A/N: I've decided updates will be every Friday rather than Sunday, mostly because I can't control myself.

Art -

[Complete Gallery] Add /21axlkt3bolc to the DeviantArt Stash URL.

[Ch. 21] Add /21m3yqjespp4 to the DeviantArt Stash URL.

Hitomi opened the classroom door, the first thing she heard being Kirishima and Sero's loud laughs.

The hero internships had ended, leading the students to return to their regular school routine.

As Hitomi walked towards her desk, she saw Iida and Midoriya standing by Todoroki's desk.

"Hey, guys…" she said, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry about what happened; I didn't see your distress signal until the day after. Although, there wouldn't have been much I could do all the way in Ōsaka…"

"Oh, Kanetsukabe-san, don't worry about it!" Midoriya reassured her as she took her seat. "We just got some minor injuries, and the pros came just in time to save us…" He trailed off, looking away as if he was trying to avoid eye contact.

Hitomi bit her lip, appreciating his efforts to reassure her. Even so, she still felt bad. If she'd taken those few seconds to check the message, instead of leaving it for the day after, maybe… things could have gone differently. Maybe she could have told Crust, or- or let someone else near or in Hosu City know, something-

"Anyways, how was your internship?"

Hitomi blinked, snapping out of her thoughts. Midoriya was staring at her expectantly, not even bothered in the slightest.

She hadn't done a single thing to help him when he sent the distress signal.

But it was already much too late to dwell on it. At the very least, her classmates were all back safe. She did her best to muster up a smile.

"Oh, it was great!" Hitomi exclaimed. "I learned some basic combat training and different ways to apply my quirk! Thanks for recommending me to go there, Midoriya, it was super helpful!"

Midoriya spluttered at Hitomi's praise again. "That's good to hear…"

The next day…

"Okay, that's it for class," Aizawa said as he gathered his papers. "There's only one week left until final exams. You're all studying properly, I hope? I'm pretty sure you all know, but it won't just be a written exam. There's also a practical component. Make sure you train your minds and bodies at the same time. That's all," he said as he left the room.

"I HAVEN'T STUDIED AT ALL!" Kaminari and Mina yelled, although the two different looks on their faces revealed how they felt about it. Mina was laughing nonchalantly while Kaminari was running his hands through his hair in a panic.

As everyone talked about how the finals compared to the midterms, Hitomi pulled out one of the notebooks from her desk.

It'd probably be a good idea to review the notes this time around…

"You two," she heard Yaoyorozu say, "I may be able to be of assistance with the class lectures."

Kaminari and Mina cried out in appreciation. As more of their classmates approached Yaoyorozu for help, Kaminari turned to Hitomi.

"Hitomi, you get really good grades, right? Do you think you could help us out in studying too?"

Hitomi tensed, a sheepish smile on her face. "Oh, I don't really study that much, actually, so I don't think I'd be very good at tutoring…"

"WHA?! But you got 5th on the midterms!" Mina cried out.

Hitomi blushed, embarrassed. "Well, I usually can already understand the material from the homework and assignments we get anyway; I'd probably get better grades if I actually studied…"

"How are you like this?!" Kaminari said.

Hitomi smiled. "It's an anomaly, I guess."

Kirishima had practically begged Hitomi to help him out with English, leading her to meet him at a cafe over the weekend.

She found the redhead seated in a booth by the window, his notebooks and pencil case already sprawled out on the table.

She set her bag down as she took a seat across from him. "I'm warning you right now, Kirishima, I'm not very good at teaching."

"It's fine, Hitomi! You're the best in the class at English, so I wanted your help specifically."

"I'll do my best…"

"How are you so good at English, anyway?" Kirishima asked as he took a sip of his drink. "You even have the accent down and everything."

Hitomi was about to respond before she heard a voice at the edge of the table.

"...the hell are you doing here?"

Hitomi turned at the sound of the voice, the source surprising her.

"Bakugou?!"

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" Kirishima said. "Bakugou's helping me study too."

"No, Kirishima, you didn't."

Bakugou plopped down on the seat next to Hitomi, huffing as he opened his bag.

"Sorry about that!" Kirishima said as he ran a hand through his hair. "Guess I forgot."

"It's fine," Hitomi mumbled. "I doubt I'd be much help anyway."

Just please don't leave me alone with him.

Hitomi had basically watched Bakugou beat knowledge into Kirishima's head the whole time, silent as she ate her food. Kirishima didn't seem to be bothered by it that much, though.

She was flipping through her history workbook, trying to brush up on her Japanese history.

Moving to a different country in the middle of your adolescence really messes up your history knowledge…

"Hey, Hitomi," Kirishima said, catching her attention, "we're moving on to English now."

"Right, sorry!" she said, snapping the workbook shut.

Pulling out her English materials, she heard Kirishima talking to her again. "Hey, you never answered my question. How are you so good at English, again?"

"Oh, that? I guess I've never really told anyone, huh…

Well, my family used to live in America."

"Wha, really?!" Kirishima said, surprised. "But your Japanese sounds nothing like a foreigner!"

"That's a little complicated," Hitomi said. "I actually lived here in Japan up until I was 9, so Japanese is my first language. We had to move to America because of my dad's job, but then we came back because the company he works for wanted him back here near Tokyo."

"Wow, that's so cool!" Kirishima exclaimed. "What's it like over there?"

"Probably a fuckin' dump," Bakugou cut in.

"Hey!" Hitomi said, glaring at the boy next to her. "It wasn't all bad over there…"

"So what was it like?" Kirishima asked again.

Hitomi placed a hand on her cheek, recalling her time in the US. "Well, for one thing, the food there is super diverse, since people from all different cultures come there…"

"Did you get to see Hollywood?" Kirishima asked, excited. "Universal Studios? Disney?!"

Hitomi gave him a sheepish smile, afraid to disappoint him. "Only to the amusement parks, and even then I had only gone there a few times. We only lived there for about 6 years."

Kirishima leaned back in his seat, a wistful look on his face. "Man, I'd love to visit someday…"

Hitomi and the boys had spent about an hour looking over the English material, the bluenette guiding Kirishima on sentence structure and vocabulary.

Bakugou had been surprisingly quiet during then, studying in his math workbook on his own.

Kirishima suddenly got up from his seat, exiting the booth.

"Where are you going?" Hitomi asked.

Please don't leave me alone with Bakugou.

"Sorry, gotta take a bathroom break."

GODDAMMIT, KIRISHIMA!

The redhead then proceeded to leave, leaving Hitomi with the blonde.

She was practically squirming in her seat, feeling awkward about being alone with someone who always seemed so angry.

"You're being pretty fucking obvious, you know."

Hitomi tensed, embarrassed at being caught.

"I'm sorry! I'm not good at conversation…"

"You were pretty chatty talking about America with Shitty Hair earlier."

Hitomi fell silent, unsure of what to say.

"Kirishima makes it so easy…" She trailed off, before her eyes fell on Bakugou's math workbook.

She leaned in close, pointing to one of the problems.

"The answer's supposed to be 12.5."

"...what?"

"You forgot to convert the half-life to minutes; the exponent is supposed to turn out to be ½, not 30."

Bakugou redid the problem, finding Hitomi's answer to be correct.

"You did that all in your head?" Bakugou had an irritated look on his face.

"Eh? Well, yeah; I was taking precalculus before I moved here, so I already knew the formula, and the problem itself isn't that hard…"

"So do you just naturally brag about how fucking smart you are or what?"

"That's not what I meant!" Hitomi stuttered. "I just noticed it was wrong, that's all…"

Bakugou scoffed before Kirishima finally returned to their table.

"Hey guys! Sorry I took a while, they were out of soap."

"That's okay, Kirishima. I was just showing Bakugou an error on one of his math problems."

Kirishima had a teasing smirk on his face as he sat down. "Oh, is the high and mighty Katsuki Bakugou struggling with math?"

"SHUT UP! IT WAS ONE DAMN PROBLEM!"

"Actually, I saw a few more…"

"THE FUCK?!"

A/N: [UPDATE 8/12/21] This chapter now has a side story that takes place right after these events and before the next chapter! It's highly recommended that you read it before beginning the Final Exams chapters. :)

This chapter ended up being mostly characterization for Hitomi, revealing more of her past as well as her intelligence. She's actually canonically smarter than Deku, Bakugou, Todoroki, and Iida, coming in with a 5/5 for intelligence while the boys all have 4/5. Believe me, I was not planning for that when I created her.

Her study habits are also just like mine, and by that I mean practically nonexistent, where by some miracle I get good grades yet rarely study.

I actually made the equation Hitomi was looking at myself! It's a half-life problem, and I was still taking pre-calc when I did this chapter.

I also wrote this while I was out of town, and had amusement parks on my mind, hence Kirishima's mentions of Hollywood and Disney.

Ok, this is a really long author's note, so I'll stop now.