Today was rescue training!

Earlier that morning, Aizawa announced that they'd be going on a field trip. Class 1-A was promptly herded onto a bus bound for a facility that specialized in simulating disaster scenarios—fires, earthquakes, flooding, and everything in between. Additionally, two special guest teachers would meet them there.

This wasn't a surprise to any of the students. Apparently, they were actually supposed to do rescue training last week, but it was delayed because the class had to redo the Battle Trial. Class 1-B had gone last week instead, and they were happy to spill the beans about everything.

Izuku was so excited!

The bus was filled with friendly chatter as they drove to their destination. Overall, most of the class seemed pumped, but there were a handful of exceptions. Katsuki seemed pissed that he wouldn't be able to blow anyone up today, but that was nothing new. Denki was sitting next to Izuku, and while he wasn't obvious about it, Izuku could tell that Denki was a little stiff.

Shooting lightning was a very combat-focused quirk, and there weren't many obvious ways to use it for rescue. He could understand why Denki was a little nervous. Izuku considered pointing out that Pro Heroes had to deal with situations that their quirks didn't help with all the time, but it was clear Denki was trying to pretend that everything was fine, so calling him out on it was probably a bad idea.

"Ribbit. Excuse me, Hagakure?"

Tooru had been watching the scenery pass by out the window, but she turned back to face her classmates. "What's up, Asui? I mean, Ms. President," she teased.

"My friends call me Tsu, so everyone here can call me that."

"Sure thing, Tsu. What's up?"

Tsu looked at Tooru with wide eyes. "I tend to speak what's on my mind. I hope I don't come across as rude." She paused to see if Tooru would object, then continued. "You appear to have two quirks. Both invisibility and strength that rivals All Might's. I didn't know it was possible for someone to have two quirks."

Ha, Tsu asked almost exactly the same thing Izuku had last week. Well, it was no surprise, Tooru's abilities seemed completely unrelated to each other from the outside. He wondered if Tooru had asked the teachers yet about setting up some advanced quirk testing. It'd be a huge benefit if she knew exactly which electromagnetic frequencies her quirk could convert to stored power. Maybe she'd talk about it now?

…Huh, Tooru still hadn't said anything. She was biting her lip and looking mildly panicked. Tsu continued to stare at her calmly. What was going on? Did she get nervous in front of crowds? Should he step in and help her explain? Or maybe she wanted to keep that aspect of her quirk secret for some reason? Maybe Tooru learned some drawback to her quirk like she was weaker in the dark, and she didn't want that weakness exposed? Izuku wanted to help his friend, but he didn't know what was wrong.

In the end, he didn't have to do anything because Ashido stepped in and accidentally bailed Tooru out. "Girl, what are you talking about? Aren't there a bunch of people who have more than one quirk?"

Tsu put a finger to her mouth. "No, ribbit. It can appear that way, but it always comes down to multiple expressions of a single quirk."

"No way!" Kirishima butted in. "Then how do you explain Midoriya and all the weird things he can do?"

Tsu's gaze turned to Izuku. Oh, wow, her stare was intense! Suddenly he understood why Tooru had gotten nervous. Izuku hadn't done anything wrong, but those big wide eyes staring into his soul made him feel like he needed to repent for every time he'd ever snuck an extra piece of candy when his mom wasn't looking.

She eventually turned back to Kirishima. "I don't know what Midoriya's quirk is. It makes no sense."

Harsh, but fair.

"Endeavor's son in Class B has two quirks," Jirou said, twirling one of her earphone jacks around her finger. "He has a fire quirk and an ice quirk. Although I hear he doesn't use his fire for some reason."

"You hear, or you overheard?" Ojiro raised an eyebrow.

Jirou frowned. "Same thing. It's not on purpose."

"I wonder why he only uses half of his quirk?" Izuku pondered aloud. "He must have a reason for it. Fire and ice are opposites, so maybe they conflict with each other and make both less effective?"

"Or he could just be bad at using fire," Denki said. "Better to master one thing than to spread yourself thin across multiple things." He thought for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "No offense, Izuku!"

He laughed. "None taken!"

"He's just an arrogant bastard who thinks he's better than everyone else because his daddy is Endeavor," Katsuki spat. "If he thinks he can get away with only using half his power then he's in for a rude awakening. I can't wait to kick his teeth in."

Tsu rolled her eyes. "Please don't antagonize Class B, ribbit."

Katsuki leaned over his seat and stared at Tsu. "Does it look like I was talking to you, frogger?!" he shouted, daring her to respond.

Tsu met his gaze easily. "My friends call me Tsu. So please, call me Asui."

Katsuki looked like he was about to explode, but thankfully he was interrupted. "Settle down, kids," Aizawa grunted. "We're here."

—

"Welcome, everyone, to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint! Or as I like to call it, the USJ!"

Izuku's and Ochako's eyes both widened in glee. "It's the Space Hero, Thirteen!" / "It's Thirteen, my favorite hero!" they said at the same time. They both grabbed onto the shoulder of the closest person, which was Denki for both of them, and started shaking him back and forth. "She's so amazing, she's rescued people from countless—" / "Just two weeks ago there was a big landslide in—" / "—such amazing control of her quirk—" / "—and wow, it was like she was able to lift the entire mountain off of—" / "—inspired so many others to go into rescue heroics—" Izuku babbled into one of Denki's ears while Ochako babbled into the other.

Denki's expression grew more and more befuddled as he was jerked back and forth between the two fanatics. "Somebody save me," he whispered.

"I'm thrilled to see that you're all so enthusiastic!" Thirteen exclaimed. You couldn't see her expression behind the space helmet, but she had a jovial tone of voice. "The USJ is a facility I helped design that simulates many kinds of natural disasters, from fires to floods to windstorms to shipwrecks and many more!"

"It's amazing! This place is incredible!" Ochako cheered, marveling at the view. The sheer size and scope of the facility was unreal, with some zones shrouded in a raging inferno while others were practically underwater.

Thirteen chuckled. "I'm glad you think so because you're going to get to know this place very well over the next three years! In many ways, rescue heroics is heroics in its purest form. As heroes, your job is to save people, and that's what the USJ is all about."

Iida raised his hand and then started talking immediately. "Sensei! I believe there is supposed to be another hero to assist us in training today! Why is it that you are the only one here?"

Thirteen hummed. "Hm, it's a mystery, isn't it?" She turned away from the students and pointed toward the fountain in the middle of the facility. "Oh, look at that, what could it be?"

Izuku peered into the distance to see a big cloud of light blue fog emanating from the fountain area, quickly flowing out to fill the volume and obscure the surrounding field. It was heavy smoke, unnatural, rolling toward them across the ground and growing larger and larger. What was going on?

Suddenly, something shot up and out of the clouds at great speed. It was a solid cloud carrying a person on it. The cloud circled high around the facility at impressive speeds before flying toward the group of students. Stopping on a dime, the cloud and its heroic passenger hovered in the air next to Thirteen.

It was the rescue hero Loud Cloud! Izuku barely suppressed his squeal.

Loud Cloud was famous, especially by the standards of rescue heroes. His quirk allowed him to create solid clouds and control them telepathically, allowing him to transport all kinds of things with ease. His ability to create fleets of clouds to lift whole populations out of disaster zones was legendary!

Looking at him now, sitting confidently atop a small cloud of his own making, Izuku was reminded of a character from their classic literature class. The class was focused on historical portrayals of heroics from ancient cultures. There was some centuries-old classic they were forced to read that was about some kid who flew around on a cloud. What was the name of that character again? Son Goku? Whatever, it was a boring book anyway.

"Hey there, little heroes!" Loud Cloud shouted from his seat upon his cloud. "I hope you all are ready for some action! We've got a lot planned for you today, and not much time to get to it all, so you better be prepared to go Plus Ultra!"

"You could save time by sparing us the theatrics," Aizawa drawled.

"Ha! Where's the fun in that, Shouta?" Loud Cloud laughed, then turned back to the students. "To help with everything, we have even more special guests for you all!"

Loud Cloud snapped his fingers with a flourish, and then suddenly three more clouds with passengers launched out of the fog in the center of the facility. The clouds zipped around the facility, looping around each other in intricate patterns in the air. Trails of mist followed their paths, creating dazzling spirals and arcs. It was so cool.

After completing the impromptu aerobatics demonstration, the clouds zoomed to the group and halted right before hitting the ground, gracelessly dumping off three older students… who looked very nauseous. Izuku stifled a laugh. The guest students clearly weren't prepared for what they had just been put through.

"Behold! Three volunteers from Class 2-A!" Loud Cloud announced. The older students struggled to their feet and tried to cool for their kouhais. "They'll be assisting in your exercises today!"

Loud Cloud pointed to the first student on the left, a girl with light brown hair and doe eyes. "First up, Utsushimi Camie, The Glamourous Hero: Illus-o-Camie! Her illusion quirk will help us by creating crowds of civilians that you'll have to take into consideration, and she also has a few surprises in store that will add even more excitement to the simulated disasters!"

The girl struck a pose and held up a peace sign. "Thanks for having me, fams! This is going to be mad lit!"

"Next," Loud Cloud continued, "Akatani Mikumo, The Garden Hero: Greenheart!" The student was a nervous-looking boy with messy black hair. "He can reshape organic material, Today, he'll create civilian golems for you to save. These are more lifelike than simple training dummies."

"…Hi," Greenheart said awkwardly.

"Last, but not least," Loud Cloud pointed to a blonde-haired girl with fangs, "Yasuda Himiko, The Cosplay Hero: Copycat! She can transform into other people, including replicating any injuries they've sustained. She'll be helping you with diagnosing and treating injured civilians." Loud Cloud paused for a moment, then said quietly, "Yasuda, these are first-years, so can you please tone down the level of blood and gore in your transformations today?"

"Nooooo promises!" Copycat sing-songed.

Loud Cloud grimaced but continued regardless. "All right, we'll be splitting you up into three groups with one teacher and assistant each. Each group will do their exercises in a different zone, then we'll all regroup at the end for a class activity."

Thirteen took over. "We're splitting you up for a reason. As Pro Heroes, you're responsible for others' lives, so you can't afford to make mistakes. At the same time, no one can experience every possible situation. Thus, learning from the personal accounts of your fellow heroes is absolutely essential." She paused for emphasis and spread her arms wide. "Talk to your friends after class about their own trials today. Learn from them. Remember, you'll be coming here a lot during your time at UA. We expect you to learn from the mistakes of your classmates even if you've never personally visited a zone before."

Izuku nodded solemnly. That made sense. The atmosphere had been lighthearted so far, but this was serious work they were doing. The class settled into determined stances.

"Looks like you're all raring to go! All right, let's get on with it!"

—

Izuku ended up in the group headed to the Conflagration Zone with Loud Cloud and Greenheart. Ochako was in Thirteen's group, which she was thrilled by. He was happy for her.

From the outside, the Conflagration Zone looked like one giant dome of fire. Upon entering, they discovered that the large dome actually had many smaller domes within it that each simulated different kinds of emergencies. Peering inside the different domes, he saw a warehouse fire, a small group of residential houses on fire, a bush fire, and others.

"Welcome to the flames of Hell!" Loud Cloud announced cheerfully.

He wasn't kidding. They weren't even in any of the inner domes yet and it was already uncomfortably warm.

"Now, take a look at this!" Loud Cloud gestured to Greenheart, who placed his hands on the ground and pulled an organic-looking mannequin out of the earth. "My pal Greenheart here has formed golem dummies throughout the test environments. As you'll soon discover, they feel like real unconscious bodies—they bruise and breathe and have a heartbeat. You'll be rescuing these guys from their fiery fates!"

"They scream too," Greenheart said.

Loud Cloud kept talking. "We're going to try to tackle as many of these domes as we have time for, so I'm actually going to split you up once again! You three!" He pointed at Aoyama, Jirou, and Ashido. "You'll start with the tower dome! You three!" He switched to pointing at Izuku, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima. "Hold tight! After I show the first group what to do, you'll head for the canyon dome!"

Loud Cloud sped away on his cloud with the first group following him, which was convenient because Izuku wanted to do something first. He shuffled over to Greenheart and inspected the golem dummy lying on the ground. It was breathing in and out like a living mannequin, if the mannequin also had a layer of skin over it. It was honestly pretty creepy.

"Hi! Greenheart, right?" Izuku said, grabbing the older student's attention. Izuku had already forgotten what his real name was, but hopefully he could avoid admitting that if he used his hero name instead.

Greenheart nodded in reply without saying anything.

Right, um… "I'm Midoriya Izuku, I don't have a hero name yet." He gestured at the golem Greenheart had pulled from the ground. "There are golems like this all throughout the zone, right? Do you know of Pixie Bob? This looks way more advanced than her golems, but it looks like you can create them just as fast. Can you use your quirk remotely like she does, or did you have to set this up before our class arrived?"

Greenheart stared at him for a while before answering quietly, "I prepared them earlier… why are you asking me questions?"

"Well… I think it's cool! This golem is really lifelike. It looks like its skin even has pores!"

"You noticed!" Greenheart beamed. "It took a long time to get the texture right. It's hard to make something that feels like skin out of earth and plants and such." Talking about his work seemed to open him up a little.

Izuku knelt to touch the dummy's arm. Ew, it really did feel like skin. "git add golem," he said clearly, in full view of Greenheart. The other student didn't call him out on it, so he continued, "You did a good job! It feels very close to the real thing."

"Thanks! It's more than just skin deep too, heh. My golems have a network of simulated nerves under the skin to detect injuries. They scream and flail to let you know when they've been hurt."

"Ah… they scream, huh?" Izuku wasn't looking forward to that.

"Yup!" Greenheart nodded. "It's an important part of the simulation. Panicking victims living through real disasters aren't going to be calm and inert."

That was a fair point. "You've put a lot of work into this. Thanks for volunteering to help us out today!"

"Thank Himiko too, later—sorry, I mean Copycat. She helped me so much when designing these guys!" Greenheart was getting more enthusiastic the more he talked. "She just knows so much about the human body. I couldn't have gotten all the responses right without her."

"Oh? Does it react differently depending on the injury?" Izuku asked.

"You got it! She and I spent a lot of time calibrating the responses so that the golems accurately react to the type and severity of injuries they could receive. It was pretty hard work sometimes. I had to forcefully hold down a screaming and flailing golem while Himiko stabbed its chest open to confirm that the nerve clusters were working and that it correctly distinguished between different intensities of pain. No one else wanted to help me with that. They were being all dumb and said it felt too much like torturing someone. I don't get it. At least Himiko understands me!" Greenheart's eyes gleamed and there was a faint blush on his cheeks.

"…Uh huh. Um, I'm glad you have such a reliable partner?"

"She sure is! The next step is to design a new model with a proper circulatory system. The plan is to base it on the vascular bundles that transport food in trees and plants. It just isn't right that the golems don't bleed. We'll know that we've gotten the realism down once we can strap down a golem, saw off its limbs, and watch it beg and scream and flail and bleed just like if we were cutting open a real human!"

"…Yeah."

"It's the next generation of anthropomorphic test devices! I have a friend in the business course who'll help me get in contact with the H.U.C., and hopefully they—"

"Hey, Midoriya!" Kirishima jogged over to the two of them. "Yaoyorozu wants to scout out the canyon area in advance. Coming with?"

He could kiss Kirishima for saving him from this conversation! …And then he immediately felt bad for thinking that, especially given that he was the one to try to start a conversation in the first place. "Yeah, I'm coming!" He looked back at Greenheart. "Uh… you're doing really impressive work! Good luck with everything!"

"Thanks! Take good care of my golems during your training!"

"Sure," Izuku said, then he and Kirishima jogged to catch up with Yaoyorozu. She was already approaching the entrance to the canyon dome.

Yaoyorozu turned to face them. "Ah, there you are, Midoriya. Did you learn anything from Akatani?"

More than he bargained for, yeah. "Well, I've tagged one of the golems, so I'll be able to pinpoint the locations of all of them in the area when we start."

Yaoyorozu was surprised. "Is that another one of your quirks?" she asked.

"That's awesome!" Kirishima took his statement at face value. "We're gonna rock this, man!"

Izuku walked up to the dome. They couldn't enter until their teacher returned, but they could peer inside and get a sense of how the zone was designed. The main area consisted of a residential block of houses of various shapes and sizes, all ablaze. A small canyon separated the fiery area from an open, safe field with only a narrow rope bridge connecting the two. Presumably, they'd be tasked with rescuing dummies from the burning town and transporting them across the rope bridge to the safe zone.

"Midoriya, am I correct that your primary quirk is saving the state of something and reloading it later?" Yaoyorozu asked. "How far does that extend? Can you preserve the state of this entire dome all at once?"

"I can, actually!" Izuku grinned. Usually, he had to touch things to start tracking them with his quirk, but he had a way around that. He walked up to the dome and touched the glass exterior. "git add canyon-dome/*."

As long as an object contained other objects, he could treat the entire outer object as a "folder" and add everything it contained all at once. He'd noticed all the way back on Day 1 of using his quirk that "desk_cabinet/" had a trailing forward slash, but it had taken him a while to figure out what it meant.

Yaoyorozu looked pleased. "Can you make regular backups during the exercise so that we can roll back to an earlier point if we need to? Say, if a structure collapses and we need to fix it quickly."

"Good idea! git switch -c canyon-dome; git commit -m "Before starting"," he said. "All right, our first save point is before entering the dome. We might not be allowed to use this one, but whatever."

At that moment, Loud Cloud zoomed over to him on one of his clouds, returning from showing the other group to their station. "Hey, little heroes! Are you already performing reconnaissance over here? Nice job! Looks like you three are ready. Let's do it!"