A/N: The art's a bit old but it still holds up nicely! (save for the last one which I did last week lol) I remember adding Hitomi into the S4 festival poster and it lowkey might've started a small trend on Instagram way back when the arc started in the anime? I remember after I posted it way back in 2020 I saw people tagging me with their own OCs added. The whole thing was so cute, makes me a bit nostalgic to remember 😭
Art -
[Complete Gallery] Add /21axlkt3bolc to the DeviantArt Stash URL.
[Ch. 85] Add /212fif3qekgh to the DeviantArt Stash URL.
The class told Aizawa they'd be doing a dance club with live music the next day.
After the class had a long, lengthy discussion back at the dorms, they'd resolved they wanted to do something for the rest of the school to somewhat apologize for all the trouble Class 1-A had caused.
The suggestion of a dance club had come from Todoroki, surprisingly, who'd gotten the idea from his license course lessons. Mina offered to teach her classmates how to dance, and Jirou agreed to help with the music after loads of encouragement and kind words from the class.
Hitomi waved goodbye with the rest of the class to the work-study group, since they had to stay behind for extra lessons. She made her way down the path to the dorms, deciding it wouldn't hurt to walk by Bakugou on the way there.
"Hey, Bakugou," she hummed.
Bakugou simply grunted in reply, showing that he'd acknowledged her as they walked. Hitomi smiled softly at him, glad he was simply letting her walk beside him. She wanted to cherish small moments like this.
"So Bakugou," she began, clasping her hands together behind her back, "are you excited for the cultural festival?"
Bakugou shrugged, staring straight ahead. "It's just another school festival."
"That may be what you think," Hitomi huffed, puffing her cheeks out. "But I've never experienced one this way before. You had them at your middle school, Aldera, right?"
"Yeah…" Bakugou grunted.
"Oh, y'know, my little brother actually goes there! He's a second-year there…" Hitomi trailed off, seeing Bakugou was glaring at something, his mouth in a deep frown.
She opened her mouth, about to ask him what was wrong before she heard the general studies students not too far away.
"...Seriously, they're too carefree. Even though they were attacked by villains, they went to training camp nonchalantly and were attacked again… They even had people injured. Thanks to that, even we had to go through a lot.
Even though it was all their fault…
...They've got some nerve."
…
"First, we need drums to give this band some backbone," Jirou started, holding her hands up in explanation. "I'm more of a guitarist though, so I'm still working on my drumming skills. If I've gotta teach a beginner while still practicing myself, pulling this off in a month is gonna be tough."
"Ah!" Kaminari suddenly turned around, looking at Bakugou. "Didn't you say you were made to take music classes as a kid?"
"Huh…?"
The class made sounds of surprise at the unexpected turn of events, Hitomi clasping her hands together in awe.
"Really, Bakugou? You know how?!"
Sero grabbed the drumsticks from the drum set Jirou had brought downstairs, holding them out to the ash blonde. "Try banging on the drums a little, Bakugou!"
The ash blonde scoffed, turning away. "Like I'd do that."
Hitomi saw Sero smirk, knowing exactly what he was planning to do. "I hear it's reaaally hard."
"Oh yeah?!"
Bakugou suddenly snatched the drumsticks from Sero's hands, banging on the drums. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing as he hit the cymbals and stepped on the pedal, making a coherent beat.
"Well?!"
"P-PERFECT!" Jirou gasped, her eyes as wide as saucers.
Of course he's great… Hitomi sweatdropped as the class cheered.
"So it's settled! Bakugou's gotta be on the drums!" Kaminari exclaimed.
"Ah?" Bakugou stood up from the seat, shoving his hands in his pockets as he started walking away. "No way am I doing this stupid crap…"
"Bakugou, please!" Jirou called, trailing after him. "I mean, if you agree to this… it could… no, it'd definitely turn out really great!"
"There's no way it would!" Bakugou yelled, surprising the class. "It's that, right? Some empty promise to let students from other courses blow off some steam? But for the cause of stress to do that… If that's not self-satisfaction, then what is?! There's no way they'd take that quietly from the people they're mad at!"
"Hey, you don't have to say it like that!" Hagakure huffed, her sleeve waving at him in frustration.
"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" Bakugou growled, glaring at everyone over his shoulder.
Hitomi's eyebrows furrowed, recalling what she'd overheard earlier as her classmates began mumbling with each other.
"They've got some nerve."
"Maybe he's right…" Hitomi mumbled, scrunching up her skirt in her hand.
"Hitomi, you can't be serious!" Hagakure exclaimed.
Hitomi looked back and forth between Bakugou and the others before her gaze fell to the floor. "Have… Have you heard what the other courses have been saying about us? If we do this… they may think we're acting arrogant."
"Even if they do think that way," Todoroki cut in, his eyes narrowing at Bakugou, "you can't just complain about our plan when you didn't even participate in the discussion to begin with."
"Doesn't it make you mad?" Bakugou grumbled. "It's not like we wanted to be messed around with by the villains. Why do we have to think about how they feel? If you guys are doing this to make them feel better, then stop right now! We've gotta hit 'em! We're not here to make friends, we're here to fight! If we're gonna do this, we've gotta be serious—" He suddenly held his thumb up to his neck, turning towards the class. "Take everyone at UA…
AND MURDER THEM WITH MUSIC!" he yelled, making a slashing motion with his thumb.
"BAKUGOOOUUU!" the class cheered, getting fired up.
"Your reasoning is scary, but you'll do it?!" Hagakure cheered.
"This is serious!" Bakugou scowled.
"Got it, super serious," Mina laughed.
"You're not being honest with yourself," Kaminari teased.
"I'm always serious."
Hitomi watched as everyone crowded around him, the anxiety she'd felt fading away. "I see," she breathed out, her mind recalling the training camp.
Bakugou had been the one most deeply affected by the event, and to hear the gen ed students say things like that… it must've taken its toll on him.
"Spite is one form of motivation," Hitomi remarked, feeling herself smile. "Seems like he's taking a page from Yoshiho's book."
"If that's been settled," Jirou smiled, "then we need to figure out the other roles."
Yaoyorozu stepped forward, placing a hand on her chest. "As part of my education, I studied the piano from a young age. Could that be of use?"
"You should play the keyboard, then, Yaomomo!" Mina exclaimed.
Jirou nodded in agreement. "We've gotta have a synth for club music, so, Yaomomo, it'll be a big help!"
"I'll do my best!"
"I was gonna have a dance group with all the girls…" Mina sighed, "...but you'll be cute, so it's fine!"
Hitomi blinked at that, her heart making a slight jump. She was gonna what?
"I'll play bass… so we just need guitar and vocals, then."
"So everyone else will be in the dance?" Ojiro asked.
"Wait, wait!" Hitomi cut in, holding her hands up. "I can't. There's no way I could be part of the dance, I can't dance at all."
Even though Hitomi wanted to make this school festival the most fun experience for herself it could possibly be, unable to keep herself from entertaining the idea of being on stage despite how shy she was, she couldn't play an instrument, and dancing was a no-go.
"Aww, Hitomi!" Mina singsonged, grabbing her shoulders. "I can teach you, don't worry!"
Hitomi grabbed Mina's wrists, a hard look in her eyes. "Mina, you don't understand." She shrugged her friend's hands off of her, holding her forehead. "I can't even keep up on DDR machines." Hitomi suddenly covered her face, recalling a tragic memory. "The time I had to do a dance in middle school was awful! If you saw the recording, you'd want to crawl into a hole and die! Nari is the only one who's had the courage to see how bad it was…!"
Mina sweatdropped, her hands dropping to her sides in disappointment. "Fiiiine… If you say so. I can't force you."
"Even with the dancing," Iida began, holding his chin, "I fear that may not be enough."
"We gotta put in some effects!" Mina proclaimed, turning away from Hitomi to grab the laptop and pull up a video. "Sparks and streamers and disco balls… We need this kind of stuff if we wanna create an atmosphere and fire everyone up! Effects are there to set the mood!"
"Ooh, let's make it like the parades at the happiest place on earth!" Hagakure cheered.
"We can do it like that with everyone participating!"
"We're using the gym for this, right?" Sato asked Iida.
"Yes," Iida affirmed him, pushing up his glasses. "Aizawa-sensei has already made the arrangements."
Mina held a finger up, ideas already running out of her mouth. "Ooo! Then, what if, what if— Uraraka makes Todoroki and Kirishima float, right? And then Kirishima could scrape at Todoroki's ice to chip away at it! If Aoyama acts as our disco ball… it'll look like light's twinkling down like stardust! I call it 'Team Snowmen'!"
"I'm the disco ball…?" Aoyama said slowly. "That's not bad!"
"The gym will look wonderful!" Yaoyorozu said with a smile.
"Yes!" Iida exclaimed, pumping his fist. "I think it's a great idea!"
"In that case, we need people working behind the scenes for the effects, huh?" Hagakure asked.
The front door suddenly swung open, the work-study group back from their remedial lessons.
"Hey!" Kirishima said with a satisfied look on his face.
"Sorry we're late!" Midoriya apologized.
Uraraka pumped her fist. "We've finally made up all our classes, so we can help out for real now!"
"Ribbit!"
The class gathered around the four of them, explaining their current plan for their dance club.
…
"Huh? You won't be singing, Jirou?" Uraraka asked.
"Eh?!" Jirou exclaimed.
"I should sing!" Mineta cut in. "It'll make me super popular!"
"I can be a disco ball and sing as well!" Aoyama added.
"Yeah!" Kirishima grinned. "I can't play an instrument to save my life, but I know I'm a pretty good singer!"
I… kinda wanna do it, Hitomi mused. The thought of being onstage seemed somewhat thrilling to her, and she figured, hoped, at least, her voice wasn't the kind that'd make people cringe. She wanted to try new things for this school festival! But, well...
I'm too shy for that.
Hagakure shoved the mic into Kirishima's hands, giving them each a chance to demonstrate their singing skills.
Kirishima had the wrong genre.
Mineta was just screaming.
And Aoyama could only sing one note, a falsetto.
Hagakure snatched the mic back, nudging it towards Jirou. "I'm with Ochako on this one. I really think it should be you, Jirou! Back when you were teaching us in your room, your singing was really cool, too!"
Jirou blushed, holding her hands up. "C'mon, don't make this harder by making people expect…"
Hagakure pushed the mic into her hands. "It's fine, just do it!"
"You're just gonna disregard the shouts of our souls?!" Mineta whined. "Just how good is she, huh? Huh?"
"I wanna hear your singing, Jirou!" Kirishima reassured her. "Sing something for us!"
Jirou finally relented, gripping the mic as Hitomi saw her eyebrows furrow in concentration. Everyone waited in anticipation as Jirou opened her mouth, taking a deep breath.
…
"Holy shit," Hitomi whispered.
Kirishima, Aoyama, and Mineta were sprawled out on the floor, totally defeated.
"My ears died and went to heaven," Mina muttered, "thanks to your husky, sultry voice!"
"IT'S UNANIMOUS!" the class chorused, cheering.
Jirou sighed, blushing profusely as she let go of the mic. "Great. I'm glad we could settle that, then," she said stiffly, a light blush across her nose. She placed a finger on her chin, her lips pursing as her blush settled. "It isn't absolutely vital, but it would be great to have a backup singer, though…"
Kirishima blinked, snapping out of his trance and sitting up. "Hitomi should do it!"
Hitomi's heart jumped out of her chest, gaping at Kirishima and pointing at herself as the rest of the class stared at her. "Me?!"
"Yeah! I've heard you hum sometimes when we study, and paired with Jirou's voice, I bet it'd sound great!"
"Huh…?!"
"Hitomi, you can sing?" Jirou asked her, a hopeful look in her eyes. "Why didn't you say so?"
"Wha-?!" Hitomi spluttered, her cheeks flushing as she looked away. "I- I've only ever done karaoke with my family…"
"Kirishima's right, Hitomi!" Mina exclaimed. "If you don't want to dance, you should sing instead!"
Jirou handed Hitomi the mic, the class staring at her in anticipation. Hitomi's entire face turned red, her shoulders shaking with anxiety as she stared at the mic.
"Uh..."
Jirou watched as Hitomi stared at the mic stiffly, and after a few bouts of silence, she sighed, patting the bluenette's shoulder reassuringly. "...You know what, it's okay! You don't have to do it if you don't want to, Hitomi," Jirou told her, giving her a sheepish smile. "We can manage without a backup."
Hitomi's eyebrows furrowed, her grip tightening on the mic. "But I want to," she said, surprising everyone including herself. "I also want to… 'murder them with music', like Bakugou said earlier." Hitomi stared at the mic in her hands, recalling what she'd heard that afternoon. "Those gen ed kids… they're anxious. This is my first school festival, and I want to make it an experience I can remember. If I can do that by easing their worries, then…"
"Is that so?" Jirou smiled at her. "Then, are you up for it?"
"...I think I am."
"Sing, Hitomi, sing!" Kaminari chanted.
Hitomi closed her eyes, gripping the mic and taking a deep breath the same way Jirou had earlier. Taking a moment to steel her nerves, she cleared her throat, opened her mouth, and sang.
A/N: For anyone that's curious, Hitomi's Japanese VA is Saori Hayami. That lady has such a pretty voice 😭