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Some people say that endlessly worrying about things beyond your control is 'useless,' 'counterproductive,' or even 'an anxiety symptom.' In the months since I was abducted by a giant sentient sack of crap and copied All Might's quirk without permission in the aftermath of the rescue, there's always been a part of my brain wondering 'what if All Might confronts me about it?' I've had literal nightmares about it happening; I've gone through hypothetical scenario after hypothetical scenario where All Might took me to task for copying his quirk. I've imagined him demanding that I give the quirk up, convicting me of offensive quirk use in a public area and thus minor villainy charges, or simply yelling at me and looking at me like scum. Some would say that obsessing over it to such a degree was excessive, that All Might was not just a hero but the hero, that even if he did learn about my copying his quirk that he'd only get mad if I hurt someone with it.

But none of them were perched on a wooden stool, alone in a break room with All Might, staring the barrel of that question in the face. Even sitting on a couch with an amiable smile on his face and his hands folded in front of him, All Might seemed to loom over me, taking up a disproportionate amount of the room in front of me. But even though adrenaline was starting to race through my veins, ironically it was that same paranoid dwelling on worst-case scenarios that was keeping me calm. I had mentally rehearsed arguments as to why I should be allowed to keep Stockpile, silently practiced apologies for my presumption in copying it.

I had, quite literally, prepared for this. So in response to All Might asking me if I had copied his quirk, I took a deep breath… and nodded. "I did," I admitted. "About a year ago, now."

All Might let out a small sigh, his upswept yellow bangs bobbing lightly with the motion of his head as he looked down at the table between us. "I was afraid of that," he muttered.

I shifted uneasily on the stool. "And… I copied Midoriya's, too. Or, tried." For a second, All Might went still. "I haven't said anything about it, and I'm not going to," I said in a rush. "I've been telling people your quirk is uncopyable, like the media says it is, and that Midoriya has a, what did Yaoyorozu call it, a 'Critical Mass' strength quirk, whenever anybody asks. Your secret is safe with me."

A relieved smile broke out on All Might's face, and he sat up a little straighter. "I appreciate your honesty, Hikigaya-shonen. This could have been a much more awkward conversation."

You mean it wasn't awkward already?! "Even before the attack on USJ, I figured you had a pretty good reason for keeping things secret," I said, trying to hide my discomfort with blasé flippancy.

All Might nodded solemnly. "Midoriya isn't ready for the level of scrutiny revealing that secret would bring him," he said matter-of-factly, "nor is he ready to face the threat that my old enemies would pose."

As far as arguments for hiding your secret love child from the world went, I supposed it was a pretty good one. Still… "Not to, uh, dig into your personal affairs too much," I asked awkwardly, "but is Midoriya alright with it? With not being acknowledged, I mean?"

All Might blinked in surprise for a second, but smiled. "Midoriya-shonen wants to establish himself as a hero first before I reveal him as my successor," he said, "but it's good of you to be concerned about him."

Part of me almost wanted to go one step further and ask what Midoriya's mom thought about that idea, but I bit my tongue. There was a difference between expressing concern for a classmate and being nosy, and as long as All Might still could potentially get mad at me for copying his quirk without permission, I was absolutely going to play things safe. "So, uh…" I trailed off. "Um, was that all you needed me for?" I asked.

"Well, mostly," All Might said. "Although if you don't mind, I'm curious as to why you were so sure that Midoriya and I had a connection. There are other people with strength quirks similar to One For All, though few are as strong. What made you so sure that Midoriya didn't have one of those?"

I'd been calling All Might's quirk Stockpile for long enough that it took me a second to recognize what he was talking about, and when I did, I couldn't help but react with sympathy. All Might had named his quirk in direct opposition to All For One's villain identity. Cyberpunch had called All For One an 'old foe' of All Might; who had he lost? Was there a Zaimokuza in his past as well? This didn't seem like the time to ask. "Well, first of all, my quirk doesn't just copy quirks, it stores them; but I can only copy a given quirk once. When I touched Midoriya, my quirk gave me feedback like it was a quirk I already had, so…"

"Hmm, I see," All Might said, scratching his chin. "Well, in that case, I doubt there's much risk of someone else being able to figure it out the same way you did."

I froze for a split second. Was it worth contradicting him? I could just keep my head down and escape from this awkward conversation… but he had a reason to know. "Uh, actually…" I said slowly. "I mean, I probably could have figured it out without the quirk feedback. Stockpile, or you called it One For All, I guess? It's pretty distinctive."

All Might's head tilted slightly to one side. "How so?"

"So, first off, it's not really a strength quirk exactly, it's more like a strength storage quirk - I've been keeping quiet about that part too, no need to let villains know you can run out of power," I hurriedly added.

"Er-" All Might said, holding up one finger and making as if to interrupt, but when I paused for a second he seemed to think better of it, putting his finger back down. "No, no, I suppose that's true," he said. "Sorry, go ahead."

"Right," I said slowly. "Let's see… hm. Most strength quirks are in the muscles… what makes Stockpile - sorry, One For All - different is, it's more like a network throughout the body that stores and carries energy, and muscles just happen to be the usual output source for that energy. So right away, it's way different from how other strength quirks feel."

All Might frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose it would, at that. I've had quirk copiers tell me One For All is an 'accumulation' quirk before, is that what you're describing?"

"I mean, sort of." I said. "There's a bunch of different kinds of accumulation quirks. Most of them have a hard cap on how much energy they can store, where One For All kinda… it stores energy in the muscles, which makes them better at storing energy, so then it stores more, and so on. Also, the energy network is kind of… loosely anchored, I guess?" I added. "It feels like I could rip it away from myself, if I wanted. I, uh, haven't experimented with that last bit," I said.

"So you can feel that, too…" All Might said solemnly. "That's very rare. I've never had someone with a power copying quirk tell me that they've felt that about One For All."

"Oh." I didn't know how to respond to that. "Really? It's… kind of obvious."

The Symbol of Peace smirked at me. "Maybe to someone with a better Analysis Quirk than most Quirk Counselors," he said jovially, "but something tells me that most people with copy quirks won't share your talents in that area."

Reflexively, my mouth twisted in disgust. "They don't need to. Most people with copy quirks have a quirk that actually does something."

"That's a bit harsh, don't you think?" All Might said. "You should be more proud of the abilities you have."

Said the man with the strongest quirk in the world, I almost but not quite said out loud. Instead, I shrugged awkwardly. "Maybe when I figure out to do something more useful with them than finding out secrets I'd rather not have known in the first place," I said. "So, uh, can I get back to class now?"

"Yes, go ahead," All Might said. "Study hard, young man."

As I was about to leave, I paused, then turned back to look at All Might. "Uh, this might be a dumb question… but you have plans to pull some other people out of class, too, right?" I asked. "If you only ever grab me and Midoriya like this, eventually people are going to ask questions."

All Might let out an awkward chuckle. "That's a good point! I'll make sure to do that," he agreed.

For someone who's actively concealing a secret love child, All Might sure wasn't that great at sneaking around.

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You'd think that after a talk like that, I would have slept soundly that night. That having the weight of All Might's disapproval finally lifted off of my shoulders would have reduced my stress, just a little. Maybe it did, but in trade, I had gotten it confirmed - Midoriya Izuku was All Might's son. And All Might had expressly asked me to keep it a secret, and confirmed that nobody else would be able to figure it out from Quirk Analysis.

And I had chickened out, and didn't admit to already having thrown that information in Stain's face. Although… I didn't think Stain believed me, so all I had to worry about was who he might tell in prison, who they might tell, and so on, and so on, and I just had to hope and pray that it took long enough for the rumor to get out that Midoriya would be 'ready' to be acknowledged.

Between the stress of that conversation, Bakugo pressuring me to step up my game (albeit in the worst way possible), my slowly failing grades, and All Might coming within inches of suggesting I quit being a hero to be a quirk counselor, I was more than motivated to get back to the grind. Fluke victories over Stain aside, my quirk hadn't miraculously gotten any less shitty, and only the fact that I could jailbreak my own quirk with Stockpile would let me keep up any kind of illusion to the contrary.

Now was not the time to take it easy - if anything, I needed to step up my game. Just because storing my quirks at night was barely enough for me to keep up at the start of the school year doesn't mean it would continue to be good enough as everyone else got stronger. Just adding more hours of meditation wasn't the answer either; I didn't have any hours in my day left to add.

So when my sister slammed open the door behind me, I jumped half a foot out of my desk chair and the pen in my hand exploded into shards of plastic and ink not because I was that tightly wound, but because I was multitasking. "Dammit Komachi! Learn to knock! I'm trying to work!" Specifically, I was trying to work on homework while simultaneously charging a quirk. So far, it wasn't going well. Aside from the main downside of losing control of the stored quirk when I got distracted, I also had to keep Stockpile running while I worked, which meant I also had to be careful not to put my pen through the paper - and, evidently, careful not to put my fingers through the pen.

"Oops," Komachi said, reaching up with one hand to knock on her own head, then winked and stuck out her tongue. "I forgot."

"Don't think you can get away with it just by acting cute," I scolded. Yes, Komachi was an adorable little gremlin, but she was also a brat. If I let her get away with barging into my room all the time, she'd never stop. "And? What's so important that you had to interrupt me?"

Komachi looked around shiftily. "I, uh… have you seen Kamakura recently? I can't find him."

"You interrupted me. To ask if I'd seen our cat." I said, deadpan, as I grabbed some tissues and started wiping ink off my hands.

"Umm…" Komachi said, not meeting my eyes. "Yeah? Maybe?"

"Well, he's not in here," I said dryly. "So if you don't mind…" I said and gestured with my eyes to the door behind her.

"But- but- but he could be lost!" Komachi said, looking up at me with pleading blue puppy-dog eyes (the facial expression, that was. I was pretty sure her actual eyes had way more to do with hawks or naval targeting reticles than they did dogs.) "What if he got outside! He's all lazy and spoiled like you used to be, onii-chan, he'll never survive out there!"

I felt my eyebrow twitch. "Alright, you brat, fine. Let's go make sure that Kamakura isn't lost on the mean streets of suburban Chiba."

"Kamakuuuura! Kamakuura! Where aaaaare you?" My sister sing-songed as we walked into the living room. Personally, I didn't see the point. I wasn't exactly as cat-crazy as Yukinoshita Yukino, but even I could appreciate the fact that cats were one of the few animals not just smart enough to realize they were being called, but to decide not to come anyway.

It was a different story, mind you, if you actually offered a cat incentive. After washing the ink off my hands, I decided to cut the tedious process of checking every hidey-hole in the house short by opening the drawer next to the sink, pulling out a plastic bag of treats, and shaking it. "Kamakura!" I called. "Here, kitty kitty!" Predictably, the mildly rotund white form of our cat came, if not quite speeding down the hallway - he must have been in our parents' room, in that case - then certainly trotting with intent. I fished out a treat or two for Kamakura, then I turned to Komachi and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

And was ignored entirely as she crouched by my feet to begin petting the cat. "Oh you came right out, didn't you?" she cooed, "you're such a big fat kitty, yes you are, you're such a big fat tub of ooey gooey fuzzy wuzzies, yes you are!"

My eyebrow twitched again. Damn it, she drags me out of my room for something trivial like this, and then ignores me completely, without so much of a word of thanks? This demanded retribution. Leaning down, I slipped my arm around her neck and put her in a loose chokehold - not enough to hurt her or anything (although given her general level of indestructibility, I would probably have to tap into Stockpile + Death Arms to begin making a dent), but more than enough to haul her to her feet and drag her backwards.

"Hey!" she said, squirming a bit in my grip but not trying too hard to escape. "What's your problem all of a sudden!"

"Hey, Komachi," I said, and she must have heard the sinister glee in my voice, because she started wriggling harder. "Remember how I exploded my pen just now?"

"Uh huh, so what?" She said. Wrong answer! I had been using my other hand to counterbalance myself as I dragged Komachi towards the sofa, but I promptly placed it on her head and started grinding my knuckles into her skull.

"Remember how you always used to yell at me whenever you lost control and exploded a pen all on your own, and told me it was my fault?" I asked, and Komachi stilled for a second despite the knuckles bruising her scalp. Then, of course, she reached over her head and pulled my hand off of her head without me being able to put up much resistance, but I had still gotten the noogie in to begin with, so there.

"It totally was your fault, you jerk!" She said, then let out a whoosh of air as I tossed her unceremoniously on the couch. "You definitely used to drop things or make noises on purpose!"

"No I didn't," I lied. I absolutely had. In my defense, it was really funny. "Do you remember the rule you set up, for whenever I made you explode your pen, accident or otherwise?"

Komachi opened her mouth to object, then stopped. After a few seconds of struggle, she let out a noise like a disgruntled teakettle and folded her arms with a pout. "Fine," she said, looking at me sullenly. "I don't know how you expect me to help you with your homework, though," she said.

I sat next to her on the couch. "You can't," I said matter-of-factly. "That's why you're helping me with Quirk training, instead."

"Ugh," Komachi said immediately. "Quirk training is boring."

"And helping you with your homework wasn't?" I asked rhetorically.

"Nuh-uh," Komachi said immediately, shaking her head. "Helping your adorable little sister with her homework like a good big brother is super interesting, obviously."

I didn't bother dignifying that with a response, giving her a deadpan stare.

"Fiiine," Komachi said with a heavy sigh. "Can I at least go grab a book first, or something?"

"You can even grab your homework, if you want," I said. Predictably, Komachi looked back at me with disbelief that I would even bother to suggest such a boring course of action.

After a minute or two, we settled into comfortable positions for 'Quirk Training' - namely, I sat on one end of the couch, while Komachi sprawled out all over it, with her feet resting in my lap. From a distance, it probably looked like a brother putting up with his bratty sister, but up close, someone watching could probably see my face twisting in concentration, or the fine beads of sweat that started forming on my brow.

I wasn't just sitting there, trying to ignore my precocious sister's continual invasion of my personal space - I was channeling my copy of Death Arms' strength quirk, and doing my best to examine each and every difference in how his quirk worked from my sister's. This was the training I had discovered when Cyberpunch asked me to try to analyze Mrs. Kakin's quirk to see if it was related to one of the Quirks I had copied from the USJ Nomu; the act of holding onto a copied quirk as tightly as I possibly could, while at the same time focusing as much as I could on what my Quirk-analysis senses were telling me.

It was a little bit like trying to unfocus my eyes just right so I could see a 3-D picture… except if I was doing it with my entire body, not just my eyes, and if it gave me a crippling headache. And sympathetic muscle pains. And made my heart beat like I was running a race. But as I did, slowly, the similarities between my sister's quirk and Death Arms' became apparent. It was all little things - tendons attaching to bones in certain places to generate extra torque, denser bone structure, an incomplete feeling of 'enhancement' in the muscles of my sister's entire body versus a concentrated feeling in Death Arms', well, arms and torso.

My sister wasn't just my preferred training partner because there was no way anybody else would put up with me touching them for so long - her quirk also made her the common denominator of just about everyone she ever met. I wasn't sure, yet, what would happen if I tried to cross-reference two completely unrelated Quirks; the first time I had tried something like this, it was to prove that Mrs. Kakin really was the mother of one of the victims of whoever made that Nomu. Frankly, I knew that examining quirks for commonalities worked to stress my quirk out - so I was going to keep it up for as long as I kept getting results.

After a few minutes where it felt like my arms and head were going to fall off, I finally let the quirk go. I felt almost lightheaded at the sudden absence of strain. It was a little bit like the feeling I got after planking for two minutes straight, immediate relief combined with a lingering soreness… if, instead of the burn of lactic acid, the soreness was caused by math homework instead. And, just like I was doing planks or another exercise, after a few minutes I went right back and did it again. And again. And again. Holding it for less and less every time, but also - I hoped - stretching my quirk to the point where it could actually, finally, grow.

I had to take some painkillers for my headache before I could go back to stocking quirks and trying to do homework, but in the long run, having a stronger quirk was the answer. I was sure of it.

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Of course, in the short run, spending time exercising my quirk instead of storing up charges in Stockpile had its downsides. For instance…

phut phut phut

I put up a Reflect Racket in a reflexive attempt to block, but the disc of pseudo-force must have been too small to cover me completely, because all of a sudden I felt a stinging pain around my eyes as the goggles I was wearing got covered with paint. I heard a shrill whistle blow, and groaned in frustration.

"You're dead, Myriad!" Snipe-sensei's voice crackled in the earpiece of the helmet I was wearing as he called me out from his observation post above Training Ground Iota. "Head back to the waiting area!"

Out of all of the hero training we'd done so far, Paintballs vs Powers was rapidly becoming my least favorite. Sure, I understood the idea that even quirkless criminals could be dangerous to Pro Heroes as long as they had guns; I was totally on board with the idea of learning how to dodge bullets. And yeah, the average gangster didn't have much actual firearms training, so letting our fellow students act as the gun-wielding opposition made sense from that perspective. I even understood making the class a joint exercise with 1-B, since it was easier to run one hero against a bunch of gunmen if you had a bunch of extra students hanging around to work with.

"Suck on that, you 1-A bastard!"

But even though I understood all of that, I was still morally, spiritually, and ideologically opposed to any class where Monoma Neito got to gloat over shooting me in the face. Despite the fact that the 'Criminals' for the exercise were on a different radio channel than the 'Heroes', I could swear I heard him snickering as I did the walk of shame back to the starting area.

"I just got shot by Phantom Thief," I announced in a disgruntled voice to my team channel. "He was hiding behind the 'Eat At Restaurant' billboard. None of you guys saw him on your runs?" I asked.

"Sorry," a somewhat insincere-sounding voice spoke up over the radio. "Must have missed him." I didn't know the two 1-B students I'd been randomly assigned to be partners with that well, but it sounded more like Tsuburaba Kosei rather than Bondo Kojiro. In theory, all of us were supposed to be sharing intel with each other as a way of simulating the kind of help a hero might get from other members of law enforcement at the scene of a raid. In practice, my partners from 1-B were being… less than helpful.

"Um, the building with the restaurant billboard… is the billboard poking up over the top of the building?" Yuigahama's voice came over the radio. "If it's just hanging on the front, I don't know what that one looks like, from my side."

"Yeah, it's the one with the billboard poking up," I answered, twisting around to look at it again as I walked back to my starting zone to confirm. My goggles were still covered with green paint, but there were enough clear spots left that I could see where I was walking. The four of us 'Heroes' were surrounding a small complex of interconnected buildings, in which were hiding four 'Criminals' with paintball guns, who weren't allowed to use their quirks. To 'even the odds', however, the 'Hero' team was only allowed to send people in one at a time, and we all had to attack from different directions. "I don't think he could hide behind the sign if it was just on the front of the building."

"Oh, duh," Yuigahama said. "Um, is it okay if I go next?" she asked.

The voice that replied was definitely Bondo, I decided; his voice was deeper and huskier than Tsuburaba's. Not surprising, given that his quirk basically involved the ability to sneeze large quantities of glue at will. (Technically, even though he was very heteromorphic in appearance, I could copy his quirk. It was a strong quirk. It was useful, even. But I drew the line at giving myself glue-boogers.) "You went after Hikigaya last time," he said. "If we want to be unpredictable, Tsuburaba or I should probably go."

"Yuigahama's had the least tries of all of us," I retorted. The first couple times he or Tsuburaba had convinced Yuigahama to delay her turn, I hadn't said anything, but seeing them try to monopolize the exercise just to be petty was starting to irritate me. "If we want to be unpredictable, how about letting her take it twice in a row?"

After a long silence where, I was sure, our classmates from 1-B were trying to weigh whether they would get caught by the teachers if they kept trying to push things, Yuigahama spoke up. "Um, well, I'll try and catch everybody this round, so we can switch sides and it doesn't matter who goes after me."

"Oooh, somebody's confident," Tsuburaba said snarkily. "As expected from 1-A. Go ahead, show us what you've got."

I grimaced at Tsuburaba's snide tone. I didn't regret what I did in the Sports Festival, exactly. I had seen an opportunity, taken it, and - despite the way things had turned out thanks to Todoroki's sudden betrayal - more or less been rewarded for it. I got my internship with Cyberpunch, and my way to stay involved with the investigation into the League of Villains. Even had that decision not put me in the right time and place to save someone from getting killed by Stain, I still wouldn't regret it. But… I was starting to regret some of the unintended consequences.

"Are you guys sure you didn't see where any of the shots that hit you came from?" I asked over the radio. "Or, are there places that Yuigahama should be more careful in?"

"I think they're moving around," Bondo said. "You should probably just go, before they move around more," he suggested to Yuigahama.

I bit back a sigh of frustration. It wasn't exactly a bad suggestion… but it was also the sort of plausible but unhelpful suggestion I would have made, had I been deliberately sabotaging my teammate out of petty spite. Was it just my paranoia? Would the sort of person who was at UA, putting in the time and effort to be a hero, really do that? Then again, U.A. let me in, so clearly their student screening process wasn't perfect; and half the reason I was so suspicious of Bondo and Tsuburaba was that it felt like the sort of thing that I would do. "Go ahead, Yuigahama," I said. "We'll keep our eyes out for any movement, but there's lots of cover, so stay alert."

Matching actions to words, I switched quirks to Telescopic Vision, bringing the training ground into clearer focus. Training Ground Iota was sort of similar to Beta, in that they were both urban environments, but Iota was modeled after some of the smaller cities in Japan, or maybe Tokyo's satellite districts. Rather than dense buildings riddled with inner-city decay and blight, Iota's buildings were spaced apart by lawns, trees, and parking lots. In other words, there were a lot of open sight lines and long distances between us and the mixed-use residential complex the 'criminals' had holed up in. From my side of the complex, I could see a family restaurant and a five-story apartment building; the other side apparently had a parking garage, and a small park complete with swings and slides. That was a lot of space to play hide-and-seek in, even if the 'police' had supposedly 'confined the criminals to the top floor of the apartment'. It was an unrealistic way of enforcing the rules, maybe, but I was fine with that - I could totally picture us having to come back and repeat the exercise in a year or so, only with more 'realistic' complications like hostage-bots in the line of fire.

So, the top floor of the apartment, and anywhere that someone could reach from the top floor of the apartment without a Quirk. The roof of the restaurant was easy; the fire escape went right by it - plus, I'd already seen Monoma there. It was hard to judge the parking complex from where I stood. "Tsuburaba, Bondo," I asked over the radio, "can either of you see the parking complex from where you are? How hard would it be for someone to get into it?"

"There's some trees between the building and the parking structure," Tsuburaba said. "I'm not going to say it's impossible without a quirk, but you'd have to be pretty acrobatic."

"A normal guy without a quirk would have trouble, but I wouldn't put it past a UA student," I said.

"What, you think you could do it?" Tsuburaba asked challengingly.

"I can't see them from here," I said, slightly frustrated, "but yeah, maybe."

Tsuburaba didn't reply after that. The cynical part of me pictured him calling me a cocky bastard with his mic off. The other cynical part of me realized that he was absolutely going to pressure me into trying it once it was our turn to act as Criminals. Would it really be noticeable if I only used 1/108th of a quirk to make sure I succeeded? I was startled out of my pessimistic musings by Yuigahama's voice. "Aha! Got you, Yumiyumi!" she said. "I mean, uh, one criminal apprehended!" She said cheerfully.

"Great job," I said, "where was she hiding?"

"In a tree next to the park," Yuigahama said. "Even if I get shot now, they're down to three people permanently for the next person who goes, right?"

"Yeah," Bondo's phlegmy baritone answered. "Try not to get shot, though."

I raised an eyebrow. That sounded almost encouraging. I supposed even the most diehard haters of 1-A couldn't successfully hate someone as cheerful and friendly as Yuigahama. That didn't appear to count for not shooting at her, though, since suddenly I heard her yelp. "I'm okay!" she said a few seconds later. "I stopped the bullets with my quirk!"

"First strike," Snipe-sensei's drawling voice said over the radio. "Real bullets'll put holes in that fancy costume o' yours if'n you get hit too many times. Two more hits 'n you're out."

Yuigahama wasn't really the sort of person who would talk back to a teacher, but even if she had been, Snipe had let us all know before starting the exercise that he would be putting restrictions on those of us with invulnerability quirks to make it a more effective exercise for times when even people like Kirishima and Tetsutetsu would have to dodge instead of block, such as if Criminals or Villains got hold of support gear or had strong ranged quirks. So despite the fact I was pretty sure Yuigahama could take way more than three bullets, the next few minutes were an exercise in tension as Yuigahama did… something, either repositioned or maybe just hid and waited for a chance. I couldn't tell, not being able to see her from where I was, even after using a quirk to magnify my vision.

"Got another one!"

"Strike Two!"

"Ack!" For just a second, I saw a red blur of motion over the rooftop as Yuigahama bounced to find cover. "Um, guys, I think they were using Tetsutetsu-kun as bait."

"Makes sense," Tsuburaba said, "his hair is pretty shiny. You got him, though?"

"Yeah," Yuigahama said. "It's just Monoma-kun and Kirishima-kun left."

Eagerly, I pressed the talk button on the radio. "Monoma was up on the roof last I saw him," I reminded her. Not that I was anxious for her to get my revenge for me, or anything. "Did anybody see Kirishima on their runs?"

"Um, I think he was the one who just shot me," Yuigahama said. "He was in one of the apartments on the top floor."

"Well, you saw him, and Monoma saw Hikigaya last time, so they've probably both moved since," Tsuburaba said, "but it sounds like they're both trying to get as high as they can for visibility. If it was me, I'd try to get to the roof, hit 'em from behind while they're looking down."

"Okay!" Yuigahama said cheerfully. "I'll try it!" There was a short silence. As I watched from afar, I saw a flash of red as Yuigahama climbed to the rooftop, only for her to suddenly bounce high into the air in a frantic evasive maneuver. Internally, I winced. Snipe had warned us against predictable ballistic trajectories - and sure enough, I saw Yuigahama flinch mid-air.

"Strike Three!"

"My bad," Tsuburaba said. His voice sounded contrite, but I couldn't tell whether or not he was being honest. "Good work, though, you got two of them."

"Ehehe, thanks," Yuigahama said.

"We'll get the rest," Bondo boasted. "Speaking of which, I'm up next."

"Sure, go for it," Tsuburaba said, "and if you finish both of the rest of them off, I won't be mad."

Part of me wanted to protest that we hadn't actually decided on an order, but on second thought, I was on Tsuburaba's side - I could do with a switch from getting shot at to doing the shooting.

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I threw myself to the ground just in time for a burning bar of coherent light to narrowly miss hitting my face. As the photonic arrow turned the wall behind me into shrapnel, I scrambled for cover, crawling low on my elbows because my hands were occupied holding the paintball gun in a death-grip. It wasn't the first time I had been forced to go head-to-head against Miura in a class exercise. If I hadn't at least briefly sparred against everyone in class, it was pretty darn close, so in theory I should be used to staring down blinding bolts of concussive 'light'. Unfortunately, my usual strategies for dealing with her involved things like using a quirk to create a smokescreen, bouncing around like a pinball with Stockpile to throw off her aim, and other such quirk-reliant strategies. Thanks to the rule that the shooters couldn't use their quirks, I was having to clamp down on my first, second, and third instinctive responses in order to play fair with the exercise, and it was seriously starting to throw me off. Keeping my head down, I crawled through the fake living room to the kitchen, wincing as Miura's next attack blasted a hole in the wall where I had been just a few seconds ago.

I pressed myself against the wall next to the refrigerator, wondering if I should maybe try to tip it over against the wall by the kitchen window to use as a sturdier barricade. Miura's arrows were going through brick, though, so I doubted a refrigerator would slow them down any more than the walls. No, better to wait for Miura's next shot, then maybe pop up and see if I could hit her with counterfire… except she wasn't shooting. Raising one hand to the side of my head, I pressed the button on my headset. "Can anybody see Miura?" I asked.

"Yes. She's still right over where you are," Bondo said, his phlegmy voice full of dismay. "She's got an arrow ready and is just holding it."

Fuck. "Can you shoot her?" I asked.

"I don't think so, not from where I am. The range on these paintball guns isn't too good," he said.

I took a deep breath of frustration. "Try anyways," I said, "just be ready to duck and shout. I'll pop up and see if I can hit her once she's not literally watching and waiting for me."

For a second, all I could hear over the radio was empty static. It lasted long enough that I started to prepare myself to leave and find another spot, but all of a sudden Bondo spoke back up. "Okay," he said. "Ready."

I tensed, bringing the gun up to my chest. My hands were slick against the molded plastic.

"Now," I heard Bondo shout into my ears, followed by an inarticulate yell as the entire building shook. I pivoted, using my shoulder to quickly roll into firing position, and braced for a potential follow-up arrow from Miura. Instead of catching coherent plasma to the face, however, I looked down to see Miura sprinting towards the building, trying to reach cover before we could respond. I braced my arms on the windowsill for stability and fired at her repeatedly, my fingers tightening around the trigger almost convulsively.

"Yes!" I crowed with glee as I saw a splotch of red paint appear on the shoulder of Miura's orange cloak.

"That's a kill shot, Shooting Star," Snipe's voice crackled over the radio. "Head on back."

"Way to go Hikki!" Yuigahama said. "Sorry I got taken out already, I wish I could have helped more."

It's okay, Yuigahama. I've seen your attempts at aiming. You did well just luring Miura into a false sense of security. "It was just bad luck," I lied.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Tsuburaba surprisingly chimed in. "How you holding up, Bondo? You still alive, or did Miura manage to nail you?"

"The building collapsed on me a little bit, but I'm okay," Bondo said. There was another pause, as the three of us started steeling ourselves for the next round, but after a few seconds Bondo spoke up again. "Good shooting, Hikigaya."

Despite myself, I felt a smile peeking up at the corners of my mouth. For all that it sounded like a banal and meaningless pleasantry, I couldn't help but take it as a peace offering. "You too," I said, "Good job drawing her attention. Couldn't have done it without you." I'd made a mistake when I led 1-A into battle as a unified team against 1-B during the Sports Festival, but at least it wasn't the sort of mistake that the teachers couldn't help fix.

…Or, at least, that was what I thought - right up until Kirishima came through a wall, shouting about how "1-B punks weren't good enough to take him down!" Despite the fact that we had all combined our forces at the top of the apartment complex in hopes of taking Kirishima down through weight of fire, I was too far away to stop him as he barrelled towards Bondo and laid him out with a charging lariat that toppled his glue-headed bulk. As Kirishima turned in my direction, I couldn't help but feel a sliver of trepidation. In his hardened form and oni-like costume, in the dim light of the apartment hallway, covered with red paint from ineffectual paintballs and plaster dust from the wall he just burst through, Kirishima almost looked more like a monster than a man.

Bravely, Tsuburaba stepped out in front of me, firing for Kirishima's center of mass, but Kirishima just ignored the paintballs and tackled him, grabbing him around the waist and throwing him to the ground. "Boom!" Kirishima said gloatingly. "Easier than taking down villains at the USJ!" Again, my heart chilled. How had I forgotten? My class was full of hot-blooded, overly competitive idiots! There was only so long that they could be exposed to 1-B's declarations of eternal rivalry before they started taking it seriously!

As Kirishima looked up at me to grin in seeming pride at having taken Tsuburaba down, I repeatedly pulled the trigger, my paintballs splattering all across his jagged face. Kirishima didn't flinch, but as he started preparing to make his third and final arrest of the exercise, our comms came to life. "You're out, Kirishima," Snipe said. "You're pretty tough, but you're not quite tough enough to shrug off getting shot in the eye at point-blank range just yet."

Kirishima immediately slumped, and his skin returned to normal. "Aw, man!" He groaned. "I totally got cocky there, didn't I?" Sheepishly, he put a paint-splattered hand behind his head and scratched at it, heedless of the fact he was getting paint and ust in his spiky red hair.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "You think?" I said dryly. Inwardly, my thoughts were racing. Should I say something? I felt like I should say something to stick up for Bondo or Tsuburaba, but getting all preachy at Kirishima would annoy him, and there was no guarantee that the 1-B students would even appreciate it if I did say anything. Already, they were grumbling and groaning their way to their feet, and I could see sullen resentment in their eyes as they looked towards Kirishima. Which was normal for people who had just been eliminated from the exercise, but I couldn't help but read deeper into. I had to say something. "Kirishima."

"Yeah?" He looked at me, smiling brightly.

"..." My tongue stuck in my throat. Where did I even start? "... this isn't a shonen anime," I eventually said.

Kirishima's sheepish look vanished, and he straightened up. "Right," he said.

I wanted to go further, to tell him to stow the rivalry bullshit, but Bondo and Tsuburaba were already headed out to the rest area, and Snipe reminded us to reset the field for the next student, so I just shook my head and let Kirishima leave.

Kirishima taking this all more seriously would hopefully help, but if I was going to sort out this whole rivalry between the classes and stop it before it got fully entrenched, there was one person in particular who I really needed to convince.

And luckily for me, I was pretty sure I was about to go up against him, one-on-one. Neither he nor Tetsutetsu had made an attempt at 'arresting gun-wielding criminals' yet, but if Kirishima told them that I was the only person on Team Criminal remaining, I felt pretty confident that Monoma would insist on being the one to come forward.

But if we were going to actually have a chance to talk, this apartment building wasn't the place for it. The confines were too narrow; if Monoma came up the stairs here, I'd only have the space of a few steps to either shoot him or convince him to talk. I needed to go somewhere he'd have to actually think about his approach long enough to listen.

Two minutes later, it turned out I was right - you actually could get into the parking structure from the apartment complex, if you were willing to jump out of a window and trust that you could grab a tree branch before you hit the ground, then jump again out of the tree and pull yourself up on the concrete lip of the parking structure. If I had been planning an ambush, it would have been the perfect spot to set one up; the windows on the side of the building gave a great view of the staircase leading up while being reasonably camouflaged. As Monoma crept slowly up the stairwell, obviously on guard against any attempted ambush from above, but not looking out the window, part of me was a little tempted to return the favor from earlier in the exercise. I even lined up his head in my iron sights, before I finally sighed and changed my mind.

As Monoma made it about halfway up the third floor stairs, I fired a few paintballs through the window in front of him, painting the wall at the top of stairs with several splotches of red. "Hey," I called out. "Can we talk?"

Predictably, Monoma dove down the stairs for cover, but after a few seconds with me not firing, dared a quick glimpse out the window in my direction, only to see me standing out in the open with my gun on the side of the parking structure and both hands in the air, level with my head. "What?" Monoma said, outrage already creeping into his voice. "What are you doing? Are you looking down on me, just because I can't copy any useful quirks right now?"

I wasn't, but I would be lying if the fact that the exercise wouldn't let him copy Miura the way it was set up right now didn't make what I was trying to do a whole lot easier. Also, I was a whole floor above him, so in a purely physical sense, he wasn't wrong. "I just want to talk, that's all." I said again.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Monoma said contemptuously, pressing his body against the side of the window so that he could keep an eye on me while exposing as little of his profile to gunfire as possible. "And even if I did, I wouldn't waste time doing it in the middle of class."

"Just think of it like you're negotiating a criminal down," I joked, but the smile didn't stay on my face. "Listen, Monoma. I get why you're angry at what happened during the Sports Festival. I screwed up. I shouldn't have made everyone team up like that." I paused, but all Monoma responded with was silence, so I kept going. "But, most of 1-A? They're good people." Real heroes, better than me. "If there's anyone you should be mad at, it's me. Don't take it out on everyone in the class."

"Oh, so now you're concerned about other people being collateral damage for one of your schemes?" Monoma mocked. "Don't be ridiculous. So what if you came up with the idea? They all went along with it. Good people?" He laughed. "Says who?"

I grit my teeth as Monoma stepped away from the window. I knew this wouldn't be easy, or likely, but I still had to try. "I'm not saying you have to like them or be friends with them," I said, yelling a little louder to make sure he could still hear me from wherever he'd moved to. "I'm just asking you to stop treating them like the enemy and going off the rails every time you see them. Why do you think we're on mixed teams today? It's because the teachers are trying to show us we have to work together, and-"

All of a sudden, Monoma leapt out of the window, jumping just enough to brace his feet on the windowsill before catapulting himself across the gap between the parking structure and the apartment building. I gaped as his hands caught the ledge of the floor below me, then brought his feet up in time to cushion his momentum and provide enough extra traction to let him climb over the edge smoothly. He looked up at me with an exhilarated, savage grin. "If they were showing us we had to work together, then why did they put me in an exercise where I couldn't use my quirk? Well, not like I need it to take you down. After all," he said, then stepped forward into the parking structure, out of my line of sight. "You're only 1-A."

Groaning, I picked up my paintball gun and headed towards the center of the parking structure, trying to place myself equidistant between the ramp and the nearer stairwell, keeping my eyes more on the latter, but also making sure to look around every so often in case Monoma could climb up the outside of the structure. I would be a little surprised if he could manage it without a quirk, but I hadn't expected him to make that jump without even using one of the trees, either. "Why didn't you just take the first assault?" I called out, slowly turning in place as I surveyed the parking structure. There were enough cars inside it that Monoma would have plenty of cover no matter what direction he came from, but I was far enough away from them all that Monoma would have to cross a stretch of open ground before he could make it into melee with me. By the rules of the exercise, he only needed to land one hit on me to knock me out, but by the same measure, I only had to shoot him once. "If you'd gone straight from the Criminal Team to being the first Hero attacking, you probably still would have had some time on your copies, right?"

I turned on my heel as I heard the soft sound of a latch being turned. The door to the staircase cracked open - not a lot, but enough to allow for conversation, and for someone to peer out from behind it and survey the area. "I asked," Monoma's voice said, "But your classmate Miura was such a 'good person' that she insisted on going first."

I winced, and backed up away from the door towards the ramp. I wasn't confident about hitting Monoma with both the door and several cars in the way, but once he left the stairwell I would have a better shot, and putting more distance between me and the door would give me more chances to shoot him before he could close with me. "So, I mean, I'm not trying to make excuses for her, because that's not cool, and I don't mean to blame you… but have you considered that maybe if you were less antagonistic towards 1-A, she would have considered it?"

Monoma didn't respond, but the door stayed open. Was he listening?

"I mean, Kirishima came up just before you, and he was yelling about 1-B like he was mad at them, and that's not usually his style." I took a bead on the open door - I was hopeful Monoma would see reason, but everything I had seen from him so far made me pretty sure he was going to rush me at some point. I was tempted to ready Adrenaline Rush for that split-second of bullet time so I could make it more of a sure thing, but… no. I was going to play this exercise straight. "Which kind of makes me wonder if you were yelling about 1-A this, and 1-A that, when you were all supposed to be working together, you know? And I feel bad, because I feel like you'd like Kirishima if you got to know him. And more to the point, I feel like Tsuburaba and Bondo would have liked Kirishima if their first real interaction with him wasn't him acting like a jerk towards 1-B. I mean, do we really have to let things get out of hand like this?"

The only clue I had that something was wrong was the soft impact of cloth on concrete. I whirled around to see Monoma in a crouch, all too close behind me. In belated shock, I realized that he must have climbed all the way to the fourth floor, then hung down from the lip of the parking ramp, and swung off of it to get behind me. Before I could get my paintball gun on target, Monoma kicked out the back of my knee with a shoeless foot while pushing on the side of my head. I went sprawling over the cold concrete, barely getting my hands up in time to avoid landing face first, my gun spinning across the garage with a noisy clatter. "If you think that telling me I'm helping the rest of my class realize what kind of hypocrites you all are is going to stop me," Monoma said gloatingly, "you're really, really underestimating me. I mean, more than you already were," he said, running a satisfied hand through his hair. "I mean, trying to bluff me out with mind games, but then falling for the shoe in the door trick? How oblivious can you be?"

As I listened to Monoma gloat, suddenly, I realized. I should have just taken the shot when I had the chance.

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I left that class feeling pretty dispirited, but it wasn't long before something came my way to change my mood.

Specifically, by dropping it even further.

The next morning, Eraserhead stood up at the front of the classroom and, as casual as ever, dropped an earthshaking announcement. "We will be doing a forest lodge trip over summer break," he said. As the class erupted in cheers and excited babble, I couldn't help but grimace. The purpose of summer break was to have a break. It was in the name! The mere thought of lying on the couch in the air-conditioning, able to play video games without guilt or the crushing weight of responsibility hanging above my head, was enough to have me staring off into space misty-eyed. Giving that up to go off into the bug-filled woods, and have to engage in meaningless social events like hikes and cookouts? The only thing worse than that would be…

"However, if you don't pass your final exams… you'll be stuck in summer school, in remedial hell." Right. That. Like I didn't have enough to worry about. As the class predictably erupted in panic, Eraserhead called Yaoyorozu and I up to the front of the class during homeroom. "Just so you two are aware, Student Council meetings start tomorrow."

I couldn't help but blink repeatedly, as if the act of closing my eyes over and over would somehow increase my comprehension of the words he just said. "Sorry, what?"

"Student Council," he repeated, slightly exasperated. "As a class representative, you're obliged to attend meetings. Every other week after school, starting tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, exciting!" Yaoyorozu said, her face lighting up in a wide smile. "I was wondering when the meetings were going to start. Vice-representatives can attend too, right?"

"You're generally only expected to participate if the class rep is unavailable," Eraserhead said, "but there's no rule against you both attending, and you wouldn't be the first to do so."

With dawning horror, I asked, "I thought the student council was supposed to be a thing for the general education students? I mean, we had an election for it a few weeks ago, and there weren't any hero students running." At the time, I hadn't thought much about Student Council other than enjoying the novelty of being bored out of my mind listening to campaign speeches instead of being bored out of my mind listening to class lectures, and I had mentally filed it away under 'things too boring to care about.' Who knew that it would suddenly return to haunt me?

Eraserhead looked at me, a smirk turning up on his lips as if he enjoyed my pain. "Actual officer positions on the student council are, yes. But having a member from each class that can communicate the results of student council meetings to their classmates is only logical."

Logical, right. That was the first thing I thought of, when I pictured 40-50 person meetings. Even everyone going around and introducing themselves would take all day! I managed to hold in my groan of dismay until I made it back to my desk, at which point I promptly collapsed on it in despair.

"I've never gotten the chance to participate in Student Council before," Yaoyorozu bubbled, oblivious to my pain. "It's a shame that we're too busy to take up officer roles, but even just attending should be very illuminating, don't you think?"

"Ugh," I grunted.

"I mean, we get to make connections with other leaders in the school, and interact with our upperclassmen, and see how the officers lead meetings and organize everything, and get practice with meeting etiquette, and … well, I'm sure there's some benefits I haven't even thought of, yet!"

I sat up and twisted in my chair to face her. "And all at the low, low cost of two hours a week we'll never get back," I said with my voice dripping sarcasm. "What a joy."

Yaoyorozu frowned. "You've remarked before about being perpetually busy," she said with concern. "Is it really so bad?"

"I already don't have enough time to study," I said, my voice flat. "I'm fine in Japanese and History, but I'm not keeping up in Math, and English is borderline." And I couldn't exactly make up for it by cramming late into the night, because I would be too busy cramming enough powers into Stockpile to pass the practical exam right after the academic final.

"Oh. I see." Yaoyorozu said, looking slightly taken aback. "I hadn't considered that."

I shrugged and turned back to face the front of the classroom. "I'll figure out a way to handle it… somehow," I said. Inwardly, however, my mind was racing. Could I take it easy in a few more hero classes, conserve Stockpile charges? Even if the teachers didn't catch me and call me out on it, Bakugo would… and the whole reason I was putting myself through all of this work was to get the skills I needed to participate in the Nomu investigation. Half-assing my practical classes would sort of defeat the point. Maybe I could start taking the train instead of biking, and try to study on the way to & from school? Not likely…

I was about half an inch from seriously contemplating cheating on the exam when Yaoyorozu spoke up. "You know, we discussed me tutoring you, back before we all left for internships. Why don't we set that up?" In surprise, I turned back around to stare at her. Her dark eyes were shining with excitement. Sitting up a little straighter, she put one hand to her ample chest. "I don't mean to brag, but I'm fairly capable with the academic portion of things."

A year or two ago, being offered the opportunity to spend time with a classically beautiful girl like Yaoyorozu, especially since I also admired her and liked her as a person, would have sent me into spasms of wild fantasy. I would have been halfway towards planning our wedding by the time I actually got around to saying yes. Two weeks ago, when it was a casual offer made in the middle of an arcade, it had seemed like a harmless way to make her feel better about being socially ostracized. Today, on the heels of this student council bullshit, it rankled. Where did she get off, offering me pity? It's not like I was stupid. I just had to find the time and energy to study, somehow, that's all.

But as I opened my mouth to reject her, I discovered that my classmates didn't have the same instinctive revulsion to the notion of being helped. "Oh my gosh, could you teach me, too?" All of a sudden, Ashido Mina appeared out of nowhere, her black-scleraed eyes open wide in a pitiful expression. "Like, I'm totally gonna fail at the end of the semester if this keeps up."

It was like she had rung a dinner bell. All around the room, the desperate and the lowly, those of us in the class who had no hope of passing the final exams as things stood, either turned towards Yaoyorozu with desperation in their eyes, or cast similar pleading expressions towards their friends. "Um, I'll totally study with you too, Hikki!" Yuigahama said, bouncing over to Yaoyorozu and me, followed shortly thereafter by Jiro, who twirled her earlobes around her finger in embarrassment even as she inserted herself into the study session, followed by Kaminari, who actually got down to one knee in front of Yaoyorozu with his hands pressed together in silent prayer.

Good. All of you can soak up Yaoyorozu's instincts to help people, and I'll just come up with reasons why you all should go on without me. "I don't know if I can really do a group study session," I said, putting one hand behind my head in faux embarrassment even as I desperately tried to think of an excuse. "My parents are just about never home," I said, "so I usually need to head straight back after school to look after my sister."

"Oh, yeah, I remember her!" Ashido chimed in, looking at me with sympathy. "She introduced herself after the Sports Festival. She seemed nice!" Ashido said, thereby proving either that she was polite enough not to speak poorly of my bratty little sister directly to my face, or - more likely - that Komachi's general cuteness was enough to give people sufficiently positive impressions of her that they would ignore how much of a pain in the ass she was.

"Oh." Yaoyorozu briefly looked down in disappointment before her eyes lit up. "In that case, why don't we hold the study session at your house?" With all my power, I clamped down on my facial muscles, trying not to display the sudden shock and horror such a suggestion inspired. I wasn't mentally prepared to have half a dozen classmates judge me on my living space! "It won't be any trouble at all. In fact, I'm excited! I've never been over to a friend's house after school before!"

Neither had I, but you didn't see me complaining! Much. These days. And no, I wasn't feeling guilty about continuing to reject her. "I mean, do you really want to come all the way to Chiba just to help me study?" I asked.

"That's right, you're in Chiba too!" Ashido said, giving me a wide grin. "Chiba buddies!"

Yuigahama also nodded enthusiastically. "Futsunashi's super close, no problem!"

"I mean, I'm in Saitama, that's not too far either," Denki chimed in.

Jiro shrugged, still twirling her earlobe around one finger. "Shizuoka," she said, "but I can deal."

Although my heart sank with each person's agreement, I held out hope that Yaoyorozu would find Chiba too inconvenient to travel from… wherever it was that she lived. "I generally go home to the family estate in Nagoya on the weekends," Yaoyorozu said, not noticing the people behind her silently mouthing 'family estate' in disbelief, "but I'm staying at one of our rental properties nearby UA, so that won't be too much of an imposition," she said. "And if we do decide to get together on the weekend, I can always borrow the family helicopter."

Before Yaoyorozu could reveal the existence of a family train car on the Shinkansen or suggest riding from her apartment in Musutafu to Chiba on the family unicorn, I decided to just bow to the inevitable and give in, just to spare myself the secondhand embarrassment. "If you're sure," I said hesitantly, making it as clear as possible that she could still back out at any time. "Then, I guess I can probably find a day that would work?"

After all, it wouldn't be too hard to indefinitely stall until it was too late. It's not like they would immediately set up a group chat and a shared calendar and start planning dates…

Fuck.

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It seemed like Yaoyorozu had kicked off a trend in the classroom, because there were probably half a dozen study groups set up by the time homeroom was done. Even in our HEART group, it was still a topic of discussion.

Although that might have also had something to do with the fact that we were otherwise struggling to find things to talk about. For all that I understood why Katsuki had blown me up the other day, I still wasn't exactly happy with him, and vice versa. And although it had sort of seemed like Yukinoshita and I were on pretty good terms after Hosu, I suddenly realized that I hadn't really talked to her since the Charity Ball, and even in our HEART sessions it seemed like that trend was continuing. Part of me wanted to just straight-up ask her what was wrong, and if she was avoiding me, but it was drowned out by all of the conflict-avoidant and otherwise socially awkward parts of me that were much more prepared to tell me that it was all in my imagination, and what right did I have to demand that she talk to me, anyway?

If it had just been the three of us, we might have sat in silence until our HEART client showed up. In fact, most ordinary people might have felt intimidated by the awkward silence that existed between Yukinoshita, Katsuki, and me, and wound up contributing to it rather than breaking it. Yuigahama Yui, on the other hand, was made of much sterner stuff. "Ne, ne, Yukinon, you should come join our study group," Yuigahama said with a big smile.

Yukinoshita glanced at me briefly, then shook her head, taking a second afterwards to brush her hair away from her forehead. "Thank you for the offer, but I don't need help studying," she said politely.

"I know," Yuigahama said, "but I totally do! I mean, what if Yaomomo isn't enough?"

Predictably, Bakugo snorted. "You know, if you actually bothered to study during the school year, you wouldn't be stuck depending on other people to help you pass your classes," he said with a smirk.

"I have to wonder," Yukinoshita said, raising an eyebrow with contempt at Bakugo, "if your contempt for group study sessions has anything to do with your own inadequacies as a teacher."

"Haahh?" Bakugo asked aggressively, putting one palm flat on the table even as he turned towards Yukinoshita.

"I'm just saying, you don't exactly seem like someone who could actually manage to teach someone else successfully, that's all," Yukinoshita said.

Bakugo laughed derisively. "Shows what you know. I'm tutoring Kirishima. I'm gonna beat shit into his thick head whether he likes it or not. Who are you teaching, Ice Queen? Because you're talking a lot of shit for someone who isn't putting their money where their mouth is."

Yukinoshita sniffed. "Well, now that you mention it, I wasn't planning on participating in any sort of group study activities. But, Hagakure-chan did ask me and a few others for help, and her position in class is similar enough to Kirishima's. I suppose I could help her, if you're really keen on making a contest out of this."

"Or you could have me get better grades than Kirishima, that'd be pretty good too, right Yukinon?" Yuigahama asked, her eyes wide and pleading.

"Yes, yes, I'll help you too, Yui-chan." Although she acted like it was an imposition, I could tell she seemed pleased by the request. Wait, was Yukinoshita jealous that Yuigahama had asked Yaoyorozu first?

Meanwhile, Bakugo stared me down, silently demanding that I ask him for help in competing against Yuigahama for grades. Which, first of all, was insulting. I might not have scored as well as I could have on the last couple of tests, but I wasn't in Yuigahama territory. And secondly, pretty much the last thing I wanted to do was make the dynamics of our group even more awkward by introducing a competition that would split the group in two. Instead, I picked up the folder containing the details of the HEART client that would be arriving any moment, who we were supposed to be discussing.

Once again, our client appeared to be a beautiful girl. For the first time, that appearance lined up with reality. I had basically just enough time to review the bare-bones HEART request - 'please help me make friends' - before the door opened, and our client stepped in. She was a heteromorph, but in the way that you commonly saw on television - one or two obviously inhuman features, combined with otherwise celebrity-level conventional attractiveness. The line between 'exotic beauty' and 'subhuman temptress' was thin, according to internet bigots, and for better or for worse, with only a pair of cat ears peeking through her long purple hair to distinguish her as heteromorphic, Shouko Komi was on the so-called 'right side' of that line.

Given the fact that my heart started beating faster just by virtue of her walking into the room, I somehow doubted that anti-heteromorph prejudice was the reason that she bothered submitting a HEART request. "Uh, hi," I said, doing my best to organize the files about her I had in some inconspicuous semblance of order. "You're Komi-san, correct?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything. It was hard to tell, but even though her face was utterly impassive, something about her seemed nervous. I tore my attention away from her to glance in Yukinoshita's direction, expecting the other girl to make some sort of snarky comment in my direction about not taking advantage of our clients or something, but surprisingly Yukinoshita also didn't say anything, meeting my eyes but then looking away hurriedly. As the silence once again threatened to stretch too long, once again Yuigahama saved the day. "Ano, it says here you're looking for… help making friends?"

Komi-san nodded again, a somewhat hasty, jerky motion. Was she… vibrating, slightly?

"Feh, making friends is easy," said the absolute worst candidate in the entire school for teaching people how to be friends with someone else. Bakugo put one hand down on the desk and jabbed a thumb at himself aggressively. "I'm popular as shit," he said, delusional. "I'll teach you, so listen up!"

Yukinoshita's sudden snort of derision and no-doubt scathing rebuttal was suddenly derailed as Komi's cat ears perked up through her purple hair and she stared at Bakugo with glittering, hopeful eyes. The motion was frankly adorable, and it made Yukinoshita break down in a coughing fit to cover the fact that she nearly cooed over Komi's cuteness. I stared at Yukinoshita, fascinated, wondering if I was watching the formation of a lesbian crush in real-time, or if she really was just that much of a cat person.

"Um, well," Yuigahama said loudly to cover up Yukinoshita's failure to breathe like a normal person, "just keep in mind, Bakubaku, what works for you won't necessarily work for everybody, but yeah, I suppose we can start with your suggestions?"

Bakugo smirked. "It's simple. Start with getting really good at shit. Grades, sports, whatever. Then, when all of the extras around you - I mean, people who aren't as good as you at shit - need help, they'll all start sucking up to you like chumps." He paused. "Uh, I mean, it'll be easy to make friends by helping them and shit, yeah."

"Or they'll get jealous of you and start to hate you," Yukinoshita pointed out. "Especially if you're trying to make friends with women, it's definitely possible that being visibly superior to everyone can… breed… resentment…" Her speech started to falter as Komi's ears drooped and her eyes visibly started to water. "Or, um, that was my experience."

"But Ice Queen here is kind of a rancid bitch, so unless you are too you don't have to worry about that shit," Bakugo said smugly.

"Says the inbred ape too delusional to notice the fact that most of the people he interacts with day-to-day can only barely tolerate him," Yukinoshita snapped.

I faked a loud cough to try to break up the argument before it could really get going. "Right, so that's Bakugo's strategy; just be better than everyone else." I said it with deep and abiding sarcasm, and was only mildly surprised to see him nodding along as though I had summarized it correctly. "Any other feedback on that strategy? Yuigahama?" I asked, hoping that she could somehow salvage things in a non-insane way.

Yuigahama gave Komi a practiced smile that could only have come from dealing with those two psychoes day in and day out. "Um, yeah! So, maybe if your grades aren't so good, you can kind of use the opposite of that strategy, and ask someone with good grades for help as a way to start making friends with them."

"Is that why you asked Yaoyorozu-san for help this morning?" Yukinoshita asked Yuigahama. "To make better friends with her?"

"I, um…" Yuigahama scratched her head with embarrassment. "Not really? I was mostly just really desperate," she said. "But it's a bonus, don't you think?"

Yukinoshita's gaze turned to me, and I put my hands up in an X in front of me. "I didn't even ask for help, everyone just suddenly decided that they were coming over to my house," I complained. All of a sudden, I noticed that Komi's attention was now locked on me. Those wide eyes and pointed ears were lethal weapons. As a long-time cat owner myself, I was about half a second away from trying to pet her head, and only the fact that she was also an intimidatingly pretty girl was enough for me to contain myself.

"Uh, right, so… I guess I should give some tips too?" I said, searching my memory desperately for any advice I could give people on how to make friends. "I guess… look for weirdos, loners, and other sorts of people who don't have much in the way of friends themselves," I said, my mind going back to middle school, and the friend I hadn't known to appreciate at the time. "Practically speaking, those kinds of people are usually pretty desperate for someone to spend time with them, so you don't really have to do much to make friends with them besides interacting with them on a regular basis."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Yukinoshita open her mouth, and then close it. Which I took as an indication that something was seriously wrong with her. Yukinoshita wasn't exactly someone I commonly associated with remaining silent, after all.

On the other side of the room, however, Bakugo apparently had no such compulsion. "The only problem with that plan is that then you're stuck with all of your friends being weirdos and losers because you decided to live your life on easy mode."

"U-um, and also you might need to do more than just interact with them casually," Yuigahama said hurriedly, "you should try to be nice to them and stuff, be a friend to them first so they'll be a friend back, you know?"

I didn't bother correcting Yuigahama - it was her good fortune that she'd never met, nor been, someone quite so desperate before. On the other hand, the contemptuous note in Bakugo's voice made my eyebrow twitch. "Telling someone to try something easy first to learn the skills they need for 'hard mode'," I said, making air quotes with my fingers, "is called 'common sense'."

"Yeah, I don't really pay attention when extras say shit like that," Bakugo said, a shit-eating grin on his face even as he dug around in his ear canal with his pinky finger.

"Evidence suggests that you don't really pay attention to other people at all," Yukinoshita said dryly. "But unfortunately, Hikigaya-san's suggestion is -" again, she stopped. Was she biting her tongue? "- that is, it might not be the best one for Komi-san to try," she said. "Speaking as a beautiful girl myself, I sometimes have found that upon interacting with social outcasts, that they find themselves too intimidated to respond properly." Upon hearing this bit of narcissism, Komi's enthusiastic eyes latched full-force onto Yukinoshita. She actually nodded in seeming agreement! Wait, was that actually a thing, and not just Yukinoshita being Yukinoshita? Unfortunately, Komi-san paying such close attention to Yukinoshita had some… predictable results. "And… um… that is…" Yukinoshita got more and more flustered, until finally she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "There's also the possibility that a social outcast will wind up being some kind of disgusting reprobate and mistake Komi-san's friendliness for some kind of romantic interest."

Seeing Komi-san suddenly shiver in place, I sighed. "You don't have to be a creep to accidentally get the wrong impression off of someone," I grumbled, rolling my eyes at Yukinoshita. "Accidents happen to everyone."

"You don't, but it certainly helps," Yukinoshita fired back, then suddenly frowned. "I - that is - no, you're right," she said, nodding her head at me deferentially.

For a second, I just sat there, dumbfounded. "What the shit," I said. "Okay, time out. What's going on with you?" I asked her.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Yukino lied, her discomfort obvious.

"Uh huh." I said. "No, seriously. Normally, me giving you a line like that involves you giving me third degree burns. And all of a sudden you're letting it pass, and even agreeing with me? I'm not the only one who thinks that's weird, right?" I asked Bakugo and Yuigahama.

"I, umm…" Yuigahama said, not meeting either of our eyes, 'NOT GETTING INVOLVED' practically written on her forehead in large block print.

Bakugo was also looking at Yukinoshita curiously. "I mean, yeah, Ice Queen's usually bitchier…"

"Let's just move on for now," Yukinoshita said hurriedly, "we're in the middle of a consultation." She turned to Komi-san. "As I was saying, if you do decide to try to make friends with social outcasts, you should probably stick to other women. There's still a possibility of deviant behavior, of course, but the risks are generally lesser. With that said, I would recommend maybe searching for friends among people with common interests?" Yukinoshita suggested. "I myself didn't have many friends until I made it into UA, but once I started meeting other hero, um, students…" Once again, I had to hide a smile as Yukinoshita had to tear her eyes away from Komi's attentive listening expression. "... It also helps that the average caliber of students here at UA is much higher than other places, so I've found that people being intimidated away or developing petty jealousies has been significantly less common."

"So you're saying that there's less extras around here," Bakugo said. "Now, why didn't I notice?"

"I assure you, Bakugo, that I said no such thing. Maybe it's because I don't continually concuss myself by setting off explosions within arms reach, but for some reason I just don't think of other people as though they're literal non-entities."

I couldn't help but laugh. "You sure about that?" I said.

Yukinoshita flushed a deeper red. "Present company excepted," she said haughtily. For a second, I was happy to see her back to normal, but she suddenly frowned and turned away from me, looking guilty.

"Ah ha ha," Yuigahama laughed nervously. "Don't mind them," she told Komi-san. "Um, it may seem like this group doesn't really like each other, but we're actually all friends," she said. "Everybody just likes to tease each other and joke around." Komi-san looked excited at that, so Yuigahama hurried to clarify. "Not that I'm saying you should act like any of them! Uh, you should probably get to know someone well before you start doing anything like that, and even then you should take it slow first! Don't use them as role models, really!"

Idly, I expected someone, either Bakugo or Yukinoshita, to speak up and audibly reject the notion of being friends with each other, or in Yukinoshita's case, with me. But as the silence stretched on, and nobody said anything, I couldn't help but feel oddly heartened. "So, then, Miss Role Model, what kind of advice do you have for our client, here?" I asked Yuigahama.

Yuigahama put one finger to her mouth thoughtfully. "Um, well… actually, we've all kind of been just talking at Komi-san, and haven't really listened to her story yet, so I think we should probably do that, so we can give better advice." She gave Komi a warm smile. "So, what kinds of things have you already tried doing to make friends?" She asked. "Is there anyone specific you want to be friends with, or are you really just looking for more general advice?"

Komi sat there quietly, as if gathering her thoughts. And sat there some more. After at least a full minute had passed, she suddenly stood up, bowed, and left the room.

Dumbfounded, Yuigahama turned to the rest of us. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Nah, she probably just realized she ran out of time or something," Bakugo said.

"Or you finally chased her away with your offensive language," Yukino accused him, setting off a new round of bickering.

Personally, I had my suspicions. As I belatedly realized that Komi-san never spoke a single word during the entire consultation, it made me wonder if she maybe had a quirk that impeded her voice… or was maybe just that shy. I wondered if I would find out the next time she came in for another consultation, but the very next morning, we received a HEART report giving us yet another improbable five-star review, thanking us profusely for all of the valuable (?) advice. For all that part of me still thought that HEART was a waste of time, it seemed like it had been of value to someone.

I somehow doubted I would say the same about Student Council.