Well, it's been three months since the last chapter even after I said I was back, and that's my bad. I'll address it in the ending author's note, but as a bit of compensation, I'm giving you a much longer chapter. For now, let's just get on with the fic.

Special thanks to Writermakeshift for beta-reading.

XX. My Premonition

If anyone else knew the truth about Toshinori's connection with Midoriya Izuku and his friends, they'd probably end up saying something along the lines of 'it was rigged', or something like that, but even he was surprised about the match-up—it genuinely was just a coincidence that Midoriya and Bakugō were pitted against each other for this exercise.

Well sure, with One for All and even his original Quirk, the odds were initially leaning heavily in Midoriya-shōnen's favor, but it was largely through Bakugō's efforts that made it so it ended up being extremely close. And while he would have preferred he work with Yaoyorozu a bit more during the actual combat phase, they did the best they could with what they had and were given, which was really all Toshinori would ever ask for.

When it got to the moment where Bakugō pulled out that new move he'd been working on with him in secret, he heard more than a few of his other students audibly gasp behind him, and spared a quick glance towards one Uraraka Ochako, who was staring at the screen with her hands over her mouth, and what looked to be a horrified expression on her face. And right beside her were Ashido Mina, Īda Tenya, and Mineta Minoru, all of whom were looking at the screen indignantly.

It was good to see his protégé having friends to worry about him that much, but, uh...hopefully that wasn't at the expense of Bakugō's standing. Midoriya looked fine, all things considered. Probably.

As everything came to a head with Midoriya having to fend off Bakugō's capture attempts, Toshinori couldn't help but notice something that seemed a little...off when it came to the former—during the ten months spent training for One for All, he got to know more about the Quirk his successor was born with, and how it was essentially a 'mutated' version of his mother's admittedly more basic Small Object Magnetism.

He might have just been overthinking it since he only knew about as much about Short-Range Telekinesis as Midoriya was willing to tell him, but in Toshinori's long, long experience, he could immediately tell when something was the result of a punch.

A punch that was clearly powerful enough to send Bakugō flying a good distance away, and something Midoriya was clearly not close enough to do, given the fact that he was lying on the ground, and all. Not that Toshinori thought it was suspicious or anything, but with Bakugō having been very clearly struck in his abdomen instead of his entire body being pushed back, it felt like something just wasn't adding up here...

Except it wasn't nearly as important as Bakugō getting the tables turned on him and being summarily taken out by Hagakure Tōru sneaking up behind him and wrapping the capture tape around his neck, followed up by Midoriya-shōnen up and deciding to jump out of the second-highest floor's window and throw his partner towards it, and then Hagakure managing to touch the objective just in time.

(However, the way Midoriya went about it was going to need some addressing.)

And was Toshinori supposed to be happy because his protégé's team won out in the end? Well, obviously not, but how couldn't he be? It wasn't like anyone needed to know. or anything—even if school teachers were supposed to be impartial and regard their students equally, All Might was known for his never-ending grin, so did it really matter if it was genuine this time?

"Well done, all of you," he said, picking up the microphone and putting it close to his mouth. "Meet me back in the viewing room, and we'll go over your performance."

A Few Minutes Before...

"Objective has been captured! THE HERO TEAM HAS WON!"

Subaru's eyes snapped over to the speakers above the front door, and as he finally registered the words coming from All Might's booming voice, he breathed out a sigh of relief as his face broke into a grin.

They...they actually did it. Hagakure got them the win in time...

Hell yeah!

Subaru raised both of his arms in the air and let himself get lost in the feeling of sweet, sweet victory for several moments, before being interrupted by All Might calling all of them back to the spectator's room. With one last look at the top floor of the building, he took a deep breath, before walking over to a spot right beside the doorway and leaning against the wall.

You'd think after months of sparring against each other, he would've been pretty damn comfortable dealing with Katsuki's Quirk, but getting quite literally blindsided really hammered in the fact that his friend really was the true genius of the two of them.

Well, at least he managed to figure it out in the end. If only barely.

A little over thirty seconds later, he heard the door open, and turned to see Katsuki walking out of it. And as the other boy met his eyes, he let out a slight smirk as he walked over to Subaru.

"Man, I really thought I had it there. Well, can't say I didn't try, eh, 'Zuku?"

Subaru snorted. "I'll say," he replied, as he bumped fists with Katsuki. "I figured you had something planned, but I didn't think it'd be like that..."

As short as it lasted, being cut off from his two most important senses like that in such a high-intensity situation had felt like it would've lasted forever. He hadn't felt so helpless since...since he first woke up in Japan fifteen years ago.

"And also—" Subaru continued. "Flashbang? Really?"

Katsuki shrugged. "What? I make explosions, and it's an explosion that blinds. I don't make the rules here, man."

Subaru shook his head with a smile in response as he leaned back against the wall, and looked up at the clouds in the sky. While he would've liked to judge Katsuki for his naming choices (Mr. Howitzer Impact, everyone), he knew just how much of a hypocrite that would make him.

It was bad enough the whole world turned into one big battle shōnen—just because Subaru liked to call out his attack names sometimes didn't mean literally everyone else had to do the same. At least he had the excuse of it being a leftover chūnibyō tendency from living in a literal fantasy world.

Subaru was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the door opening again, and he gave a side glance over to the figure that was Yaoyorozu Momo making her way over to them. He gave her a slight wave as a greeting, but it was the immediate ninety-degree bow to him that ended up getting his full attention.

"Well played, Midoriya-san," she greeted. "I didn't consider that you would end up doing something like that in the end."

"Uh..." The first thing Subaru did was return the bow, albeit not as low as hers was. "...you too, Yaoyorozu-san. The traps and the fake bomb were all your doing, right?"

Yaoyorozu nodded, before gesturing to Katsuki. "Yes, but it was actually Bakugō-san who did most of the planning. I merely went along with his plans."

"I wouldn't sell myself short if I were you," Katsuki said, as he turned to face her. "I wouldn't have been able to do anywhere even remotely close to what I did if it wasn't for your help."

"Thank you," Yaoyorozu replied with a smile.

Turning to Subaru, Katsuki pointed with his thumb in the direction of the rest of the mock city behind him. "We should probably get going now since the old man's waiting for us."

Subaru nodded. "Yeah. Hagakure wasn't with you guys when you came out, right?"

Katsuki shared a brief glance with Yaoyorozu, who just simply shook her head. "We did talk for a bit, but I don't think she was with me when I came down."

"Ah. All right, I can wait for her, then."

Katsuki nodded in response as he and Yaoyorozu walked away, leaving Subaru alone with his thoughts as he then turned around to look through the inside of the door to the building.

It was a bit odd his partner still hadn't come out yet, but considering the fact that he threw someone a good distance onto a concrete floor, while she was wearing absolutely nothing, no less. Even while he himself had had his own fair share of scrapes and bruises, that didn't exactly mean he didn't feel bad about actually throwing his partner like that.

With a sigh, he turned back around and walked back into the building. Cor Leonis's ally detection would've been real handy here for finding someone completely invisible, but since he only knew Hagakure for all of an hour, here was hoping he didn't have to call All Might over if something really did happen to her.

"Hagakure-san?" he called out, his projected voice echoing throughout the building as he started walking back up the stairs. "Hagakure-san, can you hear me?"

"Y-yeah?" Her voice came from somewhere above him, but it was also faint, meaning there was still at least another floor separating the two of them.

"Are you okay?" Subaru asked. "Do you need any help?"

"No, it's okay," his partner replied. "I'm just—taking a breather, is all. Nothing to...ow...nothing to worry about!"

Damn it. Just as he figured. "Where are you?"

"Um...the third floor, I think. But I'm fine, really! You don't need to wait for me!"

"Yeah, I'm not sure I believe that," Subaru said, as he continued walking up the stairs. "Just stay where you are—I'll come up to you."

A less compassionate guy would've just shrugged and left without her, but Subaru was feeling pretty shitty about getting his partner hurt the way did, right about now. And let's face it—All Might was more than likely not gonna be happy about this, either. But that was for later, and his attention needed to be on the here and now.

When he finally made it to the entrance of the third floor, Subaru continued walking for a bit more until he entered the large, empty room.

"Now where exactly are you?" he then asked, when he finally made it to the third floor. He continued walking until he reached the large, empty room just ahead, taking a moment to look around for anything that looked off among the barren, concrete walls.

"Over here." The voice had come from somewhere to his right. Subaru turned, and as expected, saw nothing, but when he took a step forward, he felt a sudden weight and warmth on his left arm, just right above where his elbow.

But he didn't need to see to know that she had been leaning on the wall this whole time. Taking another step, he took hold of Hagakure's hand with his right arm and moved closer until her right arm was secure around his shoulders, and his left hand was placed firmly on her left shoulder.

"Can you walk?"

He felt Hagakure's hair shift as her head bobbed up and down. "Yes," she replied meekly. "But it kinda...hurts when I put weight on my right leg."

(Okay, it was worse than he thought. Might be better if he just carried her himself.)

Keeping his grip on Hagkure's shoulder, Subaru released his grip on her right arm and leaned down as he moved his arm behind her knees and effortlessly picked her up. She let out a quick eep! as he made the motion, but was otherwise silent afterwards.

"You can't walk by yourself," he said, getting the feeling she was looking at him incredulously.

"B-but...you really don't mind? Knowing I'm not...wearing anything...?"

And it was at that moment where Subaru suddenly froze as the floodgates instantly opened, and he was very, very quickly made aware of the fact that he was currently carrying a teenage girl in his arms. A naked teenage girl.

(Goddamn puberty hormones. This was something he had been dreading about having to grow up all over again.)

"I promise you I'm not trying to do anything weird," he said seriously, as he started walking. "I'm just trying to help you out here because it's my fault you're hurt."

"No...it's fine...I didn't think you were that kind of guy, anyway."

"Okay. Long as we're clear."

Right now, he was doing everything to try to clear his thoughts of anything that was related at all to how his arms were occupied right now. He really did not want to have to deal with this right now. But he wasn't about to just set Hagakure down and go back to having her limp back the whole way, so there really was nothing else he could do besides suck it up and do his best to remember the fact that she was relying on him to get her out of here.

Emilia, Rem, Emilia, Rem, Emilia, Rem, Emilia, Rem, Emilia—

"Eh? Are those names you're saying?"

Whoops. "I kinda have a habit of saying my thoughts out loud," Subaru explained. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh. Okay." It quickly grew silent between the two of them as he started to slowly make his way out of the room and down the stairs, until he no longer was able to contain the urge to say what he'd been meaning to say this whole time.

"But, uh, I really am sorry. For...throwing you, I mean."

"It's fine. I mean, we still won, right? It's—" Hagakure's words were cut off as she suddenly hissed when Subaru shifted his arms somewhat, causing him to look down at her in alarm. "—it's really not that bad. Your gloves and costume are kinda rubbing where it hurts."

"Ah. Sorry about that. I'll, uh, try not to move so much, then."

A beat of silence passed before Hagakure spoke again. "You know, Midoriya-kun, you really don't have to apologize so much—I already knew signing up for the hero course meant things like this would happen."

Subaru didn't respond to her words. It didn't matter if the person he ended up hurting on purpose was telling him it wasn't that bad—he still ended up getting someone hurt when he didn't have to, when he could have avoided this entirely if he had just gone about things better. It looked like Katsuki and Yaoyorozu really did end up planning for everything, after all.

Man, hindsight really was 20/20, huh?

The silence between him and Hagakure persisted as he continued making his way downstairs, and as he neared the exit of the building, Subaru suddenly picked up a faint whirring sound, coming from just right outside. And when he finally stepped out, he was met with the sight of a pair of robots off to the right side, and what looked to be a stretcher lying on the ground between them.

For a good few seconds, he stared at the robots in confusion. He didn't remember seeing them before or even right after the exercise started, and he was only gone a few minutes...

Oh, right—All Might went over this part. He distinctly remembered the man telling everyone the medic bots would be nearby if anyone got injured, but also not to go overboard with trying to hurt each other.

"I think you're supposed to put me down right there," he heard Hagakure say, as he felt her body twist slightly, most likely to point at the robots.

"Yeah, I just remembered," Subaru replied, as he slowly walked up to the stretcher. Gently, he bent down and laid Hagakure down on it, before he stood back up and took a few steps back. He silently watched as the medic bots lifted the stretcher, and kept his eyes on the obvious dip in the middle where the invisible girl was lying.

"It'll take you to the nurse's office," he called out, when the robots started moving away.

"Okay! Thanks for carrying me here!" Hagakure replied back, and for a good minute, he watched as the figures of the robots grew smaller and smaller as they continued going off in the distance.

And with that done, Subaru finally remembered he had somewhere to be, and mentally apologized to All Might and the class for taking so long. With just a thought, he quickly charged up One for All: Full Cowl, before he started running forward towards the building where All Might and the entire rest of the class was staying.

It wasn't exactly far away, but he figured he didn't wanna keep everyone waiting.

"Well—" All Might began, clasping his hands together. "—I'm sure we can all say that was quite the impressive start! No matter what the outcome was, just know that the three—well, actually four of you—to know that you all did very well today!" He then gave a thumbs up, which only Subaru seemed to reciprocate, judging by Yaoyorozu's bow and Katsuki's brief nod.

"And with that, let's get right into the—er, yes, Īda-shōnen?"

"Pardon me, sensei, but I have a question!" Subaru turned to see Īda with his hand raised.

All Might nodded. "Very well. Ask away!"

"I had forgotten to ask you earlier, but does winning or losing this exercise influence our grade in any way?"

"Good question! However, why should it? This isn't a competition, not to mention this is only your first day of hero training. We'll do graded exercises later on, but you don't need to worry about that right now."

"I see. Thank you for answering," Īda finished, giving the man a slight bow.

"It's no issue. Now, then—onto the review!" All Might then turned around and walked over to the giant computer screen at the end of the room, which was currently displaying a paused video of Subaru (and Hagakure's gloves and shoes) standing right outside the building where the battle trial was being held.

"Before we get into it—" All Might started, as he turned around to look at Katsuki and Yaoyorozu. "—do either of you have an idea of what it is you could've done better?"

Yaoyorozu immediately raised her hand. "I believe that since we perceived Midoriya to be the more important threat, we had ended up overplanning for him to the point where we left a hole in our defense when it came to Hagakure's invisibility."

"That's certainly the biggest thing, yes," All Might replied, nodding. "It's understandable for the two of you, based on what you've seen of Midoriya-shōnen in yesterday's performance—or even at the entrance exams for some of your classmates—to focus most of your attention towards the more obvious threat."

He then raised a finger. "However, if you do this in the field, especially when trying to apprehend a villain or rescue civilians, it could lead to catastrophic failure. Take, for example, Endeavor—while his primary focus is more on neutralizing villain activity, he still tries to minimize the amount of collateral damage as much as possible."

All Might turned back around and pressed some more buttons on the computer, until the screen was now showing Yaoyorozu creating the decoy bomb.

"I don't mean to downplay your efforts, of course. The two of you managed to make do with what you had in the time you were given, and even very nearly succeeded. You should be proud of your efforts, Yaoyorozu-shōjo, Bakugō-shōnen. Don't let this single loss discourage you."

"Thank you, sensei. And I won't," Yaoyorozu replied, giving the man a regal-like bow.

(Subaru may or may not have had a comment or two to say about the way she carried herself, but it wasn't really his business.)

"Bakugō-shōnen!" All Might's voice boomed, as he turned to Katsuki. "When you surprised Midoriya-shōnen at your confrontation, did you expect your attack to affect Midoriya-shōnen the way it did?"

For a brief second, it looked like Katsuki hesitated on his answer, before he ultimately just shook his head. "No. I didn't."

"Then I'm afraid I have to reprimand you for your decision. It may be one thing to roughhouse a little with a friend, but it's something else entirely to test a new application of your Quirk without knowing what kind of effect it'll have on someone. Doing so out in the field could lead to unintended consequences for yourself, the villain you're apprehending, or even for civilian bystanders. Unfortunately, I'll have to take points off of your overall score based on that."

"Hm. Yeah, I understand," Katsuki replied, nodding.

"We'll have more opportunities for combat exercises like this in the future," All Might continued. "But for now, if you want to practice your Quirk outside of class, you're free to ask either myself, Aizawa-sensei, or even other teachers to come chaperone you at one of the Quirk gyms we have on campus."

"Got it. Thank you."

"You're welcome." All Might then pressed a few more buttons on the computer until it now showed a loop of Subaru jumping out the building with Hagakure in his arms.

"Midoriya-shōnen. While your team managed to win in the end, you did still deliberately cause harm to your teammate by throwing her onto solid concrete. Because of that, I will also be taking points off of your score."

Yeah, that was completely fair. In all honesty, Subaru didn't really think it was fair enough, but he just stayed silent as he gave All Might a slow nod.

"However," the man continued. "I must also commend you for the diligence you had towards your teammate in checking on her and helping her to get to the medical support robots. The makings of a great hero start with showing compassion, especially towards your peers."

"...thank you, sensei," Subaru replied, leaning forward into a half-bow.

All Might nodded in return, before he turned around and pressed some more buttons on the large computer, until it was now showing the outside of the exercise building again, but this time, there was no one on the screen.

"Now let's move onto the next round." He then walked a few paces to the right towards the black and white boxes resting on top of a small table and reached his hands in, pulling out two more of the marked balls from earlier, and turned around to hold them up to the class.

"And going up next are Teams F and J!"

From the crowd, Subaru saw four people step forward: Mineta and his partner Satō Rikido, alongside Sero Hanta and Tokoyami Fumikage. All Might nodded at them before pointing over at the doorway with his finger.

"Now, if you'll just follow me, we'll head on right over so we can get started," he continued. "I also need to get rid of that decoy objective Yaoyorozu-shōjo created, as well."

And with that, Subaru watched as the man and the four students walked out of the room, with the silence from before quickly being replaced by chatter as he heard the other students starting to talk among themselves.

"So...Hagakure-san, huh...?"

It was a faint murmur, but Subaru was close enough to pick it up, and he turned around to see Uraraka looking a bit...off, so to speak.

"Huh? What about her?" he asked her.

Instead of meeting his eyes, Uraraka looked away. "It's nothing..."

This was...out of the blue, Subaru thought, as he kept his gaze on her face. When they last talked a little over an hour ago (when he had that...moment after seeing her costume), she was acting like her usual bubbly self. Now, with her refusal to even look him in the eye and her puffed up cheeks, it almost looked as if it was...

Irritated? Wait, that didn't make sense. Did he do something to make her mad and forgot to apologize?

At that moment, his mind started counting the days backwards to see if he'd wronged Uraraka in any shape or form, from yesterday's Quirk Test, to all of their daily meetups with All Might since passing the entrance exams, to even the entrance exams and before...

(Yeah. Nope. Nothing to be found in the ol' noggin.)

Which left him with only one option left.

"Uh...something wrong, Uraraka-san...?" Subaru asked tentatively.

Uraraka simply said nothing as she continued refusing to even spare a glance at him, and seriously, this was actually starting to worry him a bit.

"Uraraka-san? I don't know what I did, but, uh...I'm sorry? Wait, actually, I'm fairly sure I didn't even do anything to make you mad in the first place."

For several moments, it looked like his apology did nothing but fall on deaf ears, but Uraraka finally ended up looking like she was listening to his words, in the end...if you could call her eyes suddenly going wide and face turning a suspicious shade of pink as she started shaking her head vigorously a logical reaction to an apology.

"A-ah..." she stammered out. "Sorry...I-I don't know...why did I—" She suddenly stopped herself, closed her eyes, and then cleared her throat, before finally looking up at Subaru.

"Sorry, Midoriya-kun...I don't know what came over me. I think—I think I need to get some fresh air. It's getting kinda stuffy in here..."

Uraraka finished her words with an awkward laugh as she immediately turned and quickly walked out of the room, leaving Subaru even more confused than before.

"Uh...okay...?" he replied, blinking slowly at her retreating form.

(...the hell was that about?)

With nothing else to do, he turned to the only other person left who was there for that interaction. "Do you know what that was just now?"

Uraraka's partner Ojiro Mashirao simply shook his head, his face showing he was equally as confused as Subaru. "Can't say I do."

"Huh." Subaru just looked back at the open doorway that was now empty of Uraraka Ochako, quickly at a loss for words as he came to a simple conclusion.

Teenage girls were weird. He didn't remember having nearly as much difficulty with figuring out Beako's mood whenever she got irritated about something.

The rest of the time in class was spent spectating the other teams duking it out, providing commentary on their fights (which mostly came from Kirishima and Kaminari Denki, and then All Might critiquing said teams' performances afterwards. And in that time, Subaru got to witness just how little Aizawa's test from the day before did to show just how unique his classmates were with using their Quirks.

When it came to all his friends, he was equally proud of all them for their efforts, even if some of them lost their matchups, like with:

Mineta managed to take advantage of Sero Hanta's cockiness and trap him with his sticky balls long enough to get the capture tape around him.

Īda, as serious as he was whenever they all hung out, used his Quirk to run at the building and scale up the wall, skipping the first two floors altogether (apparently he got the idea from Subaru himself when he went for the Zero-Pointer) because he wanted to see if he could overwhelm Jirō Kyōka's hearing.

Ashido tried to see if she could melt all the support pillars for the top floor, but All Might very firmly shut her down on that, much to her visible disappointment. Her use of skating around with her Quirk making the floor slippery while dodging Aoyama Yūga's beams of light was still pretty cool to watch, though, don't get him wrong.

In between the third and fourth rounds, Hagakure did finally come back from the nurse's office, to which Subaru immediately jumped at the chance to apologize to her again. But instead of rebuking him and saying it was fine, she finally just told him she forgave him.

But among the people he wasn't already familiar with before today, there were only two people who really got Subaru's attention: Tokoyami Fumikage and Todoroki Shōto. The former's Quirk of a shadowy companion that burst out of him looked straight out of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and awoke the otaku in Subaru, but it was the latter's feat of just freezing the whole building without even breaking a sweat that sent waves across the entire class.

He'd heard whispers of Todoroki being one of the students recommended by Pro Heroes from the other students the day before, but seeing him in action today did well more than enough to confirm that rumor. And to be honest, Subaru was starting to get excited about the idea of sparring him.

All in all, it was a really good end to his first proper day at U.A., and he was already itching to see what else All Might had in store for them.

Once everyone had changed out of their costumes and met up again at the front of the school, Mineta brought up the idea of hanging out and getting some food again, and while Subaru usually didn't pass up the chance to do so, he was seriously feeling the need to go to sleep, right about now.

He didn't know if it was because of the whole 'getting his senses crippled' thing or because he might have overexerted himself with One for All, but he felt like he was about to fall unconscious the moment he stepped onto the train.

Which was why once he finally got home, he gave his mom a quick greeting and declined the offer of a snack as he immediately made a beeline towards his room. He then quickly changed out of his clothes and into nothing but a pair of shorts as he all but dove onto his bed.

"Timer...set!" Subaru said to himself, as he finished setting up the alarm on his phone. "Okay, nap time."

It didn't even take a minute before he was out like a light.

"And then what happened?"

"Well, that finally got everyone in the world to listen and give their energy—" Subaru replied, as he slightly raised his arms in the air. "—and the Genki Dama grew so big that when Gokū threw it at the monster—" Here, he threw his arms downwards. "—it ended up completely destroying it. Like no chance of it coming back from that."

"So what, he and his friends all lived happily ever after?"

"Eh, among other things, but yeah. More stuff happens after that, but I'll tell you about it another time."

"Cool," Rigel replied, and while it looked like he was staring up at the sky uninterested at first glance, Subaru could immediately see the faint shine of excitement in his son's blue eyes, and he couldn't help but smile at the sight.

Ah, to be a kid again. It was so long ago now, but if he closed his eyes, it felt like only yesterday when he finally finished all of Dragon Ball. Reading page after page of Son-Gokū kicking ass and looking cool, watching it all unfold on TV with his dad's discs, embarrassing himself by trying to do the Kamehameha and turn into a Super Saiya-jin...

"I know, let's spar!"

Subaru looked back down at Rigel. "Eh? What do you mean? Like make ki?"

Rigel, now standing in front of him, simply rolled his eyes in response. "That's obviously not real," he deadpanned, before immediately dropping into a stance. "But martial arts is real, so if Gokū can get stronger with that, and with the things Uncle Halibel's been teaching me, then maybe I can get stronger, too, and then I can definitely protect mom and Spica!"

"Oh? And what about your poor dad?"

"Well, we're gonna train together, right? I don't need to protect you if we get strong together!"

"Okay, fair point," Subaru admitted. "But you don't have to say it like that..."

Before he could say anymore, however, he noticed a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked off in the distance to see his beloved wife Rem waving over at the two of them, with their eternally-adorable baby girl Spica crawling around on the blanket she set out on the grass.

"Anyway—" Subaru continued, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "—looks like lunch is ready now, so let's save it for after, yeah?"

"'kay." With that, Rigel ran off to rejoin the rest of their little family, and as Subaru stood back up, he decided to take a moment to look back up at the sky, placing his hands on his hips and closing his eyes to take a deep breath of the calm, spring air.

Ah, this was the life. He wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Just him, his cute wife, and their cute...cute...

...

Instead of the soft noise of the afternoon breeze blowing against the trees behind him and the far-off sounds of Rigel talking to Rem, it all of a sudden went...oddly quiet, for some reason. And not only that, there was now this uncomfortable and uneasy feeling that sprouted in his chest, and it was only growing larger by each second.

(Eh? What was this bad feeling he was suddenly getting? Maybe all that storytelling gave him a big appetite...surely he wasn't getting that old, right...?)

Subaru opened his eyes, and what he saw next caused him to freeze up in shock, and his blood to run cold.

Because the sky was now the color of bleeding crimson, off in the distance where his family was supposed to be doing nothing but eating their packed bento Rem had made for them this morning, he saw no one on the ground, but several feet up in the sky above, there were...three figures, two small and one larger one, hanging suspended in the sky, like puppets held up by strings.

What...what the hell...? This...this couldn't be happening...

Without any further hesitation, Subaru moved to to lunge forward and start sprinting as fast as he could towards his wife and children, but when he reached the area they were originally (supposed to be) in, he suddenly found himself locked in place, with his entire body restrained by what he could only describe as a bunch of hands holding his arms, legs, and head in place.

"Well, well, well, well, well..." a familiar voice said behind him. "It's certainly been quite some time, hasn't it?"

In that moment, Subaru felt nothing but immediate dread as he finally processed just who that familiar voice belonged to. No...it couldn't be...please, anyone but—

A green head of hair entered his field of view, and as it turned to reveal itself to him, Subaru's entire being was very quickly overcome by nothing but overwhelming horror as he came face-to-face white skin, a manic grin...and those eyes.

Those deranged eyes that shook with madness at every mention of the word 'love'.

Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti wagged a finger barely an inch away from Subaru's eyes. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Who would have thought you would run all this way, spend all this time crafting a lie for yourself and dear little Rem? How very...slothful of you. The least you could have done was stick around and listen to poor, poor Emilia's screams—"

As he spoke, the man leaned in closer and closer until his face was right in front of Subaru's, who did nothing but keep staring at him, his eyes wide with terror and his mouth slightly agape.

"—as we ripped the life from her flesh and all those little children."

"...please..." Subaru croaked out. "You—you can do whatever you want with me, but..."

His family was innocent! They didn't have anything to do with this! It was him you wanted, right?! Kill him, torture him if you wanted, but leave them alone!

"Leave...them...alone...?" Petelgeuse parroted, drawing out each word he said. At that moment, his grin only seemed to grow even wider, and he slowly sidestepped out of Subaru's vision, before stopping right against his side. "Oh, poor, poor Subaru. Didn't you learn?"

Subaru felt something yank hard on his ponytail, causing him to look up in response to the sudden movement, and his attention was turned back towards his family, still left hanging hundreds of feet in the air. Off to his side, he felt Petelgeuse lean in closer until their cheeks were firmly pressed against each other.

"You can never escape destiny."

Subaru could feel nothing but dread deep within himself as he heard the next words that came out of Petelgeuse's mouth, and all he could do while stuck in place was focus on the black strands of hair that should've been green just moments ago.

Because that was his own voice he heard just now.

Something ahead of them shifted, and Subaru was immediately made known to the sudden sensation of something catching onto his face, like a hand had firmly wrapped itself around his head...but his attention was still trained at the sky above him, as he could do nothing but watch as Rem's, Rigel's, and Spica's abdomens all spurted out blood at the same time, and their bodies began to twise unnaturally.

Time itself seemed to slow down as Subaru screamed into his closed mouth until his very vocal chords tore, as he mentally begged and pleaded to any god who would listen to not do this to him, to save them from this hell, to not take his family from him again.

And yet, all he received in response was the sensation of the giant hand firmly wrapped around his head moving its finger and starting to squeeze and squeeze until he felt the very flesh and bones in his skull, his jaw, his entire head cave in on themselves, and then—

"NO!"

No no no not again not again I'm gonna kill you I'M GONNA KILL YOU I—

(Wait.)

Subaru suddenly paused, his eyes darting all around the area he was in. It was completely dark here, when it had been bright and sunny just a moment ago. He was lying on something soft, somewhere comfortable, when his feet had been firmly planted on hard grass.

In this darkness, the sound of his loud panting was the only thing he could focus on, before it was very quickly drowned out by the soft, constant whooshing noise in the background. It was here where his senses finally caught up to him, and he realized what had just happened.

(A nightmare. It was only a nightmare. It wasn't real.)

Closing his eyes, Subaru slowly eased himself and inhaled through his nose, and his hands relaxed their death grip on his bed cover. After several seconds, he opened his eyes and looked back out into the darkness, recognizing the faint outlines of his desk, his closet door, and his bookshelf. Just ahead near where his desk was, he could feel the sensation of his fan constantly blowing cool air at him, turning away, and then repeating.

(Everything was fine. There was nothing to worry about.)

"Izuku...?" a faint voice suddenly called out from behind the door, and Subaru's train of thought was broken as Inko opened the door, and the bright light coming from the hallway quickly illuminated his room.

"Are you okay?" she asked, as she slowly made her way over to his side. "I heard you yell."

"Uh, yeah, I just—just a bit of a bad dream," Subaru replied, giving her a weak smile. "Honestly, it was kinda weird."

Another few moments passed as his mother kept her gaze on him, before she opened her mouth again. "Is everything going on okay at school?"

Subaru quickly nodded. "Oh. Yeah. Everything's just fine, but it's not really that..."

He looked down at his hands. What exactly could he tell her?

"I..." he started, but was immediately cut off as he felt Inko's arms wrap around him in an embrace. His eyes widened at the sudden contact, but he soon relaxed and found himself reciprocating the hug.

"I thought boys your age were too old for hugs from their mothers," Inko murmured.

"Nah. Not me," Subaru replied. He was never going to not want this. Not with how guilty he felt about Naoko.

He felt like wanting to lose himself in this moment, but like all things, it didn't last forever. Eventually, Inko pulled away and looked Subaru in the eye.

"You don't have to tell me if it's really nothing, but you will tell me if something's going on with you that I should know about, right?" she asked. "No more keeping big secrets from me, remember?"

Subaru nodded, and Inko leaned in and gave him a kiss on the forehead, before she stood back up and walked to the door. "Are you up for dinner? I just finished cooking."

"...yeah. I'll just stay here for a bit, but I'll be out soon." Inko nodded and gave him another smile, before she stood up and walked out of his room. And once the door was softly closed behind her, Subaru let out a sigh as he started rubbing his eyes.

Don't get him wrong, he definitely had dreamt about Rem plenty of times (especially after that moment with Shimura Nana), but never once in either of his lives did he have any nightmares like the one he had just had.

"Rigel...Spica..." The names rolled so smoothly off his tongue, it was almost like he had come up with them himself, but that just couldn't be true—he never actually knew anyone who went by those names, but those kids...he could remember their faces clearly.

A young boy who looked just like him with Rem's blue hair. A cute baby girl in a onesie, with a face just like Natsuki Naoko's and Rem's blue eyes.

Dreams were the subconscious representation of a person's suppressed feelings and desires, so was it just a reflection of when he wanted to run away with Rem? Was that a future that once had a very real chance of happening? It all felt so real, too, like he really was spending time with a family of his—their own.

Even his own memories never provoked a dream as vivid as that, and yet...it would only ever remain as something impossible. He had never spent a lifetime with Rem and even had children with her, only to lose all three of them to...him.

Petelgeuse.

More than fifteen years after killing that pitiful excuse for a man so long ago, he thought he would've been way more than past that by now...but after seeing his face once again in that dream, and holding Rem up in the air like that, just like how he did the first time around, and doing it again to her, to them...

Amid the increasingly-deafening silence, Subaru's ears picked up the sudden noise of a faint crackle and the barest flash of something just at the very bottom of his vision, and he immediately looked down to see familiar green lightning dancing across his hands and arms.

The next several moments went by as he continued to stare down at his hands and watch One for All: Full Cowl start to spread up his arms and torso, and he wondered what it could've been like if he had this power back then. Just how much easier would things have been, if Natsuki Subaru had been anything else but powerless and weak?

Before he could entertain those thoughts any further, he clenched a fist and closed his eyes. It was a waste of time and energy to get caught up over something so pointless.

Letting out a sigh, he canceled his Quirk, then reached a hand to his face and slowly wiped the lone tear running down his cheek, and after a single glance towards the drawer in his desk containing all the fake Hero Analysis for the Future notebooks, he finally flipped the comforter over and promptly stood up and walked out of his room.

In all honesty, he wasn't exactly feeling hungry at the moment, but he really felt like he needed to do something to distract himself, he couldn't think about anything but those vivid events replaying over and over again in his mind.

Because if none of it was real, then why couldn't he shake off this feeling of deep foreboding, like something bad was going to happen?

Chūnibyō (中二病) - literally 'middle-second syndrome'. It refers to delusions of grandeur that commonly manifest in the early teenage years during middle school, specifically during the second year (or eighth grade, for anyone in the West).

As of last month, this fic turned a year old, and with it comes a pre-USJ chapter. I know I said it was supposed to start this chapter, but this fic was starting to have a bit of a pacing issue ever since U.A. started, and I think I was cooking pretty well with this nightmare sequence, so...I moved it to the next chapter.

I initially had the idea to just summarize the aftermath of the Battle Trial, but I ended up paying for another art commission like in chapter 11, and things just kind of snowballed into a longer chapter and writer's block. I even got some more art for the next few chapters, too, so there's that, at least.

I even got some art commissioned for the Rem IF nightmare sequence, so here's an Imgur link to it: /gallery/dAzNHoH

By the way, I also uploaded a second author's note as a separate chapter. I'll delete it once chapter 21 gets uploaded.

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope to get the next chapter out by the 16th, if possible.