Chapter Seven

"Today's class will be a bit different from what you've seen so far," Jiro announced while Aizawa hung back. She held up a card reading RESCUE with her typical cool smile. "You'll get your first taste of disaster relief."

"Wait, don't tell me-" Fujiwara said, eyes wide as his grin.

"We're heading to the USJ!" Eri cheered.


The ride over was nothing special, with the students debating how the training would be presented and who would and would not do well. Eri took the role of consoling Satsuki, who was nervous from the stories that Tsuyu had told her about her class's first time at the USJ — when the League of Villains had made their debut and nearly killed any number of that year's Class 1-A.

"Nothing like that is gonna happen, Suki," Eri crooned, rubbing her best friend's back. "They've kept most of the higher security measures since that day. Plus, All Might's not there to target and there wasn't a break-in to get a schedule, right? So we're gonna be just fine."

Katsuma sighed through his nose and placed a hand on Satsuki's opposite shoulder in a show of support, which the froggy girl smiled at in appreciation. Katsuma looked to his other side at Kota, who had his horned face armor pulled low over her eyes like his cap would be, apparently snoozing. He opened his mouth to say something, but Kota said without looking, "Don't."

Katsuma closed his mouth and decided his knees were very fascinating.

"Don't let him get to you." Katsuma looked up at Eri's whispered words to find her smiling encouragingly at him. "He's a classic tsundere. He even tries to act all 'cool' around Deku. But don't let him fool you." Her smile turned mischievous. "Under the prickles, he's a total softie."

"Lies," Kota said, just as blaisely.

Soon enough, they arrived at the USJ to find the hero Thirteen waiting for them. Everyone had been hoping Deku would be here, too, but there was no sign of him.

Thirteen greeted the students warmly and began to explain the purpose of the USJ, and how a large part of their early training would be in using their powers safely among each other and civilians. They had gotten a taste of their potential this past week, and that had its own potential to cause injury and death in countless ways.

"So, for this exercise," Thirteen said, "you will be divided into pairs and assigned areas of the USJ to patrol. The scenario is that each area has just had a disaster and you are searching for survivors, represented here by robots resembling crash-test dummies. They will be calling for help and have been programmed with simulated injuries, from scrapes to broken bones to organ trauma. They are also equipped with sensors to indicate how they are handled, both to simulate if you handle them well or exacerbate their 'injuries,' and how you speak with them, dismissing them or consoling them.

"How many of these victim-bots you retrieve and how they are handled will reflect in your score. Any questions?"

Hitachi Yumi spoke up with a raised hand. "Will we choose our partners?"

"You have already been assigned partners," Aizawa responded, glancing particularly at Eri and her friends. "Gotta get some of our friend groups out of their comfort zone."

With no further questions, the list was read and teams paired off.


"Penny for your thoughts?"

Kota glanced at his assigned partner, Kashikoi Joren. The other student of Class 1-A admitted on recommendation. He was keeping up a steady jog, while Joren's spider legs were flowing over the ground with exceptional speed.

Joren was actually really attractive from the waist up. She was built like a model, with classically beautiful features reminiscent of Japanese nobility and fair skin complemented by platinum-blonde hair that swept over one eye and fell to her waist … which, of course, transitioned into the black-and-yellow striped abdomen of a massive spider. Looking closely, one could see creases around her visible jade-green eye that were her closed other eyes, and her teeth bared in smile narrowed into delicate points. For a hero costume, her spider-body was covered in armored plating, while her torso was only clad in a sleeveless, charcoal-grey halter top with a large teardrop neckline to bare her cleavage.

"You're not going to be enjoying our assignment," Kota replied with a smug grin.

Joren's smile faltered at the reminder and they looked forward to their destination, a domed building painted red and orange: the Fire Zone.

They arrived at the double doors to the area and Kota paused as Joren tied her hair back with a ribbon styled after spider web in a tail and then wrapped it in a bun, presumably to protect the fair locks from the flames and smoke. He hauled the doors open to admit them into a vestibule — commenting "Ladies first," to which Joren bared her teeth at him in a less friendly smile — and they stepped inside, the doors behind them closing automatically. The interior was illuminated with red light and a computerized voice warned them to never have both doors opened, lest the vacuum caused by the wildly differing temperatures cause uncontrolled surges of fire in the building.

Then the interior doors slid open, the air being sucked from the vestibule and revealing … well, it looked like Hell. Towering buildings were built in a mock cityscape like UA's training grounds. But everything was set ablaze, from stretches of the streets filled with blazing cars to expanses of the walls. The heat slammed into them like a wall, causing them both to immediately begin to sweat, the smoke cloying and the air low in oxygen. A fake triage was set up near the doors to settle the "victims."

"This sucks!"

Both recommended students glanced backward to find another pair of students gaping at the inferno. The one who had spoken was Fujiwara, though he was even now visibly sweating less. Given Kota recalled his Quirk forming discs of fire in his hands, that made sense. It also tied in well with his spiky red hair that contrasted green eyes, teardrop-shaped tattoos at the inside corner of each eye.

The other student was Matsuge Yoru, dour and gloomy-looking with pale skin, lanky dark hair that fell over his eyes, and dressed in a mantle of a cloak that covered his body. It gave off some serious Tsukuyomi vibes, or perhaps Vantablack.

"Let's tackle this on two fronts," Kota said sharply, drawing attention like he'd seen his aunt do with the Wild, Wild Pussycats more times than he could count. "We each take a side of the zone to focus on and rescue the victims more quickly."

"Hey, who died and made you boss?" Fujiwara said, almost petulantly, even as he shifted his bandana to cover his mouth from the smoke.

"You can pick which direction," Kota said with a grin.

"Left!" Fujiwara shouted with enthusiasm and led the way at a run, Yoru following closely. Kota briefly watched Fujiwara conjuring disks of fire the size of trash can lids and swatting the flames … which went out as, he assumed, their source of fuel was wiped out with the passing of Fujiwara's flames. Clever.

"Let's go," Joren said, and began to … scuttle? Flow? Make her way very quickly toward one of the buildings where cries for help in tinny voices could be heard. Kota jogged to catch up, silently marveling at the unsettling grace of Joren's spider legs.

When they arrived at the building where the sounds could be heard, he pressed a button on the wrists of his gloves and the cylinders around his forearms snapped forward to form tubes extending over his hands, similar in design to Deku's air force gloves … and built for a similar purpose. Kota lifted his arms and blasted water at the building, very much like a water hose. He could achieve high pressure and tight stream on his own, but the gloves helped focus the water with less strain.

He couldn't help but muse that he was indeed the son of the Water Hose heroes.

"Go!" he said, raking his hands and the jets of water over the building to extinguish a path.

"On it!" Joren said and began to climb along the wall with the same ease as she had the ground. She shattered a window and entered, compressing her legs into a remarkably small volume to do so, and entered without a sound. Well, no sound Kota could catch over the roar of the flames around them.

As he kept extinguishing as many flames as he could, Kota began to grow worried when Joren did not immediately return with someone. He may have been antisocial, but he still cared about people. Especially the hero hopefuls that he would be sharing class with for the next three years.

Just as he was about to call out for her, Joren appeared on the roof with a large bundle of webs that she began to lower via a thick thread of silk to the ground. Kota cut off his jets of water and rushed to check it, finding half a dozen dummies babbling prerecorded thanks, the pressure of their binds more than enough to keep them still and prevent further hypothetical injury.

"Nice work!" he called as Joren began descending along the wall. "Let's get these to triage and move along to the next building."

"Maybe next time you could climb with me," Joren said, coughing and laughing into her hand. "Maybe you'll pull your weight."

Kashikoi Joren.

Quirk: Jorogumo. Her lower body is that of a spider, providing every skill a spider has. She can climb walls, leap like a jumping spider, spin super-strong webs like an orbweaver, and has night vision in her eight eyes. Plus, maybe other stuff, too.

"Keep talking like that," Kota said with a snort, carrying a dummy over each shoulder as Joren handled the rest, "and I'll send you down the spout, Itsy, Bitsy Spider."

Joren laughed brightly at that.


"Come on, I gotcha," Katsuma said soothingly, slowly dragging a victim-bot from underneath a slab of concrete shed from a building. He eased the dummy out a few feet and then nodded at his partner, who nodded back and eased the slab back down. His partner tossed her long, electric-blue plait over her shoulder and the amethyst, armored plates that covered her body contracted into lilac scales so fine that they could only be seen up close.

"Nice work, Wani," Katsuma said, lifting the dummy into a fireman's carry.

"Thank you, Shimano," Wani replied levelly.

Kushina Wani.

Quirk: Scalemail. She can grow the scales on her body into bigger plates that increase her durability and strength. She can even choose which parts of her body are covered, or all of her. It hurts every time she brings it out, though.

Wani was the tallest girl in the class, her build lithe and slim. Her almond-shaped eyes were tilted and narrowed, her sclera yellow to contrast magenta irises. Her nose was tiny, almost blending into her scales and making her look more like a snake with limbs. Her hair was electric blue and reached her waist in a twisted plait, contrasting the pale lilac of her scales. Her costume consisted of a sleeveless, sky-blue kimono over navy trousers and geta sandals, her forearms covered by black bracers, and a black choker around her neck.

"Come on," Wani said, armoring up her scales again from tiny into armored plates that extended across her body from the tips of her fingers and toes — curling into talons at her extremities — to leave only her face unarmored. She picked up two dummies, one over each shoulder. "We should get them to the triage area."

Katsuma nodded and mirrored her actions. They silently agreed to a steady jog, even with their bystander-bots. He glanced over and saw Silver and Yayoi racing over the Ruins Zone, Silver with his moth wings and Yayoi glinting in the sunlight and bounding ten feet with each step.

They gently deposited the dummies and headed out for more, still in silence. Katsuma, though, had a question burning at the tip of his tongue and couldn't keep himself quiet any longer. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Wani said distractedly.

"Have you ever watched the footage of the last battle with the League of Villains?"

"Of course," Wani said, turning her head as if catching a sound. They both heard tinny, recorded shouts for help and ran toward them. "Who hasn't watched them?" she asked.

"Did you ever watch Tentacole's fight with Spinner?"

Wani gasped and stumbled a bit on the broken ground before recovering. "Yes," she said, her voice harsher than before. "It's a battle that is dear to countless heteromorphs."

"Okay, well, the thing is-" He said, anxiety rising as her discomfort became apparent. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it and shook his head. "Never mind. It's not important."

"Just ask," Wani said, her words clipped.

"Your Quirk looks a lot like one Spinner used," Katsuma said. "Press releases called it Scalemail, just like yours."

They slowed at the fallen edifice of a building, Wani growing her scales and tearing away the door with a snarl of effort. "Very much like mine," she admitted.

"All For One," Katsuma concluded. "He gave Spinner those extra Quirks."

"What are you implying?" Wani asked.

"Did it come from someone you know?" Katsuma asked.

Wani hunched her shoulders and looked back at him, her gaze burning. But rather than anger, Katsuma saw surprise. She turned to face him, her expression guarded. "You're not going to ask if Spinner was a relative?" she wondered, a touch sarcastically. "If I have villainy in my veins because of my Quirk?"

"What?" Katsuma asked, surprised by the question. "Of course not. I-" He blinked. "Have people said that?"

"I am not related to Spinner," Wani said firmly. She moved deeper into the building and Katsuma followed, both of them tracking the robotic cries. They found several dummies "cowering" under furniture and debris and moved to rescue them. The next several minutes were full of careful extraction and carrying dummies out of the building. Rinse and repeat. By the end, they had pulled a dozen bystander-bots out of the building.

"My grandfather," Wani said as they were gathering the bots for the triage area.

"What?" Katsuma asked, shouldering two. Wani in her armored form was carrying the other ten.

"Spinner's Quirk of Scalemail came from my grandfather," she explained. "Long before All Might beat him the first time, All For One was at his peak in collecting powerful Quirks. My grandfather was the one he took Scalemail from, leaving him with nothing but his normal scales."

"His normal scales?" Katsuma asked, then it connected in his head. "Vestigial traits."

Such was the term for heteromorphic traits that were passed on to children without necessarily having to do with their own Quirks. Famed examples were Tsukiyomi's corvid head, Pinky's horns, or Jack Mantis's mantis-like appearance.

"Correct," Wani said. "It would seem All For One either couldn't remove such things or simply chose not to." She smirked and shouldered her dummies. "But my grandmother was pregnant with my father. My gramps may have lost his power, but it wasn't lost to my dad. Or me."

"Is that why you want to be a hero?" Katsuma asked. "To honor your grandfather?" He thought for a moment and added, "Or to prove that you're better than what All For One used your grandfather's power for?"

"A little of both," Wani answered.

They arrived and dropped their cargo, turning to keep working. They didn't talk much after that, beyond what they needed for coordinating their efforts. Katsuma felt stone upon stone of guilt settle in his belly. It was their decided last survey of the area before he couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was clearly a sore topic and I shouldn't have pushed."

"It's alright," Wani said. She faced him with the faintest of smiles. "It actually feels good to talk about it with someone who doesn't judge."

"Oh," Katsuma said, confused by the change of heart but happy with it. "Happy to help."


Tategami snarled in her guardian lion form as she tore the roof off of a car with her jaws, revealing two bystander bots inside. Eri hauled them out and lashed them to Tategami's back with loops of her capture scarf, much like the others she had found. The girls had devised this strategy almost immediately when assigned their partners, with Eri insisting that they return when the weight grew too heavy.

As it turned out, the main factor had been less how much weight Tategami could handle and more of how many dummies they could fit on her back with how long Eri's capture scarf was. As such, they decided to return to the triage area to drop off their "saved bystanders" and then head back out.

"So you really can't talk in this form?" Eri asked as she jogged alongside Tategami's bounding strides. The flatter expanse of the Landslide Zone passed quickly at such a pace, even as they were watching their feet for scree and debris.

Tategami only rumbled in her lion form's massive chest.

When they arrived at the triage tented area, Tategami reverted back to her true shape in a swirl of clouds, revealing her costume. She wore a silky, scarlet quipo-style tunic that showed off her heavily-muscled arms over matching tights, both decorated with silvery, stylized clouds, and dark knee-high boots. A black belt cinched her waist, loaded with capsules presumably containing gear, that matched elbow-length gloves to protect her hands. Her tawny hair was held back with a headband matching her quipo, flowing like a mane to frame her face.

"Come on," she said, tapping her feet impatiently. The bystander bots had fallen with the sudden slack of her human shape, but Eri now had to untie and untangle her capture scarf before they could head back out onto the simulated landslide. "We don't have much time."

"I'm working as fast as I can, class rep," Eri said, her fingers moving deftly. As part of her training in the use of this scarf, Shinso had made Eri practice untangling for dozens of hours over time. In a matter of minutes, the knots were loosened and Eri was swinging it into elegant loops to drape back over her shoulders.

"Let's move," Tategami said, racing back out onto the Landslide Zone. Eri lifted her eyebrows behind her visor in surprise, as Tategami had not transformed, before running to catch up.

"So, your costume," Eri prompted as they ran. "You wouldn't happen to take inspiration from Battle Fist?"

"I'm half-Chinese," Tategami said. "And my Quirk is a guardian lion, a shishi. A creature from Chinese folklore. It only made sense."

"Aren't foo dogs the Chinese take on lions?" Eri asked with a teasing lilt to her tone. "So wouldn't that be African?"

"No," Tategami said flatly, then couldn't help but smile. "The lions closest to China are Asiatic Lions, which still live on a reserve in India. So that's probably where the Chinese got the idea."

"Not exotic pets?" Eri asked innocently.

"You know your history," Tategami conceded.

They made it to a half-buried building where they heard the tinny calls for help and Tategami transformed again into her huge lion-like form, tearing into the side with ferocity.

"Easy!" Eri shouted. "It might not be structurally sound!"

Tategami transformed again and stepped back. "True," she said, and gestured at the crevice she had made just big enough for them to get in. "So we go in the subtler way."

They squeezed their way in and began looking, Eri taking out a flashlight from her utility belt. As they searched, following the calls, Tategami broke the silence with a look of forced calm.

"So I gotta ask … have you actually met Battle Fist?"

"Many times," Eri said with a grin. "I'm close with all of that year's hero classes." She let her smile fall. "Well, at least familiar," she amended. "But Ms. Kendo was always one of the nicest in Class B. She helped train me in martial arts."

"Isn't Lemillion your brother?" Tategami asked. "I would have thought he'd teach you."

"He did," she laughed. "A lot. But others volunteered to help me learn. Ms. Mina taught me to dance which helped with conditioning and coordination, Ochako taught me Gunhead style, Mr. Ojiro taught me jiu jitsu, Ms. Kendo taught me boxing and a few other things-"

"Eraserhead taught you to use that scarf," Tategami added, her tone more … brittle.

"You okay?" Eri asked in surprise at the shift in atmosphere.

"Fine," Tategami said, hauling a piece of furniture out of the way to pick up a bystander bot. She fit it over her shoulder and turned to go, but Eri's hand on her shoulder stalled her. "I hear the other one," she said.

"That's not it," Eri said. "Look, class rep, Class A was really close with each other. They came to each other for help and supported each other through thick and thin. I … I really want that for our class, too." Eri felt her voice break as she spoke and blushed in embarrassment, but Tategami turned and looked at her with curiosity.

"If there's something bothering you," she continued, "please tell me."

Tategami's gaze softened and she sighed before turning to once more lead the way. "It's petty," she replied.

"Then it needs to be addressed even more," Eri replied, using something that Lemillion had told her over and over when she was young and thought a problem was "too small."

"I guess I just feel threatened, in a way," Tategami admitted. "You have tons of famous heroes in your corner. I've tried to learn as best I could before I came here. But I don't have any of that."

"And yet you are here," Eri said. They made it to a room also filled with cries from a bystander bot, which Eri scooped up. "You're at UA, in the hero course." She chuckled. "As far as I know, the only member of the famous class that had a hero in his corner from the start was Deku. And that was after his entire life of having no one in his corner." She grunted as she settled her robot.

"And Katsuma didn't have a shred of help from heroes in getting here," Eri said brightly. "My friends and I had a discussion about that not too long ago, actually."

"You kids from hero families really came together, huh?" Tategami commented. Eri heard no bitterness in the words, only amusement.

"I've known Satsuki and Kota since we were little. Katsuma just kind of gravitated towards us."

"Maybe it's destiny," Tategami said wryly.

"Could be," Eri giggled as she squeezed out of the house and stepped back for Tategami to squeeze herself through behind her. "Listen, if there's one thing that growing up around Class 1-A taught me," she said, facing Tategami, "it's that no one is an island. We will make it and thrive only if we support each other." She smiled. "And as class representative, I think it's your job to help with that, right?"

"I suppose so," Tategami said thoughtfully. "But not right now." Eri tilted her head in confusion, and Tategami grinned. "Now, we get these dummies to triage and keep searching. Like heroes."

"Yeah!" Eri cheered and ran off, Tategami close behind.


"Take cover!" Yumi said firmly.

She extended her arm, lengths of bone stretching from her arm into the limbs of a crossbow, a string of something like sinew linking them and glowing with blue light as the bowstring. She loaded a blunted bolt from the quiver at her hip and drew back the light string with a grunt until it clicked on a bony protrusion behind her elbow, the bolt now glowing with faint light identical to the bowstring. She twitched her middle fingers to release the catch, and the bolt fired with far more force than could be expected from a short draw.

Hitachi Yumi.

Quirk: Crossbow. Her arm can grow its own crossbow that stores crazy amounts of potential energy, allowing her to fire whatever she wants with way more force than expected. Her ammo hits like a freight train!

Satsuki shielded her eyes behind her arm as the glass of the yacht in the Flood Zone window shattered. The girls crawled through the window and searched around the yacht's cabin to retrieve two bystander bots for them to get to the triage area on the shore. Both of them briefly glanced at Teashi and Shirudo bringing dummies back in much the same way, Teashi's impossibly stretched legs allowing him to walk in the water.

Satsuki lifted one bot in a princess-style carry and glanced over her mission partner doing the same. Yumi was a short girl — even shorter than Satsuki, though not by much — and petite though clearly fit, with deeply tanned skin that hinted she enjoyed the outdoors. Her hair was golden-red and cropped short, her wide eyes dark blue. Her costume was made up of a sleeveless leather jerkin over a forest-green tunic, cinched with a black leather belt fitted with a quiver of crossbow bolts, one arm covered in armor that stretched into a glove and the other bare, dark tights covering her legs and passing into sturdy boots, all of it covered by a waist-length, hooded half-cape of emerald green. The whole effect gave her the look of a medieval European ranger.

"Nice work, Yumi," Satsuki said cheerily.

"Thanks," Yumi replied. "I'll take that," she said, gesturing to Satsuki's bot, "while you search for more in the water."

"Are you sure you can swim that way?" she asked. "Kero."

"I'll be fine," Yumi said. "How hard could it be?"

"If you say so," she croaked and, tugging two flaps to press her hood closer to her head, leapt and forward-flipped for a dive into the water with hardly a splash. She kicked her way toward shore, but something in her belly told her to look back. She saw a heavy splash from the surface and frantic kicking.

Surfacing again, she saw Yumi struggling with the dummies and sighed through her nose before kicking her way back toward her mission partner, taking one of the dummies for herself. "How hard could it be, huh?" she asked blandly.

"I thought they'd float," Yumi grumbled. "They're supposed to be based on people, right?"

"People don't always float," Satsuki noted. "And these are based on hurt people who may not be able to swim for themselves."

Yumi grunted as she kicked her feet and tried to keep her dummy's head above water. "Some hero I'm turning out to be," she said.

"We're all learning," Satsuki said, leading the way with strong kicks.

"But we have to be able to stand on our own," Yumi grunted, paddling with her legs. "You need to be able to do what you can by yourself."

"Isn't that Mirko's philosophy?" Satsuki noted.

"That's a self-sufficient philosophy," Yumi said. "When the chips are down and everything goes to Hell, you need to be able to fight without the assurance of others."

"I disagree," Satsuki said firmly. "Yes, it is important to be able to do well by yourself, but you shouldn't assume that will always be the case when things are bad." They were silent for a while as Yumi seemed to process that, when Satsuki added, "Besides, no one was alone when things were at their worst."

Something in Satsuki's tone must have clicked with Yumi. "You're talking about nine years ago," she realized.

"I am," Satsuki confirmed. "I am talking about nine years ago." They reached the shallows and began wading with their dummies toward the tirage tent. "No one was alone on the battlefield when fighting the League. My sister fought with Uravity to defeat Himiko Toga." Satsuki's steps grew more stiff as she spoke before she sighed. "Deku had Dynamight and Lemillion, Nejire-Chan and Suneater, Mr. Aizawa and Phantom Thief …" She chuckled. "Heck, Endeavor and Hawks needed help from Uncle Fumi and Ms. Jiro to fight All For One."

"Your point?" Yumi asked, though she had an idea.

"All of those heroes won because they worked together," Satsuki said. "No hero is an island, Yumi. Yes, we each need to be strong, but we're far stronger together than we could ever be apart." He smiled. "Mirko was fighting Shigaraki with Bakugo and the others, you know."

"Alright, alright, I get it," Yumi said as they left the dummies at the tent.

"In that case, let's try a different approach," Satsuki said. "I want you to stay here in the shallows while I swim out and grab civilians. Your job is to get them from the shallows to the tent."

"That seems kind of boring," Yumi said dully.

"You say that," Satsuki grinned. "But you have no idea how fast I can swim." Suddenly she was underwater and swimming away, and Yumi stared at the place where the water was still rippling. In less than a minute, a bystander bot was floating towards her in the distant shallows. Yumi squared her shoulders and waded as fast as she could to take hold of it and bring it to shore … and by the time she made it to the robot, another one was floating closer.

"Oh," she said sardonically. "Great."


After a few hours, an announcement blared across the USJ that all bystanders had been rescued and all students should return to the central plaza. The students wandered in in their pairs, often dragging their feet from exhaustion.

"Hey, guys," Eri said with a wave, her good cheer forced past her aching muscles.

Satsuki was croaking under her breath like she often did between mere tiredness and true exhaustion. She'd be fine.

Kota grunted with every ounce of grumpiness in his body, but the sound of his name drew his attention. Joren smiled at him, baring her sharpened teeth and opened all eight of her eyes before waving and blowing him a kiss. Kota snorted and showed her his middle finger in reply, to which she cackled and moved on.

"What was that about?" Eri asked, eyebrow raised. Satsuki looked from Kota to Joren's retreating form and back, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"She's a flirt," Kota said with a roll of his eyes. He began twisting his gauntlets and removing the cylinders with a sigh of relief, unwilling to waste energy on more talking.

"Hey everyone!" Katsuma said, apparently none the worse for wear besides the light bags under his eyes.

"How the hell are you so chipper?" Kota asked, grumpiness back in full force. Apparently he would keep talking, after all.

"Cell Activation," Katsuma said with a shrug, and then a wide, long yawn. "It deals with the aches." He blinked and seemed to look closer. "You guys looked wiped out."

"We'll be fine," Eri said, Satsuki ribbiting in agreement.

"Even so," Katsuma said thoughtfully and placed one of his hands on Eri's shoulder and the other on Satsuki's, his hands beginning to shine with the green glow of his Quirk. The girls sighed as cool relief seemed to spread over them like a blanket from his touch. It only lasted for a few seconds, but the edge had been taken off their aches and pains.

"You want some?" Katsuma asked Kota. Kota glared at him, but seemed to concede to the logic and gave a curt nod. Katsuma did the same to Kota, and Eri gasped as the bags under his eyes, already more pronounced after his treatment of her and Satsuki, grew even darker. "There you go," he said, his words a bit slurred. "It's not good as new but it's … pretty-" He wobbled on his feet and began to fall, and Eri's reflexes kicked in to reach out and catch him.

"Katsuma?" she asked worriedly, shifting him in her arms to look at his face. Katsuma began snoring lightly, his head lolling onto Eri's shoulder. She couldn't help but chuckle at how cute he was.

Wait, cute?

"I got him," Kota said, and hauled Katsuma from Eri to sling Katsuma's arm over his shoulders. Katsuma startled awake for a moment, but leaned closer to Kota as he nodded off again. "Glad he doesn't wear heavy armor," Kota commented dryly, and the girls laughed.

"Come on, everyone," Tategami called to the class. "I know we're all tired, so let's get back to the bus. Mr. Aizawa and Ms. Jiro said we'll have our grades on Monday."

The class took that as a cue to depart the USJ, their first rescue training a success.

Chapter seven is here! It's one of my favorites so far, especially as we got some closer looks at the core four's classmates.

*With no League of Villains with the resources to break into UA, these kids get a relatively relaxing bit of actual rescue training. Kinda sad we never got to see the real deal in canon, so I made something up and ran with it. You can imagine the "bystander bots" as the dummies from the "Save The Citizen" game in the film, "Sky High." Though maybe more generic appearances.

*I've been looking forward to featuring Joren, as possibly my favorite OC I've come up with for class. I plan to dig into her backstory at some point, which will be a bit sad.

*Joren's Quirk is named after and loosely based on a creature in Japanese folklore - the jorogumo, a spider woman who seduces the unwary to feed them to her children. Her given name comes from the words a legendary jorogumo whispered when a man escaped her trap - "Clever, clever" - and her surname from Joren Falls, which is said to be the hunting ground of one of the creatures.

*Wani's given name is derived from the name of the princess in the tale of Yamata-no-Orochi, a famed eight-headed dragon. Her surname comes from a Japanese term that can be translated as dragon, shark, or crocodile - depending on who you ask - in reference to her scales. Her Quirk is indeed inspired by one of Spinner's; it was very fun to come up with a backstory for that Quirk given that All For One's long life leaves a ton of possible exploration.

*It is true that the lion has never been native to China. The concept of the guardian lion most likely comes from lions bought by Chinese royalty from Africa as exotic pets. Though it is also possible that the Asiatic Lion, or stories of it, influenced the idea, too.

*Yumi's given name contains the word "itachi," meaning weasel, a clever predator that is very fearsome for its size. Her surname literally means bow, as in the weapon. Her Quirk is a derivation of Lady Nagant's Rifle and Beros's Longbow from the 3rd film. I was originally going to have her crossbow form from her bones and sinew like Nagant's, but decided that was a bit over the top.

*It only occurred to me after writing this chapter that every partner given focus was one of the female classmates. That was not by design, but I chose not to change it.

As always, I hope it was a fun read! If you liked it, please do leave a review! And may your own works be inspired and very fun!