She doesn't lose.

Shinsou does his best to goad her into talking to him. He insults her, he teases her, he starts the lyrics of hit songs that she barely stops herself from picking up. At one point he even begs her for mercy.

Instead, Suzume punches him hard for each insult, and tosses him out of bounds.

And if she hit him a few more times than was strictly necessary? She's the only one who needs to know it's payback for brainwashing her before.

By the time they're finished and a few smaller games are held, Bakugou is awake enough to fight his match against Todoroki for who gets official third place.

He wins, to his own fury. No matter how much Bakugou screams, Todoroki refuses to use his fire side against him, and the stadium goes up in smoke again.

There's a brief break afterwards, for people to stretch their legs while they put the stadium back together yet again, and to Suzume's own surprise Midnight finds her and takes her to a dressing room for make up of all things.

She'd worn it in her past life, but in her past life she was a full grown adult with a penchant for dramatically revealing murderers Agatha Christie style, and she'd loved gold and red eye shadow and lipstick.

She hasn't worn any make up in… hell, fifteen years.

Midnight keeps it light, at least, and natural looking.

"You're lucky," she says while she gently holds Suzume's chin in one hand and dusts a fine bronze eye shadow on. "You've got these lovely lashes, you don't need any mascara."

"All you really needed to do was cover the bruise on my cheek…" Suzume keeps still for her, despite her small objections.

"Maybe, but now that there's no chance of it getting smeared or sweating off while you're fighting, it's a good idea to put something on. It won't be a big deal until your formal debut, but the media can fixate on appearance quite a bit."

Suzume thinks of her shoulders and cringes at the idea.

"I guess you would be the expert in that area…"

Midnight hums, softly.

"I would… There are some things I know now, that I wish someone had been around to tell me when I was younger. But all my teachers were men."

Suzume doesn't like the way that sounds. Who had she interned with again? Purple Magestic or something?

"I wouldn't worry too much about how I look. That's not the part everyone's going to be focused on."

Midnight sighs.

"Listen, Yusada. About the crowd earlier, and what they said-"

"It's fine," Suzume cuts her off. Her mouth twists bitterly. "I mean, it's not fine. But it's nothing I haven't heard a million times. It's nothing I won't hear again. I'm sure Nezu knew something like that might happen when he agreed to let quirkless people come to school here. I'm sure there's gonna be kids pulled out of their classes now that I've been all over TV, and he's going to get people threatening to get UA defunded, or sued, or whatever the fuck. I knew exactly what I was signing up for when I came here. I just hope the rest of you did too."

Midnight lets go of her chin.

"The sad part is, I believe you. But listen. Don't worry about kids leaving their classes, or parents calling us with their panties in a bunch. We can handle them. We're your teachers, it's our job to protect you. All you need to worry about right now is going to get your medal."

Suzume blinks her eyes open to look up at Midnight. She has the most peculiarly soft look on her face. It's not one Suzume has ever seen on her before.

She's struck, rather suddenly, with the realization that so much of her teacher's personality is a performance. One that she's cultivated for years, just as surely as All Might has cultivated his smile.

All Might, Midnight, Mic, what are they actually like? Even in the classrooms, they're less loud and shining than they are on TV.

It makes Suzume feel silly for not noticing sooner.

I've always been this way I guess. The closer someone is to me, the less I see of them.

"... I've never had teachers like you before," Suzume announces, and stands slowly. She doesn't know what she thinks about that, but it makes her feel warm to think about Midnight telling people off, and Aizawa and Mic dragging quirkist jack asses away, trussed up like turkey's.

She smiles, small and soft, and the pair of them go out to finish the Sports Festival.

And so the end of the day finds Suzume standing on the top pedestal, bewildered more than anything else, with Shinsou in second place, and Bakugou fuming in third. They'd had to slap a muzzle on him, and the sight of it makes Shinsou pale.

It occurs to her that with his loudmouth no matter where in the contest Bakugou comes in, he's going to have to be gagged.

It's gotta be the weirdest turn out in years.

A tiny quirkless girl who threatened to fight the entire crowd, pro heroes or not, a Gen Ed kid with a mental quirk, and someone with one of the strongest quirks in the school wearing a muzzle with his blasting hands cuffed to keep him from actually fighting over the results.

He hates how his fight with Todoroki ended, he hates not being taken seriously, and he broke his promise to himself from the start of the contest by losing to Suzume in such a tight manner.

But his pride wouldn't let him beg that they change the decision. And if they were being real here, even if he had beaten her soundly he would have lost to Shinsou in an instant.

How did someone so arrogant end up with such a massive inferiority complex?

Midnight strides out in front of them. Suzume will admit she's jealous of the easy confidence she displays.

"Of course there's only one person worthy of distributing the award!" She motions to the sky and Suzume looks up, just in time to see a familiar red white and blue shape come blasting down to the ground.

"Citizens, I am here!" He shouts, his voice spreading to all reaches of the crowd.

Midnight's, "-The number one hero!" comes late and awkward. She cringes and shoots All Might an awkward, apologetic smile.

"Ruined that, didn't I?" She shrinks, apologetic, before recovering herself. "So now that you're here All Might, why don't we start the presentation?"

Midnight hands him a box filled with medals, each one displayed neatly inside. He walks over to Bakugou.

"Young Bakugou. I know this isn't the way you wanted today to go, but I am sure you will take the lessons you learned today and use them to grow even stronger for next year."

He tugs the gag off of Bakugou, and almost gets bitten for his troubles.

"Shut up old man! I don't need your damn platitudes, I'm gonna get stronger than you, just you watch!"

"In the meantime, hold on to this," All Might drapes the bronze metal over his head before moving on to the second platform.

"Young Shinsou! You did excellent today, I must say. Keep this up and you'll join the hero track in no time, young man. You showed an excellent grasp of your quirk, and you were clever in tricking your opponents into talking to you, especially Tokoyami and Todoroki. Yet, you relied on it too much. Against someone who it didn't work on, you were soundly defeated. Train your body, just as you do your quirk."

"Right…" Shinsou looks a little sun dazed when All Might turns his blinding smile down on him. The silver metal looks good on his chest.

Suzume keeps her back straight and locks her hands behind her back. She doesn't have her gloves to tug on, so she needs someone to do with them instead.

"I must say, young Yusada, you've really caused an upset this year. I don't think anyone expected such a… sound victory."

You mean, you thought I would wash out by now because I don't have a quirk.

"Although your showmanship could use some work. Being a hero is more than winning a fight, you also need to inspire comfort in the people around you, and make them feel safe in your presence."

"Like you?" she asks, staring at his shadowed eyes.

Sweat breaks across his brow.

"I do my best," he smiles, but it's tense. Does he think she's about to throw hands with him on national TV?

The gold metal is heavy around her neck.

(She doesn't see the thousands of people like her, with extra joints in their bodies and hunger in their eyes, watching her take the stage. Her black eye burn, and stoke the fires in their own hearts.)

She watches All Might go on to give some speech about how anyone could have won this year, all the opportunities to advance and how great he knows they'll be by next festival. He is charismatic, if you believe in heroes like that.

She wonders if he remembers her. He never mentions her dad, or the deal she knows they made together.

She thinks he does, and some vindictive part of her hopes that he feels guilty for putting a man in prison for crimes he didn't commit.

They finally make their way out of the stadium.

She looks at Shinsou, once they're free of the eyes of a million people.

"So when you get transferred to the hero course, are you coming to 1-A?"

Shinsou looks startled for a second before it melts away into his default, sleepy-eyed expression.

"That's pretty presumptuous of you. You think I'll get transfered?"

Well you said 'when' I become a hero so…

She sees the way he watches her face. A question. Well, she hadn't enjoyed the impromptu brainwashing before, but she's no more afraid of him than she is anyone else with a quirk. Besides, she got her licks in. His cheek is still swollen with the remnants of a black eye.

"Oh yeah. Totes," she says with a nod. "If they'd said Bakugou won our match, you would have been first place instead of second."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bakugou turns around enough to bare his teeth at them.

Suzume cracks a smile. "It means what I said. I'm perfectly capable of keeping my mouth shut. You, on the other hand…"

"You wanna go again?!"

"Sure," she shrugs. Every time she fights Bakugou it's weird. Starting out she only half remembered his quirk but she knew he didn't lose often. She had been sure she would never beat him, but now she's beaten him twice, thrice? And each time makes her feel proud and wrong footed in equal measures. "Just not right now. Next time we have practical training, we can fight again."

Bakugou stops walking, and spins around. She finds herself facing him.

"Listen wasp girl-"

"So we're back to nicknames-"

"-I didn't pull my punches or let you win out there, and I'm gonna keep getting stronger until no one can beat me. You hear?"

"It's physically impossible not to," she says with half a smile. "And I know. If I hadn't scrambled your brain, I'm pretty sure you would have hunted down that guy in the crowd and blown his face off for thinking you'd ever let yourself get beat by anyone."

"Damn straight!"

Shinsou leans closer to Suzume. He actually has to lean down to say in her ear, "Is he always like this?"

"E-yup. He has so little chill, I don't know how he hasn't got a heat stroke."

"What the fuck did you just say?!"

"I'm not repeating myself, puppy."

"Wasp bitch!"

"That's a new one."

"Yusada! Bakugou! Hey!"

She blinks and looks over Bakugou's shoulder to see their class converging on them.

Abruptly, they're both surrounded by their classmates, with Shinsou caught up in the excitement too. Questions fly, and compliments too, and Shinsou looks like he's trying to figure out if he ought to run from an over enthusiastic Kaminari.

"That was insane!"

"Both of you are crazy!"

"Bakugou, you blew up the stadium like three times, what the fuck?"

"Good job!"

"Congratulations!"

"Holy shit Yusada you won!"

Suzume leans away from Mina's too-excited bouncing.

"I did. Yeah." By the skin of her teeth at some points.

Kaminari adds, "dude I thought you were gonna climb the stadiums and stab that idiot."

"Oh yeah! What a jerk, how could he say something like that?!" Uraraka's pink cheeks turn red when they puff out in anger and Suzume stares at the two of them.

The words, 'Why do you care?' are right on the tip of her tongue when a big hand touches her shoulder, chasing away the phantom heat of All Might's grasp. She turns to find Shoji smiling down at her, his eyes creased with the expression.

"Good job."

Suzume can't help the crooked smile that crosses her face. "Thanks. I… probably wouldn't have gotten this far without you, Tsu, and Hagakure. So, thanks for that too."

"You say that," Hakagure appears on her other side, throwing her arms around Suzume's shoulders. "But you're the only one who made it this far!"

Suzume instinctively wraps her arm around the invisible girl to keep her stable.

"I've spent a long time training to be able to go head to head with people bigger and stronger than me, and to figure out how to counter quirks on the fly. Literally anyone could have done it."

And it's true.

There's absolutely nothing special about her (nothing that would help her in this situation at least), yet, she won.

The spark in her chest may be gone, but in its place is a strange, warm kind of pride.

"Next year, you won't have such an easy time," Tsu says firmly.

She's heard the same thing so many times today…

"Sure, sure," she says finally, waving her hand. "I'll fight you guys whenever you want, just let me get into real person clothes, would you? These are gross," she tugs at her uniform.

She also wants to get away from the crowd of classmates that have converged on her.

It's been a long day and all she wants is to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the week.

Instead, as soon as she gets free of the knot of students, she turns the corner and finds herself face to face with Midoriya.

God-fucking-damn it!

Everything is still fuzzy when Izuku comes to.

He can't really move well. Everything hurts, a deep ache that he's growing unfortunately intimate with. It's distant and numbed with painkillers.

The last thing he remembers is Recovery Girl putting him under for his surgery, his arm destroyed in his fight with Todoroki, but now voices rouse him from the last remnants of that sleep.

Someone talking to Recovery Girl. One of the teachers, he thinks.

"-Really stupid, you should have heard those idiots in the crowd. They accused her of cheating to beat Bakugou."

Izuku's breath catches.

Beat Kacchan? Had it been Yusada? Or Todoroki? But they said she so it must be Yusada! No one ever beat Kacchan!

Except for Yusada, during the practice rounds.

"Are you really that surprised?" Recovery Girl's familiar voice asks. Izuku can hear the frown in it. "There are less and less quirkless people every year, and most of the ones that are out there are older. The life expectancy is atrocious, and that display is a perfect example for why. Honestly. Nezu tells me that he's already received half a hundred emails and letters telling him to drop her from the hero course."

Izuku's heart aches for her.

He knows what it's like. He knows intimately how much it hurts, the pain and humiliation and the self doubt that coils inside of you when everyone always expects the worst. The other option is that they pity you, for being so unfortunate, so sad. Like a perverted pity porn to point on the street when your children misbehave, to show them how good they have it.

He'd heard parents warn their children to be good, or else their quirks might abandon them.

Even the unintentional insults he'd seen his classmates say to her.

Not that he has room to talk. The one time he'd managed to actually speak to her face to face he'd bumbled it so badly he'd called her weak. Weak! When she was anything but.

She made him feel like the weak one, One for All or not.

While he had gotten into UA with All Might's help, with his own quirk, she had gotten in on her own merit. Quirkless! Well and truly quirkless! The first ever, and Izuku would be lying if he said he didn't wonder if he could have done the same thing.

He's seen the scars on her hands, and on her temple, he's seen the muscle built in her arms and shoulders and legs.

He'd seen her fight. It was polished and graceful, and terribly brutal.

She had crouched over Aizawa-sensei at the USJ, a staff in hand and her teeth bared in challenge. To Izuku, Yusada looked more like a Komainu than Suzumebachi.

It's silly. They're the same age but he wishes she was older. Just a few years, even just one, so when people told him he was chasing an impossible dream he could point to her and say 'Look, she's done it!'. Once upon a time he had dreamed, in the most private recesses of his heart, of being that person for someone else.

And while he doesn't regret accepting One for All, he wonders.

Recovery Girl and the other teacher wander out of the room. Izuku is alone, behind his curtain, for only a few minutes before the door opens and familiar footsteps come in. Kacchans stomping, Yusada's light and quiet.

The other cot creaks under someone's weight and the leather of the spinning stool does the same.

He wants to poke his head out and see what kind of shape the two of them are in, but he can't. He can't sit up yet.

"Is your hand okay?" Yusada asks, muffled by the cloth. Izuku winces for what he knows is about to come next.

"It's fine!" Kacchan snaps at her, just like Izuku knew he would. He hates it when people ask after him. Anything less than total admiration is unacceptable, and Yusada has done nothing but tease and beat him since the day they met.

Izuku had seen the budding fire in Kacchan's soul stoke each time she laid him on his back. And Yusada didn't seem to notice at all! She seemed totally oblivious to the fact that half the class was afraid of her, and half the class wanted to fight her.

Recovery Girl comes back.

"You'll need to wear this for a few days. I can't heal everything all at once. You're much too tapped out for that," she says to Kacchan briskly. Wear what? Had Kacchan gotten really hurt? "I'm going to numb your hand so your quirk doesn't activate when I set the bone."

His hands.

Dangerous, burning hands, and Yusada had hurt one badly enough that it broke.

"Tell me when you stop feeling your fingertips. Now, Yusada! Let's see yours!" There's rustling, and the quiet clink of metal. "It hurts less if you don't watch."

"It doesn't hurt that much anyways. It will in the morning, but right now I don't feel a lot."

"This isn't the first time you've been burned."

"Not even close."

Clothes rustle. Kacchan sucks in sharply, and Izuku wishes he could see what was happening instead of sitting behind his curtain, straining his ears to listen.

"If you could, only heal what's absolutely necessary? I still have one more fight, and I need to have enough energy to finish it."

Recovery Girl tsks at her. "I won't use up all of your stamina, don't you worry. You kids this year are so stubborn," she chides. "Counting you, there's going to be four kids with scars on their hands. Is your class cursed?"

Izuku cringes guiltily. Are there really so many of them?

"Maybe."

"Hey, old lady, I can't feel my hand," Kacchan grumbles. He sounds weird. Subdued. The Kacchan Izuku knows would be raging and screaming over losing a fight.

Of course, Kacchan has changed a lot since they started school. Even if he doesn't admit it.

"Wanna squeeze my hand?" Suzume asks lightly. Izuku almost chokes at the idea.

"No!"

Recovery Girl sets the bone with a crunch that Izuku can hear. His fingers twitch with sympathy.

"No lie, when I heard a bone break I thought for sure it was mine."

"You're lucky it wasn't. I can't imagine you'd enjoy fighting with a broken hand."

"I'll be back in a moment with a new jacket for you, Yusada. Bakugou, stay here. You'll sleep for an hour at least."

"Whatever," Bakugoug grumbles. The cot squueaks again.

"So…" Yusada drawls, "Are we on a first name basis now, Katsuki?"

Katsuki?! Just what did I sleep though ?!

"That didn't mean anything! Don't get so cocky, wasp girl!"

"Sorry, puppy."

They have such nice nicknames for eachother…

Someone, Yusada probably stands up and makes for the door.

"Yo, Bakugou."

Kacchan grunts.

"Thanks," she says, her voice oddly soft. "For taking me seriously."

Kacchan scoffs at her.

"Whatever. You better not lose to that mind jack off."

"Don't worry. I won't."

The door shuts behind her.

Izuku tries to close his eyes. Or at least not fidget. He doesn't want to ruin his newly mended bones, after all. There's another creak on the bed, and few short, sharp gasps. It takes him a minute to understand what they are, muffled and quiet.

Kacchan is crying.

Bakugou Katsuki is crying.

Not for the first time since he stepped foot in this strange school does Izuku feel like he's stepped into an episode of the twilight zone, like Rod Sterling is going to appear at some point and tell him the whole thing was a hallucination and he was still on that awful rooftop, with All Might and Kacchan's words ringing in his ears.

(They have old recordings of them at home, something that belongs to his dad. He had watched them before he left, all those years ago, and even today An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, black and white and without any real dialog, still sits heavy in his mind. A better future, imagined right before the noose snapped around someone's throat.

Some days, he's still waiting for that same noose to close on him.)

Izuku lays perfectly still. He even bites his lip to make sure he doesn't start mumbling, because if he does then Kacchan will know he's awake, and he might just kill him.

Kacchan's relationship with Yusada is one that really confuses him.

From the very start she's been completely unafraid of him. Even though she doesn't have a quirk like Kirishima's that would protect her, she'd picked herself out of rubble in the training grounds and kicked Kacchan between the legs so hard he'd been carried out in a stretcher. He'd seen her grin, sharp and vicious, with a loop of capture tape around Kacchan's throat when she declared to them all that she was quirkless.

The very first one at UA, Izuku would know. He'd read obsessively. Even in the other courses, Support, Business, and Gen Ed, there weren't any quirkless students.

Just her.

She'd thrown herself at Shigaraki when they were attacked, shot the Nomu, fought with every inch of herself.

She was amazing.

And Kacchan… seemed like he respected her for it, in his own weird way. Or he was starting to. She lit in a fire in him that Izuku hadn't ever known existed, and wasn't that a bitter pill to swallow?

Izuku had stood up to him when they were little kids, and while he'd never thrown a punch at Kacchan he'd still stopped him from picking on other kids, and in middle school well-

There were plenty of bullies, Kacchan wasn't even the worst of them. He was just the one who's words hurt the most, because Kacchan was his friend.

But the way he talked to Yusada was different.

He fought her, he insulted her, but he took her seriously. The conversation Izuku had just overheard proved it.

It was a bitter pill to swallow. These people in UA, not just Yusada but also Kirishima and Kaminari, seemed closer to Kacchan than Izuku had been since childhood.

Izuku had tried to fix it! He'd tried to explain to Kacchan that he hadn't been holding out on him or trying to mock him, he genuinely hadn't had any quirk before the entrance exam. But Kacchan didn't believe him, and after his conversation with All Might earlier…

He wondered what All Might thought of her. He'd been quirkless, in a time where it was less rare but still not great. Another sour taste in his mouth. All Might knew exactly what it was like to be quirkless in this world, but he'd still crushed his dreams and left him standing on the roof, shaking and alone and-

Izuku admired All Might. He would do anything he asked of him. All Might had entrusted his quirk to him and was trusting the future in his hands!

But that action stuck like a bur in his heart.

If All Might hadn't changed his mind, could Izuku still have made it into UA? Would he even have had the courage to try? To carve a path to being hero that no one else had ever walked before?

Maybe, if he's known Yusada before. If he'd known that he wouldn't be the only one.

The ache in his chest tightens.

She must feel so alone. Maybe…

The last time he tried to speak to her he ended up insulting her terribly. Calling her weak, of all things.

But she'd told him to try again! So, maybe if he rehearsed what he wanted to say enough times, he could get it out of his mouth without bumbling it!

Right!

When Kacchan gets up and ignores Recovery Girl warning him about not pushing himself too hard too soon (something about a concussion?!) to go out and fight Todoroki for the third place podium.

Third place.

It's an insane idea.

That Kacchan could be anything other than first.

This is an insane place, too. Kacchan had actually gotten detention for picking a fight with Yusada two weeks ago. Detention! Kacchan!

Izuku at least waits until Recovery Girl says he can go take a walk, if not go home just yet, before he exits. He tries to get there in time for the award ceremony, in time to see a quirkless girl get a gold metal at the UA sports festival.

But he's too slow. By the time he gets down to the bottom floor, he's barely in time to see Yusada disentangle herself from their classmates and come around the corner. Right towards him.

He can already feel his palms starting to sweat as their eyes meet.

(He has the strange idea that if Kacchan sweated the way Izuku did when he was nervous, it would be easy to tell. His hands would just explode. )

She looks tired.

He's not surprised. She's been fighting for the entire day, with everything she has.

He is surprised to realize that at some point she must have put makeup on for the TV cameras. Her hair isn't tied up either.

Izuku feels his tongue start to tie itself into knots.

Yusada Suzume is one of the cutest girls in their class. She's half a head shorter than he is, with a sweet, heart shaped face and a sharp widow's peak. He hadn't realized it before, but her dark, spiky black hair falls just past her shoulders, with long bangs framing her cheeks and two strands of shorter bands stopping just above her brows.

Even with the bronze color around them the tilt of her eyes reminds him of an up-and-coming snake hero he'd seen on the news a few weeks back, Krait. Only instead of being bright red hers are a coal black that he's seen burn.

She must be in a good mood, because when she snaps her fingers in front of his eyes her mouth is curved and crooked. Smiling.

"If you could stop mumbling about my brother's eyes, that would be great."

Izuku feels his face burn bright red. He claps his hands over his mouth, horrified.

He'd been talking out loud? For how long?!

Wait-

"Your brother?!"

"Dude, I don't make a habit of repeating myself. Yeah, Krait is my older brother. And he's not a full hero yet, he's still got a provisional license until the tests this winter. He's just gotten a lot of publicity as Gang Orca's intern."

"That's amazing! I had no idea!"

"Well. Surprise? Anyways…" she makes to pass him, but he stumbles into her path, clutching his broken arms to his chest.

"Wait!"

She pauses, blinking at him. "Okay?"

His whole script has flown out of his mind. He can't remember what he was going to say, his traitor brain is running through Krait's quirk and all the questions and theories he has about it and-

"Good job!" he finally blurts out. He waves his arms in front of him, like the gestures will make her understand the weight behind his words. "You were really incredible! I've never seen anyone fight like you before!"

She looks startled. "Oh. Thank you. You made it pretty far yourself…"

He laughs, awkwardly.

"I barely made it to the third round. Todoroki beat me pretty badly. And I broke my arms again…"

"Yeah, I noticed. You haven't fought much have you?"

Izuku winces. "Is it that obvious? I know my form isn't very refined or-"

"I was talking about your arms."

"Huh?"

"It's- look, it's like this. When you're learning to fight, you get hurt. You break down old muscles and new ones grow back stronger. You stretch your tendons and ligaments and they grow more flexible. Any martial artist will tell you about microfractures. I've probably broken every bone in my body, hitting things that are hard and then letting the bone heal up. Some folks call it bone conditioning. It's why we can break cinder blocks and bricks with our bare hands, and no quirk. You never did that."

"I… did not." That sounded horrifying.

"Enhancement quirks work the same, right? You didn't use your quirk much before this year either, or else you would have built up against the recoil of using it, like Bakugou and his explosions and Uraraka and her nausea."

Cold sweat breaks across his brow.

"What do you mean?!"

She gives him a look.

"It's obvious. Even if Bakugou wasn't screaming about it during the apprehension test, the way you use it is clumsy and unrefined. You have no control over it, or any idea how to use it. I can tell you're trying to emulate All Might. They're both power enhancers, and you're clearly a simp-"

"H-hey!"

"Don't interrupt me. My point is, it's clear that you're some kind of late bloomer, and your body hasn't adjusted to the new power yet. And you suck at limiting how much you're using."

Izuku slumps. She'd got him dead to rights.

"Yeah…"

"Stop pouting," she orders him sharply. Yusada has no patience for moping, it seems. "Either figure out how to use your power, your way not how you think All Might would, or learn to fight without using it. Literally anyone can. I'm standing here today, aren't I?"

Fight without it?

It's unthinkable! All Might gave him his quirk to use it. To help people!

Although, all he's done is hurt himself with it.

"But that's different!" he leaps towards her, and Yusada leans back, her black eyes going wide. "You're strong, and smart, and you're an incredible fighter-"

"Because I practice," she interrupts, pushing him back by his shoulders. "All day, every day, from sun up to sun down since I was six years old. I don't have a quirk. I wasn't born faster or stronger than anyone else. I'm just stubborn, that's all there is to it."

Her hands are steel on his shoulders. He can feel the strength in her fingers. In class he'd seen her scale walls almost as fast as Asui.

Despite the strength in them, their hold on his shoulders doesn't feel like a threat. Izuku can count on one hand the number of people who had touched him with affection, rather than to hurt him.

Izuku's stomach twists and flutters with a lashing mix of guilt and the fact that a cute girl is touching his shoulders.

Yusada has been practicing her whole life or this.

And while Izuku has stood up to Kacchan, and he's observed heroes and villains and learned how their quirks worked, up until All Might had him start to clear the beach he'd barely done anything physical.

The scars on his hands are new.

The callouses on his fingers are still thin.

His muscles are still fresh, but no matter how much stronger he's gotten he can't move like she can.

"So," she surmises. "Go take martial arts. Or, stop trying to emulate All Might all the time. No more than Todoroki's quirk is his fathers is yours his. No matter how similar they are, you'll always be two different people. You'll never be able to use it in the exact same way, and you shouldn't try either."

"But, All Might is the best!"

For some reason, she touches the scar on her temple.

"He's just another person, Midoriya. A good man, but a man nonetheless."

She sighs, and steps away from him.

"That's enough lecturing for me for today. I'm going home now."

"O-oh." The sudden change throws him off. "Okay. Uh, travel safe!"

She waves him off.

"I will," she promises, and disappears around the corner.

Izuku is left behind, his shoulders warm from her hands and his mind racing a hundred miles a minute. One thought really sticks out.

I talked to Yusada!

Writing from someone elses POV is so much fun! I really love showing how different Yusada views herself, vs how other people view her.

I also forgot exactly how emotional and insecure Midoriya was at the start of the series? Like I went back to rewatch, and its really startling to see the difference between season 6 and season 2. Our boy grows so much!

And Bakugou too, after a couple of crisis lol