HEARTBEAT

As the second day of class started, Jirou had an internal debate with herself. On one hand, she really didn't want to stick her hand in the hornets' nest that was whatever the heck Midoriya and Bakugo had going on. However, morbid curiosity about why there were only twenty sets of heartbeats, nineteen from the students plus the arrhythmic, caffeine-driven stutter of Aizawa's shriveled circulatory organ, overruled her self-preservation instincts.

"Midoriya, weird question."

"That is indeed a weird question, given that you haven't asked anything," Midoriya replied.

Jirou rolled her eyes. "Mind if I ask why you don't have a heart?"

Bakugo stormed over, grinning so fiercely that Jirou felt her fight and flight instincts kick in. She held her squirming jacks in her hand to keep them from gouging out Bakugo's eyeballs.

"It's because he's a robot!" Bakugo roared. "Finally, hard, cold evidence!"

Jirou jabbed him in the neck. "No one asked you."

"Actually, I do have a heart," Midoriya said. "Want to see?"

"See?" Jirou asked. "See what?"

Izuku rolled up his shirt. Jirou felt herself sweat profusely at the sight of six-pack abs in front of her. Mina wolf-whistled and said, "Damn, Midoriya, way to put on a show!"

The mood in the classroom took a sudden and precipitous freefall when Izuku plunged a scalpel into his chest. Ochako threw up more rainbows, Tokoyami muttered something about madness and darkness, and Koda's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he tipped sideways.

Jirou fought back her own hysteria as Izuku peeled back the skin over his chest. Midoriya reached inside and pulled out a small boxy machine with clear tubing on either end. "This is my heart."

Jirou listened to it, but it didn't make a sound. "Is it beating?"

"Not currently. I only circulate blood when I need to reconstruct parts of my body, as it's what carries the components I break down, along with the nanomachines that make them in my bloodstream."

"See!" Bakugo roared. "He even has nanomachines!"

"It's his Quirk, is it not?" Todoroki asked, staring at Midoriya's open chest with an apathetic expression. "I don't understand the fuss."

"I take it that's the stomach?" Jirou asked, pointing at a big boxy container.

"Yep! It incinerates everything inside and absorbs any remaining metals into my bloodstream. It also has thermal vents to power the battery back here, if I consume anything that can undergo an exothermic reaction." He pointed to a metal cylinder with light panels along the side, showing he had full charge, hooked up to bundles of wires running across his body.

"Wait, hold on," Sero asked. "Is this just an elaborate way to go into detail about how your body works without making it seem forced and unnatural?"

A sharp crack of bricks breaking filled the room. Over the intercom, Nezu said, "Cementoss, the wall broke again. You know which one."

From down the hall, Cementoss moaned, "Why do I have to keep fixing it?"

497

Whoops, forgot to do this last night. Well, here it is!