My Hero School Adventure is All Wrong, As Expected

by storybookknight

Hikigaya Hachiman is the last person on earth who should ever apply to U.A. High School. Yet somehow, he gets in anyway. In a world of irrepressible optimism and idealism, these are the adventures of a young man who believes that idealism is a lie.

22. Once Again, I Failed pt2

A/N: Glad to finally be getting to some things I've had plotted out for a while. Just remember, as long as you've been waiting to read this, I've been waiting longer to write it!

Unlicensed Quirk use in Japan carried a penalty of anywhere between a fine of a few thousand yen to a five year long prison sentence, depending on how much harm was done. Professional Heroes, naturally, were held to a much higher standard of behavior. The fact that one of the very first items on UA's Hero Studies curriculum was a thorough accounting of the punishments in store - from multi-million yen fines, to loss of licensure, to decades of jail time - should we abuse the public trust soon to be placed in us was no surprise. Unlike the average civilian, our quirks would be highly trained; if we harmed others with them, it would not be by accident. While the warnings were unnecessary for me specifically I had originally appreciated the school's attempts to scare everyone straight as a logical course of action.

Today, I found myself wishing I were not quite so well informed.

I felt a hollow, sinking sensation in my gut as Hikigaya Hachiman fainted just before he would have achieved victory. Bakugo hadn't hit him, there was no sign of Midnight having used her powers to stop the fight - it was as though Hikigaya's legs simply stopped supporting him. As if his body had no more energy left in it.

And my sister's arm had been wrapped around his naked shoulders only minutes ago.

There was a time when I idolized my sister. A childish envy, perhaps. I told myself that I was watching her videos over and over again to analyze how she moved, to imagine how I could use my Heat Eater quirk to move as agilely and as smoothly as she did. Every video ended in the same way, showing my sister debilitating her opponent with mere skin contact, rubbing in the fact that my sister's quirk could be used on people directly without inflicting lasting harm. Unlike mine. There was no point to me studying those particular pieces of her videos, of course, in the same way that there was no point poking your cheek with your tongue to see if it still hurt after you had just bitten it; in any case, I had seen more than enough examples of my sister's opponents fainting helplessly that as I watched Hikigaya fall to the ground I immediately saw a resemblance.

For the first time I regretted chasing my sister out of the contestant waiting room. It was too late for me to leave and try to find her now when it would only be the work of a few moments for Cementoss-sensei to finish resurfacing the combat stage. Instead, I turned my thoughts to Orimoto Kaori. Initially, I had taken Hikigaya's warnings of her high degree of competency with a grain of salt; while it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that Hikigaya Hachiman had a low sense of self-esteem, his ego was sufficiently twisted that it would have been entirely in-character for him to have wildly overestimated the capabilities of someone who had bested him even once in the past.

Then of course, Orimoto Kaori had not only made it into sixth place in the obstacle race but defeated Tokoyami Fumikage, and achieved both without apparent effort. Despite the awful suspicions that seeing Hikigaya fall had provoked within me, if I was going to win this match it seemed that I could not afford the luxury of distraction. "Wow, what a fight!" The overhead speakers declared. "Next up, our last quarterfinal match will be Orimoto Kaori versus Yukinoshita Yukino! The stage will be repaired in just a second, everybody, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back!" That, it seemed, was my cue. I took a deep breath to center myself and left the waiting room, doing my best to push unwelcome thoughts out of my head.

If only unwelcome interruptions were so easy to push away. Bakugo Katsuki stood between me and the arena looking significantly less pleased with his own victory than I would have expected - which may have been partly due to the fact that he currently resembled a cookie that had been left too long in the oven. Bakugo's face was blackened from having one of his own explosions turned about on him, while the hair on the back of his head, instead of its usual blonde, was the dark red of drying blood from a cut in his scalp. He had one arm wrapped around his ribs to keep them from shifting as he moved and as he turned slightly to face me I noticed that he was moving with a limp. Despite his injuries, Bakugo trudged towards Recovery Girl's office unassisted, stubbornly moving forward under his own power. His narrow red eyes met mine. "You better not fuck this up," he said, his voice sounding strained and hoarse. "If 1-B makes it into the semifinals, it's officially your fault."

I kept myself from rolling my eyes. Barely. "Instead of worrying about who you'll be fighting in the next match, you should worry about making it there in the first place." I looked his tattered form up and down with resignation. "If you faint in the middle of the hallway, I'm not going to catch you."

Almost instantly Bakugo's spine straightened and he took a few even steps, as if to prove that he could. "Die in a dumpster fire," he growled. "If I need a hard flat surface to keep me from falling down, I'll lean on the fucking wall."

I felt my eyebrow twitch. "Oh, would you look at that," I said frostily, "I suddenly no longer feel guilty about the fact that I'm going to be beating up a cripple."

Bakugo took a deep breath, as if preparing to object to my statement, but he winced as the motion jarred his ribs. "Ow, fuck." He cursed before stepping forward once again. "Don't you worry, Ice Queen," he called out as he passed me. "I'll be all healed up for our fight. 'Cause you getting beaten by a cripple would just be fuckin' embarrassing."

With a sigh of exasperation I continued forward as well, heading once again down the tunnel toward the arena. Honestly, that boy… Still, for all that he was an obnoxious violent misanthrope with an unfortunate lack of anything resembling either a volume control or a verbal filter, Bakugo's aggressive jabs did a decent job of temporarily distracting me from thoughts of my sister. Despite his "assistance", however, as I stepped out into the sunlight and approached the cement square in the arena's center I couldn't help but scan the stands to see if I could spot her dark violet hair or her metal breastplate. Naturally, it was impossible to pick her out from the crowd at this distance, but I did see the section of the stands that belonged to classes 1-A and 1-B.

Orimoto's classmates were already making a ruckus and cheering on their friend enthusiastically. Faintly, I heard calls of "let's go, 1-B," followed by a "CLAP CLAP CLAP-CLAP-CLAP" which was significantly louder - I couldn't help but double-take, noticing that a girl with red hair up in a ponytail had enlarged her hands to help make the sound carry.

I also couldn't help but notice that 1-A's portion of the stands was conspicuously silent.

"WHOA! JUST LISTEN TO THOSE CHEERS, FOLKS!" Present Mic's voice blared, jolting me back to attention. "CLASS 1-B IS GIVING IT THEIR ALL TO ROOT FOR THEIR LAST HOPE, THE ENIGMATIC ORIMOTO KAORI!" I stared at the brunette across from me, who waved one last time to her classmates before her lively eyes framed by cloudy hair met my own. Jitters of anxiety and adrenaline ran down my spine, curdling together with the suspicion I felt towards my sister in the pit of my stomach. Out of habit I rested my weight on the balls of my feet, ready to move at a moment's notice no matter how little I was looking forward to this fight. "FACING HER IS CLASS 1-A's YUKINOSHITA YUKINO, SO FOR THIS FIGHT'S WEATHER REPORT, EXPECT SUDDEN FOGS AND FLURRIES OF SNOW!"

I took a deep breath. Don't hold back, I reminded myself. Midnight's arm rose up to the sky. My eyes narrowed as Orimoto's hair, then her body, began to emit faint wisps of smoke. Similarly, a goosebump-like sensation ran up and down my arms and legs, then towards my torso, as the pores on my skin opened to begin devouring heat. Despite everything, despite the fact that this was supposed to be a competition, despite the fact that I had to win here in order to have a hope of surpassing my sister, I couldn't help but open my mouth. "Be careful," I told Orimoto sincerely, my hands clenching into fists. "I don't know how my quirk will interact with yours."

Orimoto smirked at me. "Worry about yourself, Yukinoshita-san," she said, adding "I'll be fine."

Before I could stop her to explain that I hadn't been talking tough or trying to banter, Midnight's hand fell and everything went wrong. Almost instantly Orimoto exploded into a cloud of fog and rushed towards me. I stepped backwards out of reflex, drawing in heat as I moved, but there wasn't much room behind me for me to be able to get my distance. Helplessly, as my opponent enveloped my surroundings in fog, I instinctively clamped down on the pores in my skin and slowed the surging tide of heat pooling under my skin to a mere trickle. "I don't want to hurt you, Orimoto-san!" I shouted, my eyes darting back and forth at the clouds around me, trying to make out any hint of her body parts reappearing. Could she even hear me like this?

Evidently she could. "Ha! I'd like to see you try!" she shouted from somewhere above me, and a fist suddenly buried itself in my gut. It was a solid blow. Had I not already been tensed up and on the defensive, I probably would have been forced to regurgitate my lunch; as it was, the wind was knocked out of my lungs with a loud whoosh of air. Reflexively I grabbed for the offending arm, only for it to evaporate into a wisp of gaseous matter.

A second blow struck; a kick landed at the back of my knee. This time I was prepared. As soon as her foot hit me I vented heat out of my calf to cushion the blow, then immediately did the same a little higher up on my body as she followed up the knee kick with a rabbit punch to my kidney. It was a paltry defense at best. As I took hit after hit I was able to keep her strikes from doing real damage, but the pain was mounting, my control was slipping, and I just didn't have enough heat to stop her! Something needed to change.

I took a chance and darted forwards, shifting my meager reserves of heat to the soles of my feet so I could skate over the concrete like it was a rink of ice. If she had hit me at that moment, she could have done real damage, but I moved fast enough that her first blow missed. As I had half expected and half hoped, Orimoto reacted to my mad dash by congealing her foot in front of my legs to trip me; instead of fighting the blow I just let myself fall forwards, caught my weight on the palms of my hands and skated forwards with them as well. Suddenly I saw sunlight. Sure enough, I had remembered correctly - Orimoto's misty form was huge, but not so big that she could cover the whole stage at once.

As I burst out of the smoke and away from the area where I would hurt her I greedily released my quirk, devouring heat as quickly as I could. Ice started slowly spreading over the cement under my feet, and a few flakes of sudden snow condensed out of the air. Cheers and applause from the audience rang in my ears as I spun about and stood to face my foe, but within a few split seconds her mists enveloped me all over again. "Brrr! That's chilly!" A cheerful voice called from somewhere in the fog. Again I charged forward, attempting to escape the fog on the newly revealed other side of the arena, but this time instead of tripping me Orimoto's hands condensed out of the pea soup fog and yanked sharply on one side of my uniform jacket. Had I been running normally, perhaps nothing would have happened, but with my feet hovering frictionlessly above the ground I spun like a top, completely losing my bearings and any sight of which way the exit was.

I was in trouble. If this kept up, I was going to lose. Don't hold back, I reminded myself; you can't afford to hold back any more. Not against heroes. Almost against my will, I let my quirk slip. Not completely, not even half. Even then, I slowly felt the air around me draining of heat. It was getting colder. Part of me wanted to warn Orimoto, but even were this not a competition, it was taking all of my concentration to continue parrying the fists and feet that she kept slamming into vulnerable pieces of my anatomy. Still, as heat built up inside me my ripostes got stronger and stronger, while the cold dry air seemed to sap the strength from Orimoto's blows. I also started to feel achy as the built up heat inside my skin had nowhere to go, but it was a minor concern. I knew that if I kept this up, if nothing changed, I would be the one to come out on top.

Unfortunately, Orimoto knew it too. The next hand that appeared out of the smoke didn't arrive swinging out of the mists; it arrived with forearm and bicep attached, already bent under my chin in the perfect position for a guillotine choke. A second arm joined it right behind my head, locking my neck into a collar of flesh and bone. My hands instinctively reached up to attempt to pry Orimoto's arms away, but as bright spots appeared at the edges of my vision I couldn't seem to concentrate enough to loosen her hold.

In my panic… I… considered unleashing my quirk fully. Adrenaline sang in my veins, my animal hindbrain screamed at the lack of air, but with the last drops of my willpower I barely managed to restrain myself. But only just. What I did instead was bad enough; without considering the consequences, I flooded my hands with all the heat I could muster and let them erupt where they gripped Orimoto's arm. Suddenly, I heard the snapping of bone in both my ears, followed by a high shrill scream of pain.

I gasped for air as Orimoto Kaori's arms vanished into fog. For the first time since the fight started, Orimoto coalesced back into her fully humanoid form. Cradling her wounded arm, pained tears filled her previously warm brown eyes. If I had attacked at that moment, I could have won, but I couldn't move a muscle. In her teary eyes, I seemed to see another girl, one who had thought to surprise a friend, only to startle me into losing control of my quirk. Emergency treatment had kept the girl from losing her entire hand to frostbite. It hadn't kept me from losing sleep ever since. "You should surrender," I said to Orimoto, my voice raw, as I finally caught my breath. Guilt welled up inside me as I watched her struggle to regain her composure, but I swallowed down my rising gorge. "Please. I don't want to hurt you."

"A little late for that, don't you think?" Orimoto asked incredulously, before she gamely set her jaw and started slowly turning into mist once again. "No way am I surrendering. If I have to turn into mist and hold out until the buzzer rings, I will. A real hero never gives in!"

I felt my temper rising. "Heroism and stupidity are different," I snapped. Backing as far away as I could from the growing cloud of mist around Orimoto, I did something that I rarely did - I opened my pores to their fullest and yanked on the air around me. The resulting downdraft of rapidly cooling air hit the ground and blew in all directions, creating flurries of snow and ice that flew out in a rapidly expanding circle around me. A patina of frost formed on the ground in its wake, and as the cold front expanded I started slowly marching towards my opponent. "Like I told you before the fight, I don't know how your quirk will interact with mine. My quirk rips heat out anything my skin touches. Normally I limit myself to using heat from the air, but your body is diffuse enough that I don't know if I can avoid targeting you as well." Despite my determination, I couldn't help but close my eyes for a second, as I remembered all of the photos of frostbitten fingers and toes that my parents had forced me to look through after the incident, and how afterwards the entire school had kept their distance from me, treating me like a rabid dog. "Please," I quietly pleaded, even as I continued closing the distance between us centimeter by centimeter, "don't risk yourself trying."

She didn't respond. Despite my warning, Orimoto's gaseous body plunged into the freezing headwinds I was creating. The dense air constrained her, whipping away the larger cloud of haze that surrounded her to reveal her true appearance as a giant, hominoid form of fog. Despite the lack of smokescreen, she still twisted to throw a kick at me, but this time I saw it coming. Just for a second, I clenched the pores on my skin again, trying to keep myself from freezing her leg on contact, and I punched into the congealing foot as it appeared before It could fully solidify. The hit knocked her backwards, and I followed.

I started feeling dizzy, proof that my body temperature was spiking above safe levels, but I ruthlessly suppressed the sensation and kept walking. Bit by bit, step by step, I pushed the cloud of mist to the corner of the ring. Orimoto finally condensed back into her humanoid form once again. This time, she did it slowly enough that I could see her solidifying just her hand to start, in order to hold her clothes open, then pouring herself into them to avoid being naked in front of the crowd. Her wounded arm she reformed last, choosing to let her tracksuit jacket dangle off of her left shoulder rather than trying to contort her broken arm into the other sleeve. "Fine," she spat reluctantly. I watched as a resentful tear dripped from the corner of her eyes, only to freeze onto her cheek. "... I give up."

Midnight-sensei's hand went up. The crowd cheered. Present Mic called out my victory.

I was one step closer to matching my sister's legacy.

It tasted like ash in my mouth.

Hurriedly, I left the field, getting ready to find Haruno-nee-san. Knowing her, she would be waiting somewhere to 'congratulate' me on my win, and for once, I was thankful for it.

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

"...Look, I told you, just throw it out." I heard my sister's voice before I saw her. It was coming from the room that Shoto-kun had been waiting in before his match. I was sure that she wasn't supposed to still be there, just as I was equally sure that my sister hadn't bothered to ask permission. I reached out to let myself in, then froze. "No, don't get the police involved, are you kidding?" I hadn't exactly been intending to eavesdrop on her conversation - but as suspicious as I was, the word 'police' stopped me in my tracks. I waited just outside the door, trying to listen to her call over the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Haruno-nee-san sighed heavily. "No, I'm not going to call Endeavor either! Really? You're going to make me spell it out for you? Stop and think for a second, would you? Ever since I sniped the Strike contract out from under Ingenium's nose, the tabloids have been circling like vultures. If the police hear about this it'll be all over the press in a matter of hours."

Utterly relieved that the conversation hadn't gone somewhere unsavory, I slowly managed to get my fevered imagination under control. Meanwhile, Haruno-nee-san paused before groaning in exasperation. "I thought you were supposed to be a public relations specialist, Mari-san. What do you think a bunch of tabloids saying 'Newbie hero petrified by stalker fan, seeks refuge with police' would do to my image right when I'm trying to crack the top fifty?"

Before I could eavesdrop any longer, or waste any more time, I stepped through the doorway. Haruno-nee-san smiled as she saw me and held up a single finger to tell me to wait. "Listen, talk to Yusuke, have him install some more cameras if that'll make you feel better, alright? I have to go." Haruno-nee-san stabbed the touchpad of her phone to hang up the call and rolled her eyes as she turned to me. "Honestly, these people dad keeps sending me from the company have no idea how the hero industry works at all."

"Is everything alright?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Oh yeah, totally fine." Haruno-nee-san smiled, initially waving the issue off, but after she saw the serious look on my face she started laughing. "No, really, it's fine! A fan decided to drop a love letter off inside the agency instead of sending it through the mail like a normal person, and my PR specialist is-"

"I believe you," I interrupted her. I honestly wanted to hear more, but I could see from the screen on the wall that they were already starting to get set up for Shoto-kun's match against Midoriya and I didn't have time to hear a long story about her agency, "Haruno-nee-san, I-" Looking at her my suspicions almost seemed silly. Paranoid, even. Of course my sister wouldn't risk her reputation by interfering with the Sports Festival. It was too important to her… but what if? What if Hikigaya had said something unkind to Shoto, would Haruno have decided to defend our cousin? Could she have worried that I wouldn't be able to beat Hikigaya after seeing his first match, and acted to remove him from my path? And if she hadn't done anything to him, then why had she been hugging him? Particularly when he was shirtless! It was completely unprofessional! No, I couldn't forget my suspicions - but I couldn't ask her about them, either. "-um, how was the fight?" I asked instead, cringing at the obvious change of subject.

She raised a dubious eyebrow, but pursed her lips in thought anyway. "Less boring than her last match, more boring than yours," Haruno-nee-san said airily. "You took too long to figure out a counter to her quirk to get any bonus marks, and some of the more family-friendly heroes won't have liked the fact that you didn't exactly win cleanly, but the fact you figured it out in the end is a pass, I suppose." She didn't mention that she could have handled a problem like that with her eyes closed. She didn't have to. "Even if you lose the next round, you'll probably see a few offers from small-timers… though, you're my sister, so you'd have gotten those anyways."

"I see," I said quietly, my fists clenching by my sides. Even though I'd known it was unrealistic, a part of me had hoped for some genuine praise from my sister, or that she would have some comforting words of wisdom after seeing me forced to injure someone severely. "I took a couple of good hits during the fight," I said, pressing gently on my sleeves where I could feel a bruise forming, "but nothing major. Do you think I should go see Recovery Girl before my next fight?" I asked. Intently, I focused on watching my sister for any hint of a flinch or a twitch, adding "I'd hate to wind up running out of energy like Hikigaya-san."

If there were hidden signs of a guilty conscience, I missed them, but it was hard to tell if that was because they were truly absent or because my elder sister was as accomplished and flawless of a liar as she was at everything else. "If it's just bruises, I would skip it," she said after thinking about it for a second. "I doubt you'd have problems anywhere near as dramatic as his, but your next opponent is a pretty speedy mover, and you'd probably benefit from keeping your reactions sharp."

I nodded. Silence fell for a second, punctuated only by the tinny speakers of the display on the wall announcing that Shoto-kun's match was about to start. "I was surprised when Hikigaya-san fell over so suddenly," I stated, trying to keep my voice even. "It reminded me a bit of some of your old matches, how it looked when you drained your opponents' energy." It was a blatant, direct statement; as good as an accusation if she had actually done something wrong, but hopefully innocuous enough to evade notice if she hadn't. I watched Haruno-nee-san closely for any signs of a flinch, or of artificial neutrality.

Instead, her eyebrows rose, and she grinned like a cat that just found a new toy to play with. "You seem pretty concerned about this Hikigaya boy, Yuki-chan… anything I should know? I thought you liked more of the scrawny, emo type."

Sputtering, my face starting to flush with heat, I denied her insinuations immediately. "What? No, of course not! I mean, we fought together at the USJ, so it's only natural for me to be concerned about him, but not in any sort of, of, romantic sense!"

"No?" Haruno-nee-san said teasingly. "Well, if you say so…" I kept my gaze firmly locked on the screen on the wall, using the excuse of watching Shoto-kun and Midoriya stare each other down to avoid having to look at her directly. "It's a shame," she said with a false nonchalance in her voice, "I was about to say you had good taste in men. It's not often you see first-year kids who already know how to play the media like a fiddle."

I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of Hikigaya being some sort of PR mastermind. Hikigaya? The boy who thought the best way to get someone like Hayama to leave was to grovel profusely, and who practically had to force himself to call people by their personal names? "He didn't even know who you were, nee-san," I pointed out, a bit of my personal satisfaction at that fact coloring my voice despite my best intentions. "Hikigaya is an exercise addict and an armchair quirk theorist, not some would-be celebrity."

On the screen, Shoto-kun started the battle with a blast of ice that raced towards Midoriya, but Haruno-nee-san suddenly wasn't watching. Instead, she stared me down and scoffed. "Don't be naive. Heroes being 'discovered' by the media, suddenly becoming popular? Nine times out of ten, that doesn't happen by accident."

As Midoriya bolted to the side, his limbs flashing with green sparks to dodge his way past the ice, I frowned. "Are you trying to imply that Hikigaya-san somehow arranged for Shiketsu to praise him on their social media account? Because that sounds unrealistic to me."

"Oh, sure, that bit was probably an unexpected windfall," Haruno-nee-san acknowledged, "but it's not often that you see first-years coming into the Sports Festival with viral videos about them already circulating." Behind her, I could see that either Shoto-kun had learned his lesson from facing Iida, or Midoriya wasn't quite as fast, because Shoto-kun was keeping up with Midoriya's movements, using his walls of ice tactically to reduce the area that Midoriya could maneuver in. Distracting as it was, my attention still snapped right back to my sister as she added, "and I sincerely doubt that speech he gave at the start of the festival was off the cuff."

A twist of doubt raised the hairs on the back of my neck, but after a second's thought I shook my head. "It would have had to have been," I pointed out, watching as Midoriya used his superhuman strength to vault over one of the walls of ice, getting back into an area where he could run freely; "I don't think even Hikigaya-san knew he was going to be responsible for saying the pledge until today." As I thought back on his poleaxed expression at the time, the corner of my mouth turned up in a smirk.

"Are you saying that you haven't thought at all about what you're going to say if you win the tournament, Yukino-chan?" Haruno asked me, oh so innocently, and my smile faded. "Or if someone interviews you? Say, because you took leadership of your class to work together as a team?" She paused, letting her words sink in, then laughed a little at what must have been a strange facial expression that I was making. "I'm telling you, he had that planned. I mean, really. He spent half the Sports Festival with his shirt off and you didn't notice that it was on purpose?"

For a second, I was too stunned to reply. Not just because of her argument; after being backed into yet another corner by Shoto-kun, and then being threatened with even further loss of mobility by Shoto-kun's decision to ice over the ground to deny him traction, Midoriya had conjured an enormous gust of wind from… somewhere, though apparently at the cost of some damage to his hand. Seeing my expression of surprise, Haruno-nee-san turned as well, pursing her lips slightly as she evaluated the fight. Was she right? Had Hikigaya manipulated the media on purpose? And if so, why did that idea bother me so much? What she was saying was logical, but… "You're wrong," I told Haruno-nee-san, remembering Hikigaya's despair in the nurse's office. "I can see why you might think that way, but Hikigaya-san isn't like that at all."

"Oh, sweetie," My sister said with mock despair in her voice, not turning away from the screen as Midoriya continued circling Shoto-kun, now clutching one wounded hand. "Everyone is like that."

"What are you talking about?" I couldn't help but ask. My cousin was slowing down, his refusal to use his father's quirk preventing him from thawing the ice that was building up on his body. Still, he continued pivoting, making up for his increasing lack of precision by letting Midoriya circle closer and closer before he fired his freezing blasts. I watched him shiver. Yet as my sister turned to me, it somehow seemed like her eyes were colder.

"It's like I keep saying, Yuki-chan," she said, half-amused, half-resigned. The gleaming metal on her breastplate caught the light coming from the ceiling fixture as she stepped forward towards me. "Saving people doesn't matter." She took another step forward, cutting off my view of Shoto-kun's fight. "Looking like you save people matters."

"... Ugh," I said in exasperation. "If you're just going to sit here and tell the same jokes you tell our parents to get them off your back about taking up a management role at the company, you can just leave," I said, gesturing at the door.

"It's not a joke," my sister said. Surprisingly her facial expression was, for once, entirely serious; usually when Haruno-nee-chan wanted to tease me she would always smile with a twinkle in her eyes, but at the moment she looked unaccountably stern. "When I keep saying that popularity is literally everything when it comes to the hero business? I mean it."

"Being a hero is about helping people," I disagreed vehemently. "You don't have to be a celebrity to achieve that."

"Why do you think the hero billboard chart exists, Yukino-chan?" My sister asked rhetorically. "Why does the Hero Public Safety Commission make a hero's popularity explicitly tied to their wages? Why does-"

"Popularity is only part of your hero ranking," I retorted, not willing to let that pass, "and it's not like there's a huge difference in wages based on ranking anyway, so-"

"Wages," Haruno returned my interruption with a derisive snort. "Sweetie, our family has money, so you might be able to run an agency on the safety commission's wages, but don't think that everyone else can do the same. If you want to be able to afford to be more than just a sidekick, like I'm sure your 'friend' Hikigaya does, you have to claw for every endorsement you can get your hands on."

"There are a lot of heroes who don't act like celebrities, and they do just fine!" I was starting to get angry. Why was she persisting with this illogical argument? "If doing commercials is so important, what about underground heroes like Eraserhead-sensei?"

"Yukino." Her voice flat, she asked me a question. "Do you really want to scrape out an existence as a bottom-feeder? Do you really want to be just 'good enough'? Look at all the top heroes. Look at all the All Might merchandise out there. Look at our uncle, for god's sake. Do you think Endeavor's hero wages pay for the rent on Uncle Enji's skyscraper downtown?" Slow and vicious, she leaned in for the kill. "And do you really think Uncle Enji gives a shit about 'helping people', or about anybody but himself?"

Over her shoulder, I could just barely see the shivering form of my cousin, who had resorted to making a fortress of ice in the center of the arena, walling himself away in order to keep Midoriya back just a little longer. Slowly, I shook my head. "No. But, isn't he always bragging about his agency's numbers? He can't just be making those up, right? You can't catch criminals by selling commercials, can you?"

"Sure you can," My sister said. She crossed her arms, her thin bracelets clanking against her armor. "Our uncle has an entire agency of staff. He has sidekicks, lab techs, consultants, janitors; do you really think he runs every fingerprint himself? Catches every small-time crook? How do you think he pays all those salaries? Or buys their equipment?" That... was… not something I had considered.

I kept quiet as Haruno-nee-chan continued. "The fact that being a celebrity is what actually pays the bills, the fact that T-shirts and CDs and watches and perfume do as much to keep people safe as the actual government is the hero industry's dirty little secret," she said. Suddenly she reached up, tucked her violet hair behind her ear and smiled like someone was taking her picture. "Here's another secret: I stop more crimes by being famous than I actually do stopping crime." At my surprised expression, she laughed. "It's true! After I got the Strike contract, crime in Chiba went down by three percent. Because I was more visible, because more people knew that a 'big league' hero was in town, criminals and villains went elsewhere. Civilians called for help instead of using their quirks and getting themselves hurt. And I made enough from it all that I can afford to hire Meguri-chan full-time at the end of the year, so things will be getting even better. Face it, Yukino-chan. The hero industry runs on fame, and the sooner you make like your friend Hikigaya and recognize it, the better off you'll be."

Something about what she was saying still seemed wrong to me, but I couldn't figure out how to say it, or even what I should say. I opened my mouth anyways, wanting to protest something, anything, but Haruno-nee-san just smirked. My mouth closed. Was I wrong? I had always hated the thought of appearing in commercials, of using my reputation to inflate my parents' bottom line. It felt tawdry. I wanted to be a hero that helped people, that saved lives - was the celebrity side of things really the point of it all? Unable to respond, I looked up at the screen behind my sister. Midoriya was panting with exertion, probably not used to maintaining his super strength for so long - nor to doing so much running with what looked like a broken finger. Suddenly, Shoto-kun erupted. His blasts of cold had been getting slower and slower throughout the match, but suddenly he revealed that either it was a feint or he had been hiding some power in reserve, because a massive wave of ice suddenly shot out at Midoriya while he was already hemmed in by walls of ice on both sides.

And then Midoriya went up. Shooting a howling gale down at the ground in mid-jump, he simultaneously blinded Shoto-kun with a blast of wind and snow and used the recoil to vault himself over the treacherous icy arena. When he landed, it was on Shoto's defenseless right side, and my cousin was too slow to turn. A single sparking punch from Midoriya's undamaged hand knocked Shoto to the ground. My heart ached as Shoto furiously tried and failed to stand back up with stiff-frozen limbs. Desperately, I hoped that he would use his right side, if nothing else just to heat himself up, he just pushed against the ground with arms that had lost all of their strength. Midoriya didn't kick him while he was down, or try to help him up - he just waited, staying to Shoto's right. His lips moved, and all of a sudden Shoto started to thrash even more, suddenly trying to create ice crystals underneath himself to prop his body upright - and then Midnight raised her arm, announcing Midoriya's win, and Shoto just collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Damn," My sister said. Silently, I agreed. Up until the very end, I had been anticipating that Shoto-kun would unbend at least a little, even if it was just enough to regulate his own temperature, but that he went so far as to lose to prove his point was… I didn't know. Haruno-nee-chan broke the silence with a heavy sigh. "Good luck on your match, Yukino-chan. Looks like I'm going to have to go run damage control on our uncle."

Still shocked and dismayed, I nodded reflexively. "To keep him from acting out of character, or from yelling at Shoto?" I asked.

"Knowing my luck, probably both," Haruno-nee-san said sarcastically, and she headed out with a jaunty wave, leaving me alone in the waiting room, my thoughts spinning in circles.

As I watched and waited for the staff to defrost the ice, a small part of me was relieved that I wouldn't have to compete with my cousin for first place. An even smaller part was realizing that with Shoto-kun out of the way, I suddenly stood a far better chance at matching my sister's deeds, at finally following in her footsteps, than I ever had before. Theoretically, I should be happy, or excited. Yet, as I thought about my sister, so self-confident in her assertions, about the disappointed back of Todoroki Enji as the camera caught my uncle already walking away from the field, and about the curled-up frozen form of my cousin, I wondered.

What did I even want that victory for?

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

Once again, the crowd cheered. Once again, I saw myself being reflected on the stadium's jumbotron. Initially, the knowledge that the image on that screen would be broadcasted to people around the country had been exciting. Now I wished it wasn't there. My uncle's obsession with fame had twisted my cousin into a spiral of self-hatred, had driven my mother's sister to madness; was this… showmanship how it all started?

"Here it is, my last actual challenge for this fucking tournament," Bakugo called out from across the arena. His injuries were nowhere to be seen, but he looked a little bit tired; his hands were in his pockets and his spiky blond hair still seemed a bit damp with sweat. "Not like you'll be much of one. You ready to get your ass kicked, Ice Queen?"

I couldn't muster up the energy for a response. After a second, the loudspeakers did it for me, Present Mic's voice ringing out in his usual overly zealous manner. "AND NOW, OUR SECOND AND LAST SEMIFINAL MATCH! 1-A's YUKINOSHITA YUKINO, VERSUS 1-A's BAKUGO KATSUKI! BOTH HAVE HAD A PAIR OF TOUGH MATCHES TO MAKE IT THIS FAR; WHO WILL HAVE THE STAMINA TO COME OUT ON TOP?!"

"Oi, what's the matter, Ice Queen, where'd all that banter from earlier go?" Bakugo jeered, his voice cutting through the dull roar of the crowds like a knife. "You getting cold feet all of a sudden?"

"Not really," I said back. I'd intended it to be dismissive, but somehow my voice came out dull, expressionless.

Bakugo's eyebrow twitched in irritation, and his cocky grin vanished. I stared him down, waiting for - "Start!" Midnight-sensei called out. My eyes opened wide in surprise. When had that happened? The jolt of adrenaline jarred me into action, and I did my best to get into defensive posture, open my pores to heat, but Bakugo was already rocketing right for me.

A sudden shock of fire and light erupted in my face with a bone-rattling boom. I frantically did my best to suck heat out of the air, reducing the impact of the blast, but the pressure wave still lifted me off my feet and sent me tumbling backwards in an uncontrolled roll. I scrambled to my feet, trying to get back up before Bakugo followed up with his next strike… but surprisingly, he was standing still. Smoke trailed up from between his fingers as his eyes narrowed into thin slits. "The fuck is this shit?!" He accused me.

My cheeks filled with heat in a way that had nothing to do with my quirk. I set myself into a combat posture and shook my head. "I'm fi-" The second explosion was almost as surprising as the first, stealing the breath from my lungs and drowning out what I was about to say with a thunderous kra-koom. I weathered this attack slightly better, managing to remain on my feet, but I still slid backwards, inching closer to the edge of the arena.

"Bullshit!" Bakugo declared. "Quit fucking around!"

"I said, I'm fine!" I shouted back. For the second time today, I pushed my quirk to its full power. The winds rose, whipping around me and sending snowflakes flying. He wanted me to be serious? I'd be serious.

He didn't look intimidated in the slightest. "Finally!" He shouted, aggrieved. He threw his hands out to the side in exasperation, before finally settling on a combat stance. "God damn!" I heard him mutter over the ringing in my ears, "it's like half-assing shit runs in your fucking family or something!"

Suddenly, I pictured my sister, her perverse declaration that fame and popularity was really all there was to the hero business, and I surprised myself as a bubble of laughter escaped from my lips. She was someone who always gave it her all, who worked harder than almost anyone I knew, so why did that description seem so appropriate? As a smile worked its way to my lips, I realized that right here, right now? It didn't really matter. "I don't know about that," I yelled back, feeling suddenly eager to fight, "which one of us was it that just let their only chance at an easy victory get away?" I sprang into motion, slicing my way forwards at an angle to put some distance between myself and the boundary line behind me.

"My only chance?" Bakugo sneered. "Fuckin' please." His hands erupted with fire and smoke straight into the ground between us, kicking up a cloud of smoke and debris as he backed himself away from my icy aura. For once, I wasn't concerned about hurting my opponent, about once again becoming someone hated - Bakugo wasn't one to fight up close to begin with, and even if an accident happened and I broke his bones or froze his flesh, he would probably just return the favor with that damn sneer of his. It felt… oddly freeing.

Instead of backing away like I would against another opponent and trying to grind him down, I shifted my weight and pumped my legs in an all-out sprint, my feet bouncing from heat-spike to heat-spike as I skated towards him fast enough that the wind lifted my hair from my back. Knowing that Bakugo wasn't an opponent who was so easy to approach, I stooped to pick up a piece of shattered pavement as I passed it by. As he continued backing up to gather momentum for a larger strike, I channeled heat into my hand, then threw the rock with both arm and quirk in a single motion. The head-sized lump of concrete accelerated to fastball speeds near-instantly, but Bakugo's reflexes were quick; he got both of his hands up to block, practically disintegrating the projectile in a wave of fire.

I picked up several of the new pieces of shrapnel created when his defensive blast wave tore up the cement between us and smiled viciously.

Again, Bakugo didn't quail. Instead he matched my expression with a grin of his own and tilted his palms downward. With a leap and another eruption he soared into the sky, putting distance between us vertically to keep me from getting in a lucky rock. Having seen his match against Hikigaya, I knew that if I let him bounce around up there without doing anything to stop him, he would be able to set up one of his massive 'howitzer' blasts. I could probably survive one of those with a full tank of heat… but it would be better not to give him the opportunity.

With an eruption that cracked the pavement beneath me, I channeled heat into the soles of my feet and leapt into the sky. Above the icy layer of cold air that I had created on the battlefield, the warm spring air was abundant with heat, and my reserves rapidly refilled as my momentum carried me towards a shocked-looking Bakugo. As winter's bite set in, he set off an explosion to try to dodge back out of the range of my quirk's effect, but as I had anticipated, the suddenly wintry air reduced the sweat he could output. Nevertheless, it moved him far enough to my right that I would miss him by a comfortable margin - at least, until I took the entirety of my stored heat, shoved it all as far to the left half of my body as it would go, and let it all erupt at once. It was a prodigiously wasteful use of my stored energy, but the gust of wind it created allowed me to bring Bakugo back into my range of influence.

I met his eyes, which widened in shock as the chill reached him. I flinched as he put his hands up in my direction as if to back up again, but his hands only sparked feebly and fitfully, too cold to sweat. With what looked like a swear on his lips, he brought both of his hands together in front of him, palms facing each other like he was holding a ball. As the frozen downdraft whistled around our ears and started dragging us both down to the earth, the area between his hands sparked. Then it sparked a little bigger, the air a little warmer. As I gathered heat I thought about using my refilled reserves to interrupt him with one of the rocks I was still holding, but before I could do so his hands sparked again. With a massive boom that sent his hands flying out to his sides, a fireball erupted between us and sent us both flying backwards.

I landed hard. I was able to use my quirk to cushion the landing, but in doing so I lost all friction with the ground. I skidded backwards, coming dangerously close to the boundary line, but by dropping the rocks I was still holding in a panic and falling onto all fours so I could create forward momentum with both hands and feet I managed to skid to a stop just in time. When I looked back up, it was no surprise that despite being burnt from his own explosion, Bakugo was already rocketing towards me. He landed with a concussive blast, trying to work up the force to send me out of the arena, but I braced myself and leaned into the blow.

A second boom rang out, and a third, and a fourth. Like a furious storm the blast waves crashed into me, but in all of it, I was an unmoving reef. I took not a step back as I absorbed the heat from the explosions, staying low to the ground to reduce my surface area. The wind snapped my hair back, my ears rang like bells, but I just leaned into the blasts, waiting for my chance. Gradually, the constant detonations diminished in force. His stamina began to flag. I stood, took step after step forward, used the heat and light as cover. As the smoke began to clear, I saw his face at close range and smirked. "Too close to run now," I half-heard myself say over the ringing in my ears.

His right hand came up between us, aimed right for my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and lunged, prepared to shut off my heat drain as soon as I made contact. Surprisingly, however, as I glided forward on cushions of heat beneath my feet, as yet another BOOM rang in my ears, I didn't feel a wash of hot air hitting my face. Instead I felt the heavy thump of Bakugo's knees impacting with my chest. My eyes flew open. Instead of running Bakugo had leapt into me, almost suicidally, but while his legs were almost certainly going to freeze his hands were still free and undamaged. My feet continued forward while my torso was knocked backwards, causing the two of us to crash backwards onto the ground, Bakugo kneeling on top of me. Even as I clamped down on my heat absorption in a panic, his hands, sparkling with tiny explosions to stay warm, positioned themselves on either side of my head. "W-w-who s-said I w-was r-runnin'?" he stammered out through his chattering teeth.

"Winner!" Midnight-sensei shouted, "Bakugo Katsuki!"

In the aftermath of all that exertion I gasped for breath, feeling incredibly alive. My heart pounded, every cell of my body singing with adrenaline. As I shut my quirk down completely, I suddenly became acutely aware of the heat of Bakugo's body atop mine, of the way our breaths mingled with each other as they fogged in the air between us, at how close his face and lips approached my own when he placed his hands on either side of my head so that he could climb off of his position atop me. His arms shook wildly as he braced his weight atop them, such that I was almost afraid he would lose strength in them and fall forwards, and despite the arctic air his forehead was dripping with sweat that rained down upon me. I couldn't tell if it was from exertion, or from pain. But despite his obvious exhaustion, Bakugo's eyes - still dilated from adrenaline - were full of exultant satisfaction.

It wasn't until he finally managed to push himself upright, finally made himself stand on stiff-frozen legs, that I remembered I should be moving too.

To say that this had me incredibly confused would be an understatement.

Slowly, I pulled myself to my feet. As the ringing in my ears subsided slightly I heard the "mawp mawp mawp" of Present Mic saying something, and a dull roar that was either my blood rushing through my ears or the cheers of the crowd. I looked around, seeing for the first time the utterly shattered and decimated arena where we had our final fight, chunks of concrete mixing with chunks of ice.

Ah. Right. I'd been beaten. Fairly, even. Somehow, the loss stung less than it should.

The fact that Bakugo would be utterly insufferable after this, on the other hand - I felt a surge of annoyance, which was then quickly superseded by a sudden reminder of how… intimately we had just been entwined, and I shook my head to dispel it. Regardless of- of- of whatever that was that had just happened, I wanted to thank Bakugo for his actions at the start of the match. Knowing him, he would claim it was all for the purpose of putting on a show, but regardless it had been unexpectedly sportsmanlike of him. I finished standing and turned to him, ready to receive his mockery.

He wasn't looking at me at all. He was staring at the 1-A stands.

I followed his gaze, and saw the distinctive green hair of Midoriya Izuku.