A/N: My original plan was to write the story all the way through USJ before I updated, and to publish the second half of chapter 8 in one big long chapter. However, I underestimated how much time it would take to recover my inspiration after finishing my term papers, and various holiday-related distractions have interfered as well. Since I'm about to travel for the holidays, and I don't know how much time & focus I'll have over Christmas break, I decided to break chapter 8 into three parts instead of two, and to give you this second of three parts today. With my schedule, I had to release it unbetaed, so if there's anything wrong with the chapter, it's completely my fault (and let me know!)

For those of you who have been asking if I'm going to continue updating this fic and doing so as anonymous or guest reviews so I can't actually respond to answer you, that's really impolite and I wish you wouldn't. Any future reviews from guest accounts only asking if I'm going to update will be deleted.

Now, on with the story!

"Generally, young man, if someone has been stabbed by a knife, it's advised that they leave the knife in so that it can be taken out carefully by experts who know how to remove it without doing even more damage than it did on its way in." Shujenzi-sensei, better known as Recovery Girl, gave me a stern glare through the built-in bifocals in her helmet visor.

"Ah. Got it." I probably should have said something like 'I'll remember that for next time', but first, I was firmly hoping that there would never be a next time, and second, I was exhausted. Who knew that being stabbed would be so tiring? Supposedly, I had already been unconscious for a few hours, but it certainly didn't feel like I had gotten any sleep. I also had a pounding headache, which Recovery Girl had said was due to the dehydration from the blood loss, but that at least was slowly getting better as the fluids from the I.V. made their way into my bloodstream. If only they made an I.V. for the other temporary deficiencies I was suffering, like common sense!

Recovery Girl sniffed in disapproval at the apparent flippancy of my reply to her. "Listen, young man. Just because that copied quirk of yours regenerates things completely is no reason to be careless. You may not have to deal with nerve damage or permanent complications from broken bones, but if you're creating new cells out of nowhere, you're running two risks. First, you're effectively starving yourself, because the materials to make those cells have to come from somewhere and your body fat percentage is already quite low." Well I'll be damned. Zaimokuza's claims that he needed to be a fatty for his quirk to work were actually true! "Second, you're likely doing telomeric damage." At my blank stare, she sighed and shook her head. "I mean you're most likely healing by effectively aging faster. I know you young bucks all think you're immortal, but trust me, you abuse that quirk too much, by the time that you get to my age - if you even make it that far - you'll regret it." Go ahead, rub the fact that I almost died in my face again, please and thank you. It's really annoying, but if it helps me remember the consequences of pretending I could be a hero, then it's worth it! "And as for you, young man," Shujenji-sensei said, wheeling on Bakugo, "Nerve damage is absolutely something you have to worry about, so unless you want to lose some of the feeling and range of motion in that right hand of yours, you'll keep your arm still until you've recovered enough for a second dose of my quirk, understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," Bakugo said, mumbling something under his breath afterward that was almost certainly uncomplimentary. I couldn't help but feel a current of guilt. I didn't even really like Bakugo, but if he and the other real heroes hadn't chased after me then he wouldn't have gotten hurt. Also, I might have died. Was I secretly in U.A.'s Victim Course instead of its Hero Course? That would explain a lot.

As I sat there brooding, I was distracted from my self-pity by a buzzing sensation in my pants pocket. I pulled out my phone. Shit. Komachi sent me a text. 'Onii-chan I saw the news r u ok?' Hurriedly, I checked the news myself - 'Media Breaks In to U.A., Sparking Student Panic' was the headline. Hastily, I texted back a 'yes im fine', before looking up to Recovery Girl. "Um, Shujenji-sensei?" I asked timidly. "Can I, um, ask how much you've told my parents so far? My little sister is texting…" I trailed off. "Anyway, I don't want to worry her but I don't want to lie, either."

Recovery Girl looked at me with a pitying expression. "Well, since you're in the hero course, your medical authorizations are already on file, so I didn't have to call your parents before you were treated. With that said, you did get injured, breaking a few school rules and potentially laws in the process, so it's likely that a call will be made - but that's the principal's decision, not mine." Oh, right. There's a law against unlicensed quirk use, isn't there. Ugh. I'm going to be in so much trouble. Well, look on the bright side, maybe I'll be kicked out of the hero course.

"Hmmm, my nose is twitching. Is it because I'm being spoken about? Because I'm a mouse? A dog? A bear? A mink? The answer to at least one of those questions is probably yes!" A small, furry animal wearing pants, a vest, a white collared shirt and a red tie walked into the room on its hind legs. I blinked for a second, stunned, before my dehydrated brain caught up to the fact that 'oh right, the Principal looks like some kind of animal.' "And how are your patients, Chiyo-sensei?"

"Extremely lucky," Recovery Girl said in a deadpan tone of voice. "You'll be happy to know that both should make full recoveries. As long as they hold still, anyways."

"Capital! Most excellent!" Principal Nedzu proclaimed, his tail twitching slightly as though it wanted to wag. "Well, since I have a captive audience of the moment, I suppose that I should indulge myself. Young men, service to your nation is a sacred trust…" It wasn't necessarily the worst scolding I had ever received. Principal Nedzu's slightly squeaky voice never rose above a conversational volume, and he tended to be more of the 'explain what you did wrong' school of verbal rebuke than relying on insults or guilt-trips. However, it was by far the longest such personalized lecture I'd ever experienced. Principal Nedzu went over our faults in exhausting detail, drawing from historical references, literary parallels, and digressions into stories about his real-life acquaintances in order to make his points. Twenty minutes later, he finally wound down. "... and that's why we have rules about evacuations in the first place. Do you boys understand?"

"Yes Principal Nedzu. Sorry Principal Nedzu." Bakugo and I said it in shellshocked unison, as though we had been half-hypnotized by the barrage of squeakily-articulated logic.

"Your apologies are accepted. Now, on to the good news." I never would have thought that a rodent's eyes could twinkle, but somehow the Principal managed it. "First, although you boys and your compatriots absolutely made the wrong decisions due to being underinformed and undertrained - something that we as educators bear at least partial responsibility for - I, at least, am very proud of the moral fiber that you all displayed with the decisions that you did make. The courage and spirit of heroism that you and your friends displayed was laudable, and exactly in the spirit of this great institution. As long as you are able to restrict yourselves to methods of displaying that heroic spirit more appropriate to your actual levels of training and experience, I have every confidence that you'll both go far."

Was boneheaded stupidity a valuable hero trait or something? Before I knew it, I found myself shaking my head. "... I just started running," I mumbled. "Didn't even consider it might be dangerous. Bakugo, Yukinoshita, Yuigahama… they're the heroes, not me."

Bakugo snorted. "Quit it with the fake modesty, assho-" his eyes darted to the Principal, "-I mean, Hikigaya. Without you none of us would've caught that bit-, that villain in the first place."

I really wasn't being modest, but before I could figure out how to tell him that, the Principal spoke up to interrupt. "Indeed! Without the misguided efforts of you five, we might not have discovered the villains' intrusion at all. Now that we know that they have access to a disguise specialist and a teleporter, we can take the appropriate precautions!" Huh. Well, that was something, at least. "Now, as things stand, U.A. will be taking the position that the villains were in the employ of some of the muckraker journalists, attempting to illegally access confidential employee information in order to write lurid articles." I frowned for a second. Really? The sound of 'Iwato's voice was burned into my memory, and the sheer excitement she had about cutting me - "Of course, this is a fiction intended to keep public panic from arising, but in the meantime it does give us the excuse to set up a restraining order against everyone who attempted illegal entry to the school yesterday. I think the student body has had enough of being harrassed on the way into school, don't you?"

Despite everything, I smiled weakly at that. "Always a silver lining, huh?"

"Now, as far as punishments go, legal or otherwise." The Principal paused for effect. Bakugo and I both got quiet, hanging on his words. "After looking at the security footage, it's quite clear that the villain attacked you first, without provocation. Any quirks used by you all were clearly used in self-defense, or would have been covered under Good Samaritan laws." I breathed out a sigh of relief. "As for administrative punishments," another pause, still leaving us on tenterhooks, "Professor Aizawa will be writing a reflection essay on his failure to ensure that his students read and understood the information in the school rulebooks which would ordinarily have been covered during the orientation that you all skipped." I blinked. That had not been what I was expecting. He was blaming Aizawa-sensei, not us? "Of course, the amount of difficulty that Aizawa-sensei chooses to place upon you in retaliation for me making him do that will be entirely up to him." Aaand, there was the other shoe. But still…

"That's it?" I couldn't help but ask.

"That's it," Principal Nedzu agreed. "This is a school for heroes, Hikigaya-san. For all that I have expounded upon the ways that your actions were not appropriate given your current lack of training and inexperience, had you been a year older, with your Provisional License in hand, I have every confidence that your attempt to capture that villain would have been not only successful but highly valuable in preventing further threats and dangers to the student body. No, the punishment beyond the necessary amount to get the lesson to sink in would be counterproductive - and I think the two of you have rather gotten the point of the lesson, aha, or should I say the cut? The thrust? In any case, you've suffered enough from your mistakes already." His eyes glinted. "With that said, if you abuse this generosity and begin forming a pattern of taking inappropriate risks, I will escalate the administration's response accordingly. Is that suitably clear?" I nodded with a gulp. "Excellent! In that case, I think my work here is done."

"Wait!" I called out. "What about, um, our parents?"

"Hm?" The Principal said, his ears twitching. "Well, I informed them, of course. You are still legally minors. However, since Chiyo-sensei informed me that there was no emergency, I simply left a message."

I winced. "Do you happen to remember the number you left it at?"

*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*

"Stupid onii-chan, being stabbed by a villain is NOT FINE!" Later that night, the events I was dreading had come to pass. In his infinite wisdom, the Principal had left his message notifying my parents of what had occurred on my home phone, so that he wouldn't cause them undue worry while they were at work. Which meant that it was waiting for Komachi when she got home alone, leaving her to worry, fret, and build up a figurative Stockpile of righteous wrath to take out on me later.

"I was going to tell you later," I said, only slightly stretching the truth. I thought about protesting, telling her that of course I was fine, my quirk fixed me right up, but when Komachi actually got angry it was usually safest to just give in and apologize right away.

It was rare to see Komachi at any less than her best. Between the fact that her skin was more like Kevlar than like human tissue and the fact that her veins were made from carbon nanotubes, she never got baggy eyes from lack of sleep or blotchy or streaky from crying - but I could see redness at the corners of her eyes, all the same, and there were a conspicuous number of tissues in the wastebin by the couch. "Uh huh, sure you were." Komachi said suspiciously. "You idiot, what made you think that lying to me was a good idea in the first place?"

I couldn't exactly tell her that I didn't think she would find out, so instead I shrugged. "I didn't want you to worry?"

Komachi's hand balled up into a fist and she stomped on the floor, carefully restraining herself from accidentally using her Quirk-strength to hurt me but clearly wishing that she could hit me anyway. "You idiot!" she said again. "Did you ever think that maybe if you lied to me about being safe when you weren't, that I'd have to start wondering if you were really hurt every time you said you were fine?"

Ugh. Well when she put it that way… Desperately, I tried to find an excuse. "I really was fine, honest! It was just a flesh wound, I'm already all healed up. I've gotten worse in class."

Komachi scowled at me. "Is that why you decided to to take the train home? Because, you know, you whine about how tired that regeneration quirk of yours makes you all the time, and yet somehow today's the first day you were so tired you couldn't ride home, despite how much 'worse' the injuries you get in class are?"

I winced. "No, it just… got late and I didn't want to ride in the dark?" It was actually late; between being interviewed by the police and the pro heroes, and all of the time I spent sitting in a hospital bed attached to an I.V., it had gotten to nearly 9 pm. Komachi didn't look like she believed me though, which was fair, because it was absolutely a lie. I was exhausted, even more so than I had been at the start of the day.

"You liar." Komachi said, her face twisting with hurt and disappointment. I opened my mouth to try to say something, to apologize, but she just turned her back to me. "Dinner's in the fridge. I'm going to bed."

"Komachi I -" SLAM! The door to her room shut behind her, hard enough to rattle the frame and set a few glasses clinking against each other in the kitchen. "-'m sorry," I finished lamely. "Well, that went well," I muttered to myself sarcastically.

*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*

The next morning, Komachi still wasn't speaking to me. My parents had come and gone at some point during the night, arriving after I had already choked down some leftovers and passed out on my bed for about ten hours straight (Recovery Girl had cautioned me that I needed natural sleep to heal, so for the first time in practically months, I had slept without using any quirks at all) but had left me a note saying that they wanted to talk to me later tonight. Which was fine. After class today, I was going to be quitting the Hero program anyways, so we'd have a lot to talk about.

Being publicly known as the guy who couldn't hack it in the Hero Class would suck, especially since it would absolutely validate Bakugo & Orimoto's conceited opinions, but if the alternative to enduring some social stigma was passing out in a pool of my own blood, then bring on the condescension. And it wasn't like staying in the hero class after getting taken down in one shot like that would be that great either - what would they call me, I wondered? Hero Name: Knifelung? Bleedygaya?

As I was musing about that and other similarly dark thoughts, the train slowed to a crawl and stopped. "Attention passengers," the intercom announced. "There is villain activity on the tracks ahead. We will resume forward motion when it is safe to proceed. Thank you for your patience." Ugh. I pulled out my phone, checking for villain-related news near Musutafu. Sure enough, some intrepid reporter was on a live broadcast, discussing the rampage of a Giant Quirk villain named Trapezius Headgear, who was currently being ineffectually opposed by Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods. I took a good, hard look at it. Was that what my life would be like, in the future? Risking getting myself killed in order to stop the 'cruel depredations' of villains who probably were teased about looking like a giant penis all through high school until they finally snapped? All to make sure that ordinary citizens' trains wouldn't get delayed?

Or maybe I would wind up like the hero in the next article down, one of three heroes dead of knife injuries in the past month alone; the article suggested that it was maybe some form of serial killer targeting heroes, but who knew? Maybe I hadn't been the only person to interrupt 'Iwato' while she was trying to do something for… what was black mist guy's name? Kurogiri, right. Because nothing's more creative than giving yourself a name written using the same kanji that could describe your quirk. Honestly, it was like something that Zaimokuza would do, the chuuni bastard. Speaking of Zaimokuza, do I owe him one for the fact that my copy of his quirk saved my life, or does he owe me for taking a bullet on the whole 'yandere villain that loves cutting her boyfriends' thing? No, I'm much better looking than he is, there's no guarantee that she would have jumped straight to 'boyfriend' thoughts if she found out that he had a regeneration quirk too. Shit, that means I owe him, doesn't it? Fine then, I thought, once I finish quitting this stupid hero program, I should look him up and see how he's doing, lend him a manga or something. I don't think I've talked to him since before everybody found out that I got into U.A., so maybe once I'm no longer officially a heroic riajuu we can bond over being losers together or something.

"We are now resuming forward motion. Please remain seated or holding on to the train fixtures for your safety." Out of idle curiosity, I checked the newsfeed app again. Sure enough, it was already updated - All Might had saved the day again, completely upstaging Kamui Woods and Mt. Lady. Note to self: when I start looking for work as a hero - oh, right. I paused for a second, dismayed at just how easy that habit had been to fall into. Well, when I get a job advising heroes, I should work for someone that doesn't operate anywhere near All Might or Izuku, to be sure they stay in business. Or maybe I'll just get an office job, and save up for a house somewhere near where Izuku lives? Hmm, no, he's getting stronger quickly, real estate prices will have risen by then, no way I'll get a cheap deal. I'll marry into a wealthy family in his general area, and live a life of leisure? Sure, as long as I'm daydreaming, why not?

It was with those cheerful thoughts that I finally arrived at U.A.'s entryway. True to Principal Nezu's claim, the omnipresent media harassment at the front of the school had suddenly evaporated. A few discreet police cars were canvassing the area, presumably to dissuade any members of the media from evading whatever restraining order had been set up. On my way in the door I peeked inside the bike shed to make sure that my brand new quirk-rated bicycle hadn't vanished overnight, but thankfully the fact that this was a heavily monitored heroic institution (and the fact that I had a pretty good bike lock) had kept my baby from taking a ride with some stranger. If only the villains from yesterday had as much common sense as bike thieves.

I had wanted to get into the school early so that I could maybe talk to Professor Aizawa before class - he didn't always show up looking like a caterpillar at the last second, only sometimes - but after the villain delay to the train in the morning I was instead running a little late. So as I approached the door to the 1-A classroom, the fact that there was noisy conversation coming from the other side wasn't unusual. That it involved my name, on the other hand, was. "Kuh! I can't believe I was so proud of myself for preventing a panic during the evacuation, when unbeknownst to me, Hikigaya was engaging the real threat!"

"It's okay, Iida! Mumble mumble-" Almost despite myself, I switched to my copy of Jiro Kyoka's quirk, boosting my hearing by just enough to make out Izuku's mumbling. "- still did a good job!"

"Tche, I suppose keeping a bunch of sheep from trampling each other isn't bad for a shitty extra." Despite myself, one of my hands rose up and dragged itself across my face. Dammit Bakugo, one of these days you're going to have to learn how to give a compliment that isn't backhanded. "Besides, you'd have been useless fighting that chick with us anyways."

"Mou, be nice, Bakubaku!" Yuigahama scolded.

"I am being nice!" Bakugo retorted, "I'm just saying it was already too fucking crowded in there for me to blow that bitch the fuck up like she fucking deserved! And stop calling me weird shit, Airhead!"

Yuigahama replied with a hmph of annoyance, and then Yukinoshita cut in. "Bakugo-san, if anything, Iida-san's quirk would likely have been more useful than either of ours in such confined quarters. Realistically it's us who were useless."

"Fuck that," Bakugo said, "we were doing fine. You and me were already figuring out that bitch's moves, and then Hikigaya got back up. If she hadn't ran away like a little bitch, we'd have kicked her ass. Besides, it's not like Glasses here is such a hot shot in close quarters either without room to get up to speed."

"YO, HIKIGAYA!" I winced at the sudden volume and turned off Jiro's quirk, looking left to see Kirishima running up towards me. "Man, I heard about yesterday! Nice job dude, very manly!"

I snorted. "Sure, if that's what you want to call bleeding all over the floor." I was sure that the people in the classroom had probably heard Kirishima shouting, so without any further excuse to eavesdrop (and hopefully Kirishima hadn't noticed just how long I'd been standing there) I opened the door.

"Whoa, it's Hikigaya!" "Hikki!" "Hey, Prez! Way to go!" "Hikigaya-kun, good to see you back on your feet!" "Oh, thank goodness." A cacophony of camaraderie suddenly erupted, everyone in the class looking in my direction. For a moment, I was shocked that it was all friendly, none of it jeering or poking fun, and then I realized - oh, right. They're all heroes. These morons probably think I actually did something good!

Kirishima caught up to me and gave me a solid slap on the back that knocked me out of my daze. "Don't worry about it man! From what I heard, you got knocked down and then you got right back up and got back in the fight! Are you kidding me? That's manly as hell!"

I had to ask. "Do you by any chance read a lot of shonen manga, Kirishima?"

He gave me a big grin. "Aw man, yeah, I love that stuff! You too, huh?"

That explained it. Decades of cultural brainwashing, at their finest. I snorted in mild exasperation. "Let me tell you. Getting stabbed for real? It sucks."

With a laugh and another slap on the back - I really wished he'd stop, it was starting to sting - Kirishima flexed his quirk, making his forearm rocklike and bumpy for a second before reverting it. "Hah! That just means that next time you'll have to bring me along to cover for you!"

"Or me!" Yuigahama said, looking at me with a slightly angry expression. "No more charging off ahead by yourself, okay Hikki?"

I smiled sardonically. "No worries. Next time, I promise I'll be way behind you both." So far behind you, in fact, that I'll be in a different class entirely.

Yukinoshita's eyes narrowed, as though she suspected something. Before she could say anything, though, the door opened behind Kirishima and I, and Prof. Aizawa walked in. Hurriedly, Kirishima and I took our seats. "Okay, class, I have two announcements to make. First," he said, glaring at me, then switching to Bakugo, Yukinoshita, and Yuigahama in turn, "since some of you apparently don't know what the rules are, you'll all be writing five hundred word essays on exactly what needs to be done when the evacuation alarm sounds, as well as other important safety procedures that you should be aware of, due tomorrow." Five hundred words? How excessive. "Hikigaya." Aizawa returned to glaring at me. "You'll be grading them."

Ha! Joke's on you, I won't even be in your class! "Yes sir," I said, giving him a wry smirk. He paused for a second before turning away.

"Second," Aizawa continued, "Today's going to be an all-day Basic Hero Training class." Ugh, my last day of this course and it's going to be a day-long gym class? Eh, whatever, at least messing around with my quirks will be fun. "The Hero Course faculty made the decision to delay a few exercises that had originally been planned for the first two weeks in order to give you all a chance to make a positive impression on the media," Aizawa droned dully, "but as you may have noticed, the media has left." Suddenly, his apathetic facial expression morphed into a creepy-looking grin. "That means we get to make up for lost time." Then he held out another one of those silly looking index cards, the same kind that All Might had held out when we did battle training, except rather than BATTLE this one said RESCUE. "Today we'll be doing rescue training, learning to handle all sorts of natural disasters, from fires to floods."

"Man, I'm excited!" "All day, huh? Sounds like this's gonna be rough." "Floods and water are my specialty, ribbit!"

As everybody chattered eagerly, Aizawa's glare intensified. "Settle down, I'm not done yet. It's up to you whether or not you wear your costume for this one, since for some of you it's possible that it'd get in the way, so you're free to wear your gym uniforms if you'd prefer. Get dressed and meet out front, there's a bus that will take you to the training location."

As we all grabbed our gear and split up to the dressing rooms, I couldn't help but look down at my 'hero costume'. Despite being incredibly chuuni, it had kind of grown on me. I would have to remember to take a picture of it… so I could laugh at my horrible taste in five years, naturally. Well, I guess wearing it for one last time today would be fine.. right?

"Something wrong, Hikigaya?" My head snapped up to see one of Mezo's tentacle-mouths hovering near my ear, and I jerked back slightly in surprise.

"Um, just… trying to decide if my costume is good for rescue work or not," I lied, seizing on the first excuse that came to mind.

"Looks fine to me," Mezo said, "you should probably hurry up and put it on, though, you don't want to be late."

Belatedly, I looked around to see that almost everybody in the classroom was finished changing or about to be. "Crap, you're right," I said. "Thanks for the warning." Luckily, my costume didn't have a lot of pieces to fuss over, unlike Iida's, which practically needed an assembly manual. I jammed both of my legs into the bodysuit, rolled it up to my torso so that I could get my arms in, and then zipped up the back. The facemask was actually attached to the bodystocking, but made to look like it was attached to the cape - I didn't bother pulling it up for now, but it would probably come in handy if I had to breathe smoke or soot later. The cape was easy enough to whirl around and fasten to semi-adhesive contact patches on the bodystocking's shoulders, and soon enough I was ready for action. One last time, I thought to myself. Might as well go out with a bang.

Yaoyorozu was waiting when I got out of the changing room, standing in front of all the girls in a way that made me think that she had gotten them all organized. I felt a little guilty about not having done the same for the boys' side, before I remembered that I was going to be leaving the class soon anyways and there was no point to me acting like a president. Also, in the absence of any leadership from me, Iida had apparently taken it upon himself to nag everyone into lining up. Eh, let's just say I delegated the job to him. That's leadership, right?

When we got down to the bus stop and Iida started trying to get people to line up by seat order, though, I had to step in. "Iida." He looked over at me, and I shook my head. "We're in the most prestigious high school in Japan. I think everybody can figure out how to get on a bus."

"Of course, President!" Iida said, coming to attention. "I apologize for my enthusiasm!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Don't apologize for it, just- I dunno, save it for class or something."

"Understood!" I could practically hear the unspoken 'sir' at the end of Iida's sentence, and I gave Yaoyorozu a rueful look. She smiled back at me with a commiserating expression. Dammit Yaoyorozu, don't smile at people like that! If you go around being nice to losers like me, they'll actually think you like them despite the obvious evidence that you're out of their league and just being polite! I turned away, staring off at the distant bus as it drew closer. No sense in my entertaining any illusions about girls to begin with, let alone when I was about to drop out and earn the disgust of everyone else in class. God, this sucked. Why the hell hadn't I dropped out before actually meeting people? Oh right, the maybe blackmailing All Might thing. Funny, now that I know about Izuku, I could probably blackmail him for real.

The bus arrived. Despite choosing to sit in an out-of-the-way corner in the back, I quickly found myself flanked, with Yuigahama choosing the seat at my left, and Yukinoshita sitting immediately in front of me. "Hikki, I'm glad you're in school today! We wanted to see you in the nurse's office yesterday, but she said you were resting and we couldn't come in."

I grunted in agreement. "Yeah, I slept for a bit." Stupid regeneration quirk, using all my energy or whatever. Ugh, and it was going to be such a pain in the ass to charge back up, too. Unless I was perfectly healthy and undamaged to start with, it'd keep activating instead of storing itself - and using Stockpile in the first place put stress on my body that occasionally caused damage. There was a reason I almost never got my stores of that quirk up past 20-30%. Well, maybe once I was out of the hero program it'd be less of an urgent necessity to maintain a store of it at all times?

After I didn't say anything else for a few seconds, Yukinoshita did her best to break the ice. "Even so, Hikigaya, I apologize for leaving you alone with only Bakugo for company," she teased, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the noisy blonde.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Ice Queen?" Bakugo snarled.

Ashido Mina, who I hadn't talked to much before, surprised me by clapping her hands and faking a swoon. "Ah! You fought side by side, and now you have a pet name for her already? So romantic!"

"Butt out, Racoon Eyes / No, Bakubaku just likes / Kacchan's just bad with names," Bakugo, Yuigahama, and Midoriya all kind of chimed in at once, the latter of whom called out his explanation from further up the bus.

"Dammit, I told you assholes to stop calling me weird shit!" Bakugo exploded.

As Midoriya scratched the back of his head and shrank back, however, Yuigahama just stuck her tongue out at Bakugo. "Remember my name first, and maybe I'll think about it!"

"Stop acting like such an Airhead, and maybe your name' will actually be worth remembering!"

"Ah! Flirting with two girls at once? Bakugo's such a player! But what about poor Hikigaya? Unless he's fallen into Bakugo's orbit as well?!" You're wrong.

"Dammit Raccoon Eyes, enough with the flirting shit!"

"No, if Hikigaya-san were to fall for a boy, it'd probably be Totsuka Saika." You're… only because he looks so girly, dammit! I mean, no, that's wrong too!

I rested my face into my palm. "Oi, Yukinoshita, don't say things that'll cause misunderstandings. If you're going to make fun of me, make fun of me getting stabbed like a moron and nearly bleeding to death, or something." All of a sudden, the bus got a lot quieter. I looked up from my facepalm to see that nearly the entire back half of the bus was just staring at me. "... What?" I asked defensively.

"Um, Hikki…" Yuigahama began, turning towards me with her big brown eyes glistening, "that's not really something funny to joke about. When we came in and saw you just lying there..." she trailed off, before adding, "I was really scared," in a much smaller voice.

I couldn't look at her. I turned to face the back window of the bus, where the road was flying away from us, whipping away one dash of pavement paint at a time. What did I even say, to something like that? Sorry, I didn't get stabbed on purpose? Or maybe sorry my dying inconvenienced you? How about, sorry I'm the sort of person who copes with gallows humor, because I guarantee you that I'm way more freaked out about it than you are right now? Or maybe I'm not sorry at all, and who the hell do you think you are, telling me what kinds of jokes I can and can't make about it? "...Sorry," I muttered. "I'll try not to let it happen again." That was the important bit, right? As long as I quit, Yuigahama wouldn't have to worry, and I got to live. That sounded like a win-win to me.

As I turned back, the back of the bus was still relatively quiet, our lack of discussion punctuated by Midoriya's panicked denials to Asui and Tobe that his quirk was anything like All Might's. Finally, Kirishima spoke up. "Ne, Hikigaya, I'd been meaning to ask, but - are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," I lied reflexively.

Kirishima didn't look like he believed me, which was fair, because I wouldn't have believed me either. He was too polite to press the point, though, so he just grinned at me. "Right, well, let us know if there's anything you need, Prez! If you decide you need to take things easy today or anything, we'll help you out!"

Happy to be back on familiar ground, I even managed to crack a smile. "Somehow I don't think an easy day is what Professor Aizawa has in mind, but thanks."

As I said that, the bus began to slow. I looked out the window to see an enormous domed complex, a huge facility that could have been an athletic stadium if not for the disproportionately small parking lot. Like U.A., everything about this place seemed to have been built with accessibility in mind, with steps sized for larger than average feet next to the normal ones (and a ramp off to the side), doors that could accommodate giants, and handles that went all the way up and down the door in case of taller or shorter-than-average visitors. The doors themselves were carefully counterweighted so that Professor Aizawa could gently tug the doors open with a bare minimum of force despite their massive bulk; I imagined that even someone diminutive like the Principal would probably be able to do the same. I thought it was an impressive attention to detail - and then the doors finished opening, and I was way more impressed by the facilities themselves.

It looked sort of like a theme park would look if you took out as many safety features as possible. A full sixth of the building was literally on fire, which made me wonder about the air quality in here - how did they keep the fire from sucking out all of the oxygen in the giant sealed dome we were in? Where was all the smoke going? And how was the air in here still a comfortable room temperature? Besides that apparent affront to the laws of thermodynamics, there was also a giant mountain, an enormous waterpark area with an actual yacht in the middle of it, and three different varieties of 'ruined building' areas - cityscapes destroyed by battle, earthquake, and flood respectively.

In short, this place looked like a colossal deathtrap. Everyone around me was going crazy over how cool everything looked, and I just kept looking around and thinking, 'okay, over there's death by smoke inhalation, to my left is death from being buried alive as a building falls on me, there's the falling off of high places and breaking a leg area, oh look, drowning!' I swallowed hard. "How the fuck does U.A. afford the insurance payments on this place?" I muttered under my breath. I heard a snicker of amusement behind me, and turned just in time to catch Jiro Kyoka looking away from me innocently. Well, considering whose quirk I had copied to eavesdrop on the class this morning, I was hardly in a position to throw stones.

As class 1-A milled about in the entryway taking in the sights, a figure walked up to meet us. They were wearing a hero costume that would have almost looked like a spacesuit, if not for the fact that the bottom half of the costume was a shorts & a pair of sneakers rather than anything that would have covered the leg thoroughly. "Welcome, U.A. Students!" The astronaut-suited hero's voice had an artificial buzz to it, as though it was being spoken through a set of speakers. "I'm the Space Hero, Thirteen! And this is my facility. From floods to fires, earthquakes to storms, I'm capable of simulating almost any type of major disaster or accident. I call it, 'The Unforeseen Simulation Joint!'"

Ugh. Corny pro-hero humor, how annoying. Calling your facility the USJ 'as a tribute' to those big entertainment companies whose movies and other media (and sponsorship paychecks) had paved the way for the early hero industry, why don't you show some imagination already! All around me, my classmates were fanboying and fangirling over Thirteen, so excited to meet another 'real hero' who wasn't a teacher that they overlooked the fact that we were all about to be venturing into a deathtrap that this psycho built. Meanwhile, Professor Aizawa had a brief muttered conversation with Thirteen before the two of them broke apart and he turned to address us. "Alright, class, we were going to have All Might come join us for a short time at the start of class to talk about his experiences rescuing people, but it seems he has to fill out some paperwork related to some heroing he did this morning, so that'll either be delayed until this afternoon or pushed to another day entirely." With that, he gave us his trademark creepy smile. "That means we get to jump right into training. Are you excited?"

"Well, we can't jump into things right away, Aizawa-san," Thirteen spoke in his mechanical voice, inadvertently saving us from Aizawa's sadistic tendencies. "There are one or two points that I need to go over first. Well, maybe three. Oh, or four." Oh good, he's going to go over safety procedures with us. Thank god, I knew they wouldn't just throw us into burning buildings without any kind of guidance or safety precautions. "My quirk is called Black Hole. I use it to suck up debris, to unbury people from landslides, to calm raging floodwaters, and to remove all of the oxygen from fires. It's a quirk that I've used to save hundreds of lives. But, if I were uncautious with my quirk, it would work equally quickly at devouring flesh and bone. And I'm some of your quirks are the same, and could easily made lethal." Thoughts of Midoriya's brute strength, Bakugo's explosions, and even Yaoyorozu's casual declaration that she could make nuclear bombs were she so inclined all rapidly flitted through my head. Even I could hurt someone badly with some of my copied quirks if I had the inclination. At the same time, I sort of wondered what a copied version of Thirteen's quirk would look like. Unfortunately, Thirteen's costume looked thick enough that I doubted my 'copy field' would be able to get through the padding. I snapped back to attention as Thirteen continued, suddenly realizing that I had skipped part of his explanation. "... In short, I believe the purposes of quirks are not to cause harm, but to help people, and that is what all of you will be practicing to do today!"

That was it? No words of warning about how not to get hurt in this facility, no safety rules or regulations, just a bullshit inspirational speech about how potentially dangerous quirks can be? I felt so let down - and then I didn't have time to feel anything but panic, as a familiar black mist started filling the stadium below. "Sensei!" I shouted.

Aizawa whirled to place himself between us and the mist. "Huddle up and don't move!" He shouted.

Bakugo slammed his fist into his hand, the psycho, setting off an explosion. "Heh, finally some payback!"

And then the villains started coming out of the mist, and kept coming. Dozens of them, some in ragged costumes, others just wearing gangster outfits or shabby street clothes. The one in front, however, had a costume that looked both professionally made and incredibly unsettling, a black bodysuit covered with what I dearly hoped were imitation severed hands.

"Thirteen and Eraserhead, huh?" He called out, in an almost dull, disinterested voice. "That's it? Kurogiri, I thought that girl you hired said All Might was supposed to be here."

"Indeed, that was the case," The cloud of black mist replied, the voice seemingly emanating from a pair of glowing yellow eyes suspended deep within it.

"Oh well," the blue-haired villain sad, scratching at his neck, "I guess we'll just have to start killing kids until he shows up."

Dammit, I thought to myself.

Komachi is going to kill me.