As the day drew to a close, Mezou kept looking around the room at his classmates, eyes sprouting along his arms. Even though his arms shook with the effort, he couldn't just stop keeping an eye on his classmates. Next to him, Iida had a similar look on his face.

He barely blinked as Midoriya came up to him, giving him a worried smile. "How are you feeling, Shoji?"

Mezou paused. "...Tired and stressed," he said. Sighing, he looked around the class again.

Midoriya did so as well, a slight frown on her face. "You want to keep an eye on everybody after Kurogiri took them."

It wasn't a question. Mezou nodded. It was a foolish thing but… "Everybody was right there. And then…" He stopped, unable to find the words. It hurt that he hadn't been able to keep more than a couple of his classmates in one place, and only because Kurogiri had been too distracted.

She looked him in the eye, the same exhaustion that Shoji felt shining in them. "I-I get it. They - I'm the class President, I'm the one who's responsible for us. And they were just… just gone before I could help."

"Even so, Class President," Iida said, having gotten back some of his flair, even if his hand chopping was far more restrained than it had been that morning, "we all did the only thing we could to survive such an attack! Though I am ashamed of running away from my classmates, there wasn't any other way to tell the Heroes to come with our phones out of commission!"

Mezou nodded seriously. "It still hurts that the only thing I could do was keep an eye and ear out."

Midoriya looked at Iida with a soft smile, then a spark entered her eyes. "Phones…" she breathed.

"Class President?" Iida looked up.

She pulled out her phone, then stepped to the front of the class. The rest of the class turned to look at her. Midoriya shrank back, then steeled herself. "Um… How do people feel about a class group chat? And, um, sharing contact numbers? Just in case!"

Mezou could have slapped himself for not thinking of that. It seemed so obvious, yet he hadn't thought of something so simple to try and keep in touch. Admittedly, he wasn't the most social person either - but neither was Midoriya.

The class looked between each other, then Bakugou spoke up. "Fuck it. That's okay with me, Midori." With that, the quiet broke. Small smiles came over people's faces as they pulled out their phones.

Numbers were exchanged, even Todoroki pulling out his phone to connect. A couple of cute dog and cat pictures were shared in the meantime. Kaminari, now freshly recovered from frying his brains, helped set up the chat. And Mezou looked at the new phone numbers added to his phone with a smile on his face as their parents finally came.

It wasn't perfect. But it would be good enough.

—

A painful knot in Inko's chest unclenched when she saw her daughter alive and safe just in the classroom. Not particularly caring about how she looked, she ran over to Ikumi, grabbing her in a hug. "Ikumi! You-you're okay!"

Clutching her back like she was about to disappear, Ikumi sniffed, lifting Inko clean off the ground. "It's-it's okay, mum, I'm safe. We-we all are."

"Oh, Ikumi…" Inko sniffed, feeling her eyes start to water. "I was so worried…"

"Get to high ground, Grape," Katsuki called to a shorter student.

"Why-"

A flood of tears poured from her eyes, and Ikumi joined in as they clutched each other, sobbing. With a flat expression on his face, Katsuki grabbed the short boy and lifted him onto the desk. The rest of Ikumi's class managed to hold their ground as their tears soaked the classroom before a couple of drains opened on the floor, sucking the water away.

Normally Inko would have been embarrassed about crying so hard in public, but she didn't care. Not after a frantic twenty minutes where she had almost broken several road laws driving to U.A with Mitsuki and Masaru.

From the looks of several other parents gathered around the door, she wasn't the only one. Everybody there looked like they were about to collapse in exhaustion and relief.

The tears finally dried up and Inko was gently lowered to the ground. Ikumi managed a smile. "See? I'm fine. None of us got seriously hurt, we're all in one piece."

Inko looked over at her daughter once more and saw how tightly she was holding herself. "Did… did you get hurt?"

Ikumi hesitated, then she nodded slightly. "I'm just bruised. It's fine."

Inko looked at her daughter in horror. She had known in the back of her mind that her daughter was going to get hurt as a Hero, whether it was from Villains or natural disasters. But for it to happen so soon… "You got hurt?! Are you sure you're okay?"

Ikumi nodded, a determined glint in her eye. "Yeah, we all are, especially now we've shared phone numbers."

"You even got Katsuki to join?" Mitsuki managed, before shakily smiling at her son. "Nice to see him listening to you."

Katsuki didn't respond to that, simply getting ready to leave. A red and white haired boy - that must have been Todoroki - watched Katsuki and his mother with an expression Inko couldn't place, before leaving with a young, white-haired woman with similar red streaks in her hair.

Inko didn't pay too much attention, simply smiling up at Ikumi. "W-well, if you're keeping in contact… that's good."

"It is, yeah." Ikumi took a deep breath. "I-I know you want me to come home but… Can I just stay and make sure that everybody's okay?"

Inko looked up at her daughter's face, saw how she looked around at her classmates, before nodding. "If it'll make you feel better."

—

Midnight saw the last of Shouta's students go with their parents, smiling and waving them away with Yamada. As soon as the parents were off campus she slumped, sighing. Yamada gave her a sympathetic look, passing her a cup of coffee. "It sucks, but this is the best we can do," he stated, grabbing his own mug.

She sighed, taking a sip of coffee. "I know, but… God, these kids are too young for something like this." Nemuri took her mask off, pinching the bridge of her nose as she took another sip. The only consolation they had was that they had captured that Noumu Villain, a host of D and C-list Villains and there had been no fatalities - and even that was only because of All Might. "They were supposed to be safe here-"

"And they will be," Nedzu chirped from behind them.

Nemuri stiffened upon hearing Nedzu's voice. To the uninformed ear, Nedzu sounded happy. But there was just a slightly brittle edge to his voice, that promised murder. He continued talking, almost sounding cheerful. "As I said to the police, we - no, I've gotten complacent during this long period of peace. We will improve our security - in fact, I have some ideas for Power Loader. This League of Villains won't be free for long."

Hizashi looked at him seriously. "Really?"

Nedzu's smile slipped for a second. He bared his teeth, fur bristling. "They have tried to kill children in my care."

And that was that. Despite his seemingly laissez faire attitude to what teachers did in their classes, Nedzu took his role as an educator and principal seriously. If there was something he took even more seriously than educating students it was protecting children, as the rather unscrupulous characters Nedzu had put away with extreme prejudice could attest to. Even though his wrath wasn't directed at her, Nemuri still shivered.

Then Nedzu's pleasant mask was back in place. "Well, in any case, we have much to do! Including preparing for the Sports Festival in a few weeks!"

Nemuri started. "So soon? I mean, don't get me wrong Nedzu, I love the festival for its youthful enthusiasm, but U.A's just been attacked-"

Nedzu simply nodded. "While I'm not entirely happy with this plan, I feel that delaying or cancelling the Sports Festival this year would only please the League of Villains and their benefactor. We will have more security - the police have promised five times the security for the Festival, to say nothing of increased hero presence."

Hizashi shook his head slightly. "...Shouldn't we delay it?"

The Principal folded his arms behind his back. "And appear weak to other Villains? If U.A is perceived to be weak, then other Villains will threaten our students." he clapped his paws together. "So we're going to put on a show of strength, browbeat these thugs."

She could see the logic of that. Not that it mattered when the students' health and wellbeing was at risk.

"Those students could have been killed." Nemuri hadn't felt so unable to help people in a long time. Not since- (A collapsed building in the rain, Shouta and Hizashi standing over it, soaked to the bone-)

She shoved those feelings down. Looking at Hizashi's grimace, she knew that he'd thought something similar. Nedzu gave them a sympathetic look. "U.A will support these students and the rest as best we can," he said.

Nemuri had to hope that it would be enough for these kids.

—

Ikumi blearily woke up to bright morning sunshine and the sound of birdsong. She glanced over at her alarm clock and jolted up in a panic. "Is it this late?! Why didn't I-"

Then Ikumi remembered what Midnight had said before mum had picked her up. "Right… school's cancelled today."

She flopped back on her bed, staring at the ceiling in her bedroom, before managing to push herself up. As she got dressed under the confident stares and smiles of the Hero posters on her wall, primarily Gang Orca and All Might, she sighed.

After what she'd seen at the USJ, All Might's smile didn't seem so reassuring. Not after knowing he could only fight for a few hours a day after extensive injuries like that. It wasn't like she didn't know the risks of being a Hero - natural disasters and Villain attacks weren't known for being gentle - but it was another thing to see how badly All Might had been hurt.

Villains had attacked her class to try and kill All Might and her classmates - and the Villain that had almost done it had torn through her defences like it was nothing. Not just that, but All Might had injuries that meant he couldn't be a Hero for more than a couple of hours a day.

She shuddered. If anything, that latter revelation was almost the scariest thing about yesterday. Because it meant that All Might was weak, vulnerable. "...That explains why he was so rushed after the Sludge Villain, at least," she murmured, pulling on a pair of shorts. But even if it explained why All Might had acted that way, it didn't provide much comfort, only an explanation.

Dusting off her plain white T-shirt with 'Shirt' written on it, Ikumi took another look at the Heroes on her walls, a resolved expression forming. After eating, showering and sleeping, she had managed to get her head mostly straight about everything that had happened. The suddenness of the attack, the brutality of the League of Villains and that particularly feral shark Villain from the lake… it had been terrifying.

And the attack had only increased her resolve to be a Hero.

Ever since she'd learned what Heroes were and had seen All Might save over a thousand people from that burning building, Ikumi had known what she wanted to be. She had admired them, and wanted nothing more than to be like All Might and Gang Orca as they saved people, inspired others to act and help the world, and stopped Villains from harming others. And Ikumi had tried her best to stand up for what was right, fighting against bullies and standing up for people who couldn't fight back.

Knowing that All Might wasn't able to be a Hero like he used to due to his injuries scared Ikumi, she couldn't deny that. But she also couldn't deny that standing against Shigaraki and those Villains to try and protect her classmates hadn't been the right thing to do, or that she wouldn't do so again in a heartbeat. No matter how scared she was, she couldn't just back down and let Villains like Shigaraki have their way.

Villains like him were ultimately just bullies trying to push other people around. Ikumi had a lot of experience pushing those people back.

"Ikumi! It's breakfast time!"

"Coming!" Ikumi left her room, a smile on her face.

AN: Sorry this took so long! I've been procrastinating with a slew of 'r/entitledpeople' videos on Youtube. That and I couldn't find the right words, the right vibe for this chapter. So many bits were good but just didn't feel right to me to publish. I've got bits with Endeavour and Shouto that were really fun to write and sort of fit… but at the same time, it just didn't work for this! I thought it took too much of the focus away from Ikumi to be honest.

So! We've had a bit more of the aftermath of the USJ attack! And a bit with Nedzu and Nemuri that really just… worked about the lead-up to the Sports Festival. To be honest, part of what took me so long was that I've never written a slice of life story and I'm not sure how to do it. More slice of life stuff is coming since we've got the lead-up to the Sports Festival to add stuff in.

Thank you Banchoking for editing this. Please, comment and tell me what you think worked and what didn't.

Next time, the Sports Festival looms, and we ask… Do you know what it means to be a Hero? Have a good one!