The next few weeks after the school festival passed quickly. Between spending time watching Gentle Criminal's videos to get a better idea of his career up to the point where he and Izuku had met, as well as looking out for new videos to make sure Gentle kept his promise. As fall stretched on and bled into winter, it looked like he had. The channel was actually deleted after about a month, though Izuku wasn't sure if it was the platform that finally banned it or if it was voluntary. Izuku chose to think it was voluntary, since a new channel was put up the very next day named 'Gentle and La Brava', this time without the 'criminal' aspect. Despite questions from his friends, Izuku couldn't help but ride that win for all of November.

He still got that sickness every now and then, but he was getting tips from Ochako on how to manage it, since she dealt with nausea due to her Quirk. Things were turning around for Izuku after a period of stress and illness leading up to the school festival. Some of the kids from general education who'd been hounding the hero course students stopped harassing them, though some kept on the train longer than others and it looked like Minoru Mineta was simply using the attacks as an excuse to hate the hero course because he couldn't get in either time he tried. Izuku felt safe to ignore it now, after doing the best he could with his chance to change their minds. Class 1-A's show had been a hit, with their peers and even their teachers approaching various members of the class at random to thank them for putting it on and congratulate them on their turnout on the day. Those in 1-A that had played in the band were swarmed the most, and it was almost as if they were real rockstars with their fame entirely contained to UA's campus.

However, as it often did, time passed quickly. Before Izuku knew it, he was putting on his winter uniform, and asking for a thermal variant of his hero costume to be made with the rest of his classmates as it got too cold to wear his regular costume outside. Izuku's classmates asked for additions to their costumes to help them warm up, like Yaoyorozu's cape and Ashido's fur collar, Katsuki's long-sleeved variant costume and Tsu's body temperature regulator mounted on their neck. One of the only students that didn't alter their costume whatsoever was Hitoshi, who already had a scarf as part of his costume. He'd gotten fairly skilled at using his version of Aizawa's binding scarf over the course of the school year, and so he knew how to get it to sit just right around his shoulders to trap the warmth in.

Izuku woke up on a mid-December day feeling as though he were dead. His sickness was back, the worst it'd ever been. He immediately threw up in the bathroom. He stayed like that for about ten minutes. When he guessed he was finished, he got up and got ready for his day as if nothing had happened. He went on with his day, making a note to tell All Might when he could, and didn't say a word to his friends about what he was experiencing. He got all the way to lunch without letting it slip, but when Izuku pulled out his phone to scroll through the news as he usually did, he stopped in his tracks as he saw the first headline and the attached thumbnail.

'Monsters from Kamino Incident sighted migrating across the countryside.'

They were Nomu. Looking at the thumbnail, an image taken from up in the sky, likely from a helicopter or drone, of a pack of a dozen Nomu passing over a hill in the night. Izuku clicked on the article as he still could not bring himself to move, and found a video attached. This video was of a different, bigger pack of hulking, misshapen, undead monsters with skin in unnatural shades of green, blue and black. Every creature had their brain poking out the top of their skulls, and some had beaks and other animal traits. All of them had dead, glossy, dull eyes. Reading the article written about these groups of Nomu, there had apparently been reports for weeks, maybe months, of Nomu being spotted passing by towns during the night. That was what got Izuku moving again, the fact that this had been happening for a while without him knowing, maybe even as long as his sickness had been trying to tell him something, and he had to tell All Might about this.

Izuku raced down the halls and hoped All Might would tell him that everything was fine and that it was a false alarm. He hoped that this was simply being publicised because it had already been dealt with and it was over. The first place Izuku checked, the staff room, was a bust — All Might wasn't there. He sprinted down the hall and checked the second place he thought to look for a teacher, in their classroom. That was where he discovered All Might and Aizawa talking, looking at each other with tense expressions. They both turned to Izuku with a start, and gave him intense stares as they waited for him to explain his interruption.

"Nomu!" he said, still catching his breath.

"Here?" All Might said, stepping forward.

"No, on the news!" Izuku said further, realising how that must have sounded. "I saw the news about those wandering packs of Nomu and thought you should know … unless you already do."

The two teachers visibly relaxed, Aizawa putting his back to the wall and All Might's posture becoming more hunched as he looked down at Izuku. There was something on All Might's face that worried Izuku, some kind of emotion he was trying hard not to show but failing to hide. It was like guilt, or maybe something more like worry. All Might said and put his large, firm hand on Izuku's shoulder. It wasn't nearly as comforting as he was sure his mentor meant it to be.

"Yes, we know. We've known for a little while," All Might said.

"How long have you known about this?" Izuku asked, his voice high. He couldn't believe that after all the talks they'd had about honesty, All Might would keep this from him.

"Three weeks. We were notified as soon as the Commission received word that there were Nomu wandering around unchecked," All Might said with a wince, telling Izuku he knew how that sounded to him.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could help!" Izuku said.

"We know you want to help. That's the problem," Aizawa said, pushing himself up off the wall and standing over Izuku.

"What do you mean?" Izuku asked, shrinking under his teacher's harsh gaze.

"That's too harsh," All Might said to Aizawa, who shrugged. He turned to Izuku and said, "What Aizawa means by that is that this is a delicate situation. Your enthusiasm sometimes grows to be greater than your ability, and we need to be very careful and know what we can and can't do before we act on this."

"Oh. Okay," Izuku said, trying to keep as straight a face as possible. He suddenly remembered what he'd actually wanted to tell them. "But my weird sickness came back this morning. It was … bad. And then I saw this news, and then … since I saw the Nomu on the news, I've felt fine. Do you think this may have been what it was trying to tell me? Do you think OFA was trying to warn me about these Nomu?"

"It may have been, yes. Aizawa and I are planning to investigate over winter break," All Might said.

"Don't — damn it, Yagi," Aizawa said, snapping his attention over to All Might with a scowl. "Don't tell him, he'll want to come."

"CanI come?" Izuku asked with a hopeful smile.

"No," Aizawa said, cutting off what All Might was about to say.

"Why not?" Izuku asked.

"I seem to recall you not being present to receive your provisional hero licence with the rest of your class in September, nor were you capable of attending the remedial course that began shortly after. It's unfortunate that they have a cutoff for applications, but now there's no way for you to get your provisional licence until the next exam in your second year, when you'd traditionally take it anyway. The only reason your classmates did it a year early was because that's what your summer camp training was for, but we all know how that ended," Aizawa explained with a deep frown that made him look ten years older.

All Might suddenly got a strange look on his face, as if he was remembering something. He nodded, but his eyes were distant, like he was putting something together in his head. Izuku got the message, though. He wouldn't be able to go out and join them in checking out the Nomu because he was technically still a civilian. That was a hard pill for Izuku to swallow, but he nodded and sighed.

"I understand," Izuku said flatly.

"Don't sulk. After all, your afternoon class today is a special one," Aizawa said.

"Special? How?" Izuku asked, his spirits lifted slightly by the distraction. Aizawa probably did that on purpose. He pretended he was all jaded and tired all the time, but he did care about his students somewhere deep down where he only let his close friends, like Present Mic and Midnight, see.

"You'll find out. You've only got so much of your lunch period left, so go. Enjoy yourself, or whatever," Aizawa said, giving Izuku a look that dared him to challenge the order.

Izuku decided not to test his luck and left. He went about the remainder of his lunch period with a new pep in his step due to the news of a special class, wondering the whole time what it could be and what made it special. Maybe they were going to the USJ again? They'd gone back a few times since the attack on the facility at the start of the year, though the place had undergone significant alterations concerning the security system and Thirteen had spent about their first lesson after the incident apologising for what had happened. It had been nerve wracking for many of Izuku's classmates to return there, but everything was fine now. They could've been doing scenario training, which they'd done a few times. Their final exam had been a scenario, where the teachers set a scene and gave them roles to perform within it, usually that of heroes responding to some disaster or villain presence. Izuku enjoyed those classes, where he could see even a fraction of what it was really like being a hero. He didn't think he could survive waiting two years to be a hero for real — he'd barely survived six months.

It was while he was getting changed into his new and improved hero costume that he realised how far into the school year they were. It was already mid-December, which meant that they'd come to the end of their second term. Izuku had never understood it, but UA didn't make students sit exams in the second semester. The first and third term exams were plenty, according to Principal Nezu's statements on it. He'd spoken extensively on it before, claiming that he's found that the first and third term exams give their teachers plenty ideas about where exactly each student is along the path of education, and so the first semester is gauging progress, the second semester is for advancing in a student's given studies without worrying about a deadline, and then the third semester is supposed to be where they put that to use and show how they've grown. Again, Izuku didn't claim to understand the thought process of the smartest person in Japan, maybe the world, but he was content with not having an exam to worry about on top of the things going on with One for All and the Nomu, now. He didn't have time to think about all that, though, because class was set to begin in a matter of minutes, and he didn't want to be late.

Emerging from the locker room outside Ground Gamma, Izuku got his first look at the new and improved costume he was wearing for the first time in its entirety. It was the same basic costume he'd worn before, the dark green with black highlights and the cowl that had accidentally turned out as rabbit ears which he'd eventually leaned into. The additions were primarily the braces on his arms, elbow-length gloves coloured a deep shade of red like his belt, with a few support items built into the gloves. The first and oldest support items were the canals that ran along his knuckles, which were often confused for brass-knuckles to make him hit harder. They let Blackwhip come through from the skin on the back of his hand out through the glove without destroying it. The other support item was newer, one he'd asked for after being shown how to use his new Air Force move by All Might a while ago. It resulted in the cuff of his glove being thicker and reinforced, jutting out further around his hand so that the hardened cuff helped direct the flow of the air he could manipulate with his sheer strength. That resulted in less blowback from the air pressure and less harm or distraction to Izuku in the process. Then there were the braces themselves, which had padding and shock-resistant materials built in to prevent any further damage from using One for All at higher percentages as he grew in power. There were identical bracers on his legs, built to connect to his signature red sneakers, which they'd made a combat variant of that was much more durable than his civilian shoes, and which had impossibly tiny holes in the soles to allow him to expel Smokescreen through them if he wanted to. Then, the final recent addition, the notebook pouch Hatsume had made for him, which he filled with his most recent volume of his series of personal journals and notebooks, entitledHero Analysis for the Future, Volume 14.

Izuku pulled up the bunny-eared cowl as he joined his classmates in front of the main entrance to Ground Gamma. It was often an internal debate about whether he wanted to actually wear the cowl or not, since it was fairly floppy and didn't truly give him any advantage. The first iteration of the costume had purely been an All Might homage, with the floppy ears being his hair tufts and the metallic mouthguard-rebreather fusion he wore around his neck being the toothy grin. Izuku didn't feel comfortable wearing them as they were supposed to be worn when All Might was around in the form they resembled, but now that he had retired and they couldn't be directly compared anymore, Izuku felt safe wearing the cowl up and having the mask in place as it should be. He thought it made him look a little meaner than he thought he should as a hero, since he couldn't smile through the mask and the only thing shown through the cowl was his intense eyes, but he could think about that another time.

"Hey," Hitoshi waved him over.

"Hey. Is Aizawa here yet?" Izuku asked.

"No, why?" Tsu asked in return, being distracted from their conversation with Ochako.

"He said this class was special, but he didn't say why. I was wondering if he'd shown up and explained yet, but apparently not," Izuku said.

"The last 'special' class we had was when Aizawa threw us into the woods with only a direction to go in and told us to figure it out," Ochako said, grimacing at the memory. Izuku remembered their summer camp well, and not just because he'd been kidnapped, which led to Kamino happening. No, that training had been intense, and they were all stronger for it, but it still left people shivering whenever they recalled what they'd put their bodies through to earn that progress.

"If you're still hung up on that, then I suppose you'll remember this familiar cast of characters!" a voice, familiar to Izuku, rang out from behind Izuku. He knew that voice, and he felt his excitement for this class vanish in an instant as he turned around to confirm his fears.

Approaching Ground Gamma was Class B, accompanied by Vlad King, their homeroom teacher, Aizawa, All Might and Midnight. Leading the pack was Neito Monoma, dressed in a suit that only looked a little bit more expensive than Gentle Criminal's, strangely bearing three wristwatches on the wrist and three pocket watches hanging from the belt. Izuku realised quickly that it was because his Quirk, Copy, had a time limit to how long he could mimic the powers of others. It had to be hard to juggle multiple timers in his head and focus on fighting at the same time, so that's where the timepieces came in. Behind Monoma was Itsuka Kendo, Class B's representative, Izuku's counterpart in their class. She looked at Monoma like he was an alien and went to raise her hand against him, as it had somehow ended up her task to control him, but Aizawa spoke before anyone else could do anything.

"Welcome to your first joint training session. We've been trying to get this greenlit for a while — ideally, we would've been doing this from the start, but other things got in the way — but we're here now. As well, this class is different from others because you'll be having a guest," Aizawa said.

Both classes started to murmur at that. It was then that Izuku, and Tsu judging by the ribbits that came from behind him, spotted the stranger at Aizawa's side. No, not a stranger — Izuku recognised this person. He didn't know her name, but he recognised the dark brown hair that was tied up, leaving two bangs to frame her face. Her stern-looking, narrow eyes swept over the class as she frowned, a sullen expression overcoming her face. She wore the standard UA gym uniform, the winter version, but had a support item strapped to her back — two tanks of some liquid, with two nozzles running underneath her sleeves and peaking out at her wrists. This was one of the major detractors that had been criticising 1-A after what had happened in the summer. This girl was one of the major motivations Izuku had used to make their school festival event as perfect as possible. He wasn't sure if they'd changed her mind, but no matter what she thought, Izuku committed himself to being polite with her. He didn't usually struggle with that, but it was good to put it into words, even if it was only in his own head.

"This is Chikuchi Togeike, she's in Class 1-C. She'll be joining Class A for today's exercise," Aizawa said.

Togeike, apparently, nodded to Aizawa and gave a stiff bow to the entirety of Class A, before walking off to the side of them and, while technically part of their grouping, keeping her distance. She completely ignored the outroar from Class B, mainly Monoma, about this development.

"Why does Class A get the newbie? Shouldn't we, as their inferiors, have the advantage?" Monoma cried.

"You're not actually inferior, so no. If you haven't noticed, Class A has only nineteen students, and Class B is twenty strong. Togeike is an equaliser," Aizawa explained.

Izuku's chest tightened at the reference to their departed classmate, Tenya Iida. It never got less painful to remember what had happened with Iida, but he'd gotten better at managing his response to the memory. He sighed, and the feeling of cool wintry air rushing into his lungs, the cold sting of it, cleared his mind. He saw one of Aizawa's hands hanging at his sides, curl into a fist for a brief moment before unfurling and relaxing. Izuku guessed it never got easier, if even Aizawa, who'd admitted to seeing more than enough death for a lifetime, reacted the same way. He couldn't think about it, though, because they still didn't know what the training was supposed to be, and he needed to have his head in the game for this.

"Anyway, if you're done complaining, I'll explain what the exercise is. You'll be split up into five teams of four, within your class, and be paired up with another team from the opposite class. You will then fight, behaving as though the other team are villains and your team are heroes. You have twenty minutes to subdue and imprison the other team in one of the two jails situated at opposite sides of the arena, which are your respective starting points. Whoever imprisons the entire other team before twenty minutes is up, or whichever team has more members standing when the match ends, wins. Got it?' Aizawa said. A chorus of affirmation had Aizawa nodding. "Okay, then. We can start drawing lots."

One by one, the members of Class A, plus Togeike, drew their lots. Izuku ended up on a team with Ochako, Ashido and … Togeike. He went over to his friends first, where they briefly celebrated ending up with each other as teammates.

"Hell yeah! Dance Squad, Part Two! We're gonna crush this, literally with you two!" Ashido said, pointing at Izuku and Ochako. As both their faces flushed slightly, Izuku couldn't tell if she meant 'crush' like crushing things and people, which they both could do, or 'crushing' like …crushing, which … Izuku knew nothing about that, and if Ashido had heard differently, she'd been hearing lies. Lies.

"Hey, we should go and talk to the new girl, Togeike. It looks like she's with us," Ochako said.

"Yeah. Class Rep, go do your Class Rep thing while we figure out a strategy!" Ashido said with a grin.

"Oh, sonowyou're okay with me being Class Rep? Don't think Yaoyorozu doesn't tell me things," Izuku said, narrowing his eyes at Ashido even as he smiled at the way she stuck her tongue out at him. Ashido was a tease, but he could tell it was never in bad faith. "Fine," he sighed, exhaling a breath harshly as he prepared himself for what was to come.

Ochako snorted a laugh and said, "Oh, you truly are God's strongest warrior," and gently pushed him on the back. He was strong enough, even without his Quirk, to be unmoved by her playful shove if he wanted, but it still made him stumble forward and begin walking at that pace toward their fourth teammate.

"Uh, hi. It's Togeike, right? I'm Izuku Midoriya. Seems like we're teammates today," Izuku said, offering his hand in greeting.

She didn't shake it, just looked at him with those critical eyes. She frowned, and looked past him. He thought she was looking at their other teammates, but he didn't take his eyes off her. It would show her that he was nervous, and he didn't want her to think he was nervous, even though he was. When Izuku was sure that she wasn't going to shake his hand, he let it hang at his side and cleared his throat.

"Well, the rest of our teammates are over there, so we should probably do introductions," Izuku said, trying and failing to keep his voice from breaking. That was the first thing that Togeike visibly reacted to, and it was with the faintest upward curl of her lips, a smile. She thought it was funny. Izuku tried not to be hurt by that.

Without a word, Togeike walked past him. It was only as she did so that Izuku realised that she was actually taller than him. They'd seemed more or less the same height from far away, and even from a few steps away as he'd been talking, but as she moved past him it was obvious that Togeike was maybe half an inch taller than Izuku, and he huffed as he tried not to let that get to him. He walked over to his classmates with her, and they joined up with enthusiasm from one side, but an icy detachment from the other.

"Hey! My name's Ochako Uraraka, but my hero name's Uravity!" Ochako said.

"Mina Ashido, but I go by Acid Queen when I'm in costume!" Ashido cheered.

"Togeike," she said, a scowl making her already sharp jawline and cold eyes look even more hostile.

Both of them greeted Togeike with a smile and an upbeat attitude, but she couldn't even be bothered to say her full name. She spoke in a flat voice that sounded like it caught in the back of her throat whenever she tried to speak, which made her sound croaky, kind of like Tsu, but not nearly as endearing. Izuku shook his head at his own thoughts. This was not what being polite was, even if he wasn't voicing these thoughts. He had to get himself together and not let this girl's attitude get to him. He took a deep breath and looked over at Ochako, who met his eyes and, while her outward expression didn't change, got the message across through the glimmer of understanding in her eyes that she knew what he was thinking. He sighed, and put a smile on his face,regardless of if it looked or felt natural.

Izuku could already tell this was going to be a long day.

Author's Note: If you don't remember Togeike, I don't blame you. She was a background character in two episodes, mainly just used as a way to give stakes to 1-A's musical performance during the school festival arc, aside from Gentle Criminal ruining it. Here, I've fleshed her out into a proper character with a Quirk and stuff, replacing Shinso's role in the canon joint training arc because here, he's been in 1-A from the start. I was considering having Mineta return again and giving him some character development after his last appearance, where he kind of just sucked, but I decided that I wanted to bring this obscure character into focus for an arc!