I apologize that it is already Monday my time as I am posting this. Not only did changing the specifics of scenes and who was where and in which order draw out how long it took, but my workplace is not doing well. I'll open this with a warning about next week, because that chapter may be a few days late instead of a late overnight upload like this. We are understaffed in my department for the next week, so three of us are working 44 hours shifts, which means I'm on eight hour shifts the next five days straight. My next day off is Saturday. I'll try to get in what writing I can in the evenings but if Sunday is another full shift, I'll probably not have the time and energy to get it done on time. My apologies in advance if that becomes the case.

In other news, I nearly slip and fell in the shower like four hours ago and its only because I have the wingspan of Alaska that I didn't hurt myself before I could finish this chapter. Thank god for my oddly acquired genetics. I am the lanky oddity of the family.

Also The Last of Us is really good on HBO. I'm happy to have a good Sunday evening show to watch with my parents, and one they really like too. I'm hoping this energy stays if the second season adapts the divisive sequel title.

Thanks for following along, and I hope ye enjoy.

"We will begin the second round of battles in five minutes. Please make way to your seats with concessions in hand. We will begin the second round of battles in five minutes."

Shouto moved through the halls methodically, slowly walking his way down the stairs towards the field entrances. He avoided the offered waiting room like the plague; sitting still had nearly frozen him to a chair, so aimlessly walking around between battles with nothing but the cheering crowd and Present Mic's commentary echoing in the distance was his outlet. Few sidekicks touring the halls, greeting and congratulating him bothered that peace at the included mentions of his father, but more walking cleared his mind once more. It was better than sitting in the stands between his fights.

Shouto liked to think he knew himself well, and he knew well enough that his feelings were too mixed to sit around his classmates in a controlled manner. He was too mad with Midoriya for not only winning his own match, but barely using any inch of his quirk to do so. If he understood it correctly, the green-haired teen could have pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around his hand like a boxing glove. Even without the weapon he clung to so often in costume, Midoriya had more options for channeling his power into to breeze through his competition. Why he refused to was beyond Shouto's understanding.

He was also too happy watching their tailed-classmate lose his match, having lost to the blond twice himself. Was this the spite Natsuo mentioned feeling watching their father stuck at second place in the hero rankings the past few years?

"Shouto."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

The dual-haired boy had finally reached the tunnel to the field, only to find his bear of a father leaning against the wall in wait, staring him down intently. Shouto glared back at him a second but looked away as he brushed past him without a word. Sadly, the taller man decided to share some of his own, claiming, "Your fight was pathetic, Shouto."

Against his better judgment, the teen paused his steps shy of the sunlight peeking into the hallway. He did not turn around, but still responded, "I won."

"By a hair," his father continued. "His quirk should be nothing to you, yet he toyed with you and humiliated you in an instant. Had he thrown you into the air on his first try, you would have been launched out of the ring and disqualified immediately. Had you used your fire, he wouldn't have been able to touch you to begin with."

"I won with her ice." He pivoted on his heels, leering back at his father harshly. "I don't need your fire to win."

Endeavor sneered. "You think that will be enough? You lost the first two events because of your foolishness. You will freeze yourself into submission before you make it into the final round. How do you expect to beat Midoriya with such pitiful effort?"

So they were working together. He had guessed right. "Midoriya hasn't been using his quirk. His luck won't last against me."

"He has not been pushed to use his quirk," the giant man corrected him. "None of these weaker quirks have been a challenge enough to him to even require it. You've advanced with your ice with the skin of your teeth, by comparison. And you think Midoriya would fall to you? The moment he uses his quirk, you'll lose."

Shouto scoffed that excuse away. Of course his own father was defending Midoriya on his lack of quirk usage while looking to hassle him over it once more. Did he actually think he would lose to someone so overconfident that they would challenge and yet not use an inch of their strength?

"Why do you care about Midoriya?"

"Because he's aiming higher than you. He has the strength, determination and drive you lack. He already dreams of surpassing All-Might; an ambitious mission for someone who hails from normalcy. You are the perfect creation — my creation — that has been privileged to far more growing up than he has. You'd do well to act more like him."

Act like Midoriya? Act like a reckless delinquent throwing himself into danger and taking pointless risks for no good reason? "I'd be a fool to become like Midoriya," Shouto told his father, turning away and stepping towards the exit to the field. "If he's everything you're looking for in a successor, I'll crush him with mom's ice. I don't need your fire for anything. So watch, old man, as I become everything you're not."

"And what could you possibly become that I am not?"

The sunlight coated over Shouto's eyes, blinding him only momentarily from the bright blue sky reigning over the colorful stadium and the beckoning battlefield.

"A hero."

It wasn't often Denki thanked his quirk's kickback for effecting him with short term memory loss. According to the brunette seated beside him, his loss to the steel-skinned opponent was not flattering, so thank god he didn't remember being tackled for extra measure. He did, however, remember how Uraraka lost her match against the acidically potent Ashido, and knocked his knuckle into hers lightly.

"Looks like we both drew the short straw," he remarked softly, leaning over the stadium's railing to stare at the empty field before them. There were still a few minutes until the next rounds started up, but at least they had the entertainment of watching Cementoss mold Pokemon League statues at each corner of the raised stage. "At least we made it this far. I think we showed off a good amount; I'd love to get picked up by Wash."

"Why Wash?" Uraraka asked him. "Aren't there other electric heroes out there? I'd love to work with a hero that had a quirk like mine."

The blond boy shrugged. "Yeah there's like three I know of, but most people with electric quirks are said to go into the manual workforce. And they're all low ranking too, so they probably don't have a lot of sidekicks like us to teach, and I know my electricity is a higher voltage than theirs. I think I need someone with more experience and in the higher ranks to train with; I can't be brain dead forever."

From the seat behind him, Ojiro — wearing a hilariously bright yellow shirt with Present Mic's smiling face plastered on it — hummed. "That's some pretty deep self-reflection coming from you."

"I'm not that bad!" Denki cried at him with a shout.

"I asked you last week if you've ever played anything from FromSoft and you asked me why a toilet paper brand would make video games."

"It was a valid question!"

"No."

Yaoyorozu sighed from her spot beside the tailed teen. "Kaminari, to be accepted for a work study under any of the top fifty heroes requires you to receive a personal letter of invitation. You won't be able to choose who you study under unless they rank below the top fifty."

"Really? Damn." The electric boy flopped in his seat like a wet rag. "And I went out fast in a fight too. I'd be lucky to get an offer from one of them." His eyes glazed over the heads of his friends. "What are you guys hoping for?"

"I have the same hopes as you, Kaminari," Yaoyorozu admitted. "To learn under a high-ranking hero would provide a broader experience. Higher ranking heroes do have more responsibilities and commitments, and learning how to balance it all so early in our studies would be very beneficial."

"I wish I could intern under 13," Uraraka sighed, staring longingly at the announcers booth where the teachers sat. "But other than that, I'm not sure where to go. If I could work under a hero team, I'd like that. Working as a team sounds nice."

Denki snapped his fingers and pointed at the brunette. "If I don't get a direct offer, tell me who you're going for and I'll be right beside you." Uraraka's face flushed red as it violently shook in confirmation, but the blond boy liked how lighter he felt from the smile that etched on her face. "And I can guess who the two of you are going for" — he whirled around in his chair to point accusingly at the tailed boy and the blue-haired teen beside him — "because I may be illiterate but you two are like a picture book to me. Any dojo agency for you and you've got a family waiting to accept you with open arms."

While Iida's head hung at the obvious call, Ojiro crossed his arms and sighed. "I'm actually thinking about finding someone who regularly patrols. A lot of martial art heroes are dojo teachers and on-call assistance, not often out on the streets. After what…" His eyes turned away a second, his lips pressing into a flat line. "I think I need an understanding of what it's like just in the city. Something more active and aware than another classroom."

"My brother may be open to offering you a spot, in that case," Iida followed up, popping back into a livelier form. "The Iidaten agency ensures every enrolled sidekick puts in at least two hours of patrol every day they work. Tensei believes it helps to promote the family business and encourage more youth to become active and public heroes; the more present we are in their lives, the safer they may feel every new day."

Everyone was already thinking of their future, Denki noted. Good. Even though half of their friend group had already been disqualified from the final event, they weren't festering on their losses or the could-have-beens. All he needed was Midoriya's opinion—

Denki stared blankly at the empty seat beside Iida. "Wait, where's Midoriya?"

"He's in the waiting room already," Ojiro answered. "I passed him after my match; said he wanted to prepare early or something. He's up after Todoroki anyways."

"The guy who's been targeting him before we even started. Sucks Midoriya has to deal with him if he wins his next match. I wouldn't want to be him."

"He shouldn't have to be him," the tailed teen argued, a sudden spike of anger in his voice catching Denki off guard. "He has to deal with him and Bakugou, but at least he's in the second set." He huffed something under his breath the electric boy was certain was a curse word given how appalled Iida looked beside him, and turned to face the tall, raven-haired girl. "I'm sorry to ask you this, but kick his ass please. Either of you, if you end up having to face him." He directed the latter of his words to the blue-haired boy, and it was a request that sent the engine-legged boy into a serious stare; even Uraraka beside him sulked into a grumbled glare pointed away from everyone. The only one who shared Denki's confusion was the girl Ojiro had turned to first.

"I know Bakugou is aggressive," she admitted slowly, "but he's not that bad, is he? He and Midoriya were quite evenly matched in their fight."

Denki pondered on the explosive blond in silence. The last he had seen of Bakugou was from their battle trial class marking the start of their second school week, and then he was suddenly gone from their homeroom. Their sensei had only ever told them Bakugou was no longer a part of their class a few days after his first absence, but never anything beyond that. The only thing Denki had to assume from was how he followed that information up with a fifteen-minute seminar about learning self-control. But the guy couldn't have been that bad, could he?

There to answer his question, like an angel descending from the clouds above, was Ojiro. "He's an asshole. He hates Midoriya with whatever void of a heart he has in his chest. He has a vendetta against him, not a rivalry." A very crass and to-the-point angel, but one offering an explanation all the same, and he would accept that.

"Midoriya has not told us everything about him," Iida admitted, fixing his glasses atop his face. "But I've heard enough to know that Bakugou is not a trustworthy character. He has some personal mission against Midoriya, simply for being who he is and nothing more. Least that's what I've come to understand."

It was Uraraka's provided comment that sealed the deal in Denki's mind. "Midoriya knew he was going to be targeted," she had explained about their battle trial. "He knew Bakugou was going to look for him; that he cared more about fighting him than me. And I saw what he did to Midoriya in their fight. He's not a good person."

Denki, having absorbed all the information laid out before him and comparing it to what he'd seen of the other boy thus far in their classes and the Sports Festival, turned around to Yaoyorozu with pressed-together hands. "I am so sorry you have to fight him next."

She looked at him as though perturbed by his condolences, and turned her fidgeting hands to Ojiro. "I'm sorry I wasn't aware of this sooner. I knew of your animosity towards him before, but I did not presume it to be over such aggressive feelings and acts." Almost abruptly did she bow, pledging to do her best in her fight as the two boys sitting beside her tried to push her back upright.

For Midoriya, Denki agreed with the final message the tall girl tacked on, as he watched the dual-haired boy walk on to the stage at Present Mic's announcement. He really had too much against him, didn't he, and for what?

Sitting alone in a room with nothing but Present Mic's voice echoing around him from the speaker boxes wasn't the moment to calm down that Izuku was looking for. As intriguing as Ashido's acidic quirk was, she did not have the potency, output, nor speed to overcome Todoroki's ice and the chill it would wash over her, if coating her in ice like he had Hanta didn't happen first. He knew their fight was going to be short, and though the tape-quirked teen had offered his best wishes for the upcoming match before the first eight matches had ended, he still had another match to win before he had to worry about that.

Monoma still plagued his thoughts. Izuku knew the boy had to know something was wrong regarding his 'quirk' — that something didn't add up — and that he would share that information, for what reason did he have to withhold it? He didn't want rumors like that to spread before he could make them. He'd dug his ditch thinking a lie would pass and build a bridge with his classmates, but he had to be the one to openly admit it first for it not to come collapsing beneath his feet. He was pressed for time; he couldn't delay it much longer. But he couldn't let it come out here, in front of a live and televised audience around the world watching and listening in on his every move and word. That was too big a step, one he could not take until this damned power of his finally listened to him and bowed to his control.

There was something more to this power — to him — than a quirk. It acted wrong, it appeared late, and it activated inconsistently. It was a problem unique only to him, unidentifiable by the standards of others without simplifying its intricacies, but it was one his mind narrowed on the longer an answer eluded him. Where it came from, what he was fully capable of; all other questions could wait until he learned how to control. Once he could call his power his own — as Kaminari did his Electrification, Uraraka her Zero Gravity, and Yaoyorozu her Creation — and show the world confidently. That he had to rely on a baseball bat to perform any of his abilities beyond his endurance and durability that didn't show anything truly unnatural for someone who was just quirkless; that story wouldn't be believed so easily, even if the teachers and their principal and his friends tried to defend him. If he could perform his feats whenever he so desired to?

Once he knew how it activated, it would probably be a lot easier to explain to everyone.

And boy did he wish he found the answer sooner.

"After that chilling match, we come to our second event of the quarterfinals!" Present Mic's voice erupted in his ears, carried by the roaring crowd of heroes and hopefuls looking to be impressed. Izuku had managed so much but had truly done so little; did anyone already wonder if he was deserving of being here? "On one side enters Class 1-A's Midoriya Izuku, the man to win through the unconventional! Flying through explosions, throwing a classmate to the sky, and fighting swords with his bare hands, he's pushed through every challenge set before him like you wouldn't believe!"

The crowd roared some more, but Izuku kept his attention to the gray-haired teen who stepped up on the other end of the field. "Facing him down now is Class 1-B's Iron Valiant, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu! He dug his way through the body of a Zero Pointer and shrugged off ten million volts of electricity like it was nothing! These two boys have toughed it out to make it this far already, but who will be the one to win?"

"I know all about your quirk!" the green-haired teen heard the silver-haired boy shout at him. "Your enchanting super strength, right?" Izuku didn't answer him, but lowering his head just slightly must have looked like a nod to Tetsutetsu. "You didn't use it against Monoma, and that is a cowardly act I cannot stand for! Fighting real villains may have put an ego in your Class A heads, and you may have thought him too weak, but we are real men! I expect you to hit me with your all and not treat me like some frail nobody!" His body suddenly gleamed in the light, and his pale skin was soon replaced by a shiny steel on every inch of exposed skin. "There's nothing manlier than giving it your all!"

"I didn't think he was weak," Izuku shot down the accusation, souring his lips at the other boy's speech. "Hard to get a good hit in when there's a knife at your throat." It was a good thing Recovery Girl was on standby, healing his arms from the cuts and tears Monoma had given him. He probably took the most hits out of anyone in the first round; he'd probably have the hardest time advancing if the heroine wasn't around.

Then again he apparently fought for minutes on end when part of his scalp was missing, so what did he know; maybe severe blood loss was the key to his power?

Tetsutetsu dropped his legs and raised his arms, poised to fight. "There's no manlier a time to give it your all when you're backed into a corner. I'll push you into one myself if I have to prove it." All this talk about men; maybe he knew Kirishima, Izuku wondered. Seemed too coincidental not to be the case.

"Ready!" Midnight shouted from the side, crop raised to the sky before it came cracking down on her podium. "Start!"

The steel boy rushed across the field, and Izuku followed suit. No reason to hesitate against an opponent he knew the quirk of; he'd already thought over how he'd overcome such a physically offensive quirk when his was still unresponsive. By the time both boys reached the stage's center, Tetsutetsu was hurling a fist at Izuku's head, and in it, he could see Hunter's in its place; his opponent was a slug by comparison. Izuku found no trouble ducking under it, dashing past his now outstretched side and slapping a hand tentatively on the boy's chest. His quirk was active over the rest of his body, he could preemptively assume.

Fools won't just see their quirks as an extra limb, but mistake it for a pre-existing one, he remembered Hunter's words. They'll focus all their training on the part of their body that best expresses their power, leaving their other areas underdeveloped by comparison. Some will do it because it can only work through one portion of their body, but even those with full-body-affecting quirks will fall into the same narrow-minded training and belief of their quirks and how their bodies use them. After all their hand-to-hand training, Hunter nearly kicked off Izuku's head as an example. You'll be little brats facing each other down. Plenty of them will have made that mistake already.

"You think you'll win by running?" Tetsutetsu shouted after him, throwing punch after punch that Izuku bent and swerved around, offering back only taps and brushes of his hands trying to redirect them away. It was a lot harder to push off a metal arm than one of flesh and bone, he dully noted. "I didn't know someone as strong as you would be so afraid to fight!"

Izuku ignored his taunts, steadying his breath as he darted around his opponent once more. Hunter was right; as trained as Mashirao was to fight with all five of his limbs instead of simply relying on his tail, Izuku had come to learn how inexperienced Iida was with his fists compared to the speed courtesy of his legs. Case-by-case scenarios, sure, but the Sports Festival was presenting him with even more opportunities to study his classmates. Kendo was well trained with her own growing fists but lost to Yaoyorozu because her legs were far less mobile. Tetsutetsu was the same, throwing his body forward with his fists and only staying upright because of the deep stances he took with his legs; he was overstretching.

So Izuku took his chance when he saw it, dancing outside another wild punch from Tetsutetsu before diving at his legs. He wrapped his arms around the boy's extended right leg, swiped his feet below himself into a crouch, and lifted with all his might. Heavy as the steel boy was, knocking off balance was still something he could manage, rolling the other teen onto his side and dropping on him to press a fist against his face. "Stay down," he threatened, hoping the belief of his strength would be enough for his opponent to have some self preservation.

"And Midoriya goes for the pin once more!" Present Mic cheered with the crowd, though the roar sounded quieter in his ears than it was before. Izuku spared a glance at the crowd, too quickly spotting faces unimpressed and disappointed with his quick effort. His mistake in looking away from his opponent, however, as Tetsutetsu gripped him by the calf and nearly effortlessly tossed Izuku off of him. "But it fails once more! His hard-headed opponent is too strong a character to simply succumb to the same approach! It will take far more effort for either of these boys to fall!"

"More effort is right!" Tetsutetsu roared as he jumped to his feet. "Surrendering isn't manly, and neither is trying to cheap your way out of a fight!"

Izuku hissed as he tried to rise the same, the ankle the silver teen had gripped twisting and straining wrong from the throw. As the steel boy rushed him once more, the green-haired boy faltered and raised his arms to defend himself, paying for his mistake as the punch he took felt like it shattered his right wrist. He batted with his other arm as he cursed, only stinging his good hand from the blow and having to stumble back to dodge a second punch.

"I ain't losing to someone who isn't giving me their all!" the silver-haired boy continued to shout, pressing upon Izuku with blow after blow that scraped along his arms and clipped at his sides. "And you aren't gonna win if you don't take me seriously!" Izuku took another step back on his bad foot, only for it to finally give out and slip him down to one knee.

And he took a fist right into his scarred eye.

Izuku slumped into the sand, puffing out a breath he desperately tried to regain. Training with Hunter was still proving fruitless, teaching him techniques he simply couldn't match the power behind. His body was still functionally quirkless despite his best efforts, and the Sports Festival was only five days away. How the hell was he going to impress anyone?

"Your form's improved," his trainer commented, sitting atop a lopsided washing machine beside the fallen teen. "You don't punch like shit anymore. Aim it right and you could probably knock someone out in one hit; was lugging all this trash around all it took to gain muscle?"

The green-haired teenager huffed a wet sigh; hard not to as sweat swirled around his lips. "Maybe I'll get in a lucky punch or two, yeah," he pondered dejectedly. An emotion that lasted all of two seconds as a shoe was thrown at his head.

"More than two, you self-deprecating dipshit," Hunter remarked, expression unchanged as Izuku glared at him. "The hell are you doing all this training for if you're so confident you'll lose to anyone?"

Izuku rubbed the bruise on his forehead and threw his other arm in the air. "What am I supposed to do against quirks I can't just punch and dodge? How am I supposed to fight ice and fire and electricity and fuckin' rock skin with my bare hands? I know my classmates' quirks, and I know what I can and can't fight. I know the final event is usually a tier bracket of fights, but that assumes I get that far and neither of the first two events involve any fighting against people where I'll probably be knocked out nigh immediately—"

"Hit them harder."

Hunter was beside them in an instant, slotting his foot into the shoe he'd thrown, and Izuku looked up at him in disbelief. "Really? Great advice."

"You're damn right it is," the taller teen agreed, completely shouldering Izuku's sarcasm. "I'm not training you to save your ass, I'm training you to be better than them. If you're actually trying to win and prove yourself better than everyone, then you need to hit your way through whatever wall they place in front of you. You lose if you give up; you lose if you surrender; you'll lose if you think for a second that you can't win. So don't bother yourself believing any of these quirked little shits are better than you; don't think. Just hit."

The world rushed back into his ears like a tidal wave, while he stumbled and scratched at the ground to keep himself up with his hands. Present Mic's voice was a muffled cry, Tetsutetsu's own voice barely digging into his ears with, "Shit, dude, I didn't mean that. Are you good?" No he wasn't, Izuku decided, prying open his left eye despite how it stung. Keeping himself up with his right hand, he used his sprained left to feel around his eyes, and coughed a sigh of relief when he found only a small cut below his eye opened it up. At least his eye wasn't popping out.

"Midoriya!" the green-haired teen heard Midnight call out to him through a ring. "Can you still move?"

Izuku turned his head slightly to his teacher beside the raised field, finding his teacher looking at him concerned, but his good eye turned away to the teenager that stood hesitantly before him, back to his bare flesh and blood from before. He curled his other hand into a fist. "Turn your quirk back on."

Tetsutetsu blinked at him, momentarily perplexed. "What?"

"I'm punching you." Without another second to spare, he shot his good foot forward, lunging at the boy in front of him, and shot his fist into the teen's stomach. Tetsutetsu staggered back with lost breath, his skin flickering for a few seconds before it decided to be steel once more.

"Midoriya rises once again! He powers through those wicked blows and Tetsutetsu finds his punching bag standing up in defiance! This fight's not over yet, folks!"

Tetsutetsu let out a cough of a laugh, hunched over and tightening his fists. "That's what I was looking for. Good to know you Class A folk aren't thinking we're weak. Now we can really fight."

Izuku looked at his knuckles, eyes glossing over the bumps only smudged with dirt. He felt the steel stomach Tetsutetsu activated before his strike, but his hand did not shake nor sting in pain. He had punched solid metal and pushed it back with force.

And yet he felt no different.

That was not a lucky moment nor a coincidence. That was his strength — the strength he had been struggling to control for weeks — there at his fingertips, and yet he could not feel a difference. He felt no stronger, felt no empowerment, but it was there. It had to be still.

He needed to test it more.

Izuku tightened his left fist, hissing through the pain as he brought it forward beside his right, and peeled open his left eye. "Never thought you were. I guess I'm just a bit of a slow start. Let's."

The Sports Festival wasn't something he watched with interest. Performers were often disappointing to his standards, fraught with different quirks and interests and styles that did not appeal to his teaching style. Most of his own students weren't heroes or sidekicks, just learners of martial arts and self defense techniques. He only had three sidekicks to his dojo-agency, none of which he hired from hero schools.

Still, he watched the program out of respect and his duty to heroics. These children only had a few weeks before he'd see them under pros care for a study, and months before they would be interning as sidekicks in action. He himself wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and he'd likely meet one or two of them on the field before they graduated, so learning their general abilities in prep for an impromptu assignment banded them together was just smart.

But today was different. A few noteworthy competitors knew various martial arts between themselves, but there were a few every year. What they knew was interesting to him — watching how skilled and knowledgeable in their art told him plenty on how much they cared to honor it — but the mohawk-styled, green-haired boy was not one of his students. Many dojos across the country could teach Tae Kwon Do, Jujitsu, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Wing Chun, and many martial arts passed down generations from across the world, but no other dojo than his taught his own technique. A style derived from his own quirk, though not one unteachable.

The plain boy's battle against his steel-skinned opponent was slow to start, with the former skittering around the field avoiding powerful blows, but the moment he fought back was when interest peaked. Nobody just knew how to use the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist without having first been a student under his tutelage, and he would have recognized a teenager with green hair amidst his attendees had there been one. But this kid knew the techniques; how to redirect his foe's swings and dance around him simultaneously, and how to strike back so hard his hand of flesh and bone could still indent a cheek of iron without breaking. A combination his rival schools did not have the grace to teach the way he did.

"Charanko," he called across the living room, eyes still glued to his television as the green boy smashed his opponent into the ground with a single punch, right into the boundary line of the ring and ending their match. There were very few ways this child could know his techniques, but even fewer how he chose to use them so sharply and violently.

His orange-haired sidekick dashed into the room, skidding to a stop and bowing in his teacher's presence. "Yes, Master."

"Put a recommendation file on my desk for me. I may be filling out a request later this evening."

"Right away…sir?" His sidekick finally took notice of the screen before them, the stadium's cheers for the match's conclusion reverberating around the room. "Are we actually taking a student in for a work study?"

The dojo master watched the child followed off the field by the camera, stalking off the field unusually quiet over his victory. There was only one past student of his that could have taught the young boy such an aggressive form of his fighting style. "I believe we are."

"You did really well, Tetsu!" Tokage shouted in greeting as their steel-skinned classmate returned to their seating.

The gray-haired teenager sighed past the cheering girl, slumping into one of the end seats and banging his forehead into the seat in front of him and ignoring how the clothes floating beside him jumped. "I threw my match. Went soft on the punk when I should have pushed him out of the ring first."

"It shows you're not someone who will brutalize their opponents in a fight and knows when to hold back and control themselves," their short brunette classmate noted in the seat Tetsutetsu's head rested on.. "The scouts will see someone they can trust to take on patrol and into dangerous missions without putting a life on the line."

"And seeing you hold out so long against two strong quirks, the heroes will really find you reliable!" A pair of floating gloves clenched into fists shook beside the boy's head, their invisible classmate bouncing in the seat beside him. "You'll get offers from a whole bunch of agencies, I'm sure!"

"Yeah, cheer up big guy!" a short boy seated behind him with purple orbs for hair encouraged the taller boy. "You've got all the pretty girls cheering for you! There's no reason you should still be feeling down!"

The gray-haired teen squinted over his shoulder at the small teen. "How's that supposed to be helping me?"

Neito stayed silent as his classmates rambled on behind him, staring ahead at the battlefield as the blue-haired boy and the vine-haired girl from 1-A stepped into frame. The final round of the Sports Festival had become the Class A Show, to his disappointment. The class that had persevered through a villain attack with only a scratch on one of them to show was stealing the spotlight, because of course the agencies would hyperfixate on those with "experience" to boost their own reputation by association. He and his classmate were lucky to make it into the final event, even if they lost so early and to the same guy.

But wasn't that same guy a weirdo? Midoriya Izuku, class president and top scoring examiner, who had already won the first two contests of the Sports Festival, and poised to fight someone who could copy quirks with a quirk of his own that couldn't be copied. Neito had dealt with plenty of those growing up — classmates that stores electricity from power sources instead of natively conducting it, or the hero Fat Gum he met once who could almost endlessly store body fat while his own five minute time limit would kick him with nausea the instant he tried to replicate him — and had constantly gone out of his way to clarify those differences between quirks with a simple glance or explanation to pick his arsenal in advance. He thought Midoriya would have been no different, with the way Tokage and Honenuki relayed what the tall girl from Class A explained to them, but he still tagged along the lower classes who went to assess and threaten the big hero course right after the incident at the USJ — just to confirm for himself and get a round or two of practice in early.

What Neito was not used to was silence. Not of voices or animals or ambiance in the wind, but of quirks pumping through his veins and setting his nervous system ablaze. Every quirk had a feeling to it — a presence invisible to the eye but clear to the touch — and as different as quirks could be, everything felt the same; alive. But not Midoriya's. Touching the other boy's hand felt like clawing an iceberg or examining a corpse. Neito felt no response; no action; no emotion surging through him in the response to collecting another power. And he had never felt anyone like that.

"It's no use having our two reps in the final course look so dejected," Honenuki piped in, nudging an elbow into Neito's side with a small smile. "You both put up and excellent fight. Showed those scouts that not everyone in their class is better than us, and put up equal fights against the one everyone is deeming as their shadow ruler."

"It's a dumb name," grumbled the pitch black boy behind the blond. "Nothin' dark about him. And it ain't like he's a complete nobody suddenly winning everything he's in."

Neito peered back over his shoulder, offering Kuroiro a sly smile. "Compared to the famous children in his class like Endeavor's kid, he's a nobody. Never seen or heard of anyone like him in the hero world."

Beside the dark boy, the class's resident blade user, Kamikiri hummed and stared off in the distance. "I thought he looked kinda familiar. Was watching old hero clips the other day; saw some older guy with a similar lookin' face. Don't think he was a hero though. And fire breathin' has nothing to do with strength like that."

"Are you sure he's not familiar to you because you looked in a mirror five minutes ago?"

Kamikiri barked at Kuroiro and popped his blades from his forearms. "We look nothin' alike! Having the same good-lookin' mohawk doesn't make us identical!"

"You both have green hair."

"He's a completely different shade from me! His luscious dark hair is nothing like my illustrious lime!"

"Are you considering asking him out?" Tetsutetsu joined in with a flat tone, ignoring the enraged cry it got him as he turned to stare past Neito. "And you guys lied about his quirk. I thought he had to be holding something to use that strength."

Honenuki put his hands up in surrender, Tokage doing the same from behind the silver-haired teen. "We theorized before that he could have done that, but punching metal with bare skin would still harm his flesh. Nothing we saw at the entrance exam led us to believe he could give a weapon extra defensive capabilities, only extra power. He hurt his hands punching you, didn't he?"

Tetsutetsu shook his head. "Nope. His hands didn't even look bruised when he left. Don't know what took him so long to use it."

That was another confusing detail about Midoriya's quirk still rummaging in Neito's mind. A power channeling quirk, capable of infusing any item he holds with power and strength capable of incapacitating a giant robot in cement? And he could have done so with his bare hands? What was the point of the bat Neito heard he used, and why hadn't he done so against the blond in their fight? Why hide his quirk for so long throughout the event when the very thing they had to do was show off their capabilities and proficiencies to the heroes, sidekicks and scouts surrounding them?

"He's like some damn trojan horse," Tetsutetsu grumbled. "Despite how simple and apparently attractive" — none of them acknowledged their own mohawk-styled green-haired classmates shouting for the silver teen to shut up — "he looks, he's packing all that power without any drawbacks beyond his own tender flesh and blood. He can probably break through that Todoroki guy's ice without any problem."

"But Bakugou's explosion will probably harm him most, if they both make it to the finals," Honenuki commented. "And if he is Endeavor's son, Todoroki could use fire to beat Midoriya. The two of you scratched him up pretty good; he's not invincible. A good attack and he's done for."

"What the heck is someone like him doing in General Studies, anyways?" Kuroiro pondered. "Seems like a pretty strong quirk, and the guy is pretty fast with it too; the entrance exam shouldn't have been a problem for him. You guys think he failed the written exam?"

"Rumor has it that someone transferred out of their class and into General," Kamikiri suggested, the fluster on his face dying out.. "Could've been him."

Neito watched as the quick match between the blue-haired boy and vine-haired girl came to a swift end, as the latter was led out of bounds before she could ever graze her opponent. "That begs the question as to why he was transferred in the first place," he wondered out loud. "What does the rest of Class A have that he did not?"

Momo tried to win her fight, she really did. She would admit, Ojiro was a far better and more skilled fighter than her; she prided herself on her creativity, ingenuity and problem solving, well above her fighting capabilities. But he had lost his fight to Katsuki, in spite of his best efforts and terrifyingly brutal strikes. Watching him lose the match did not instill her with confidence. Still, she was determined to try her best. For Midoriya's sake.

But the fight was over almost as soon as it began. Bakugou couldn't have looked any more vexed to be staring her down across the field, and given Ojiro's raring review of the other blond, she could guess why. Seconds of eye contact were broken by Present Mic announcing the start, and her opponent wasted no time to shoot into the air and descend upon her with explosions. She had prepared for that — as best as someone like herself could for a face full of explosions — and pulled a handful of flash grenades hidden in nesting dolls to toss in the air between them, with a protective pair of goggles alongside was disheartening to watch as Bakugou pulled his hands together and shot concentrated blasts at as many dolls as he could, but it had left two untouched to erupt between them.

With a silent apology to the spectators around them, Momo enacted the second part of her plan. She had no contraption to guide him out of the ring, but she did produce a net gun from her stomach as quickly as possible. But Bakugou, even when blind and deaf to the world around him from the grenades, fired more explosions anyways, and back down the steps she went, falling flat on her ass, and declared out of bounds before her opponent could regain his senses. It was thanks to Cementoss and Midnight that she wasn't caught in more explosions, until he regained his senses seconds later to hear the results.

Momo didn't stay to share courteous goodbyes; she knew she'd receive none.

She chose to roam the empty halls of the stadium in silence. She could return to her friends in defeat later, but around them she was not ready to be. Her performance throughout the festival must have been a joke to the audience; barely making it through the obstacle course, nearly losing in the cavalry battle, and winning only a single fight before having the quickest loss of the day, all while carrying her family's very recognizable name for many heroes in the industry. Recommended into Yuei, only to show the bare minimum to the world the first chance she got. Being trusted by her friends could do nothing to quell that humiliation.

"Yaoyorozu."

The tall girl stopped in her pacing, backtracking to the diverging hallway to find Midoriya standing there, stacks of granola bars in either hand. His left eye was still bloodshot, a trickle of crimson carving down his scar, yet he looked completely unnerved by it. A complete contrast to how her stomach bubbled.

"Midoriya, you have blood in your eye," she chastised him, immediately taking him by the shoulders and pushing him down the hallway. She knew Recovery Girl was only a few bends away; why hadn't he gone to her yet?

"I know," he responded far too calmly for her liking, and only sent her body bursting in confusion. "I thought I felt it a bit. It's not that bad, is it?"

"Your entire eye is red!"

"Ah. Fair enough."

They were in the heroine's medical wing in no time, Momo passing on her pain-resistant friend to take a few whacks to the head from an unamused old woman. The raven-haired girl attempted to make her leave, but the short lady fought against her insistence, and soon she found herself seated beside a healing Midoriya, a handful of gummies gifted to her to chew on. So much for taking a walk to clear her mind.

"Granola?" her green-haired friend offered his left hand, and Momo was unsure how much he was allowing her to take as she stared at the clump silently. She ended up with the whole handful set down between them.

"I almost forgot you're supposed to give us heart attacks every other minute," the tall girl joked dryly, popping another gummy into her mouth as the boy beside her snickered. "Your lack of a reactive nervous system terrifies me, Midoriya. Please promise me you'll be more aware of yourself."

His first response was simply a hum, but Momo could gleam no meaning from it or how his eyes darted around. "I'll try my best," he promised, though meek-sounding in tone. "I knew it cut open a bit from the fight, but I just thought it was a small cut. Sorry for worrying you. Again."

"At least you aren't telling me to get used to it. I know none of us would." She paused, a gummy pressed to her lips in thought, before she pulled it away. "Everyone was missing you up in the stands. We wanted to congratulate you for winning your second match. And that you were able to beat him with his quirk active."

"You noticed too?" His fingers flexed methodically, while his lip jutted to the side with a huff. "I noticed it too, what I was doing. My pain tolerance might be connected to it; dunno yet. But I didn't feel any different fighting him than I did against Monoma. Still don't. Everything feels completely normal. Even hitting steel didn't sting; how the hell did I not cut open my knuckles doing that?"

"So you can't tell if it's active or something you can control now?" she questioned, and he shook his head dejectedly. "Well, it's a start, right? Now we can prove it's something you can do whenever, not something tied to a weapon. I'm glad you were able to win with it."

"Thanks, but you don't sound all that happy." Midoriya's clear eyes turned on hers, but his brows softened away from any accusations. "But I guess that's more to do with your match than mine, right?"

The gummy bear pancaked between her finger tips. "You saw me."

"Heard it, actually. Was walking around the stadium, too. Hard not to hear Present Mic and Aizawa's commentary. Did you actually throw grenades at him?"

"Flash grenades," she defended herself quickly. "Not real grenades. Even what I can make uses a substitute of elements since I can't fully copy the composition of real weaponry."

His eyes darted away a second before returning to her. "Legally or practically, because I remember you saving me with a very convincing gun the other day."

"That was one time! And it's easier to replicate the carbon fiber, gunpowder and model designs of firearms and airsoft weaponry than it is the various materials needed to trigger a flash grenade."

"Neither of those sound any easier than the other to make. Could you make a taser?"

"Yes, but not with a readily available source of power. I can create physical material, but energy-based tools aren't something I can study down to the molecular compound and replicate with my quirk."

"Thank god we have Kaminari, then. Might have to make a suitcase to carry them in so he can power them for you. Personal arsenal at your beckoning call."

"We cannot abuse Kaminari like that!" Momo defended him, turning on her green-haired friend. "We are not making a portable battery out of our friend! That is an abuse of his trust and good nature to coerce him into such a role! We will have to find another means of a reliable source of energy…" Her rant died in her throat as she took in Midoriya's features, notably the small smile that stayed despite her shouting. "You're trying to distract me."

Her friend shook his head. "I like listening to you talk about the intricacies of the weaponry you have to study and how you defend your encouragement of the economy and the working class. What can I say?"

"The truth, for starters."

He held up a hand in defense. "I'd rather hear you talk about something you like than mull over your fight in silence. No reason in thinking about Katsuki; not like he does the same for anyone else."

Momo watched how his features fell flat before tightening as he looked away. Despite his own words, she could tell the blond boy had begun to plague his own mind. Instead of saying a word about it, he simply shoved another brick of granola between his teeth until his cheeks puffed out.

"Our friends told me what they know about Bakugou," she admitted, noting how his brows furrowed as he continued to silently chew. "I'm sorry I could not defeat him for you."

Crumbs of oat sputtered out of his lips before Midoriya could swallow everything and wave a hand wildly in her face. "You shouldn't be worrying about that to begin with. He's not your problem you guys need to deal with—"

"Nor is he one you should have to deal with alone," she interrupted him, settling a hand atop his shaking one between them. "Our sensei and the other teachers have already done something if they chose to move him out of our class so swiftly, but if you have to face him again you shouldn't feel the need to make him your responsibility. We're your friends, Midoriya, and for all you've tried to protect us from, we'd like to do the same for you. Okay?"

Midoriya looked at her with a silent expression of shock, but one that only grew red with time until he nodded in agreement. Momo offered him a smile he struggled to return, and only did she notice second later how her fingers had gone to intertwine over his before she ripped her hand away, feeling her own cheeks heat up to match his.

"Thank you," he breathed out, bringing his hands together over his lap and looking straight ahead of them. "It…I'm not thinking about him all the time; barely have since he was moved from our class. But I know his feelings about me haven't changed. I know I'm the last thing in the world he wants to see standing before him on the battlefield. Even beside him, he'd probably hate. So thank you." His lips quipped into a smaller smile, but a soft one accompanied by his eyes glistening towards her. "I'm happy I have friends looking out for me."

The job of a hero was an inconvenient one for multiple parties involved, heroes and villains alike. As much as Tensei enjoyed the job and would never back down from a chance to save someone or stop a criminal, he was an Iida family member first in his heart. His family's agency; his family's hero alias; his family's honor; as free spirited as he tried to be, thoughts and feelings plagued his time on the clock making sure his family's name was never squandered nor ridiculed. The only quandary is that it did not require him to be with his family to do so, and often asked him to be away, even if it meant missing his younger brother's performance in the Sports Festival to run down the streets of Hosu for patrolling and scouting.

"No sign of activity over here," a light feminine voice reported in his ear.

"Just a purse snatcher on my end," a jollier male voice followed up. "I've handed him over to a police cruiser already. Any activity for you yet, boss?"

"Been quiet for ten blocks," Tensei told his sidekicks. He swerved right on the road, patting the side of the eighteen wheeler and waving to the driver as he overtook them. "Eleven blocks. No sign of large criminal activity. But I haven't caught up with ConAir either; he was supposed to be down this street. Have either of you seen him on your end?"

"No, sir," they both replied, and Tensei scoffed under his breath. The only reason he was stuck in Hosu instead of his office was because of the city's recent spike of criminal activity and hospitalized heroes in the past weeks. Over three dozen heroes and sidekicks total admitted to Hosu General Hospital with broken or bent limbs, damaged quirk mutations, dismemberment, missing eyes; a dangerous criminal or criminals were on the loose, knocking down heroes one at a time. What was worse were the civilian reports all detailing one familiar criminal outline: Stain, the Hero Killer. The thought that a single man, hiding in the shadows, beating heroes with his blades or his fists was behind it all — that all it took was one person against cities — was a troubling one to linger on.

"Keep your eyes and ears open, team," Tensei monologued to his sidekicks. "There's a high chance our friend has engaged the elusive criminal already, either alone or with help from his own agency. Remember not to keep quiet if you cross paths with anyone matching the description or otherwise. Don't let this man get the jump on you—"

A ringing through his other ear cut him off, and a fourth voice followed it. "This is the Hosu Police Station, broadcasting on all channels. An emergency distress call has gone off in the middle of Waseda-Dori Avenue, just West of Kannana-Dori Avenue. All nearby personnel please respond."

"Ingenium, responding! On my way!" The thrusters on his arm burned to life before bursting with steam and shooting Tensei between traffic. "Bigshot! Onemu! Grab every pro and sidekick you can and meet me at my location ping! Do not engage any criminal you encounter alone!"

"Copy that! Make sure you do the same, sir!"

"That requires them to be fast enough to touch me back!" he jested lightly. "I'm coming up on the beacon now! Setting my own location ping in case we're on the move."

Tensei twisted his arms and activated his quirk again, shooting himself above the buildings beside him and flickered his thrusters to lower himself into the alleyways. He checked backwards towards the street exit to find only trash before he dived in deeper. It didn't take long until he found the pair of legs sticking out from behind a garbage container, and shoving the large tub aside greeted the pro hero to a battered and unconscious man dressed like a disheveled fighter pilot.

"This is Ingenium, calling in," he announced through his police earpiece. "ConAir has been found" — he tested a pair of fingers on the other hero's neck — "alive but unconscious. Right arm is broken in a few areas, no openings on his head though, or anywhere else I can see. More bruises than losing blood. I'm going to need an—"

His mouth snapped shut as it was socked from the side, his helmet creaking and his whole body rocking over from the sudden strike to his head. Before he could raise his hands to block a second blow, it was already making contact below his chin, snapping his head back and flying him into a brick wall head first. The speed hero stumbled to stay on his feet, but was allowed no moment before several more fists struck him in the chest and again in the head, stumbling down the alleyway. Tensei shot his quirk to life to stop himself in his tumble, and removed his helmet while it was already falling to pieces.

He tossed his helmet — he had just gotten that redesigned, too — to the floor and fluttered his eyes to rebalance his sight and focus on the man that stood before him. Drenched in the shadows, he could barely make out the man's more lean physique and his gray, V-shaped hair, but the golden eyes of a predator shone back at him too bright to miss. Beyond that, the man carried nothing but the clothes on his back.

"You're not Stain," Tensei remarked with a huffed breath. His jaw felt like it would have disconnected had he not followed the first punch on instinct. "Explains the lack of cuts. This would be your doing then, villain?"

"You would do good to remember that fact, hero," the shadowed man spat back at him. "Your colleagues continue to attribute my work to that blade-wielding killer instead of me. Maybe you can pass my name onto the public and let them know I've made my debut."

Tensei never liked showboating villains. Not because they spoke a big game their actions could never meet — but because the ones he fought always could. "I'll make sure to write it in big letters on my report," the speedy hero teased back.

A tease the man did not take too lightly, as he crouched and raised his hands — a soft blue light glowing around them — in front of him like the claws of a wolf before his glowing eyes. "You'll write because I'll ensure you never speak again," he threatened. "I am Garou, the Hero Hunter. And I am the greatest villain there is."

When we return to Pro Hero: Metal Bat,

the semifinals are underway, and the fights devolve in fists and words no one can take back.