The walk back from the nurse's office to the observation room was a sullen one in the empty hallways of Yuei's main building. For all his jovial personality earlier, their senpai kept his mouth shut as he walked just ahead of Ochako and Iida to guide them back to their classmates. While Tenya was equally talkative earlier with his own professional manners, his lips were just as tightly sealed. Ochako took both their silences as a sign to follow suit, busying herself instead by playing with her helmet in her hands.
The fight they had just gone through flashed in her mind every passing second. Of Iida's face bleeding through his fingers and Midoriya's arms shedding like snakes on the hospital bed. Of the third floor nearly obliterated entirely by the blond boy who looked nowhere near as intimidating and scary asleep as his work made her think. This wasn't how she wanted to start her high school life or her hero school life. Midoriya and Bakugou shouldn't have had their lives on the line on Yuei's second day of the school year.
Ochako had to catch her breath when her helmet creaked between her clenching hands.
"If you want to talk" – she nearly jumped out of her costume and her skin as a hand dropped on her shoulder, Mirio having lagged back to walk by her side – "I'm all ears. You looked like you were frowning. Can't have that after everything you two went through. I can't allow that."
"Ah." Ochako couldn't help but pout that she was being so obvious with her emotions but she didn't push away the arm resting over her. "Sorry, I'm just…I don't think I was ready for this. I wasn't ready to be fighting you guys today." She waved a hand at Iida walking beside her. "This all feels way too sudden. I think I just need to sit down."
"We're almost there, don't worry." Mirio rested his hand over one of Ochako's. "You guys are done for the day. All you have to do now is sit back and relax. If you want, we can see if All-Might will let you go home early; he'll be more than understanding if you're not feeling up for waiting another hour for the day to end. 'Yuei's freedom of teaching' and all that."
"Thanks, but I don't want to just leave everyone so suddenly. I don't want to sour everyone's mood and I don't want to leave Midoriya while he's still recovering from his wounds…"
"Uraraka, you shouldn't worry about that!" Iida was quick to butt into her excuses, all but running in front of her and stopping their progression short of the hallway towards the observation room and the rest of their class. "You shouldn't be forcing yourself into situations that you don't feel prepared for. None of us are going to judge you or be offended by you if you go home early, and I assure you Midoriya wouldn't think any less of you going home now. I am more than certain he would accept that you left early to take care of your own health."
Mirio's hand was replaced with Iida's, the blue-haired boy leaning down slightly to look Ochako in the eyes. She stared back quietly, even when he finished his spiel. It was his serious expression that hypnotized her into silence, checking for a falter in his expression that betrayed his sincerity that she could not find. It wasn't until he did finally falter, his serious gaze dipping into one of concern that Ochako lunged forward and tied her arms around his torso, keeping safe from knocking her face into the chest of his armor. "Thank you," was all she muttered into his chest until he finally hugged back, following his many seconds of hesitation.
After watching Iida get clotheslined by a pillar and Midoriya limp his arms around just to hold theirs and reassure the pair he'd be fine, the worst she felt herself coming out of the fight with was a pit in her stomach. She didn't want to run while they were hurting but she didn't know what she could do within her own panicking state. She had no idea how either of them were holding it together but god did she feel grateful they were.
"Well this is cute," Mirio had commented joyfully, probably not meaning to soil the mood but it brought Ochako to her senses and what she was doing before she jumped back and pressed her arms to her sides. "And he's also right. If anything, your classmates were pretty worried about all your safety. There wasn't a single nasty comment about any of you. Except for maybe how rough Midoriya and Bakugou were going at it. But anyways" – he clapped his hands together and took another step forward – "do you feel up for being back in class? You can say no."
Ochako didn't say no. Her part in the class was done, they had maybe less than an hour left in the day before she could retreat to her apartment and pass out from the day, and she trusted her classmate and her senpai that no one would judge her for thinking so. If all she had to do was sit around and watch her classmates hopefully not remake the round she was just a part of, she would be fine with just that. She wouldn't complain.
Not when the first thing that happened when they returned to the observation room was get tackled by their classmates.
While Iida was immediately hounded by the tailed boy and the boy with big elbows, Ochako found herself jumped by Tsu, the pink girl Ashido and the tall girl Midoriya also knew Yaoyorozu; the latter had left a trail of Band-Aids, bandages, cotton balls and tweezers from where she was sitting prior. The rest of the class had practically crowded behind them while Mirio bounced off to the side with All-Might. Ochako's attention, however, was on the three girls most prominent in front of her, bombarding her with questions on if she was okay or if there was anything they could get her. All she did was group them into a hug and tell them she was and would be fine. She was happy enough Iida and Mirio's words rang true.
Even still, it was All-Might's words that set her ablaze:
"If nobody minds, I'd like to make the call on who the V.I.P. of this match was," he had begun before giving them time to quiet down and calm themselves. The only one of the 18 students not calm was Ochako, as one of All-Might's huge hands chopped in her direction. "I'd say out of the whole exercise, Young Uraraka here showed the most exemplary attitude! Young Bakugou and Midoriya may have had a fiercer battle, but the two boys threw consideration and care out the window with their attacks, Young Bakugou especially. While Midoriya had acted with a plan to counter his opponent, it had required severely damaging both the testing building and each other. And it seemed the two boys were targeting each other from the start.
"Young Iida here comes a close second to his classmate," he continued, gesturing to the blue-haired boy, "both in his attempt to fit into the role of the training exercise and designing the room around him to cater to his strengths but he had faltered in his performance despite his efforts. Even while he had the upper hand in the confrontation, Uraraka had refused to back down and accept the looming threat of defeat, and though Midoriya's final move was far too risky, she had adapted to the plan without hesitation and put full trust in her teammate's abilities. It helps too that she rushed to Iida's aid after the blow he took. Remember, most villains you'll fight are humans too. There may be a few extreme individuals out there that throw their own life on the line for their actions and beliefs but they are the minority to the criminals you'll come across. You must be mindful of their health as much as your own. It's good to see you have already taken that step without my guidance, Young Uraraka."
It took a full minute for Ochako to stop crying because (and apologies to her parents) fuck that felt so good to hear. All-Might may not have been her favorite hero, and while there was a chance their senpai had gone and explained the situation to the number one hero, hearing him reinforce her actions and praise her for what she had thought was the most unimpressive performance compared to her partner and the villain team had all but finalized her decision to stay with the class for the rest of the day.
The Battle Trial exercise was determined to continue per her classmates' requests. As dire as the first match had ended it had only convinced the majority to put in their best work and not be left behind. All-Might permitted it, albeit with a heavy warning not to push each other as Midoriya and Bakugou had each other. With their agreement, the boy who had jumped Iida took off with three other students behind the number one hero, leading them to a different and still intact building they could use for the next exercise.
Ochako took to the chairs, helping Yaoyorozu in cleaning up the stream of medical supplies on the way over. She had a sneaking suspicion over what had caused them, making no verbal knowledge of their green coloring and instead offering a Band-Aid for Iida to lay over his perfectly healed nose. Though he declined to put it on, he did take and pocket it for 'future protection for any more injuries he may sustain,' a line he said so seriously she couldn't help but sink into the chair with a fit of laughter cupped beneath her hands.
She was happy she chose to stay.
"Are you sure we should be on the same floor Bakugou and Iida were on? They might look here first." Kendo made a good point, Mashirao would concede that, but he shrugged his shoulder at her question.
"It's not like either of them can fly, so it can buy us some more time to set up before they get here," he responded. He adjusted the helm of his uniform and jumped onto one of the barrels left around the room as props. "It could give us some more time to plan too. Didn't exactly talk with you in the observation room to plan something; sorry about that."
Kendo waved away Mashirao's apology. "It's fine. You were busy stopping that Yaoyorozu girl from being a fountain of medical supplies for the rest of the day. I'd say that's a bit more important than a training exercise." Mashirao took her joke in jest. "What happened with you two back there anyways? You both looked out if it after that first match-up."
The tailed boy thinned his mouth and clapped his hands together once. "Yeah, well…Midoriya's our friend. I've known him for almost a year and Yaoyorozu's known him since the New Year. And that's the worst I've seen him; and I saw him when he was in the hospital after being backhanded and shot." Somehow in his doped state when he was supposed to be comatose after the surgery Midoriya had woken up, taken a selfie of him in the emergency room and sent it to the tailed boy with the caption, 'I livd bish.' The green teen apologized for what he had no idea had happened until a whole day later. "I've never seen him that beat up before – that hurt before. I'm surprised All-Might's still letting us do this exercise even after watching that."
"Maybe he's gotten used to it," the orange-haired girl responded and shrugged her shoulders. "Seeing other heroes get hurt badly on the line of duty. The guy's been non-stop traveling the world and saving people for years; he's probably seen more of what they don't show on T.V. And he's probably seen them recover from worse, too. Like he said, Recovery Girl is one of the world's greatest healers. Midoriya and Bakugou are gonna be fine in their care. I think All-Might would be more worried if he didn't think they'd be fine, and I don't think there's anyone in class as aggressive as 'throw-a-baseball-and-yell-die' Bakugou that's going to replicate how that went down." Mashirao did remember that from the physical tests Aizawa put them through yesterday. "Midoriya's gonna be alright, and we're gonna be alright. All we have to do is not beat them up like they did each other."
He could understand Itsuka's points. Recovery Girl wasn't a front line hero but there was little a person in Japan – nay the world – who didn't know of her name and her capabilities. If there was anyone to trust Midoriya's safety in at this school, it would be her. And Mashirao doubted the number one hero was that cruel as to lie to their faces and force them onto the field. "All right. You're right. He'll be fine. He's…stubborn like that." Mashirao tilted his look to the side as he bounced off the barrel. "If he's actually listened to me, then he's probably running on spite more than adrenaline. I don't need him giving me a heart attack."
"Should I expect to see him watching our fight when we finish up here?" Itsuka was given a shaking hand as Mashirao's reply. "Jeez, what kind of people does U.A. accept admissions for?"
Seeing as Bakugou was a part of their class, Mashirao was willing to assume basically anyone. "What about the people we're up against? Todoroki and Shouji. Ice powers and big arms."
The orange-haired girl rolled her shoulders as the topic shifted. "A bit imbalanced, don't you think? Two close combat quirks against long range and one close range fighter. That Todoroki's gonna be a tough one to beat."
Todoroki's quirk was useful, Mashirao agreed. He had seen how the dual-colored boy shot ahead in their sensei's physical tests by launching himself forward with his ice creations. His tail couldn't help him launch that far and the most he'd seen of Kendo was how big she could make her hands. They weren't exactly equipped to fighting someone who could create a whole element and another who could do what the Big Fist girl could do and then some. "That doesn't mean he's invincible," Mashirao argued against the pessimism. "There's gotta be a way around him, I know that much."
The bell above them rung and All-Might's voice boomed through the room to signal the start of the match. Ojiro faced the only door to their room and dropped into a fighting stance ready for the hero team to charge them. "My parents and masters would be disappointed in me if I backed out without trying. I'm pretty sure Midoriya wouldn't let me live it down either." If his friend could win a fight without a quirk of his own, he could at least try to fight the impossible too.
Itsuka fell into her own stance beside him, sharing a small smirk his way over her shoulder. "Guess we've both got dojos to impress. All right then; let's show them what they're made of—"
Mashirao was not ready for the room around them to be encased in ice.
It was only ten seconds into the round and already Mashirao was feeling regret. The room around them was sheeted in thin ice, branching all over the room without so much a sign when it had spread from. The temperature of the room had nosedived in an instant, and it sent a shiver down his spine just as strong as the shock of watching it all appear did. "Was" – the tailed boy's teeth clicked together as he stuttered to speak – "that really necessary?"
"No," Kendo had responded with a shaky voice of her own, "it wasn't." The girl's hands wrapped around her bare arms and rubbed them for warmth. "I should have put sleeves on this costume…"
Mashirao breathed a chuckle as he shuddered to breathe. He could barely move his arms in the cold even though the only part of him encased in ice were his feet. His tail only flexed slightly more than his arms. "It's not like we were expecting a Christmas in July."
The ponytailed girl laughed with a gasping breath at his joke. "At least he was kind enough not to make us popsicles. I don't think I can break this ice without scraping my hands up. They're all I've got for this fight."
Mashirao was in the same ballpark as her. His tail was strong but even he would end up bruising it and himself badly if he tried using it to break his feet free. Without a tool to break them out the martial arts duo were sitting ducks, and everything else in the room was stuck to the ground like they were. He scoffed at how quick he was to go from hyping up their hopes only to find themselves stuck from making any progress.
It didn't take long for the door to their floor to open, revealing the boy half encased in ice staring placidly at them. "Sorry but I couldn't take chances with either of you two," he told them as he walked forward, the red eye in the ice glinting from the lights above. "Fighting without the soles of your feet isn't easy, so I advise staying where you are."
Kendo scoffed as Mashirao wanted to. "How considerate of you." Her condescending tone reminded him of Midoriya. "Maybe if you're nice enough you'll let us go?"
"This exercise is about showing what we can do that others can't." Todoroki's demeanor was as cold as his quirk. "This was never about fighting fairly. If you can't match up then that's your fault."
"Lay it on thick, why don't ya? Your ice is thinner than that."
Mashirao grimaced at the dual colored boy as he approached. Of course this wasn't meant to be a friendly sparring match. Even if what Bakugou and Midoriya did was excessive, this exercise wasn't about holding themselves back so much they'd give away the win. It looked like Todoroki didn't even break a sweat and he had already incapacitated the duo from moving around. If they wanted a win, they had to earn it. They had to try to be able to succeed. Mashirao didn't get his belts by having other people learn his forms and moves for him; he had to practice and master them himself.
He was the one with the tail; he was the one who had to know how to use it.
In his boasting and stride Todoroki stalked between the fighting duo on his way to the mock bomb, and while he was fast enough to encase them in ice he didn't have the speed to stop the tail that socked the wind out of him. Mashirao clotheslined the ice-covered boy across the stomach and yanked him over his head in the same motion. While the other boy was struggling to catch his breath first, the tailed teen took Todoroki's hand and wrapped the thin white line All-Might had given them around his wrist.
"Todoroki Shoto has been captured!" All-Might called over the intercom, his own voice shaking from the cold. "One hero remains!"
"Holy shit dude," Kendo breathed from the side, wide eyed at how quick the tailed boy was in his execution. "Sorry. Language."
"Believe me; Midoriya's said worse." Mashirao unrolled his tail and dropped Todoroki on the ground behind him as gently as he could. "You get used to it after a while. It's not proper etiquette but I don't think he cares—" Todoroki coughed up his lungs behind the duo, lying on his side and clutching his stomach as his breathing returned to normal. The blond boy could see the glare the boy gave him with his one visible eye, but he didn't really care. For all the talk that they had to earn that win, he had practically given it to them. "Like you said, we're showing what we can do."
Mashirao almost laughed at the end of the exercise after ten minutes of almost nothing going on. For most of the runtime, the martial arts duo played sticks and rock-paper-scissors while they waited for the clock to run out or the other hero to win the match for his partner; said partner was brooding in silence against a pillar nearby while he melted away the ice on the walls and floors closest to him. It took until within the last minute for Shoji to reach their room with shoes unprepared to tread on an icy surface, and the blond- and orange-haired duo were able to stall him with banter and their quirks swatting away his extending limbs before the timer ended on their match. At least Todoroki was thoughtful enough to melt away the ice around their feet and the bomb when their victory was announced.
It was far less a pulse-pounding match than his friend's before him but it was a victory Mashirao wasn't going to look in the mouth.
"That was quite the impressive round, Ojiro," Tenya commented when the tailed boy sat down beside him. "I'll be honest: with Todoroki's control over ice and how he coated over the testing building at the start of the fight I had thought you and Kendo were outmatched, but your quick thinking and taking the opening Todoroki had left himself in and effectively assuring yourself a victory was quite stupendous to watch."
Ojiro huffed a laugh. "Thank you. I'll be quite honest, I didn't actually expect to win that either." He scratched the back of his head and looked around the room to the rest of the class having moved on from the post-match commentary to the screens now displaying the third fight of the day: the burliest guy in their class paired with the cloaked girl with vines draping from her head hiding the bomb from the team of a bird-headed boy and a frog-like girl. "We were lucky he decided to gloat and not defend himself, and that he didn't leave much for Shoji to work with either. Not exactly a team player."
The only person not looking to the screens was the dual-colored boy across the room, still half encased in his own ice and glowering the tailed boy's way. Tenya wanted to approach the boy and scold him for the attitude he was showing his fellow classmate after a simple class exercise, but Ojiro was paying it no mind and told the blue-haired boy not to worry about it. He promised to inform the ice user of their class on proper team etiquette and good sportsmanship later.
"That was still super cool!" Uraraka cheered on her classmate from Ojiro's other side. She kept her voice down for the rest of the room as the match on screen began. "Right when it looked like you and Itsuka were defeated, you clotheslined him and secured the win!" She chopper her hand across in front of her for emphasis. "I don't wanna downplay your partner because that tug-o-war at the end was actually really nail-biting, but that first hit got everyone in here excited again at doing this exercise."
"It really was a moral boost the class needed," Yaoyorozu tacked on from Uraraka's other side. "After that first round and watching Todoroki work so quickly to incapacitate you and Itsuka, starting the match by capturing one opponent and keeping your spirits up despite being stuck while you waited for Shoji to reach you did wonders to get everyone back in the fighting spirit."
Tenya agreed with her proclamation. Despite All-Might's smile and best efforts the class around him was mostly sullen following the first match of the class, and Todoroki's move coating the building in ice only had the other students around the engine-legged boy worried of a remake of that first fight. But the instant Ojiro had swept the red-and-white-haired boy off his feet there was a spark ignited in the class again, and the little games the villain team played as they waited for the other hero to struggle up the frozen stairs helped the class gradually bright up again. It helped ease Tenya not to watch another fellow hero-in-training he knew well take a hard hit and end in Recovery Girl's office with their other friend. He saw it do the same for Uraraka and Yaoyorozu too while they waited for the match to end.
Ojiro smiled and patter his shoulders, arms crossed over his chest. "Yeah, well, I kinda have you and Midoriya to thank for that." He nudged Uraraka's arm to gesture towards her. "Your guys' first match and how you two came over the odds of Bakugou's power and Iida's speed" – the blond boy pointed a thumb to the taller teen – "gave me the hope that I could probably do the impossible too. Sorry I couldn't get into character like you guys though. Wasn't exactly thinking of the exercise along those lines."
"That's quite all right," Tenya told the other boy. His smile wavered slightly as he thought back to their first match in the exercise and his attempts to play the role of a villain. "To be honest, I found myself struggling to commit to the character in our match. I had hoped putting on the act would bring some levity to the idea of fighting and being in the role of the antagonist, but Bakugou's attitude had…thrown me off."
The tailed teen huffed a laugh as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm pretty sure that's what he's best at. Midoriya said he's strong but I almost want to say his bark is probably worse than his bite. Even after watching your guys' match."
The reminder of what class they were currently in urged Tenya to look back to the big screens at the other end of the room. Sato and Tokoyami had locked themselves into a battle on the second floor of their building, whilst Tsuyu continued searching the floor just below where Ibara stood with her vines webbed across the room with the bomb. In his opinion, it was an evenly balanced match between the hero and villain teams. Even with Tokoyami's sentient shadow of a quirk having the upper hand on Satou in their brawl, the caped bird boy refused to capture his opponent and allowed their fight to drag on as their partners finally came face-to-face on the sixth floor.
"Has Midoriya always been like that?" Uraraka's voice was a squeak and a far cry from her previous energy. "So…so—"
"Crazy?" Ojiro filled in for her, a smirk gracing his lips. "Yeah, kinda."
The brunette shook her head calmly. "No, I meant…determined. Confident." Tenya could see her hands fiddle in her lap, restless to find a use. "Before the match began, he knew Bakugou was going to come after him. He knew they were going to get into a fight but still asked me – told me – not to help him. That he'd be fine. He…it feels like he was made for this." That was news to Tenya. Uraraka had mentioned none of that to and from Recovery Girl's office.
The tall teen boy hummed and the attention turned to him. "I would say Midoriya has been determined for a while now. I met him when he was training on a beach he was trying to clean up at the same time. He hasn't finished that goal yet but I find there's less trash in the sand every time I'm able to join him there." Tenya looked back to the screen in front of the class as the frog girl of the hero team shot her tongue just perfect enough through Ibara's vines to touch the mock-weapon behind the girl on the villain team. "I watched him work himself dry in his effort to make it here with us. He may not have been as physically capable as he is now, but I think he's always had the spirit to be here."
"I have to agree on that," Yaoyorozu piped up. "I've seen him before…what he's like in a fight it doesn't seem like he could win. It's actually quite scary watching him throw himself into danger so willingly. But at least he's able to stand his ground on his word. He hadn't told me about the beach, though. Is he actually spending his time cleaning a beach?"
"He and another friend of ours, Hatsume, yes. She's actually a schoolmate of ours, currently enrolled in the support department of our same year! We should look out for her tomorrow on our lunch hour so you can meet her. She's excessively eccentric but a quite talented designer and mechanic. We'll most likely have to work with her as heroes for our costumes and support gear when we graduate." Tenya looked away from the group a moment as the hero and villain team from the third exercise entered the observation room. "Hopefully by then her ideas won't be so…concerning."
Tenya wouldn't go so far as to belittle Hatsume and her creativity; he wouldn't stoop to something so low as to mistake himself for the attitude Bakugou had shown during their battle trial. But the pink-haired girl's enthusiasm and passion were "doped on caffeine and dumped in coke" as Midoriya had put it one weekday as they watched the mechanic roll down the trash pile while inside a beaten up washing machine. Her usual ideas and contraptions were blood-chilling for Tenya to listen to and see in action, but the smiles that shone from her in the middle of her work could warm his blood pressure back up to speed. She was still an individual of good intention and Midoriya knew how to reason with her and hold her back from ever going too far.
The tall blue teen would admit feeling ashamed as his thoughts tuned out the post-match commentary of his classmates to reflect on his green friend. He wanted to ease his mind and worries and focus on his class in the now partaking in their own battle exercises but the image of his friend sitting in a hospital bed with blackened arms and a half-open stare kept his tension high despite his efforts. Midoriya had told Tenya he would be fine – that Recovery Girl would patch him up and he'd be back on his feet in no time – and the taller teen didn't know if he could take his word on the matter.
The fourth batch of students headed on out to the next testing center as All-Might called them up, and Tenya breathed interest back into his chest as he took to memorizing the teams and searing into his mind the faces of his classmates for what would hopefully be the next three years. The hero duo of a pink girl clad in vibrant green and a blond boy in armor like Tenya's topped with a sparkling cape prepping outside to invade on the set up of a boy with spiky red hair and another with cylindrical elbows trapping their bomb on the third floor, was something he was looking forward to watching. His classmates had yet to show a lack of effort in the exercise and he applauded their attitude for such.
"Um, excuse me." Tenya turned his attention away from the pre-match preparations on screen to the horned girl that had approached from across the room. The blonde American shuffled her hooves as she looked to him and the lineup of his friends by his side. "Can I sit here? I Yayoyo's teammate…"
"Oh, Tsunotori!" The raven-haired girl greeted their foreigner classmate. "Of course. Please, sit with us." The blonde took the invitation and the seat beside the taller girl, shuffling as the four pairs of eyes turned to follow her. "Apologies I hadn't invited you over in the first place. My attention has been elsewhere."
The horned girl waved her hands in front of her. "No. It's alright. I saw you panic over Midoriya in first match. That fight was scary. I hope he'll be okay."
Tenya nodded her way across the row of his friends. "He's in Recovery Girl's hands now. She's a fantastic healer. I have no doubt he'll be fine under her care."
"If he doesn't come back throwing up gang signs, then there's an actual problem." Ojiro's comment got the three girls on his left to all turn his way and Tenya synergized with their confusion. "Last time he got out of the hospital he meme'd at me. If he doesn't try to lighten the mood after this then I'll have a reason to be concerned."
"He was pretty quiet to me after the entrance exam though," Uraraka muttered with a dipped chin. "But he did smile this time after the exercise. Maybe he's just more open with people he's familiar with." That was most definitely an accurate statement about Midoriya, Tenya thought to himself. He could see Ojiro's face contour in agreement with the brunette's words too.
"I've seen Midoriya recovery from bad situations before," Yaoyorozu told Tsunotori while resting a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder. "He's going to be fine. There's no need to worry."
It took the American girl a few moments of silence before she gasped and turned her body fully to face the taller, cloaked girl. "Right! You two took down villains at the mall together! That was so cool! I get a hero as my partner for this class!" Tenya understood some of her words as she changed instantly into English, but her general amazement was clear enough from her face.
The tall teen took the remark to lean back slightly from the girl who would be her partner in the next match following; Iida took the moment to look at the screens and find all four of his classmates in the current battle trial locked in a stalemate a floor below where the weapon was place. A strange turn of events compared to the matches before but at least they were pitched in banter instead of fists (though a part of Tenya's subconscious did reach out to demand they take the exercise more seriously than that.)
"I wouldn't call us heroes just yet," the taller girl dismissed her classmate's call in English, before she continued in Japanese: "We still have a while before we can even get our provisional licenses. Besides, what Midoriya and I did was not exactly legal; we were lucky to get by and off with a warning as we did. And it's because of him we got out of there. I mostly played second fiddle while he rescued a child…"
"Last I remember you saved his life." Tenya butted in, garnering the girl's attention. "From what he's told me, it's because of your quick thinking and actions that they got out too. Don't sell yourself short so soon, Yaoyorozu. You made the right choice to act as a hero."
The tall girl remained silent for the rest of the current match, her silence only filled by the foreign classmate by her side bouncing with joy at her partner. Tenya only watched her with concern as the match ended and his classmates were called back into the room. Ojiro and kept their own energy alive in small talk but Tenya stayed watching Yaoyorozu as she left with her partner to the next building for the fifth and final match in their class.
He wished there was more he could say to her but he knew so little about what they went through. Midoriya refused to talk about the event to him so he was left only with what the news reported, and while their actions were borderline illegal, they were heroic nonetheless. Both of them putting their lives on the line was reckless with so little experience but Tenya couldn't find the strength to refute how proud he was to know such great people in his own class. He could only promise to strive to be like them.
Momo would not call Tsunotori's bubbly personality off-putting; far from it, really, because her bright smile was good at putting one on her own face to match. The only real struggle to deal with was how often the horned girl jumped between broken Japanese and perfect English in her Midoriya-reminiscent ramblings, and Momo blessed her parents for teaching her English so quickly over another second language for their overseas conferences. Her father had made the joke that they had planned to teach her Dubaian, but even after finding no evidence it was even a real language she was still grateful for their final decision.
Well, there was a second problem, and it had to do with the battle exercise they were supposed to be spending their time planning and prepping for. "Tsunotori," the tall girl called her name in English, silencing the short stallion girl midway through something about Texan heroes. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we are in the middle of a training exercise. I think we might want to focus on it for the time being?"
The horned girl quickly lit up like a Christmas tree, stammering apologies and shaking her head. "I'm sorry about that," she muttered in Japanese. "Got caught up in I excitement. Sorry."
"You can speak English if you would like," Momo told her in the girl's native language. "I'm…would like to think I have learned it well from my parents. There are some confusing parts to it, though, so apologies if there is something I don't understand."
"Are you sure?" Tsunotori's question in her own tongue received a nod from the taller girl before she sighed and let out a laugh. "Thank you so much. I'm sorry I still don't know enough Japanese. You and Midoriya are so considerate knowing my language better than I know yours. You guys are amazing!"
The raven-haired girl raised an eyebrow. "You've talked with Midoriya already?"
"Earlier in class," the pony-quirked girl nodded, "right before All-Might came into class. I got to talk with him for a bit, and he knows a bit of English too. Not as well as you or Aoyama do, but he did pretty good. He's really nice. I can see why you guys were worried about him."
Momo nodded. "He really is. Probably too much for his own good." That fight between him and the blond boy, Bakugou, was truly a nerve-racking experience for the tall girl. From the footage alone it was obvious to see Midoriya was fighting on the defensive almost the whole time; she was confident that he probably would have won had he actually tried to strike the other boy down. Instead he took blow after boy until they were both down for the count and All-Might wouldn't even let them leave the observation room to go see him for themselves.
It somewhat stifled her that the number one hero had been so adamant on not letting them leave the room to check on her friend's health and wellbeing, but even she understood the whole class' reaction to try and run to the nurse's office to check on the two boys was far too much. She was at least grateful Iida and Uraraka returned to the class both in one piece and explaining how their friend was doing in Recovery Girl's care. At least with her, Momo was convinced Midoriya would be fine.
"Shall we get started on a plan?" Momo broke out of her thoughts with the suggestion, catching back Tsunotori's attention before the girl could dive into her own storm again. "We have a few minutes before we officially begin. Should be enough time to form a plan before they can enter the building." Being assigned the role of the villain wasn't exactly what Momo was hoping for, but she didn't suspect any of her classmates really wanted the role either so she might as well make the most of it.
"Oh sure!" Without warning, Tsunotori's horns shot from her head, spinning around in the air before floating beside her shoulders. Momo's face must have shown her surprise with how the other girl giggled a moment. "Sorry, I just wanted to show my quirk so you understood. I can control them as long as I know where they're going." The two horns spun in place, both mirror to one another. "I can only use two right now, but my mom can use up to sixteen at a time so I'm hoping to get to her level one day."
Momo nodded, taking in the girl's information on her own quirk. "I'm sure you'll get their one day," she supported her with a smile. "I don't have a comparison like you do for my quirk. My quirk is more unlike my parents' than it is like theirs." A small nesting doll formed in the palm in her hand. "I can create whatever inanimate object i know the molecular structure of, but it requires me to waste some of my own body mass so I have my limits. I can only make us so much before I'll start to feel fatigue. And anything too big will take me some time to create."
Tsunotori looked to the taller girl with an awestruck expression, catching Momo off her guard for a moment. "That's so cool!" she gushed. "You can make things out of thin air! But…that must hurt if it's coming from your body. Is that why you have the long cape?"
Yaoyorozu wished she had added a hood to her cloak to hide her embarrassment. "Not…exactly." The cloak was actually something she planned to add in her seasonal costume documents, knowing most heroes had designs for warm and cold weather, but after Midoriya's observations on her costume she had put in the last minute request for a thin fabric of a cloak to wear at the current time. Maybe dressing in a swimsuit wasn't the best idea for a battle field, but it was still her best design idea running to work with the variability of her own quirk. "Though I do hope to use it as a means of stealth if I can create my tools beneath it.
"Now it's just a matter of countering out opponents." Momo shifted the gears of the conversation as she looked to the mock nuclear weapon of the exercise. "Jirou's quirk uses the earjacks that stem from her earlobes and Kaminari can generate electricity freely. There's probably a lot they can do to combat us, but they must have their limits. Sound could possibly upset Jirou's hearing if it is more sensitive than our own, and if I make a conductor and focal point I might be able to negate Kaminari's electricity from hitting or harming us. I could set up rods and insulators all over the room to trap him with and a sound system to blow Jirou back but that leaves the problem of getting in close enough to capture them or holding them back from even reaching this room and the bomb."
"Uh, sorry." Tsunotori's Japanese pronunciations drew Momo out of her ramblings. "I'm having trouble following along. Too many words."
"Ah, my apologies. I was just trying to figure out how to counter a hearing-based quirk and an electricity quirk. If Jirou's quirk does in fact help her head, they may have no trouble finding us and the bomb. We might have to do as other teams have and spilt up." Momo couldn't tell if Tsunotori's expression was a pout or her in deep thought – she'd probably bargain it was both – as her levitating horns converged back atop her head with a sound effect that reminded the tall girl of a light switch. She had no idea if it was dangerous or not, even when the horned girl exclaimed she had an idea.
Denki couldn't help it that his mind and attention lingered on the brunette, bob cut girl from their class; even when his match of the battle trial started, the last one of the class, he couldn't get her out of her head. The first match was by far the stand out of the day and no one in the matches had come close to matching its intensity and pumping the class' blood. While most of his classmates were awestruck at the two boys who had thrown hands like pros, the one who left a lasting image in his head was Uraraka.
His first thought about her, seeing her in her costume with everyone else and then again on the screen during their match, was she was cute. Then again basically all the girls in his class were. Ashido, Itsuka, Tsunotori, Tsuyu and Uraraka all had a very equal level of cuteness, while Shiozaki and Jirou had a more modest presentation of their looks and Yaoyorozu looked a girl who should be in the same class as their senpai Mirio. (Denki spent the night learning all of his classmates' name, boys and girls. They were always the hardest thing to remember in middle school, so he took it as his first homework assignment to memorize their family names. He could not remember, however, if there was an actual homework assignment they were supposed to do in place of learning everyone's name, but he was fine taking the L.)
His second thought about her, after the match had ended and she and Iida had returned to the class in one piece, was that something was wrong. She had cried her eyes out twice in the room, entering the observation center concerned as all hell about something she didn't want to say and spending the next twenty minutes bouncing in her seat and chatting up a storm with Iida, Yaoyorozu and Ojiro. Maybe she had gone past it by the time Mirio had guided her and Iida back from the training building, but something had obviously bothered her and stressed her to cry at even the slightest amount of praise; she deserved the V.I.P. spot but she had to have dehydrated herself following that.
A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face. "Hey, Elekid," Jirou hushed to him, "you with me? We got a bomb to catch, don't need you wandering off on me."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here." He swatted her hand way catching up his pace to walk beside instead of behind her. "You find them yet? I can't exactly do much right now other than turn out the lights and leave us blind."
"You'll get to stun them, hold your horses." The purple-haired girl's earjack rumbled against the wall. "They're both above us and it sounds one's trying to find us. That American girl, if that is her hooves clopping I hear."
Denki looked to the ceiling above as the lamp overhead shook slightly. "I think she might be closet than you think. Just a theory."
The hearing quirked girl retracted the jack back to her ear. "Yeah that's gonna be Tsunotori. Too quick and too quiet to be Yaoyorozu. Guess you're up already, Angus Young."
"Is it bad I don't get that?" Denki had started to move forward to meet the pony-quirked girl halfway but had to stop after hearing that as a nickname. "Like, I got the Elekid one. That one's pretty simple. Do I look like an Angus or really look that young?" Before Jirou could off him then and there for whatever reference was going over her head – and she looked close to doing so – the stairwell door was kicked open and in jumped the horned girl they had heard.
Denki had no idea what the girl was saying when she saw them; he knew it was American by pronunciation but what it mean was beyond him. What wasn't beyond him was how her horns short from her head like arrows and soared their way towards him and Jirou. The two jumped opposite ways and down opposite halls before they could be stung in their chests. "Jesus, did she mean to do that?" the purple-hair girl hissed to no one in general. Denki could hear was he understood as an English, "Sorry," come from the American girl.
"Alright, new plan," the blond boy started. "I stay here and try to deal with her, while you go and find Yaoyorozu and the bomb. I can stop her here but I'd rather not catch you in the crossfire. I can't control my quirk like that yet." It was the thing he hated the most about himself, his short retaining abilities a close second to the wild nature of his own quirk. Electricity generated at a far greater output than his mother or father could ever conjure up but not one he could direct and control, only use. And fry his brain cells; that sucked too. "3-2-1 break?"
He was lucky she agreed to the plan without arguing. If they wanted to win the assignment, it meant they'd have to work together even when separated. He watched Jirou book it down the hallway away from him, taking the moment to steady his breath and prepare to step back out and face his classmate. He could play along with the exercise, act like a real hero and put on a show for his classmates back in the observation room. Alright cookie cutter speech of heroism and good shit, Denki hyped himself up, here we go. He turned the corner to face Tsunotori—
And promptly got domed in the back of his skull.
Through the immense pain of having his eyes nearly pop out of his head and having the most important bone in his body nearly crack from the sudden strike of his classmate's horn, he did find it a success that he didn't go nose-first onto the tile floor. That didn't make it hurt any less but a W was a W. While he clutched the back of his head and did his best to blink the rest of the world around him back into one solid image, the girl who had nearly knocked him out in a single hit had rushed to his side and pester over him, asking in her broken English if he was okay.
He might not have been fully but he still had the energy to take her hand and blow up his electricity in a single second.
Now they were both down for the count, Tsunotori paralyzed on the ground and woozy in the eyes like a Pokemon Trainer from the anime and Denki himself rolling on his back and massaging his temple and the bruise most likely forming from the hit. His ear cackled with static before the voice of his senpai came through. "Kaminari are you okay? You took a nasty blow back there. Is anything broken?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he groaned back, chuckling through the pain. "No broken bones. Though I think I can hear my heartbeat; is it supposed to sound like Wonderwall? I'm not a fan of the song."
He was happy to get a laugh out of the big guy. "Yeah, that can happen sometimes. Should hopefully go away in a minute or two. Tell me if it doesn't, alright? We'll make sure to rush you to Recovery Girl right away. Is Tsunotori all right? She's no responding."
Denki looked over to the girl sprawled out beside him. "She's fine. I just knocked her out, didn't want to burn her too badly. Probably out for the game for us both because I do not want to get up. Is that okay?"
"Just fine."
Didn't exactly matter anyways, that he never got up and recovered from the hit. Not even a minute later had the bell for the match rung, sadly in favor of the villain team. The two other girls came down the stairs nearly glued at the hip, Denki's teammate clutching her ears and the taller girl excessively apologizing for the sound system she had apparently made to counteract the sound-based girl. They were able to wake Tsunotori and help her and him back on their feet, but they still had three people struggling to walk back, linked with arms over each other's shoulders.
Denki couldn't say he was disappointed with himself. Sure he lost, took a hard blow to the head, was struggling to stand, was still getting called Duracell by Jirou and Barry Allen by Tsunotori (the latter of which was fine), and couldn't feel his tongue from the electricity he dispersed, but upon returning to the observation room and hearing the response from his classmates about what was the shortest match from the entire class he did find the brunette girl who still plagued his thoughts smiling and laughing brightly so he still found his win.
Katsuki felt the pounding sensation in his arms before he felt it in his head. He could barely push himself up to sit with how numb his wrists were. "Gah, what the hell?" The light above brought sight back to his eyes, as the cold grey stone and steel he remembered from the testing building was replaced by sterile whites and a tile floor. "Where the fuc—"
A bonk on Katsuki's ankle got him to bite his tongue and jump in the bed he was tucked in. By his bedside was a short, old lady dressed in a white coat, a cane in one hand and a giant needle resting under another. "Language, young man," she chided him, glaring back at the glare he gave her. "You're not going to be liked by the public with an attitude like that."
"The hell is that supposed to matter?" He earned another whack on his leg; nothing too hard to hurt or bruise but she was still hitting him. "Stop hitting me with your stick!" The base of her cane rose quickly to rest just in front of Katsuki's nose.
"Then stop shouting. You'll use up what energy you still have so I can finish healing your wounds. Now eat." Her cane swung away and tapped the edge of the bedside counter, just short of tapping a tray of food the blond boy assumed was for him. He scoffed when she turned away but still swiped the biscuit and scarfed it down without hesitation. "You've been out for a while now. Do you remember what happened?"
Katsuki took a look out the window beside him as he swallowed, noting the red-ing color of the sky above the tips of the trees. "What time is it?"
"Seven in the afternoon. You've been out for a while resting after the fight. You didn't have the energy to stay awake. And your parents already know where you are; I'll call them later so they can take you home." Recovery Girl jumped onto her desk chair and tapped her cane on the floor. "But you didn't answer my question; do you remember th—"
"The fight, yeah I remember it," Katsuki interrupted her. Is wasn't like he could forget it, and hell did he want to. Deku…that fucker played him like a god damn fiddle, didn't he? Read him like a book and used him just so Katsuki could knock himself out. Coward landed one – one – real hit at the start of their confrontation and then never landed a blow following. His bat only slapped his hands away time and time again; he couldn't even use it as a real weapon. That Flash reject probably gave away the bomb after he passed out. Why the hell did no one know how to fight prope—
Katsuki's mental ramblings cut short as a pair of lips covered the side of his face for a second before ripping back to the medical hero sitting by his side. "There you are, that should speed up the recovery of what's left of your wounds. You'll start feeling fatigued but that's only normal. I'll make sure your parents come by to pick you up." The blond boy spent the length of Recovery Girl's speech growling under his breath and wiping his cheek with his pillow. She left the room before the blond could bark at her not to do that again when he wasn't paying attention.
It took the silence of the room to inform Katsuki that he really was alone; even after having his arms battered and burned Deku wasn't resting in any of the other beds. Where the hell did he go? Did he heal before he did? Did they prioritize healing the quirkless brat because of his more severe wounds? Made sense to the blond, but maybe if Deku had just bowed his head when he told him to then he wouldn't have gotten himself hurt that bad. Fuck, had he just fought back like a normal person maybe he would have saved himself an arm or two.
"Oh good, you're awake." The doors to the nurse's office rolled open and in stepped the black-clad homeless man that was designated as his homeroom teacher. Katsuki still wondered what hero he was supposed to be to garner himself as the notable heroics class' teacher and not be someone he recognized. Yuei wouldn't spend its resources on hiring some no-name for the job. "Recovery Girl's quirk usually puts people back under after using up their energy like that. That'll make this easier."
"Where's Deku?" Katsuki demanded before the guy closed the door behind him. "He get rushed to a hospital?"
"He's already gone home. Classes ended almost five hours ago. He healed quickly and left with everyone else. Lucky for you, he's kept both his arms in working condition and will be coming back to classes tomorrow. You won't be."
"Eh?" The explosive blond nearly threw the covers off himself as he turned his body to face the teacher sitting down in the chair by his bed. "The hell's that supposed to mean?"
"It means" – Aizawa hunched over his lap and Katsuki could see the man's eyes turn red beneath his messy hair – "if you're not as lucky tomorrow, today was your last day in my class."
What?