, Eri climbed onto her bed and Touya tucked the blanket up to her chin. Stanley immediately leaped up beside her, curling up at her side, tail twitching on occasion as he watched them. "Do you need anything else, Eri?" Touya asked, gently smoothing her hair back from her face. The girl began to shake her head, then hesitated, chewing her lip the way she always did when she was nervous. Touya waited patiently, knowing better than to press her, until eventually the little girl pulled her hands out of the covers and extended them in a cautious request.

Touya smiled again, pulling Eri into a gentle hug. "Goodnight, Touya-nii," she whispered next to his ear.

"Goodnight, Eri-chan."

"You know, Colossus hasn't finished the paperwork for us yet. We could still ask him to make a few slight adjustments," Soma commented with a knowing smirk as Touya reentered the main room, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

The young man flushed, glancing away even though he knew that his father-figure couldn't see it. "She needs more stability in her life than I can give her," Touya grumbled, taking his seat on the couch. "I'm happy to be her big brother, but I can't be her father, Soma."

"So you say, but it's obvious to me that little girl sees you as her father already."

"Yeah yeah," Touya grumbled, taking his phone from the coffee table and opening a message from Mido. The fire-user stiffened as he read the brief text, his blood running colder than ever before. A violent curse escaped his lips and he sprang to his feet, a surge of adrenaline rushing through him.

"Touya? What's wrong?" Soma asked, his voice low and urgent.

"They know," Touya croaked, panic increasing his heart rate tenfold in an instant. "The League knows."

Just for context, I did the same thing I did with the Sports Festival and randomly rolled for new partnerships in the Test of Courage. I didn't count on Ochaco and Katsuki ending up as partners for the Test of Courage, but it made for a great excuse to have Katsuki know about the assault on Ragdoll, so yay! Hope you enjoyed and are excited for the drama to continue! We'll see y'all February 6th for our one full-chapter repeated POV, Lord Explosion Pomeranian himself! Until then, go beyond! PLUS ULTRA!