When the timer rings out, Hitoshi wastes no time snapping Midoriya-kun from his quirk. For a moment the boy doesn't move and Hitoshi is worried that something happened, but then he stretches and yawns, and Hitoshi can exhale in relief.

"Any strain?" Midoriya-kun asks with a small smile.

"None whatsoever."

"Then let's see what mom wants from us."

They get out of Midoriya-kun's All Might-crazed room and head to the living room where Midoriya-san is waiting for them patiently. Her eyes crinkle with the power of her smile when she sees them. Hitoshi is slightly taken aback by it. He just experimented with his quirk on her son. She should be mad. She should be worried.

There was none of that in her gaze. Just… pride. For some reason.

Hitoshi shuffles forward and sits opposite to her, Midoriya-kun next to him.

"Boys, I got your report cards mailed to me," Midoriya-san says, her smile somehow brightening even more. "I'm so proud of you for getting such high grades."

Hitoshi absentmindedly brings a hand to his neck to scratch at it. It's not a big deal, he's always done well in school. To have it treated like this is… foreign, but Midoriya-san always made sure to compliment him on his intellect, and whenever she got their report cards she commented on them thoughtfully, even going as far as asking if they need a tutor if their grades fell somewhere (usually because they spent too much time training and not enough studying). But… usually she did so in passing, not called them down for a talk. So there was something else. A 'but'.

Hitoshi anxiously waits until she reveals what the real reason for calling them was.

"I talked with Kimura-san today." Ah, there it is. Hitoshi's brain goes haywire for a second. What could she have told Midoriya-san? Many things. For one about Hitoshi's force-fusion habits. But… Midoriya-san isn't mad or worried or any other negative emotion that would be warranted by such discovery. Therefore it must not have been that. "She wanted to keep it as a surprise for you for the next few months but I convinced her telling you would be more productive." Okay… what? "She wants you boys to try your hands at the Fusion Masters Exam next semester."

Hitoshi's brain blanks.

"She thinks we're ready for FME?" he asks the moment the clarity comes back to him. "Already?"

Before he can stutter through half baked and obvious questions Midoriya-kun tackles him in a hug and he nearly loses his footing.

"We're gonna be fusion masters Shinsou-kun!"

"Hold your horses," he says sternly, despite squeezing back. "We still have a lot of training to do."

"But we're gonna be fusion masters if we do that!" Midoriya-kun repeats, unphased. There's a bright smile splitting his face, and Hitoshi can't help mirroring it. He feels… giddy. He trusts Kimura-sensei's judgement. If she thinks they're ready then they probably are.

"So that means…" Midoriya-kun lets him go to look at his mother. He already misses the touch.

"More training for you. If you're ready for it," Midoriya-san finishes his sentence. "A few more hours during the weekends and half an hour more on weekdays."

"That's manageable," Hitoshi nods once. Midoriya-kun nods so many times it looks like he's trying to shake his head off.

"We're gonna be fusion masters…" he whispers to himself, and Hitoshi's smile widens. It looks like Midoriya-kun can't really believe it, and to be honest Hitoshi can barely believe it either. This happened… way earlier than they anticipated. They're so close to victory he can almost taste it.

They just need those few extra hours, this final push, and they can try.

They're so close to being heroes.

He throws himself at Midoriya-kun and hugs him, tears springing to his eyes.

They're so close to being heroes. Together!

Time passes fast when you're training so much you barely have time to study. When they complain about it to Kimura-sensei, she smacks her forehead and informs them there's a way to share knowledge between fusion partners.

Well that's a new thing.

He slowly learns how to open himself to Midoriya-kun's probing and give away all his knowledge to share, and in turn learns to probe him for information too. It's intrusive, it's annoying, but it also makes studying a hell of a lot easier. (And if Midoriya-kun watches him with pain in his eyes at his newfound abilities connected to hiding from his parents or sneaking food or walking silently… well, he ignores it until the boy is back to normal.)

There's an overlap between some of their skills and knowledge, how to take a punch, how to avoid conflict… There's a few new ones he learns about from probing into Midoriya-kun, like how to treat burns, how to work with explosion recoil, how to sew…

Studying gets easier after that. Midoriya-kun does maths and science, Hitoshi does languages and history. It just works better that way.

Kimura-sensei elongates their weekday training by another half an hour.

They switch up the training after a while, they basically mastered everything they did before, including their freshest skill sharing skills. Kimura-sensei shows them a list of skills they need to take part in the exam, and their eyes go wide. Not out of a throng of work, out of lack of it actually. Somehow they managed to go through all the skills without knowing it.

To be honest they should have checked the list by themselves, earlier, but… they didn't really… expect going that far? If it makes sense.

"What we're gonna focus on now, is your specialisation skills, so you can get a specialised diploma," Kimura-sensei informs them, and Hitoshi can't help but gulp. Over the time he got used to force-fusing Midoriya-kun, but they'll be taking the specialised exam apart, who knows what he'll have to do there. "Shinsou," Kimura-sensei points at him and smirks. "We're gonna test how many people you can hold at the same time. Midoriya," She turns and points again. "We're gonna be testing how long you can uphold the emotion and mind reading." She puts her hands on her hips and cocks them. "We're gonna see what you're made of again."

Hitoshi is sweating bullets as he stands in front of Kimura-sensei's 20-something students, as she explains to them that they can opt out of the experiment, but she'd really appreciate it if they helped. He tries to smile reassuringly at the people in front of him, in a way that says 'I'm not gonna hurt you'. He is pretty sure it comes out as a grimace.

Surprisingly, very surprisingly, every single person opts in.

"Okay, then let's go!" Kimura-sensei tells him, and gestures towards her other students.

Hitoshi gulps, then makes a move to force-fuse the first student—a boy with silver, sharp hair— … and he can't do it. There's no spark of fusion, no spot he can anchor himself on.

"I think… I need to be touching them for it to work," he says after a second of trying to find something that doesn't exist.

"Can't force-fuse from distance if you haven't already fused with someone. Common." Kimura-sensei nods at him, and he comes up to that sharp-haired boy, extending his hand.

The boy grins at him uneasily, and meets him halfway.

Hitoshi can feel it then, and yanks. The boy disappears from the real-life realm and appears in his mind.

One down. Twenty-something-minus-one left to go.

'Woah, this is so weird,' the sharp-haired guy says in his mind, and Hitoshi chuckles quietly.

"It is, isn't it."

And then he realises that he just laughed for no reason and talked to himself, from the others' point of view. Ah shit.

He moves on to the second person quickly, wanting to escape the embarrassment, then the third, the fourth… It goes along smoothly. He force-fuses them quickly and without complications, they don't fight him on that, he gives them a few seconds to get used to it to make sure they don't want out, and he moves on to the next person, over and over and over… and then he's in an empty room, save for Kimura-sensei and Midoriya-kun, both looking at him with a surprise written clearly on their faces.

Hitoshi narrows his eyes. "What."

"You just… casually broke the record of maximum force-fusions in a row," Kimura-sensei informs him, clearly baffled. The choir in his head gasps. "I fully expected you to start having trouble around the ten people mark."

"I—" he has no idea what to say. "What?" he repeats, his jaw clenched almost painfully. There's no way he just… did that.

"Try to force-fuse me and Midoriya too," Kimura-sensei commands him, and he nods uneasily, then gets to it. He doesn't come closer, his legs are still frozen to the ground from the weird mix of feelings blossoming in his chest, but he doesn't need to. He yanks from afar, having found the core of Kimura-sensei's fusion state, and the woman becomes part of him too like her students before that.

'Is there any resistance?' she asks from within, and he shakes his head. 'Interesting.'

Midoriya-kun knows fully well that he can force-fuse him from distance, but still he comes up to him and throws himself onto him in a hug. And just like that, he disappears in a white light, force-fused.

'Shinsou,' Kimura-sensei says with a smile that he cannot see but can totally feel inside him. 'You're holding twenty five people now.'

'This is sooooooo cool!' Midoriya-kun says when he doesn't answer anything.

He…

He feels lightheaded.

He lets them all go rapidly and collapses on the floor.

Izuku is the first to spring to action when he's released. His legs take him to Shinsou before he even starts swaying, and he manages to catch him before his head hits the floor.

"Shinsou-kun! Shinsou!" He tries to get his attention but the boy is out cold.

"That was probably overbearing even if he didn't feel it at first," Kimura-sensei muses, kneeling beside them. "Mina-chan! Stack out the mattresses, we'll put him there for the time being."

They do exactly as is being said, and then it's Izuku's turn. He doubts he will do good, he's got more pressing things on his mind, like Shinsou's wellbeing. But he'll try at least.

"First we're gonna see if you can maintain a connection with more than one person." At Kimura-sensei's beckoning two people step out closer to him. "Fuse with one, try to cement the feeling of a connection, unfuse, then fuse with another and do the same."

Izuku goes through the motions automatically, only thinking about Shinsou. Somehow, it works anyway.

They find his limit is five people at the same time, but for a long time. He can still feel their emotions when he feels a stir and realises it doesn't come from his own body but from Shinsou. Oh well, addendum: his limit is six people but one of them is Shinsou at all times.

"Shinsou-kun!" he stops all tests in the middle of something Kimura-sensei was saying, and runs towards his friend. "You're awake!"

"No, I'm not," he murmurs, disgruntled, but opens one eye. "What happened?"

"You passed out," Izuku informs him, helping him up to a sitting position.

"Obviously… Did I seriously get that many people at once?" he asks, disbelieving.

"Yep," Kimura-sensei comes up to them and gives him a thumbs-up. "I think that's all the tests we'll do today. Go home and rest."

"But— We barely did anything—" Shinsou tries to protest, but sways despite seating and shuts up. "Okay, maybe it's a good idea."

"Go, we've tested what needed to be tested and now I'll have to change your regime a little. I need time to come up with it, okay?" she laughs. "To home you go. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Osu," Shinsou whispers and tries to stand up, but immediately sits down. "I don't think I can go home."

"I'll carry you!" Izuku says without thinking.

Shinsou stares at him, stares, staaaaares… and then he starts blushing and mutters something under his breath.

"Was that an 'ok'?" Izuku asks, tilting his head.

"You know what? Sure." Shinsou says almost enthusiastically. Or maybe it was just sarcasm.

Izuku does end up carrying him home. If he has any protests he keeps them to himself.