I've posted the pictures of Suzume and her family. They're on AO3 in the other part of this series, 'Kono Family Pics' and on my deviantart account, also under Lore55. It's easier to draw on paper than the computer, turns out ^^'

Almost all of the new brackets were made with a random generator.

The hour lunch break should give Suzume time to find somewhere quiet to rest for a while and enough time to eat and drink. She wanders the stadium corridors, trying to find an empty room somewhere. The day's only half over and she's already exhausted.

On top of that, they've announced the brackets for the fight.

She's up against Yaoyarozu first.

The finalists are made up almost entirely out of people from her class, with the exception of Shinsou, Shihai, the shadow boy from 1-B who had been on Shinsou's team, and Shoda, a smaller, but significantly more tricky boy from the same class.

The one on one fights are what she's been worried about since the start. She knows she's a good fighter. She's spent her entire life fighting for every scrap of respect and dignity she could hold onto.

But these in particular are going to put her at a disadvantage.

The stage is elevated and clear of obstacles, so they'll be fighting out in the open. Her grappling gun will only be so much use in this situation, since she's trying not to shoot anyone else's eye out. Her staff is her greatest advantage. It's reinforced to be sturdier than the last one, and while that makes it heavier it also adds power to it.

Some of the people who advanced forwards she knows she can take in a fight, especially when such a huge part of that fight is the rink. Hagakure, Ashido, Tsu, Shinsou, and Kirishima for example. But the others are going to be… difficult. She beat Bakugou by taking him by surprise both times. Now that's going to be significantly harder. Iida is stupidly fast, she won't have a lot of time to react if she has to fight him, but she thinks she can manage if it comes to that. Kaminari will be her biggest problem.

She's a close range fighter with no real defense against electricity. The closest she's got is her rubber soled shoes and her grappling gun. It's made of some kind of monofilament imitation teflon, and it's made not to conduct electricity in case the point embeds itself into a wire inside a wall or something like that.

But again. She can't actually shoot Kaminari.

And Todoroki… she's pretty sure she's just straight up screwed if and when she has to fight him. If she can get a chance it's going to be a slim one, and it depends entirely on how fast he can get his stupidly huge ice walls up, and her relying on the idea that he won't burn her face off since he's still in the middle of telling his dad to fuck off.

It stings her pride that she might have to rely on him holding back, but so does the fact that she keeps getting to choose support equipment. And winning means more than a little bit of hurt feelings.

She just has to-

Her musings are cut off suddenly when a hand reaches out a grabs her shoulder. Another one covers her mouth and she reacts, slamming her elbow hard into whoever grabbed.

"Ah- shit!" Bakugou hisses. Suzume pauses, her fist raised to break his nose next.

"What are you-"

"Sshh!" he hisses, and yanks her away from the corner she'd been about to turn.

Suzume scowls at him and opens her mouth to snap before other, quiet voices reach her.

"-you blindsided me. So much that I broke my own vow. I don't think any of our teammates notices it, but in that moment, I felt it. That power of yours... It's exactly like All Mights," oh. It was Todoroki, talking to Midoriya. "So Midoriya, I have to ask. Are you secretly his love child or something?"

Suzume bit her lip and slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. She pressed her back against the cool wall, next to Bakugou, who was still gripping her shoulder.

"All Mights- What, no! It's nothing like that!" Midoriya rushed to assure. "A-although I guess if you were right that is what an illegitimate son would say too, if he was a secret and- But anyways! Why are you... I mean, why me...?"

There was a pause while Todoroki mulled that over.

"If it's 'nothing like that' then it is 'something'. Isn't it? But whatever it is you can't talk about 'it'. Fine. You must know about my father, Endeavor. He's been the number two hero forever now. If you're connected to the number one hero, then that means I need to win all the more. See, my old man will do anything to advance his position…"

Suzume stayed next to Bakugou while Todoroki laid his tragic back story out in front of them, describing his mother and the way he got his scar. It's enough to make Suzume feel like some kind of creepy stalking voyeur, but it's not like she didn't already know. And Bakugou doesn't seem inclined to let her go as horror slowly dawns across his face.

"If you can't tell me anything, that's fine. Keep being All Mights something-or-other. And I'll climb over you using only my right side. Sorry I took up your time," Todoroki's footsteps fade, out into the sunlight, but Midoriya rushes after him with a shout.

"Wait! Everything you just said… The only way I got here was by being helped by other's! And here at UA I've been helped even more. So I owe it to them, to everyone who risked themselves to help me get this far, to give it my all! So that declaration of war you made earlier? I'm returning it! I won't lose!"

Suzume waits until their footsteps fade before she pulls away from Bakugou at last.

"Damn, this class is getting ridiculous," Suzume tugs at the edges of her gloves. "The next thing you know I'm gonna be dumping my whole life story on someone."

Bakugou scoffs at her, but he still looks pale.

"Whatever. You don't look that surprised by what he said."

"I mean. I'm not," Suzume shrugs. "Everything about that kid screams 'child abuse', although there's not much that can be done about it considering who his father is. You can tell just by looking at him. Just like you can tell that Midoriya's dad has been out of the picture for most of his life and he only developed his quirk recently, Tsu's an oldest sister and had to help raise her siblings, and you're an only child and a 'gifted' one at that."

He's staring at her, his mouth open.

"...what?"

"How did you know all that?!"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No!"

"Oh. Well uh. Let's see," She was technically cheating, but there were signs outside of that and what they just heard.

"With Todoroki even besides the burn scar and him being the son of a fire hero, he's pretty withdrawn, angry, and he acts like he was at least partially homeschooled. He's isolating himself, whether it's intentional or an ingrained habit. It's also possible he's doing it because he doesn't feel safe having friends with such a volatile parent. Even the media reports on Endeavor's temper and excessive force. Plus, he's always the first one to get to class and the last one to leave. He doesn't want to go home. At lunch he always eats something brought from home, and all of it is the kind of food you'd find in extreme athletic diets without any kind of deviation that would make it seem like it was what he chose, and- would you stop staring at me?" Suzume puffs her cheeks out. "It's creepy."

"I'm creepy? You figured all that out and you barely even talk to the guy!"

"Like I said. It's obvious."

She has more to say. Things about his brother and his mother and the way he just barely twitches when people reach for him, or the stiffness in his shoulders when people touch him. She had things to say, about why she can't do anything about it right now. Things about burnt bones in the woods and a dead eldest son and goddamn child abuse statistics-

Bakugou's mouth twists into something that could potentially pass as a smile.

"Are you sure you don't have some kind of freaky observation quirk?"

Suzume's jaw clenches tightly and she steps away from him. "I told you, I don't have any quirk. I never have, I never will. And I'm not the one spying on my competition's private conversations."

"Whatever," he stuffs his hands in his pockets and scowls at her. "It doesn't matter. I'll beat the both of them, and I'll force that Icy Hot bastard to fight me with everything he's got. Deku too!"

They're all obsessed.

"Have fun with that. I'm going to go eat lunch."

Katsuki stamps on the ground, his shoulders hunched and his eyes locked onto her, freezing her in place for just a second.

"Don't think you're exempt from that either! This time I'm gonna kick your ass, wasp girl, just you watch! You barely got more points than me in the cavalry battle, so this time there's no way I'll lose to you!"

The spark is back in her chest, annoying and distracting and she pounds it down viciously. She needs to focus. This is serious work!

"You've been saying that for over a month, and you still haven't beaten me."

"This time I will," he stamps closer, right up in her face. His red eyes are nearly glowing. "When I see you in the finals, I'll beat the shit out of you."

Suzume narrows her eyes. In one smooth move she hooks her foot between his, catches his ankle, and yanks his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Get out of my face, man. What's with you and Midoriya trying to keep me from lunch?"

"Huh? Deku? Why are you-"

"Anyways. I'll see you in the ring, puppy."

She waves her hand at him and leaves him on the ground, her lunch still uneaten and her plans no less firm. What a pain.

I wonder why he's acting so weird…

Toshinori would be lying if he said that he wasn't worried about his students. Especially after the rather alarming conversation he'd snagged from Endeavor during the lunch break.

This was one of the most intense sports festivals in years, maybe since he'd been a student here, and the fact that a good chunk of the participants were students who had already gone toe to toe with real villains, and looked death in the face, didn't make him feel any more at ease.

Especially not now that those same students were going up against one another.

Toshinori knew 1-A. They were going to give these fights everything that they had. And while he had faith that class 2-B's participants would do their best as well, something changes in a person when they're forced to fight for their survival.

He wishes, desperately, that his students hadn't had to face that kind of darkness already.

But they did, and they had come out on top, stronger for it.

There were some students that he was genuinely impressed that they had made it out unscathed. Kota and Hagakure in particular were ill suited for the type of sudden combat they had been forced into, but they had been clever and quick and they had been okay at the end of the day.

Other's he was less surprised to see them walk out hale and healthy. Bakugou, Todoroki, Yaoyarozu and Kirishima weren't a shock. They were all very capable students, with versatile, powerful quirks.

Even less surprising than them (Or perhaps more surprising than anyone at all) was Yusada Suzume.

She was… a complicated person for him to be around.

He remembers well the first day they met. She was a tiny, round faced pre-teen sitting in the settling dust of her front door. Blood rolled down her temple from a stray piece of wall. It was his own fault, and the scar still sits on her temple to this day.

But she didn't cry, or scream, or run. She just stared at them with dark, intense eyes. Toshinori felt like he was being dissected under them, and she was just a child. A child that wasn't supposed to be there. Sanjirou (Who was brave for a villain, to somehow hunt down All Might's personal phone number and beg his help for the sake of his children) had given them the family schedule earlier that week and the house should have been empty save the man himself. Perfect for staging a fight for the yakuza to see later.

But something must have changed, because instead of coming in and staging a fight with him, he instead witnessed something that he, frankly, wishes he hadn't.

"Suzy Q. Listen to me now. This world will never let you be a hero."

It didn't sit right with him, to leave her behind with tears slipping silently down her round cheeks, turning pink on one side from the blood. But what was he supposed to do to comfort her? He was already taking her father away. He wouldn't give her false hope. Quirkless people couldn't be heroes, just as he'd told Midoriya. Besides, one of Sanjiro's conditions for information was that All Might keep his children as safe as he could.

And then, three years later, he had seen her in person again when he burst into his very first class. She had stared at him, the same way she did the day they first met, with dark, dissecting eyes, and won a match against two students, each with an incredibly powerful quirk. He kept waiting for her to find him after class or snap at him when he warned them about collateral damage but she never has.

It's rather unnerving, and he'd been very worried about letting her participate in some of their training. She was quirkless, after all, and he hasn't necessarily changed his opinion on quirkless people being heroes since he told Midoriya to give up.

But seeing her in action, and knowing how she handled herself during the USJ incident…

(She's so much like Midoriya, and his opposite in the same way. If he'd said to her what he said to him that very first day, she would have dug her teeth in even further. There would have been no tears, only that same steely determination.

"A pro is always laying their life on the line. So I just can't bring myself to tell you you can do it even without a quirk. If you aspire to save people, there's always the police force. They're not as glamorous, but they're still important. I won't mock dreaming but that being said, you need to see reality for what it is, kid."

Was it really the kids who needed to see reality, when they were the ones now being trusted to shape it?)

Out of all of their students, she's the one most likely to be the mole. But he can't bring himself to believe that she actually is. No matter what Present Mic and Snipe said at the faculty meeting.

She has all the motivation. She even has a reason to target him specifically, like the League of Villains had been trying to. He'd taken her father from her, villain or not. Not to mention that she'd spent a lot of time with a branch of the Yakuza, and while Sanjirou had assured them that it was just babysitting, there was always a chance that it had been more and he hadn't known about it when he begged for All Might to protect his daughter.

So it's the logical conclusion that she would be the mole.

But.

But.

Then there's the part where she'd defended Aizawa, to the point that Tomura Shigaraki had nearly put a hole in her ribs. If her armor had been any thinner, he would have. There was the part where she was throwing her whole self into this competition, when if she was only here as an infiltrator it wouldn't be necessary.

There was the part where Nezu had shown them all the recommendation students interviews.

"If fate came at you swinging, wouldn't you fight back?"

Maybe it's the ghost of Toshinori Yagi, fourteen, quirkless, and just as hungry to step up to the plate. Maybe he's just naive. But he wants to believe in this stubborn, quirkless girl.

He thinks that, if he'd chosen to give All for One to someone else, she's a little like what Midoriya would have been.

Quieter, angrier, and significantly more trained, but they're not so different in the end. They're both fighting with everything they have to follow their dreams. They've both had the world against them since the day they decided to become heroes.

(They're opposites, though. Midoriya wants to save people, plain and simple, and Yusada, Kono Suzume, what does she want? To leave her roots behind? To prove herself?)

That's probably why the boy has so much trouble talking to her.

He'd told Toshinori about the stumbling attempt two weeks ago, and how he'd basically called her weak for not having a quirk. He probably shouldn't have laughed at the boy, but when he'd told him he hadn't said anything that wasn't true he'd gotten the strangest look on his face.

He knows exactly how hard it is for young Midoriya, to know the type of challenges she's faced just to get into the hero course, but to be unable to tell her that he understood. He had to constantly bite his tongue to keep from blurting out their shared secret. He'd already told Bakugou, although whether he believed them or not was debatable.

It certainly doesn't help that Yusada is stone faced most of the time. Her black eyes rarely betray what she's thinking. Her face might be heart shaped and soft, but it's smooth as stone most of the time, unless something manages to irritate her. He's only seen her smile a few times.

There was the vicious little grin she'd worn when she tied up Bakugou, the wide, nearly hysterical stretch of a smile when he and the other teachers had burst into the USJ, and earlier today, during the obstacle race when she'd danced between land mines to take the lead from Bakugou and Todoroki, before Midoriya overtook all three of them.

Toshinori is privately hoping that this festival will bring them together, and help smooth over the rocky patches. Although Midoriya had been crushed when his team was beat out…

He perks up when they announce a change in the line up.

Two members of team Shinsou, Ojiro and Shoda, both withdraw from the tournament, citing that they hadn't been doing the fighting themselves, they'd just been led around by their noses by Shinsou. Midnight, instead, advances two members from the fifth place team.

Midoriya and Tokoyami.

Toshinori checks the new brackets.

Midoriya vs Hagakure, Todoroki vs. Sero, Iida vs. Bakugou. Kirishima vs. Ashido. Shihai vs. Shoji, Yusada vs. Yaoyorozu. Shinsou vs. Kaminari. And Tokoyami vs. Tsuyu.

Interesting.

He knows he shouldn't show favorites but-

He's so glad Midoriya made it into the finals!

He still makes sure not to cheer too loudly for him while he brawls with Hagakure. The girl isn't very strong, but it's hard to block or dodge a punch that you can't see. Never the less, Midoriya manages to knock her out of the ring within ten minutes. It's not quite the bang most people would expect from the UA sports festivals, but it's made up for in the second match.

When Todoroki freezes Sero, along with half the stadium.

Aizawa's kids are all a little bit scary, Toshinori thinks to himself.

The next two matches are longer and harder. Iida is powerful and fast, and he manages to dodge most of Bakugou's explosions, but the blonde boy is nothing if not adaptable. All it takes is one good catch for him to snatch Iida's leg and use his own momentum, and an overpowered explosion, to send him flying out of the ring and into a wall.

It looks remarkable like one of the throws that Yusada has preformed in class.

As for Kirishima and Ashido, theirs is a more fraught battle. From their files he knows they went to middle school together, and from the hard set of Kirishima's jaw and the determination burning in both of them he gets the feeling that there's more to this fight than just winning the sports festival. Ashido is fast, flexible, and clever, but Kirishima is powerful and his hardening gives him just enough resistance to her acid that he manages to overtake and pin her.

Even though Shoji is significantly stronger than Shihai, the shadow of 1-B manages to knock him out of bounds after a long, drawn out fight that consists mostly of dodging before he takes advantage of the large shadow cast by Shoji's arms, and vanishes into it.

If Toshinori remembers right, Shihai's quirk let's him merge with anything dark, in terms of shadows or coloration. Out in the empty arena under the sun, he's at a massive disadvantage. So the victory is certainly praise worthy, even if it is unrefined and more luck than skill.

Yusada vs Yaoyorozu…

It's longer, and from an outside perspective it's much closer than any of the previous matches.

From his place in the teachers box, Toshinori can just see the displeased twist of Yusada's mouth when Mic introduces her as the hero courses very first quirkless student.

Yusada starts it by attacking Yaoyarozu, a break from her normal strategy that throws her classmate off guard enough she barely has time to get a shield up before Yusada is swinging her new segmented staff at her. The end works like a flail and lashes around the edge of the shield to hit Yaoyarozu's arm hard, but she recovers and makes another on the other arm in time to block Yusada's next attack, one aimed at her face. She discards the first shield and a staff appears in her hand, one that she swings with enough skill to force Yusada to flip back. The one handed back hand spring is flashier, and less practical, than anything Yusada had shown off in practice.

Still, it get's her enough distance to twist the segments into their places, and Toshinori knows at once that Yaoyarozu had picked the wrong weapon.

He can see her focus on her quirk too much, and on the fight and her surroundings too little. He knows that creating anything takes incredible concentration, but the staff is Yusada's preferred weapon, and as proficient as Yaoyorozu is, it doesn't hold up against the elegant, easy mastery that Yusada displays.

She spins and twists, each strike perfectly timed and solid. Toshinori had seen glimpses of it, but when she presses down on Yaoyorozu's overhead block that power in her shoulders and arms becomes apparent. Whoever had taught her had known what they were doing.

She's fast, too. Too fast for Yaoyorozu to put the kind of thought into her quirk that she needs. In group combat it had been okay, her teammates bought her the time she needed, but here, one on one against someone who's so many levels above her in combat…

Yusada actually flips over Yaoyorozu's head and drops neatly to the ground, sweeping her legs out from under her and sending her sprawling on top of her staff and a half formed shield. What looks like it would have been a net goes flying harmlessly to the side and settles in the grass.

In an instant the shorter girl is upon her back, one leg digging into her thighs and the opposite knee hard on her lower back. The staff is held lightly over Yaoyorozu's head.

With a bit more training, Yaoyorozu would be able to create something on her back with enough force to dislodge Yusada. Maybe she can already and just doesn't think of it, or is thinking too much to get it to work right.

Either way, she's forced to surrender her fight, shame and humiliation on her face.

Toshinori may be putting too much thought into it, but the muttering in the crowd, not cheering, sounds ominous.

Shinsou beats Kaminari within two minutes. All he had to do was get him to talk. It was almost unfair.

Tokoyami also comes out on top, after knocking Tsuyu out of the ring with Dark Shadow.

The next roster makes him worry a little bit. Maybe a lot a bit.

Midoriya vs Todoroki, Bakugou vs Kirishima. Shihai vs. Yusada, and Shinsou vs Tokoyami

Oh dear.

Suzume hadn't watched the match between Todoroki and Midoriya. She remembered enough about it that she knew it was going to be brutal, and when they have to reconstruct the stage again and put off Bakugou and Kirishima's match she knows she remembers right.

There's some things that are different. And some things that are the same. Are certain things just fate? Or pure luck?

No.

No, more likely than that there's a hand at work here.

Thinking about it, it's a bit strange that in her memories and in this life some of the matches hadn't changed, and some of them seemed nearly assured. Sure, Midoriya and Hagakure weren't a match from before, but there was simply no way Hagakure was going to win in a one on one fight with Midoriya. Todoroki and Sero are an easy match too. Even Sero himself acknowledged that he had little chance to win. And Bakugou was nearly guaranteed to win against Iida, even if the fight was hard.

Ah. She realizes. Nezu.

It had to be easy to change the 'random' selection if you were the principal. He wasn't directly involved with this years matches. He was the referee for the third years, like he apparently always was, but he could mess with the computer easy enough, and with the way everything was spaced out so people could watch the events of different classes if they wanted to it would give him enough time to make small changes here and there.

She's not sure why he would do all this, except maybe to pair some of them up against people who would make them think about what they were doing and how they were doing it. Some kind of strange teaching lesson. That's what she was against Yaoyarozu then? A reminder that she needed to use her quirk faster and work on actually training with what she created. And Suzume? If she had lost to Yaoyorozu, what would her lesson have been?

The jaded part of her whispers that it's to make her give up and leave.

The logical part of her retorts that if that was the case he could have simply denied her entrance.

The stupid, growing fragment of her that is made of hope chimes in that mauve its because he believes in her.

She crushes that shred relentlessly, just like she'd crushed the weird spark in her chest earlier. She needs to focus. She doesn't know Shihai's quirk as well as her classmates, just what she'd gathered during the obstacle races. He can merge with anything dark, hes clever, but he's not overtly great at physical stuff.

Her staff isn't dark, it's deep golden and the chains are silver. Her grappling gun, and her shoes, are. So is her hair and eyes, so she's going to have to keep her head away from him. Fine by her. Her gloves are dark too, so she's going to have to leave them off. Like some kind of reverse Hagakure.

Okay.

She can do this.

She peels her gloves off, and starts undoing the tape wrapped underneath them so she can tighten it.

They call Bakugou and Kirishima to the arena, something she only hears faintly in the dressing room she's taken over. It's the quiet she wanted during lunch, but didn't get because Bakugou is way creepier than she thought, and she ended up hearing her classmates tragic backstory.

It's quiet until the door opens, and Kaminari and Shoji walk in.

She stares at them, and their conversation cuts off when they notice her.

"Oh hey, Yusada, I didn't know you were in here," Kaminari says with a friendly grin.

"Hey," she says, hoping that they'll leave. Instead, Shoji hisses through his teeth, his eyes huge over his mask.

"What happened to your hands?!"

Kaminari looks at them too and gapes. "Holy shit!"

Suzume sets her jaw and frowns at the pair of them. It's true, her hands are pretty beaten up. Between knuckles that had split enough times to scar, bruises that seem to never really go away even with protection, and a set of stitches that cross the back of her right hand, they're going to be a nightmare when she's older.

"Haven't you ever seen boxers hands?" she asks, and starts rewrapping with fresh tape. "Martial artists aren't so different."

"Man, that must have hurt," Kaminari whistles sharply.

"Of course it did," Suzume says dryly. "According to Shihan, 'Pain builds character'."

"Never introduce him to Midoriya," Kaminari says, equally dry.

Suzume makes a face. "I genuinely don't know how that would go. He's an angry, ornery old man who hates children and soft things."

So he'd despise Midoriya, who cries at the drop of a hat and is somehow still squishy despite being well muscled by now.

Suzume finishes with her hands and carefully picks up her gloves. They're the same ones that Kai gave her all those years ago, well worn by now but not so much that she'll need to get new ones soon. She quietly stows them in a locker.

"I should get up there. My match will start pretty soon."

"Oh, yeah. You're still in the competition," Kaminari rubs the back of his head. "Man, that Shinsou guy beat me way too easy."

"You should learn to talk less," Suzume advises, her mouth twitching. "Wish me luck."

"Break a leg," Shoji offers her his hand, eyes curved in a faint smile.

She startles briefly before high fiving him, the sparks trying valiantly to return to her chest.

"Thanks."

She waves at the boys and exits, walking the long hallways towards the arena.

Kirishima, his red hair smoking and his body bruised, limps out right as she gets to the entrance. When he sees her, his eyes light up and for a second Suzume is startled by how pretty he looks. In a beat up, sharp toothed, red eyed sort of way. He's like a shark puppy or something.

"Oh hey! Were you watching?" he asks, stopping in front of her.

"I only caught a bit," she lies, not wanting to hurt his feelings. "I was getting ready for my match too. How are you feeling?"

"Huh? Not bad I guess. I was hoping I'd get further along, but I guess that's Bakugou for you. When you beat Shihai, it'll be your turn up against him."

Suzume's cheeks warm with surprise. When? Not if?

"He was almost as bad at Todoroki. He's fighting Tokoyami next, right?"

Suzume blinks at him. "Did Tokoyami have his fight with Shinsou already?"

"No, but Tokoyami's way stronger than he is, and now that he knows what kind of quirk he has, he'll probably win, right?"

"Maybe… it depends on if Shinsou can get him to talk, I suppose. Tokoyami's pretty quiet, but he can be dramatic when he wants to be. This whole class can be."

"I don't wanna hear that from you, Miss Shot-Nomu's-Eye-Out."

"It grew back!"

Kirishima laughs at her, and claps her roughly on the shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. Good luck out there. I know you'll do your best!"

For the second time that day, someone lifts their hand to her. Suzume, half smiling, slaps her palm against his as she passes him by, and steps out into the sunlight.